Laws of media 365 Tribal, right-hemisphere “closed” cultures are holistic and entire and resistant to penetration by other preliterate cultures. But the specialist qualities of the left-hemisphere phonetic alphabet have long provided the only means of invading and taking over oral societies. “Propaganda cannot succeed where people have no trace of Western culture.” These words of Jacques Ellul in Propaganda draw attention to one of the crucial features of Western history. It is no accident that the Christian church, dedicated to propaganda and propagation, adopted GraecoRoman phonetic literacy from the earliest days. The impact of alphabetic literacy is strong enough not only to break the tribal bond, but to create individualized (left- hemisphere) consciousness as well. Phonetic literacy—our alphabet— alone has this power. The spread of Graeco-Roman literacy and civilization became inseparable from Christian missionary and educational activity. Paradoxically, people are not only unable to receive, but are unable to retain doctrinal teaching without a minimum of phonetic or Western culture. Here is the observation of Ellul on this matter: In addition to a certain living standard, another condition must be met: if a man is to be successfully propagandized, he needs at least a minimum of culture. Propaganda cannot succeed where people have no trace of Western culture. We are not speaking here of intelligence; some primitive tribes are surely intelligent, but have an intelligence foreign to our concepts and customs. A base is needed—for example, education; a man who cannot read will escape propaganda, as will a man who is not interested in reading. People used to think that learning to read evidenced human progress; they still celebrate the decline of illiteracy as a great victory: they condemn countries with a large proportion of illiterates: they think that reading is a road to freedom. All this is debatable, for the important thing is not to be able to read, but to understand what one reads, to reflect on and judge what one reads. Outside of that, reading has no meaning (and even destroys certain automatic qualities of memory and observation). But to talk about critical faculties and discernment is to talk about something far above primary education and to consider a very small minority. The vast majority of people, perhaps 90 percent, know how to read, but they do not exercise their intelligence beyond this. They attribute authority and eminent value to the printed word, or, conversely, reject it altogether. As these people do not possess enough knowledge to reflect and discern, they believe—or disbelieve—in toto what they read. And as such people, moreover, will select the easiest, not the