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

[Joel S. Berson]

At 11/15/2014 04:57 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

>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).

Sinclair was a utopian, left-wing, progressive Democrat, Socialist, 
Wobbly-supporting pinko, wasn't he?  "All art is propaganda" is 
something I could imagine said by Karl Marx.

Joel


>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."
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org