carr and the roll or propoganda in power politics

Carr said that "the issue is no longer whether men shall be politically free to express their opinions, but whether freedom of opinion has, for large masses of people, any meaning but subjecation to the influence of innumberable forms of propaganda directed by vested interests of one kind or another." This statement gives propoganda a large role in power politics, although he disproves it, later saying that "absolute power over opinion...is limited by the necessity of some measure of conformity with fact" and "by the inherent utopianism of human nature." If these two limits are legitimate, then it is clear that at least to a certain extent, no amount of propoganda can negate freedom of opinion.

As Carr says himself, education is a necessary tool of propoganda, but freedom of thought inevitably follows education, as well. In Carr's discussion of "the necessity of some measure of comformity with fact," people will be much less likely to believe propoganda when the propoganda is no longer serving their needs. A good example of this is America's reaction to both the war in Vietnam and Iraq. As death toll's rise and wars extend, people will be less likely to listen to war propoganda. Thus in America, propoganda cannot control the media for an extended period time, and new forms of media hurt the ability for the state to produce propoganda rather than help it like Carr argues, especially the internet because it is easy to access a contrary point of view.

Perhaps there is more of a threat of lack of public opinion in more totalitarian states, but in such a connected world, even highly controlled countries are able to see past their own countries propoganda. During the Cold War, communist parts of Europe saw how they were lagging behind their neighbors. Further, Carr says that "human beings do in the long run reject the doctrine that makes might right." Government's cannot oppress people for an extended period of time without experience a rejection of propoganda and a manifestation of discontent, whether they can control that discontent or not. Despite Carr's initial claim about propoganda's role in determining the opinion of the masses, propoganda's role in power politics is fickle and limited.