The Power of Disinformation

 

While I don’t have a publication date (sometime in late 2023 or early 2024) I do have a cover. To celebrate–and because I had to spend most of the week working on this–I thought I’d share some of the research that went into writing the text for this book.

Disinformation as a Means of Achieving and Consolidating Power

The Behistun Inscription

A guy named Darius of Persia  (522 BCE to 486 BCE) carved what is now called the Behistun Inscription into the side of a cliff.

The inscription tells the story of how he came to power. If we believe this story, he was descended from a long line of great kings, his kingdom was given to him by the supreme god Ahura Mazda, and he never lost a battle. He also defeated 19 armies in a single year and overthrew nine kings. From the inscription (translated by T. R. Shamasastry, 1915.)

Whoever is hostile to me, I utterly destroy! Whoever is a friend, I surely protect! When kings rebel against me, I vanquish them, one by one!

Basically, he was positioning himself as what Ruth Ben-Ghiat calls a “strongman”:

Darius’s inscription is included in the genre of literature called Naru literature, or “pseudo-autobiography.” These stories recount the legendary heroic accounts of the ruler and follow a particular pattern: They are written in first-person from the viewpoint of the ruler, they tell larger-than-life stories, and showcase a close relationship between the ruler and the gods. They are intended to solidify the ruler’s power by frightening his enemies and keeping people in line.

The World’s First Disinformation Manual

Chandragupta Maurya, born in 340 B.C.E., was the founder of the Maurya Empire. He needed some help winning wars. His prime minister, Kautilya (also known as Chanakya), taught him that are two kinds of wars: open wars, and concealed wars. Open wars are fought at a particular place and time and always result in casualties on both sides. They are always risky.

On the other hand, a clever ruler could entirely vanquish his enemy in a concealed war and never suffer a single casualty or have to manufacture a single weapon.

What Kautilya called a “concealed war” we would call a “disinformation campaign.” The goal was to sow discord in the enemy country (or the enemy army) by means of lies. Clever enough lies could even result in the enemy king being assassinated by his own enraged subjects. These tactics are similar to modern Russian disinformation tactics.

Kautilya collected all of his ideas into a practical handbook on how to run an empire. The book, written in Sanskrit, is called the Arthashastra. It is the earliest known written tract describing propaganda and disinformation tactics.

The Printing Press: A Major Media Disruption

Johannes Gutenberg wrote this about his invention:

“Yes, it is a press, certainly, but a press from which shall flow in inexhaustible streams, the most abundant and most marvelous liquor that has ever flowed to relieve the thirst of men!”

“A spring of truth shall flow from it: like a new star it shall scatter the darkness of ignorance, and cause a light heretofore unknown to shine amongst men.”

In 1455, when Gutenberg published his first book, a Latin language Bible, he said, “God’s word shall be carried far and wide.”

God’s word was not the only thing carried far and wide.

Broadsides were papers printed on one side and distributed widely. Often these broadsides contained important news and information. Just as often, they contained destructive lies and malicious gossip to a population unaccustomed to the written word and untrained in how to evaluate the reliability of the source. People tended to believe whatever was written.

From Yale Professor Timothy Snyder:New media always cause tremendous disruptions. The printing press led to 150 years of religious wars.”

While the printing press didn’t cause the Protestant Reformation, it was the most important driver of the Protestant Reformation by allowing for the widespread dissemination of new information, including misinformation (errors), disinformation (deliberate lies), and propaganda that people were not equipped to evaluate.

The Middle Ages: Blood Libel

In the year 1475, in Trent, Italy a few days before Easter Sunday, a two-year-old boy named Simon wandered away. Exactly where his body was found is not clear. According to some accounts. his body was found in what has been described as a cellar or sewer that ran under a Jewish house. According to another source, the body was found in an open irrigation ditch.

A medical doctor named Giovanni Mattia Tiberino examined the child’s body and concluded that the child was killed on Good Friday because Jews need innocent Christian blood for making their matzahs because they reenact the passion of Christ.

Jewish residents of Trent were found guilty of ritual murder. 

