Relation Between Naivety and Propaganda

In the documentary film, The Faces of the Enemy, Keen studies the propaganda from different nations around the world and finds that before a physical war happens, "we think each other to death." This means that political propaganda and other sorts of art that stir controversy are created and used to make the enemy into some sort of beast that will become permissible to exterminate. In almost all of the propaganda seen in the documentary several key images arise, that of exaggerated political figure, animals and demons, which are meant to symbolize the overpowering terror created by the enemy over the world. From this type of art comes hatred and enmity that force countries into war because they see other nations as beast or oppressors of the world that must be exterminated.

Although this is still present in today's society, such as the cartoon a couple years ago of Muhammad with a nuclear bomb from a Swiss paper I believe, I think that over the years Americans and the global community has become less naive. As seen in the documentary people of the World War II era and Cold War era disliked the Japanese and USSR respectively because of the pictures propagandists created. As cited in The Faces of the Enemy, when asked to describe communism most people could not tell you what it meant or stood for, they simply despise it because they were told it was a bad thing. However, over the past decade or so the world has become smaller due to great advances in technology, especially the computer as with e-mail and AIM, and this has created a tighter knit global community and a global community that accepts differences more than previous generations. From this communication and learned understanding of others, society has become less naive and realized that not everything governments say or portray is correct. Before people would simply condemn an entire race because the government said they presented a threat to a nation, but now society looks at this advice with a skeptical eye and considers the options and their consequences. So, although there are vast problems with foreign relations today, especially in America, the global society has become less naive and thus created a community that can function to its potential as far as decision making and has learned to keep a skeptical eye towards government, which is a definite change for the better.