Propaganda

Propaganda Review

Some reviewers have commented that Bernays deliberately confuses the reader by mixing definitions of propaganda, public relations, education and news reporting, so that the reader will be drawn in, but not suspect the bigger plan as it were - to manipulate the very readers of this book into accepting propaganda as a kinder, gentler way to manage large societies.

My opinion differs. Bernays lays it all out with no undue embellishment. He describes the techniques in much better detail than, say, Sun Tzu describes the techniques of war in his Art Of War book. Bernays puts this subject into the light of day the way that a good engineer would illustrate the compromises in creating a successful consumer product such as a digital camera. You know the story there - increase the battery size and you get more pictures before the power runs out, but then the total size and weight increase as well. Increase the size of the sensor and you get lower noise, but again, an overall (and undesirable) increase in product size and weight.

In the case of propaganda, if you exaggerate too much or outright lie, you risk losing credibility in a world where competitors for your product, competing politicians, or even news agencies can rat you out and damage your reputation. Bernays makes it clear that societies are governed, for better or worse, by the consent of the governed. The differences in dictatorships and democracies as to this point is not in the manner of election of officials, but in the political structures that begin at the local level and go all the way to the top through intermediate hierarchies.

Bernays discusses the negative connotations that propaganda ("that which is propagated") acquired in the early 1900's, mainly due to government-promoted "patriotism", or jingoism as the case may be. But the American masses had every reasonable opportunity to learn from those events, and failed to do so, mainly as Bernays argues because the public makes those kinds of decisions emotionally rather than logically, and are predictably swayed by the mass consciousness that finds war to be an acceptable solution to a problem created by the same industrialists who now offer the solution.

Unlike the Art Of War, where I believe Sun Tzu is hiding certain facts (possibly to protect himself), Propaganda reveals all of the techniques of the game without prejudice, acknowledging that societies and their leaders are engaged in a constant dialectic about what the issues are and how to proceed on them, and those who acquiesce rather than participate do so by their own choice. And in that milieu, propaganda is simply a tool for maintaining public order.

Propaganda Feature

• ISBN13: 9780970312594
• Condition: New
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Propaganda Overview

“Bernays’ honest and practical manual provides much insight into some of the most powerful and influential institutions of contemporary industrial state capitalist democracies.”—Noam Chomsky

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.”—Edward Bernays, Propaganda

A seminal and controversial figure in the history of political thought and public relations, Edward Bernays (1891–1995), pioneered the scientific technique of shaping and manipulating public opinion, which he famously dubbed “engineering of consent.” During World War I, he was an integral part of the U.S. Committee on Public Information (CPI), a powerful propaganda apparatus that was mobilized to package, advertise and sell the war to the American people as one that would “Make the World Safe for Democracy.” The CPI would become the blueprint in which marketing strategies for future wars would be based upon.

Bernays applied the techniques he had learned in the CPI and, incorporating some of the ideas of Walter Lipmann, became an outspoken proponent of propaganda as a tool for democratic and corporate manipulation of the population. His 1928 bombshell Propaganda lays out his eerily prescient vision for using propaganda to regiment the collective mind in a variety of areas, including government, politics, art, science and education. To read this book today is to frightfully comprehend what our contemporary institutions of government and business have become in regards to organized manipulation of the masses.

This is the first reprint of Propaganda in over 30 years and features an introduction by Mark Crispin Miller, author of The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder.

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