Propaganda Prop # 9: Deflection

found online by Raymond

 

Sleight of Hand – Image Borrowed from Penn & Teller (Click for great video)

From The Propaganda Professor:

One day, I was talking to a fan of Ben Shapiro’s about his cringe-worthy book The Right Side Of History, which argues that the purportedly peerless “greatness” of Western Civilization can be directly attributed to its embrace of “Judeo-Christian” values. When I mentioned that this thesis cannot be supported by the facts, she replied, “name one country that’s greater”. It was a very blatant deflection, which is the 9th in our series of propaganda props.

A deflection is an attempt to divert focus away from one issue and turn it toward something else. In psychology, it’s symptomatic of an abuser. In politics, it really isn’t much different. In the above incident, there are at least two major problems. First, this individual was expecting me to stack up the accomplishments of some single nation against the entirety of Western Civilization. But more important, she was suggesting that I was impugning the “greatness” of the latter (and apparently of the United States in particular). While I consider it crucial to define “greatness” and delineate the criteria used in determining it, my point was simply that the “greatness’, however defined, of Western Civilization can not be attributed to its religious affiliations.

Deflection is a particularly fascinating tool, because it encompasses several notable variations. Let’s look at some of the most common.

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