The Properties of Propaganda

How do you know when a creative work is created for change and when it’s just… propaganda? The effect of The Book That Started a War, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, on its cultural milieu is unquestioned, but this “vital anti-slavery tool” ^[1] is not without its problems—most notably its perpetuating of African American stereotypes—and, its detractors would argue, charges of being thinly disguised abolitionist propaganda. ^[2]

In many respects, this critique is valid, insomuch as it would be valid of virtually every work of fiction with a nakedly stated theme and possibly more so for fiction whose theme floats just below the surface, operating on our subconscious to influence and persuade that much more ably. T.S. Eliot was on target when he stated that, “It is just the literature that we read for ‘amusement’ or ‘purely for pleasure’ that may have the greatest and least suspected influence upon us. It is the literature that we read with the least effort that can have the easiest and most insidious influence upon us.” ^[3]

Though, to be clear, not all that we create should be in story form. “There is a time for stories, and there is a time for rational arguments, and the skill we need lies in knowing which to use and when.” ^[4]

The Definition of Propaganda

Propaganda has been defined as, “a systematic form of purposeful persuasion that attempts to influence the emotions, attitudes, opinions, and actions of specified target audiences for ideological, political or commercial purposes through the controlled transmission of one-sided messages (which may or may not be factual) via mass and direct media channels,” ^[5] and it’s not hard to link that definition up with many other best-selling books, movies, and television shows, let alone those creative works designed explicitly to persuade, like Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth on the issue of climate change, Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle on the issue of immigrant work conditions in the meatpacking industry, and Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring on the issue of pesticides.

In many ways, in fact, Harriet Beecher Stowe pioneered the way forward with Uncle Tom’s Cabin, providing the template for these and other future works of protest literature. ^[6] Later in the book, the world-changing creative collaboration between the poet Hannah More and the politician William Wilberforce working tirelessly to abolish the British Slave Trade would prompt the commentary that “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world,”[7] and cause Wilberforce to intentionally seek out Hannah More’s culture changing creative impact.

Theme, Theme, Theme

Every creative work has a theme, and those who deny it, even its creators, are just fooling themselves. Theme is often tacit, and the most deft and effective communicators rarely stoop to the preachiness inherent in most charges of propaganda, preferring instead to address the reader or viewer obliquely and in such a way as to let them arrive at the truth on their own, and yet nonetheless, theme exists in every creative work. Sometimes, the creator claims to be unaware of their work’s theme or is even convinced the theme is something other than what it actually is, and still, if you peer close enough, there it is. Writing, of all art forms, demands a point of view. “Writing is inseparable from a point of view. You can’t write and not have a point of view.” ^[8]

John Truby—an author, screenwriter, director, and script doctor on over one thousand film scripts, and whose book The Anatomy of Story played an influential role in my formation as a writer and storyteller—highlights a clearly expressed theme as a necessary ingredient to a great story. “A great story is not simply a sequence of events or surprises designed to entertain an audience. It is a sequence of actions, with moral implications and effects, designed to express a larger theme. … Theme is the author’s view of how to act in the world. It is your moral vision. Whenever you present a character using means to reach an end, you are presenting a moral predicament, exploring the question of right action, and making a moral argument about how best to live. Your moral vision is totally original to you, and expressing it to an audience is one of the main purposes of telling the story.” ^[9]

However, expressing theme and a point of view is different than reducing art to be “solely a vehicle for some sort of self-conscious evangelism.” ^[10] Francis Schaeffer, in Art and the Bible, writes that, “Christian art is the expression of the whole life of the whole person who is a Christian. What a Christian portrays in his art is the totality of life.” ^[11]

Recovering the Lost Art of Persuasion

To create for change, we must recover the lost art of persuasion. Our creative output should be winsome and compelling. We should communicate theme, point of view, and intent. We should intend for our created thing—whether book, movie, business, other cultural good out there in the world—to have a particular effect. What we create should persuade. Jesus, a master storyteller, employed humor, contrast, picturesque illustrations, clever word play, and many more creative persuasion techniques. Author and renowned apologist Os Guinness writes that Jesus is our ultimate example. “Creative persuasion is a matter of being biblical, not of being either modern or postmodern.” ^[12]

In a post-Christian society, the primacy of creative persuasion is even more important. “Many of us today lack a vital part of a way of communicating that is prominent in the Gospels and throughout the Scriptures but largely absent in the church today—persuasion, the art of speaking to people who, for whatever reason, are indifferent or resistant to what we have to say. They simply do not agree with us and are not open to what we have to say.” ^[13]

So… is Uncle Tom’s Cabin Propaganda?