Dr. Tiberino wrote a letter to the Senate and the people. He described in horrific and graphic detail his theory of the death of Simon. His letter was published as a pamphlet called, Passio beati Simonis tridentini (“The passion of the blessed Simon of Trent”).

The printing press had recently been introduced to Italy from Germany, allowing his pamphlet to be published and distributed widely.

The incident gave rise to the conspiracy theory that Jews killed Christian children to use their blood for making matzohs. 

A conspiracy theory offers an explanation for an important event. The explanation generally includes a powerful malevolent group working secretly to do evil to innocent people. Coincidence and random events can make people uncomfortable, so they seek an explanation. Conspiracy theories play into underlying fears and prejudices.

[Interesting aside: This isn’t in the book but I saw it recently. Some psychological researchers have concluded that people don’t buy into conspiracy theories because of ignorance or social isolation. They do it because of a more prevalent personality quirk: overconfidence. The personality traits known as the “Dark Triad” — that’s narcissism, psychopathy, and a tendency to see the world in black-or-white terms — play a part. So do political beliefs, particularly populism and tolerance for political violence. Cognitive biases, like believing only evidence that confirms what you already think, also make people more vulnerable.]

Interesting tidbit: Did you know that Marie Antoinette never actually said, “Let them eat cake”? The phrase was first uttered at least a hundred years earlier when the wife of Louise XIV was accused of giving this same response. The phrase was not attributed to Marie Antoinette until after the Revolution, to justify the Revolution and murdering the royal family.

Marie Antoinette lived in opulent luxury while the majority of citizens lived in poverty. “Let them eat cake” was thus a lie that pointed to what people perceived as an underlying truth. One scholar suggests that a similar phrase was actually uttered by an elderly and senile royal aunt, Mme Victoire, who hated pastry crust. When she heard that people had no bread, she (reportedly) said, “The poor dears. They will have to eat pastry crust.”

Potemkin Villages

Catherine II, known as Catherine the Great, was Empress of Russia from 1762 until 1796. Prince Gregory Potemkin was her principal political and military advisor. He was also her lover.

Potemkin was said to have built fake villages made of facades with nothing behind them, and hired cheering villagers (who were paid actors) to impress Empress Catherine with the bounty of the region he conquered for her. 

The idea was for the empress not to know the entire region had been left in ruins by the fighting and that the people were not supportive of her.

It is unknown how much of this story is actually true. Later, in the Soviet Union, disinformation manuals included this story with the boast that Russians invented and perfected the art of disinformation. Because the story was intended to inspire propagandists in the Soviet Union with a story about the ingenuity of Russian deception, the story itself could be an example of disinformation.

Disinformation, American Style

John Calhoun was a nineteenth-century politician from South Carolina who eventually became Vice President under Andrew Jackson. He said the following:

“I hold that in the present state of civilization, where two races of different origin, and distinguished by color, and other physical differences, as well as intellectual, are brought together, the relation now existing in the slaveholding States between the two, is, instead of an evil, is a good—a positive good.”

To back up the lie that those of African descent were an inferior race, Dr. Thomas Hamilton a medical doctor, a trustee of the Medical Academy of Georgia a wealthy slave owner, conducted “experiments” that he said “proved” that persons of African descent have lower intelligence and a higher tolerance for heat and pain. He concluded that their brains are small and their sexual organs are large. Therefore, they are more sexually promiscuous and best equipped for heavy labor.

These fallacies passed off as science, bolstered the popularly-held argument that enslaved people of African descent were fit for little outside forced labor. Where slavery was outlawed, these fallacies provided support for discriminatory laws and kept white people in power.

Fascist Mythmaking

The 20th century saw the rise of a new form of government: Fascism. The ruler in a fascist regime derives his authority from the force of his personality. (A democracy derives its authority from written laws, and monarchies derive their authority from tradition.)

The fascist leader generally comes to power through legal means, either by winning an election or being appointed to power under rule-of-law procedures. Fascism, therefore, often arises in a democracy. The fascist leader then subverts and destroys the institution of democracy to give the leader complete control. Because the fascist leader comes to power through legitimate means, which would not have been possible in the age of empires and monarchies, fascism didn’t thrive in Europe until the dissolution of the empires after World War I, when new nations were carved out of the old empires and the new nations committed themselves to democratic forms of government.

