propaganda vs censorship: asymmetrical effects in escalation bias and polarization

You can resist a force, but not an absence. 

Which is worse, censorship or propaganda? Hugo Mercier observes in Not Born Yesterday, a wonderful and important book, that Hitler and Goebbels were disappointed that their propaganda had no effect on non Nazis. The propaganda was useful for rallying the choir and goading Nazi enthusiasts to act decisively and violently, but didn't persuade non Nazis. 

This should not be surprising. We are all inundated with propaganda from many different sides, but given all the options, we choose the propaganda that we want to believe. The NYTimes propagates anti-Trump views, but it has no effect on Trump supporters, and Fox has no effect on NYTimes readers. 

Here's the challenge for those who believe that propaganda is dangerous: 

on what basis do some citizens read the NYTimes and others watch Fox? If they are choosing one and not the other, then they must already know the poison they desire; they already know what to expect; they already know the outlines of the content. 

The reason propaganda seems so effective with its audience is because the audience already believes it. Persuasion is superfluous. It has no role in propaganda. 

Why, then are they reading or listening to their preferred resource? 

To confirm their bias. To get more bullet points to defend their bias. To get aroused and enraged by what they already are angry about. To feel triumphant in how right they are. To revel in the flood of evidence that arouses and excites and justifies their views and strokes them as right and good and better than their opponents and more insightful and in all ways superior. It's an orgasm of self-righteousness. 

That's the purpose of news media, folks. That's why it sells. It's all spin and propaganda, and it's effect is not to inform and change minds, but to justify and arouse the already formed, closed mind.

And what happens when propaganda is presented to the opposed mind? Resistance, rejection, dispute, disgust, dismissal, outrage and anger -- a leveling up of one's bias to 11, an increase in emotional commitment to that bias stirred into a wild frenzy of anger, and a joyous sharpening of critical thinking against the propaganda. 

Propaganda not only fails to persuade, it enrages its opponents. In social interactions, for every antagonistic push there is a greater and opposite pushback. 

What about censorship, the absence of information, whether propaganda or fact? Where there is no information, where there is no push, there is no resistance. Where there is no resistance there is no incentive to find contrary evidence. Nothing comes of nothing. 

The virtue of censorship is complacency. Ignorance is bliss. The virtue of propaganda is the relentless seeking for evidence in favor or against. The danger of propaganda is not fooling the public, but polarizing the public, arousing it, and the mutual demonization of the polar teams. 

So which is worse? Falsehoods and fights, or silent, ignorant distrust? Which would you regret most?