``...his question really crystallized the problem for me, and I've been thinking about it ever since. No, people won't come around if things are just explained better to them. That something more - understanding and dealing with all the layers of fantasy, of manufactured ignorance and indifference - is really important too. Unfortunately, I haven't figured that one out yet...'' Doug
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I sure don't have an answer either. My current hope is that by unravelling the underlying philosophy, its flaws, and its social and psychological processes, that somewhere at least a better insight on how to change will fall out.
Joanna mentioned Brecht. One of the points that my German Lit professor used to make about Brecht was his use of cardboard characters was by design. This technique of character depiction was developed intensionally to keep the audience from psychologically identifying with the character---so as to learn how to see the material conditions depicted more clearly. Her favorite example was The Good Woman of Setzuan.
I actually never liked Brecht's work specifically because of this technique. If you want to really persuade people through the arts, you have to make the art stunning. What makes it stunning could be beauty, horror, violence, ugliness, grace, lyricism---anything as long as it has strong psychological impact---the exact opposite of Brecht's theory. The audience doesn't have to identify with a character or condition, as long as their aesthetic registers are pinned on Full. I think it is an irony that Brecht, contrary to his theoretical intentions is often stunning.
In my mythological world the Right is completely incapable of creating beauty, especially dangerous and sensual beauty. It is a weakness that can be exploited (Robert Mappletthorpe for example)---and it gets their goat everytime. Displays of sensuality and disturbing beauty make the Right crazy. They make fools of themselves denouncing it.
If you can't persuade people through facts, you can at least destroy the creditability of the Right and its bogus value schemes through the arts of ridicule, mockery, satire, and farce. This is why Michael Moore is effective---and universally hated by the Right. After enough mockery and derision, evidentially the foolishness of the Rightwing is laid bare. Then after sufficient dramatic shock therapy (catharsis), maybe then, people will be ready to take up more reasonable views and actually wonder about the facts of their own lives and the material conditions of the rest of the planet.
Of course it didn't work last year...hmm.
But beyond all that, there are other things to consider. For example, the nice thing about facts and material conditions is that they remain tangible, demonstrable, ever present and indelible whether people ignore them or not. They don't go away just by being forgotten.
And then there's the war. All the value addled crap from the US government, media and righwing pundits has no effect on the war. Support for the war, sure. But its not outcome, its turns, its reality which just grind out one depressing fact after another...
CG