Mussolini’s Pseudo-Autobiography,

Here is the story Mussolini told of how he came to power (paraphrased from speeches):

“Who remembers that glorious day, October 30, 1922, when the great age of fascism began? On that magnificent day, a mighty fascist army marched into Rome to restore order and put Italy on the first step toward redeeming our lost glory.”

“Before I took control, Italy was in disarray! Inflation and unemployment were rampant! The weak and ineffectual socialists were running the country into the ground. Never before had the people of Italy so thirsted for authority, direction, order! I alone could restore order to Italy! I alone could return Italy to the glory of ancient Rome!”

“For two days, from October 28 until October 30, the great fascist army, sprung from the people, marched, and gathered strength.”

“On October 30, 1922, after marching for two days and conquering all of central Italy, an army of the people approached the palace. All of Italy was on the move! All of Italy was swept up in the thrill of the moment! The Revolution was all around!”

“We began to enact our destiny when I rode into Rome on horseback at the head of a mighty army!”

“I entered and demanded that the weak and ineffectual King Victor turn over the leadership to the men and women of Italy, to the people! After we wrested control of the government by a mighty show of force, we began the arduous task of ridding Italy of corruption! We vowed to drain the swamp!”

Here is what really happened:

On October 29, 1922, the Il Popolo D’Italia, the newspaper operated by Mussolini and his followers, published a sensational—and untrue—story about how the whole of central Italy, Tuscany, Umbria, Marche, and northern Latium was currently occupied by the blackshirts.

On October 30, a rag-tag poorly equipped, and untrained mob arrived at the palace.

Mussolini himself entered Rome on a train. He had a royal summons to meet with the king. He respectfully entered the palace and met with the king, who appointed Mussolini’s prime minister and gave him permission to try to put together a majority coalition.

Trump’s pseudo-biography was that he was a successful businessman. Modern parallel: Trump came to power on a lie,”I am a successful businessman” which went like this. “My father gave me a very small loan in 1975, and I built it into a company worth many, many billions of dollars.” In fact, he inherited $413 million from his father’s real estate empire and declared bankruptcy multiple times, and got rich by cheating and taking dirty Russian money.

I’ll stop here. Perhaps I’ll do a Power of Disinformation Blog Post Part II in the future.

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34 thoughts on “The Power of Disinformation”

  1. This librarian is pleased as punch to see you writing about this topic – I look forward to your insights! And thank you for your level-headed read on our current political situation. It helps keep me sane!

  2. I don’t know exactly why this article years ago resinated with me so deeply, but ever since Davis wrote it, unraveling has taken place and my question is what have other strong democracies put into place to combat false press and how can the US gain ground in truths such as the many accomplishments of Bidens administration, our positive stance in the world and our strong economy?
    I was struck by Heather Cox Richardson’s from Letters from an American post today that stated 62% of Americans think that Biden has not accomplished much! That is outrageous!
    How do we as Americans, get these truths out to everybody to share his many accomplishments? How do we humble ourselves to listen?
    This is Wade Davis’s article.
    https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/covid-19-end-of-american-era-wade-davis-1038206/

  3. This post made me think of all those ludicrous stories about Kim Jong Un scoring several holes-in-one in a row, et cetera.

  4. Looking forward to your new book! This post is an awesome introduction. It helps me to see that our situation isn’t anything new – organized, motivated lying has been with us since there were human beings – but its methods have become more refined and sophisticated. At the same time, fascism has enough of a track record to follow how it progresses, like a well-studied disease. Was wondering if there’s a mention of Edward Bernays, the father of PR? He (and his intellectual heirs) turned lying into a credentialed discipline.

  5. I can’t stand Trump, but I would be interested in seeing the evidence that he took “dirty Russian money”. I know there have been many reports that Deutsche Bank was a funnel for this money, but I have never seen any conclusive proof. I am sure there are hundreds of investigative reporters that have looked into this. What is the basis of this charge?