So, does the fact that Harriet Beecher Stowe strategically and intentionally set out to write a novel with a clear anti-slavery message disqualify her from her place in the canon of “true literature” (whatever that is)? Maybe, maybe not. But one thing is for certain. If one wants a model to follow for influencing the culture around them with a pen rather than a sword, one could do worse than look to Stowe as an example.

Most creative works—be they books, movies, or other art—are often automatically panned by elitist critics when the work achieves some level of popular acceptance, just as a matter of course. Can one still be fully qualified as an elite if one discovers their tastes run in tandem with the proletariat? Clearly, an author’s stated goal of influencing the masses is in conflict on some level with appealing to the elite gatekeepers.

And yet, create we must.

Persuading vs Sermonizing

So, when does art with a point of view devolve into sermonizing? Maybe like the classic test from the highest court in the land for distinguishing pornography from art, it’s a matter of I’ll know it when I see it, but there are some helpful clues. John Truby writes that “The single biggest reason a story comes across as preachy is because there is an imbalance between moral argument and plot.” [14]

One of the things that distinguishes art from a sermon is that “a sermon requires authority, clarity, and a personal challenge. Art, on the other hand, often deals in doubt, ambiguity, and self-criticism.” ^[15]

This from author Steve Turner, himself a Christian creative struggling through how to create and create well as a Christian. He continues with advice for other Christian creators. “So often, Christian artists feel that their role is to take on the enemy, whereas they would produce better and more accessible work if they dealt with the contradictions, waverings, and weaknesses within themselves.” ^[16]

This is just right.

Sermons require pulpits, and art attempted from an elevated position of authority rarely does more than antagonize.

Much like the Culture-War Fallacy that can, and has, tripped up many a Christian, reducing their entire approach to culture to that of confrontation and warfare rather than care, engagement, and creation. Yes, writers and creators should engage ideas and fight a “war of ideas,” so to speak, but to think of one’s approach to culture as merely combative is less than helpful and tends to strangle off the free-flowing whimsy and generative spirit needed to create the art that produces the very culture change that we seek. A following article also deals with the Christian-Culture Fallacy, where we must resist the temptation to segregate ourselves from the culture at large and create only “Christian” things for other Christians to consume.

Avoid hackneyed attempts at propaganda, and instead, may we create for change by presenting a persuasive vision of what the good life really looks like.

^[1] Henry Louis Gates, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Africana: Arts and Letters: An A-to-Z Reference of Writers, Musicians, and Artists of the African American Experience, Running Press, 2005, p. 544

^[2] Darryl Lorenzo Wellington, “Uncle Tom’s Shadow“, The Nation, December 25, 2006

^[3] T.S. Eliot, Selected Essays (London: Faber & Faber, 1932)

^[4] Os Guinness, Fool’s Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion. IVP Books, 2019. p. 34

^[5] Richard Alan Nelson, A Chronology and Glossary of Propaganda in the United States (1996) pp. 232–233

^[6] Cindy Weinstein, The Cambridge Companion to Harriet Beecher Stowe, Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 13.

[7] Percy Bysshe Shelley

^[8] Steve Turner, Imagine: A Vision for Christians in the Arts, IVP Books, 2009. p. 82

^[9] John Truby, The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008. p. 106

^[10] Francis Schaeffer, Art and the Bible, IVP Books, 2006, p.

^[11] Ibid

^[12] Os Guinness, Fool’s Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion. IVP Books, 2019. p. 32

^[13] Ibid, p. 17

[14] John Truby, The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008. p. 106

^[15] Steve Turner, Imagine: A Vision for Christians in the Arts, IVP Books, 2009. p. 54

^[16] Ibid