EAS 190 class slides

1. Propaganda and Institutions
EAS190 Lecture Slides by Keren Wang, SP 2023

2. Quiz 5 Survey:
● Not enough time to write papers
○ Paper 4 will not be assigned
● In class interactive exercises
● How visual concepts relates to previously covered materials
● Application of classical concepts in visual propaganda
● Antagonistic sovereignty: does it have to be BOTH about class & nationality?

3. Bureaucratic Rhetoric
Alan Blinder on the
rhetorical style of
bureaucrats: “secretive,
cryptic, [sic] using
numerous and complicated
words to convey little of
any meaning.”

4. Case study of Institutions of Involuntary Labor
“The Imperial Academy is rectified, and schools and studies are thriving. So grand are the rituals and court hymns, so
elegant and proper are the ceremonial robes and official processions. The well-field system and the rule of law are
restored, slavery is abolished. Such is a return to the ancient ideal!”
Quote by Yang Xiong in 8 CE (English translation from Classical Chinese by Keren Wang) [1]
● Zheng ming:
○ Comparative example of narratives of American Independence found in U.S. history textbooks.
● Scholar-bureaucrats
○ Constitution of the Empire: based on Confucian classics
○ Power to define and interpret the law
● Shixie 飾邪：Decorating the Iniquitous
○ Institutions of “labor tax” and “penal labor”
● Shang-xing 賞刑 & Jin-shi 禁使： Reward-punishment; Incentives-disincentives

5. Institutions of Japanese Moral Code
(Bushido) according to Dr. Nitobe Inazo
Zen Buddhism:
● “[A] sense of calm trust in Fate, a quiet submission to the inevitable, that stoic composure in
sight of danger or calamity, that disdain of life and friendliness with death.” (3)
Shintoism:
● “Loyalty to the sovereign, reverence for ancestral memory, and filial piety” (4)
Confucianism:
● “Writings of Confucius and Mencius formed the principal textbooks for youths and the highest
authority in discussion among the old.” (5)
● “Five moral relations between master and servant (the governing and the governed), father and
son, husband and wife, older and younger brother, and between friend and friend.” (5)
● “Knowledge was conceived as identical with its practical application in life; and this Socratic
doctrine found its greatest exponent in the Chinese philosopher, Wang Yang Ming, who never
wearies of repeating, ‘To know and to act are one and the same.’ (5)

6. “Making unpalatable measures appear
proper and necessary.”
“Not only did bureaucracy itself emerge as a rhetorical
response to the exigencies of record-keeping and
resolving disputes, but it also provides a powerful platform
for propaganda, sometimes making unpalatable measures
appear proper and necessary.”
Figure on the left – Ritual bloodletting and land transfer:
Mayan ruler Yaxun B’alam IV (752–768) standing over a
captive noblemen who is performing non-fatal ritual
bloodletting. The bloodletting sealed the capitulation
agreement, which formally transferred the territory of the
surrendering faction to the winning faction. (Lintel 16 from
Yaxchilan ruins, British Museum Collections)

7. “A large percentage of the young
men of the British and of the
German upper classes which are
responsible for the war were wiped
out in the early days of the fighting.
Surely they were loved by their
parents. ...In the case of war, those
who are responsible for it know
what is going to happen, yet the
power of the idols is greater than
the power of love for their
children.”
Erich Fromm, The Anatomy of Human
Destructiveness

8. Decoding Bureaucratic Rhetoric
https://youtube.com/shorts/lr1JO6aSUB0?feature=share
https://youtu.be/uBHrwitsVM0
https://youtu.be/-L7A2QiIJXM
https://youtu.be/7y-WNU-p_mg