    1. Trump sold condos in cash to Semion Mogilevich: This is who Mogilevich is (if you don’t already know): https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/cei/semion-mogilevich

      See: https://www.justsecurity.org/60528/understanding-pres-trump-vs-bruce-ohr-russias-top-crime-boss-semion-mogilevich/

      Just Security is published by NYU School of Law. I’ve published with them and they check everything even more carefully than periodicals like the Washington Post, which has good fact-checking (I’ve also written for the post.)

      Taking dirty money is hard to pin down as a crime. Not everything unethical is criminal.

      1. Teri! Excellent historical recap and comparisons. In every case society is unwilling to do the vetting and verification. Seems unlike you most citizens want a story instead of confirming the facts and fighting the false narrative. Objective and thorough vetting is enjoyed by few and not embraced by the masses since 30 second sound bites seems to consume the news cycle.

    2. Mari Lynn Young

      Another good source on this is Craig Unger’s book “American Kompromat”. Unger is an investigative journalist who has studied Trump/Russia connections for decades. He further supports & substantiates Teri’s claim that she sited as well as other reports, sources & information. He has also obtained files from FBI sources to further substantiate these claims. Trump started his dealings w/ Russia rather inocuously, by purchasing TV’s (for his real estate acquisitions) from a known Russian asset that had an appliance store in NYC, this goes back as early as 1987. He gave Trump a “good deal” on these TV’s. (What a great way to “spy” on Americans tthan thru a TV??) Trump rather unwittingly struck up a relationship w/ this guy. But Trump’s Russian money laundering schemes are well documented in this book as well as other (credible) sources I came upon-after Trump got elected & the Russian connection investigations were gaining some traction.

  6. Thanks for bringing this to us from ancient history. I liked learning how fascism couldn’t arise until democracies arise from monarchies. What about the Greek democracy?

    1. I don’t think the Greek democracies are comparable to what we have, given how small (and not diverse) the city-states were and how massive our representative democracy has become, although the founding values are the same.

      1. What about the democracy that lasted 700 years in Venice. That Democracy as I understand it, limited the amount of wealth of the wealthy merchants which insured their democracy. Eventually, more powerful outside forces destroyed it.

    2. My study of ancient Greece revealed that there were “Tyrants” from time to time, some of whom I believe were freely elected. Despite the name, they weren’t all bad (at least that’s what historians say). Greek democracy was much more participatory than ours. Their system rotated large numbers of the eligible population (male, non-slave) to serve, for a short term, say a year, whereupon they then rotated out for the next cohort. A jury trial for a minor crime could involve a hundred jurors; more serious crimes would involve many hundreds more. It’s the sort of highly participatory system that could work when the overall population isn’t huge nor the geography vast.

      I think because power was so diluted among so many people, none of whom held power for very long, that lies would have a hard time taking root. That said, the whole scheme was administered by a small elite who were more or less permanent and who probably had the last say in anything.

      I’m by no means an expert in this area, this is what I recall from a brief study, I could be wrong about some of these points.

  7. Teri, I love your blog posts and sure miss seeing you on social media. I’m curious why you’re not willing to try Spoutible, if you’re comfortable saying. I will definitely buy your book. You’re a marvel.

  8. Charles Jackson

    One of my favorite anecdotes comes from Thoreau. His version of the meaning of the word gullible came from a practice of the native Americans on the Cape. They would build an open top tent and put fish for bait up in the top. Seagulls would land up there and so their legs could easily be grabbed to capture them Hence the word gullible. So I’ve never looked into that word origin further in order to discover whether or not Thoreau was testing how gullible the reader might be. I’d rather just be ignorant and gullible, I guess. Thank you so much for helping us navigate through these troubled times.
    Charles Jackson

  9. Thanks. A better title for this post would be “A Short History of Disinformation.” This doesn’t explain its power so much as the history of the modern playbook which is far older than I thought.

  10. Thank you! Your posts are like a shot in the arm when I am in despair over the state of democracy. The only antidote to fascism and disinformation is speaking the truth. May you and others with national platforms continue to tell the truth about Trump, MAGA and the GOP!

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