[Ads-l] "All art is propaganda."

[Jonathan Lighter]

Not in YBQ, but it gets 30,000 raw Googlits.  I recently read it in a movie
review.

1925 Upton Sinclair _Mammonart_ (Pasadena: pub. by the author) 9: All art
is propaganda. It is universally and inescapably propaganda; sometimes
unconsciously, but often deliberately, propaganda.

Rather a dilute meaning of "propaganda," wouldn't you say? The relevant OED
def. is

"The systematic dissemination of information, esp. in a biased or
misleading way, in order to promote a political cause or point of view.
Also: information disseminated in this way; the means or media by which
such ideas are disseminated."

Sinclair seems to mean rather that all art exerts some influence on
beliefs, willy-nilly.  As dothose who repeat the assertion (usu. without
attribution).

Factoid:  Wackipedia calls the book-length essay _Mammonart_ a "novel."

JL


-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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