Troy, MI, was faced with needing to close its public library unless the public supported a tax increase to pay for it. Anti-tax activists fought hard and heavy to defeat the increase. Supporters of the library fabricated a group that supported the closure, promising a big book burning party after the tax increase went down to defeat.
Is lying an acceptable way to win a political battle? No — but the deception was in terms of who was stating the case, vs. the effective result of what was being supported. By making the community face what closing the public library effectively meant, they stated their case more clearly than any airy-fairy "public good" argument would.
It's not something I would easily advocate, and there's clearly a very slippery slope here, but to the extent that we can separate the message from the messenger, there's something to be said for the tactic. (And, yes, it cuts both ways.)
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Award-winning book-burning hoax saves Troy, MI libraries
The Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide agency has won a gold prize in the Effie awards for their hoax "Book Burning Party" campaign, which is credited with saving the public library in Troy, MI. Michigan's ext…
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More interesting than the article are the comments. Did you read the comment from the guy claiming to be from the town who said that the librarians were horrified at the idea of the book burning party b/c they didn't realize it was a hoax?
My first response is, of course, holy crap that was awesome.
But my second, more measured, response is that this is probably unethical. It is shocking that the community didn't love their library, but using deception to preserve it strikes me as wrong. Libraries are suppose to be great repositories of truth!
Hadn't read that far down through a not-terribly-interesting comment section.
That's my own mixed thoughts on it, +Kit Malone. It's not a direct deception, but a temporary rhetorical deception to (as the video puts it) focus the conversation on the value of books and the library, rather than simply about taxes.
In some ways, it's not too different (for better or worse) than the intentional misstating of an opponent's position to draw attention to a greater philosophical point. One difference being that (at least as the article describes it) the hoaxers came out before the election and made it clear what they'd done.