{"id":3106,"date":"2026-02-09T06:16:30","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T06:16:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/?p=3106"},"modified":"2026-02-09T06:16:30","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T06:16:30","slug":"liberal-democracies-and-war-propaganda-as-root-causes-of-world-wars%c2%b9-when-the-stakes-of-a-crusade-are-democracy-liberal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/?p=3106","title":{"rendered":"Liberal Democracies and War Propaganda as root causes of World Wars\u00b9 : When the stakes of a crusade are democracy (liberal)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Core takeaway <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the stakes of a crusade are democracy (liberal)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lippmann\u00b2 (1955) argued that liberal democracies destroy themselves through war propaganda: Portraying the adversary as pure evil was necessary to mobilise public support for war, yet it also made the public hostile to any workable peace, being convinced that the evil enemy must be defeated to have peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– “When the world wars came, the people of the liberal democracies could not be aroused to the exertions and the sacrifices of the struggle until they had been frightened by the opening disasters, had been incited to passionate hatred, and had become intoxicated with unlimited hope. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To overcome this inertia the enemy had to be portrayed as evil incarnate, as absolute and congenital wickedness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The people wanted to be told that when this particular enemy had been forced to unconditional surrender, they would re-enter the golden age. This unique war would end all wars. This last war would make the world safe for democracy. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This crusade would make the whole world a democracy\u2074<\/u>. As a result of this impassioned nonsense public opinion became so envenomed that the people would not countenance a workable peace;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

in 1917 they wore against any public man who showed \u201cany tenderness for the Hun,\u201d or was inclined to listen to the \u201cHun food snivel”.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

_______________\u00b9 https:\/\/x.com\/i\/status\/2019733367441240155<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b2 Walter Lippmann\u00b3 (September 23, 1889 \u2013 December 14, 1974) was an American writer, reporter, and political commentator. With a career spanning 60 years, he is famous for being among the first to introduce the concept of the Cold War, coining the term “stereotype” in the modern psychological meaning, as well as critiquing media and democracy in his newspaper column and several books, most notably his 1922 Public Opinion<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has also been highly praised with titles ranging from “most influential” journalist of the 20th century to “Father of Modern Journalism”. Michael Schudson writes that James W. Carey considered Walter Lippmann’s book Public Opinion as “the founding book of modern journalism” and also “the founding book in American media studies”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lippmann also played a notable role as research director of Woodrow Wilson’s post\u2013World War I board of inquiry. His views on the role of journalism in a democracy were contrasted with the contemporaneous writings of John Dewey in what has been retrospectively named the Lippmann\u2013Dewey Debate. Lippmann won two Pulitzer Prizes, one for his syndicated newspaper column “Today and Tomorrow” and one for his 1961 interview of Nikita Khrushchev.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b3 https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Walter_Lippmann#:~:text=Walter%20Lippmann%20(September%2023%2C%201889%20%E2%80%93%20December,books%2C%20most%20notably%20his%201922%20Public%20Opinion<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2074 “The Basic Problem of Democracy: What Liberty Means”, The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 124, 1919, pp. 616.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Core takeaway  When the stakes of a crusade are democracy (liberal) Lippmann\u00b2 (1955) argued that liberal democracies destroy themselves through war propaganda: Portraying the adversary as pure evil was necessary to mobilise public support for war, yet it also made the public hostile to any workable peace, being convinced that the evil enemy must be defeated to have peace. – “When the world wars came, the people of the liberal democracies could not be aroused to the exertions and the sacrifices of the struggle until they had been frightened by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3107,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-studies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3106"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3108,"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3106\/revisions\/3108"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}