perfidy

While reading an otherwise provocative and lively discussion by a group of film critics (2004: The Year in Movies) which manages to cover all the ground between loving and hating Dogville, Fahrenheit 9/11 and The Passion of The Christ and dismissing all three as forgettable failed experiments, I came across the following phrase, written by Scott Foundas of the L.A. Weekly:

As early as Sundance in January, there was Jehane Noujaim's Control Room, an extraordinary survey of the current propaganda wars (ultimately, the ones that really matter)...

It is unfortunate that Foundas chose the word "ultimate" in arguing that wars of words and ideas matter in the end more than wars of killing. He is using it in a poetic sense to lend heft to his assertion that propaganda "really matter[s]." Unfortunately for him, "ultimate" means the last, the end, the thing which cannot be overcome.

I have argued in this forum repeatedly that the US armed forces can do no greater good for themselves, the USA, and (he said, from his seat of white male imperial privelige,) the world than to work as hard as possible on winning the 'hearts and minds' battles in the wars they are fighting. The "propaganda wars" Foundas refers to include these and more. The 'hearts and minds' efforts are incredibly important, because after the killing winds down and nations get back to doing what it is nations do when they are not busy tearing themselves into pieces, it would be really nice if we were not hated as a matter of policy as the Great Satan Above All Satans. In the short run winning the hearts and minds battle-- or at least trying to do better on that front than breaking even-- can only help. In the long run it can ensure that the sun does not soon set on the American Century (1919-?).

But as truly important as they are, in war, hearts and minds are not the "ultimate" thing in a war.

Ultimately, "propaganda" only matters when someone is left alive to see it.