What makes artwork propaganda? Usually, people would impose the “propaganda” label on works they happen to disagree with, especially in politics. To leftists, conservative talk radio is propaganda. To right-wingers, it’s liberal late-night talk show hosts. But this unprincipled distinction is clearly unsatisfying.
You can’t label artistic expression that you don’t like “propaganda” any more than you can argue that speech you don’t agree with shouldn’t be considered speech. So whether you agree with it or not or find it offensive, it can still be art. But what is art?
Art
Art is “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power” (emphasis added). As I will argue, the actual artistic output is unimportant. A toilet can be art. What matters is whether the artwork sincerely represents the artist’s actual emotions and beliefs.
Expression is subjective, defined as “the process of making known one's thoughts or feelings” (emphasis added). While our innermost thoughts and feelings might be inarticulable or even inaccessible, we can still convey them through an observable artistic product, with the hope that others who share these inner sensations will understand the product.
Anything can be art—so long as it’s honest. Art is an expression of the passionate, subjective self that an audience attempts to interpret, understand, and relate to. Works of art would certainly include music, paintings, and stories, but also political punditry. While we don’t typically consider political punditry as art, that’s the category it fits into best.
Political punditry is often neither public rhetoric aimed at reason-based truth-seeking nor propaganda aimed at manipulation. Rather, political discourse is an art— it’s an expression of the pundit’s personal sense of meaning and values that appeals to a similarly-minded audience.
Conservatives don’t listen to Ben Shapiro, nor do liberals listen to Ezra Klein, to knowingly be manipulated nor to obtain an accurate view of the world (otherwise, they would openly listen to both sides of an issue, which they typically don’t do).
Rather, Shapiro and Klein have their own values and idea of the beautiful political regime that is shared by their audience. Shapiro fans can never fully understand Klein fans and vice-versa. Pundits appeal to their viewers’ identity, deep-rooted values, and even their sense of beauty and disgust.
Political pundits who value sustainability, tolerance, and egalitarianism appeal to their liberal audience’s sense of beauty, not their reasoning. Meanwhile, expressing pro-market, pro-America, or pro-police values would trigger their audience’s disgust reactions. These values not only lack aesthetic appeal but offend a liberal’s own sense of beauty. And the reverse is true for conservatives.
People don’t listen to pundits like disinterested judges carefully hearing one side of an argument to find the truth of the matter. Rather, they listen as fans, avid consumers of a product that not everyone “gets” in the same way.
And it’s not just left and right. Non-libertarians cannot fully understand a libertarian pundit who appeals to their audience’s liberty-based values and sense of being a free-thinking individual who has transcended the left-right dichotomy. These sensations cannot be comprehended through principles of reason, nor can they be logically refuted. They are part of the libertarian’s raw subjective self that allows for the aesthetic appreciation of John Stossel and Tom Woods. The actual merits of their arguments are discounted in favor of an appeal to their identity and sense of meaning.
This is why it’s nearly impossible to successfully convince committed partisans of the inaccuracy of their views, no matter their political inclinations. You can’t use reasoning to disprove someone’s artistic appreciation. The value of punditry isn’t in arguments but in its appeal to an audience’s fundamental values and emotions.
This is why only teaching rational critical thinking tools (like Bayesian inference, selection bias, cognitive dissonance, etc. ) won’t usually make partisans examine their deep-rooted political beliefs. But this doesn’t mean that explaining cognitive biases is useless. The partisan will still apply the rationalist’s toolkit—to the other side’s arguments. However, they still wouldn’t challenge the logical fallacies committed by their preferred political pundits—or artists.
Political punditry is art, a subjective expression beyond reason. Just as no one applies too much critical thinking to their favorite show or movie, instead choosing to suspend belief, no partisan would inspect for logical fallacies committed by their own favorite pundits.
Propaganda
Propaganda is “information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.” (emphasis added). The focus is on the mental state of the audience.
Unlike art, the creator’s actual state of mind isn’t revealed since the product is only intended to promote a certain point of view. In this case, anything can be propaganda, so long as the output is focused on insincere manipulation rather than honest expression.
Think about historical propaganda, where an empire (Ancient Rome, for example) embellishes historical events to bolster its own public image. The focus isn’t on conveying an accurate account of historical events. Rather, it’s convincing citizens of the regime’s legitimacy to have them continue paying taxes and fighting wars. Propaganda is not a truthful expression but is intended to manipulate perceptions.
Similarly, art requires the honest expression of the artist’s own internal thoughts and emotions. The art becomes propaganda to the extent that the artist doesn’t believe in their artistic product, which is meant only to change minds rather than express one’s own mind.
This means that a lot of what we might consider obvious works of propaganda may actually still be art (think of famous war posters or Soviet Realism), depending on the intent of the creator. Obviously, intent isn’t directly verifiable. We can never truly know what the artist was thinking. But it’s these thoughts that determine the status of a creator’s output.
When political camps throw the term “propaganda” at each other’s news outlets, they’re misusing the term. The MSNBC pundit really believes that white supremacy is an existential threat to our country, that gender is purely a social construct, and that the founding fathers were slave-owning hypocrites. And the conservative talk-radio host really believes that Critical Race Theory is an existential threat to our country, that gender ideology is corrupting the youth, and that the founding fathers were living gods who blessed us with the Constitution.
Punditry isn’t propaganda if the pundit is sincere. While you can certainly accuse pundits of committing fallacies and failing to provide context, you usually can’t accuse them of dishonesty.
Objective Morality vs. Subjective Art
So long as it’s honest, it’s art, and if it’s dishonest, then it’s propaganda. And the important determinant is the subjective state of the artist. Unlike in science, the merit of artistic output is determined by how much it reflects and appeals to subjective states—rather than its accuracy in evaluating the objective world.
In a previous post, I argued that there are two separate realities: the objective and the subjective. The objective is publicly observable and reason-based. It includes mathematics, science, ethics, and law.
Meanwhile, the subjective is personal, inarticulable, and shapes one’s identity and view of the world. This includes art, beauty, and love. It is our fundamental source of values and meaning. Yet what’s objectively true can’t shape our fundamental values, and what’s objectively true can’t shape our fundamental values (see the “is-ought” problem).
Conservatives and liberals can view the world so differently that sometimes they doubt whether the other side’s perspective is sincere. Yet despite how outrageous an argument comes across to someone of a different political persuasion, the arguments come from a place of honesty.
This isn’t to say that one side is more moral than another. Objective morality isn’t the concern—subjective beauty is.
Punditry is too biased to be rational discourse but is still too honest to be propaganda. It’s art whose merit lies beyond the objective world of law and morality, which ironically is still the pundit’s focus. While subjective art has no authority to determine objective ethics (remember, it’s personal and therefore can’t justifiably restrict others), political rhetoric still tries to do so.
We should appreciate the artistry of political discourse when judging different outlets and their fan base. We shouldn’t care whether someone is a Tucker Carleson viewer or Paul Krugman reader any more than we should care about their musical tastes. But we do because this political rhetoric makes its way into the debate over objective moral truths and legal duties. But hopefully, at least recognizing the artistic value of political punditry would help us understand that there are some things we can’t understand.