Tool Without a Handle: "Trustworthy Tools"

“Tool Without a Handle:  Trustworthy Tools”

“’What is truth?’ said jesting Pilate, who did not stay for an answer.” – Francis Bacon, Of Truth (Essays, Civil and Moral (1625).

This blog previously dealt with one flavor of “fake news”:  provocative fictions that can prompt panic and violence.  In this blog, I’ll deal with the related issue of propaganda.  My conclusion:  propaganda achieves its harmful effects by the meaning readers assign to the content.  As such, responses to propaganda should focus on the process by which readers assign meaning, and how that process leads to anxiety or anger and then, in turn, to harmful action.