OK Boomer

[Dog Shape Cloud]

Originally Posted by mattbn73

Propaganda isn't all about lies. It's mostly about using carefully selected truths to pit one group against another.

On an alleged contrast between obsessional neurosis and hysteria:

...the obsessional neurotic lies in the guise of truth (while at the level of factual accuracy his statements are always true, he uses this factual accuracy to dissimulate the truth about his desire: say, when my enemy has a car accident because of a brake malfunction, I go to great lengths to explain to anyone who is willing to listen to me that I was never near his car and, consequently, am not responsible for the malfunction—true, but this 'truth' is propagated by me to conceal the fact that the accident realized my desire...), while the hysteric tells the truth in the guise of a lie (the truth of my desire articulates itself in the very distortions of the factual accuracy of my speech: when, say, instead of 'I thereby open this session,' I say 'I thereby close this session,' my desire clearly comes out...).

In this particular fantasy we have a variety of more or less true statements (albeit couched in a transparently imaginary scenario) disguising an unspoken "Therefore, my generation and its choices are not responsible for causing (or helping to solve) current problems."

In contrast, the hysterical aspect of contemporary youth culture can clearly be seen in, for example, blind adherence to various forms of often dubious authority ("We know how to do things right, because whatever intellectual fashion tells us, and if you would only listen, everything would be ok...")—of course, this lie disguises truths like "We have no idea what we're doing, and even if everyone listens, real change will entail unimaginably profound and perhaps devastating transformations."

On balance, one should probably side with the hysterics here, because hysterical excess builds momentum where neurosis negotiates to maintain a status quo.