Another reason the sequel trilogy is brilliant (spoilers for the entire series)
If you've read Dark Age, you probably remember the part where Dancer comes out as gay. It's mentioned that Reds as a society were homophobic, which was instilled in them through Gold propaganda as a way to keep their society weak and divided. I think this is a metaphor for methods of social control used by colonial powers. European countries would spread conservative religious values to their colonies in Africa, Asia, and South America, and this would divide the colonies along sectarian lines. We still see it today, for example the mainstream media portrayal of the newly elected president of Peru presents him as a socially backwards peasant, because he represents the poor peasantry of his country, and they are still socially conservative as a consequence of colonialism.
This, combined with other aspects of the series, like Darrow using a sickle, being a "Red", rallying the oppressed people of the solar system to defeat a class based hierarchy, makes me think that Pierce Brown was trying to make a space opera about communism, and I think that's pretty awesome.
Posted Jul 30, 2021, 7:57 PM UTC
not to get too politcal
i think the day of red doves was such a great chapter to show how easily ignorant masses can be harnessed to cause chaos by pandering and using propaganda
same with how right now in the US a loud minority is really pushing hard bullshit and a large portion of the population agree with them which allows them to get away with some real bullshit, jan 6 insurrection being the golden terd
There's also his talk about the propaganda war in the original trilogy, between Jackal and the rebellion. That stuff made me think of Parenti's Inventing Reality, of how important a role mass media plays in oppressing people and controlling the way they think
omg yes, there's a video of a conglomerate of news channels(Sinclair) spewing the same agenda about media being attacked and any competing view points spewing fake news.