Theos-Talk Archives (January 2002 Message tt00171)

These terms were recently conflated by Daniel in response to 
Brigitte's using the former, and they're two very different things.

*Every* author is biased, every book shows bias, and until humanity 
attains the seventh round :) this is how things will be. How can one 
work against this? Trying to recognize one's biases and not be 
carried away by them; acknowledging them; frequently reminding the 
reader that one's interpretation *might* be wrong. But one cannot 
become unbiased.

Propaganda is a far more serious thing than normal bias. The 
propagandist denies that his/her interpretation is just one of many, 
and presents it as The Truth, The Only Truth, about the subject 
matter. S/he writes not to investigate evidence and offer a 
tentative explanation, but to prove a preexisting conclusion. S/he 
writes, not as an independent thinker, but as someone beholden to 
institutional interests and serving a paradigm with organizational 
support.

Carlson, Godwin, Johnson, and Deveney are all biased in various ways, 
but don't pretend that their interpretations are the only possible 
ones and the complete truth. Cranston's work is propaganda. 
Washington's work is more journalism than scholarship, much more fast 
and loose with biased judgment and sloppier with research than the 
academically published authors about HPB. It therefore verges on 
propaganda of a secularist sort. Prothero's comparisons rest 
implicitly on such a distinction. 

PJ