05/27/2024
The title of Griffith’s rousing treatise introduces the book’s central metaphor and argument: that a powerful “theater of lies” has corrupted contemporary life, distracting us, stressing us out, encouraging our biases and hatreds, diminishing trust in institutions and expertise, even—with hate crimes and science denialism—killing us. For Griffith, the “theater” is key to the lies’ success, and he makes a persuasive case for mis- and disinformation as deliberately crafted narratives in the Aristotelian and Hollywood traditions, with story hooks and villains chosen to grip the minds of target audiences. His analysis of the beats of Die Hard, and how they reflect the techniques of media propagandists, is especially illuminating. “The Theater of Lies is a provider of addictive substance,” he writes. “We, the audience, keep demanding more.”
Theater of Lies urges individuals and institutions to demand and defend something else: truth. Griffith opens with a sweeping—perhaps too much so—history of lies and the manipulation of the public, stretching back to the Garden of Eden, the origins of race as a concept, and Kipling’s insistence on a “white man’s burden.” This material is impassioned and sometimes illuminating, but the discussions are brief for such epochal subjects. More immediately compelling are examples from recent decades, mostly from the U.S. and Canada, and many fresh accounts of events readers might not know about, showcasing how “purpose-driven lies and misinformation are produced, staged, and presented.”
With sharp insights, clear and inviting prose, and an upbeat belief in humanity’s capacity to do better, Griffith lays bare the craft and reach of those who lie for profit and power and the failures of mind that inspire their targets not just to believe propaganda but to spread it. Refreshingly, he seems unconcerned with being accused of bias when discussing, say, the “wrecking ball” that is Donald Trump. Instead, he models the healthy habits of thinking and analysis that he urges readers toward in the book’s last third, which encourages standing up for truth, acknowledging one’s own assumptions, and rebuilding trust.
Takeaway: Incisive history of lies and misinformation, and a call to action.
Comparable Titles: Lee McIntyre’s Post-Truth, Barbara McQuade’s Attack From Within.
Production grades Cover: A- Design and typography: A Illustrations: N/A Editing: A- Marketing copy: A
2024-04-01
Griffith anatomizes the dangerous rise of propaganda and proposes ways ordinary citizens can defend themselves against it.
The author, who has 40 years of experience as a communications adviser, argues that misinformation has risen to the level of a plague, and that we all now reside in a murky “theater of lies” (which is the both the title of the book and a refrain to which he repeatedly, tediously returns). Of course, propaganda is nothing new, but, according to Griffith, its use has reached a fever pitch; he asserts that never before has there been such systematic use of lies, or such a willing audience for them. The author aims to expose the mechanics of propaganda—the manner in which it plays upon the emotional needs of its audience and uses sophistry that superficially mimics the truth—and to examine the susceptibility of those who fall prey to it. The true danger is not so much the propagandists themselves, Griffith asserts, but rather those who repeat and spread their untruths, which launders the falsehoods and reclothes them in the garb of respectability. This astute insight is the principal strength of an otherwise unoriginal study, which simplistically chalks up the public’s appetite for lies to a “survival tool” people use to “make sense of our lives.” The chief weakness, aside from the text’s reliance on conventional banalities, is its partisanship—the author clearly believes that the problem of propaganda is primarily located on the political right, produced by the “new global conservative movement.” Griffith’s stated goal is to help the public defend itself against propaganda, but his counsel is entirely trite—he encourages readers to be mindful of their own biases and relegate them to a “mental parking lot” until they can be assessed more rationally. Propaganda is a deeply serious subject that deserves serious treatment, but this is not that book.
A wearisomely conventional and partisan analysis.
