The projection tactic
In psychology projection is the attribute of one's own feelings, beliefs, attitudes etc. onto others. The projection tactic is "accusing someone else of the misdeed you yourself are committing." (Pratkanis and Aronson page 109) The authors give several examples (page 109): "before invading a country. Adolf Hitler would often accuse the leaders of that country of plotting aggression against Germany. At the beginning of testimony before his committee, Joseph McCarthy would accuse the witness of lying, as he, Joseph McCarthy, was preparing to tell one lie after another about the witness."
Several groups have pointed out groups on the "other side" of some debate have failed to disclose their sources of income, while themselves failing to disclose their sources of income. Dixy Lee Ray would routinely accuse others of distorting the science behind an issue, while Ray herself produced some of the most distorted science ever. And here are Ron Arnold and Alan Gottlieb, two of the founders of the anti-environmental "wise use" movement describing how environmental direct mail fund raising allegedly works. Coming from a book that accuses environmentalists of trashing the economy and almost every other sin short of Satan worship, the description sounds exactly like how the "wise use" movement operates (page 75):
The message of the direct mail letter must appeal to three base emotions: Fear, Hate and Revenge. . .
Thus, every environmentalist fund raising mailer must present you with a crisis-a problem won't do, because only crises carries a sense of urgency, and without urgency, recipients will not respond. That crises must frighten you as well as having time-sensitive urgency. If you are not frightened, you won't send money.
Then the direct mail letter must present you with a bogeyman against whom to focus your anger, somebody who is at fault for the crises that now has you frightened. Environmentalist direct mail pitches all use industry or private property as the bogeyman you must hate.
References
Arnold, Ron and Alan Gottlieb, Trashing the Economy: How Runaway Environmentalism is Wrecking America, Free Enterprise Press, 1994
Anthony R. Pratkanis and Elliot Aronson, Age of Propaganda: The Everyday Use and Abuse of Persuasion, Revised Edition, W. H. Freeman and Company, 2001.
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Written by Jim Norton
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