Chapters from the Book "Forces of the False. Experiments in Non-Political Democracy"

Aronson’s article analyzes political propaganda, which is examined not in terms of its production in the media, but rather as an inevitable effect of the conjunction of media and politics in society at large. In this case, propaganda can be seen as a kind of psychic epidemic. This means that the impact on citizens’ individual consciousness gives way to the logic of infection typical of the multitude. This approach allows Aronson to treat community as neither a collectivity nor an isolated political subject, but as a heterogeneous non-human element that lies at the heart of the concept of “the political” itself.