Propaganda as Architecture: How Ideological Systems Contract Recursive Depth

Abstract

Luca Magni

This article applies a cognitive-architectural framework of recursive reinterpretation, developed in prior work on self, ego, and identity, to the analysis of ideological propaganda and deradicalization. That prior work established that self, ego, and identity function primarily as systems for resource-efficient learning through recursive reinterpretation of finite biographical experience, with inversion (Differenza Inversa), the reversal of an existing self-structure asymmetry to generate a new vantage point, proposed as the fundamental operator [1].

I identify five inhibitory mechanisms: saturation of inversion space, blockage of spiral temporality, substitution of inversion with reflection, colonization of the shadow, and selective punishment of identity-incompatible inversions. Together these amount to a model of propaganda as recursive depth reduction. The deradicalization implications follow directly: standard counter-narrative approaches fail not because they are badly designed but because they address belief content while the architectural damage that prevents belief revision goes unrepaired. A four-phase recursive restoration model is developed, sequencing architectural repair against established clinical and social psychological resources. A research programme of four falsifiable hypotheses closes the paper, connecting the theoretical account to experimental paradigms in cognitive, political, and clinical psychology.

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