My friend told me he couldn't talk to his relatives back home anymore. He is sending them videos and images from the war in Ukraine, and nothing won't change their minds and conviction that Ukraine needs to be liberated from the Nazis.
Now I wonder: Is there any clever way to combat Propaganda in such a situation? How can you establish at least doubt in the other person's mind?
EDIT: I didn’t want to discuss what’s right or wrong. I am interested to learn about effective ways / processes to combat propaganda.
Once you do notice how propaganda works on you yourself, you can start to track little movements of deviation from it. But this looks and feels a lot more like questioning your own beliefs than it does like trying to persuade others of the truth.
Someone must be open to this in the first place. You can't change a closed mind, and there are many reasons why a mind might be closed. They kind of have to arrive at their doubt on their own, at least in my personal non-expert opinion. The most you can do is express your opinion in a relatively non judgmental way (because if you're too harsh they won't return to you later to discuss) and be available if they want to discuss.
The core beliefs themselves tend to be set during adolescence, and the will of the individual to hold onto them or let them go involves a confluence of factors since they are often absorbed into identity. While you can present the puzzle, you can't stop people from gripping onto what they have as tightly as possible and sacrificing the rest of their life to do so. It's a strategy that appeals mostly towards development of elite thinking, rather than trying to sway the masses(who will continually look for easy beliefs to latch onto).
For more on the topic of esoteric writing I suggest Arthur Melzer's "Philosophy Between the Lines".
And, as sad as it is, I'm afraid the answer is a solid "No." on every level of analysis.
First of all, you need to listen, with your mouth closed, while the other person explains their position--without being forced to defend it. You can ask probing questions, of course (They think that Ukraine needs to be liberated from the Nazis? Have them elaborate about the Nazi problem.), but avoid becoming adversarial or contrarian. Investigate their beliefs, trace them down to their foundations, and then undermine said foundations. The belief that "Ukraine needs to be liberated from the Nazis" may be based on some article claiming that Zelenski is a Nazi.
Once you understand the foundations of a belief, you're in business. If you're objectively correct, you should be able to provide incontrovertible evidence that you are correct. If your evidence is not acceptable (because, for example, it comes from a source the other guy doesn't trust), then find other proof. If you can't, ask yourself what that means.
After you've undermined one of these foundations, (perhaps, by proving that Zelenski is very unlikely to be a Nazi) remind the other party that their belief that "Ukraine needs to be liberated from the Nazis" was based on this fact, and ask if they still believe it. They will, of course, and they'll present some new justification.
Rinse and repeat.
It goes without saying that this process almost never plays out. It requires that both parties be interested in having the conversation, both parties participate in good faith, and both parties are committed to Truth more than to their on cognitive comfort.
After all, how many hours of your life would you spend in conversation with a Russian relative who wanted to convince you that your worldview is based on lies?
The Chinese government thinks they can lie however they want to its people and to the outside world, because there are language and internet barriers.
For example, they claimed to be neutral regarding the ongoing war, but they are spreading pro-war misinformation via state owned media, and teaching pro-war ideologies at school.
People now are trying to translate their lies through the big translation movement To expose their evil doings . https://twitter.com/tgtm_official
And it worked, they winded down the pro-war education plan, at least publicly.
It includes things such as Ukraine's police departments providing operational support to Nazi groups, and the groups' history of arming themselves with heavy weapons including missiles. [1] [2] [3] [4]
Ukraine has a long history of directly supporting these groups. Implying either the Nazi groups don't exist or that they're not intertwined with government is opportunistic historical revisionism.
The West not only ignores the problem, but directly supports the Nazi groups through weapons shipments, propaganda lines and protection from censorship. [5] [6]
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cohen-ukraine-commentary-...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/15/world/europe/italy-neo-na...
[3] https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2019/09/04/the...
[4] https://www.thedailybeast.com/ukraines-anti-russia-azov-batt...
[5] https://theintercept.com/2022/02/24/ukraine-facebook-azov-ba...
This is a strategy many foreigners have to adopt when living abroad, specially if they live in a country where nation states aren't fully aligned in propaganda matters.
Chinese people have to do this while living in most of the world outside China. Indians and Middle easterns have to do the same for most of the world. Americans have to do it in most of the world, including in Europe, specially if their politics isn't fully aligned with Hollywood liberalism.
There is very little likelyhood that he is totally onboard with US propaganda despite having most friends/family in Russia/Ukraine and himself living in the West. I mean he's exposed to conflicting state propaganda before for sure and knows all states use propaganda for their own benefits. He probably knows how to handle it without causing conflicts in personal relationships so he will say whatever needs to be said to keep the people in their bubble.