someguy
08-25-2010, 10:50 AM
The following is the first 2 chapters of the book Propaganda by Edward Bernays, who is considered one of the "fathers of public relations". The book was written in 1928, with astonishing relevance for today's world. the big idea of the book is that people are generally stupid and herd-like, easily persuaded one way or the other, and therefore it is essential for the "intelligent few" (the elites) to shape public opinion through the use of propaganda, in order to avoid chaos. This he calls "the manufacture of consent". For the public's own good, of course.
This book is a fascinating view into the twisted minds of the self-appointed "intelligent few". I find it both disturbing and enlightening. A must-read for anyone who is aware of the "invisible government" (to which Bernays constantly refers throughout the book). If you are interested in reading more (please do so), the entire book can be downloaded for free here: https://knowledgefiles.com/authors/edward-l-bernays/propaganda/
Please feel free to comment.....I would love to hear others' thoughts on this issue.
PROPAGANDA
Chapter 1 - ORGANIZING CHAOS
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.
We are governed, our minds are molded, our
tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men
we have never heard of. This is a logical result of
the way in which our democratic society is organized.
Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in
this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly
functioning society.
Our invisible governors are, in many cases, unaware
of the identity of their fellow members in the
inner cabinet.
They govern us by their qualities of natural leadership,
their ability to supply needed ideas and by their
key position in the social structure. Whatever attitude
one chooses to take toward this condition, it
remains a fact that in almost every act of our daily
lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business,
in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are
dominated by the relatively small number of persons—
a trifling fraction of our hundred and twenty
million—who understand the mental processes and
social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the
wires which control the public mind, who harness old
social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide
the world.
It is not usually realized how necessary these invisible
governors are to the orderly functioning of
our group life. In theory, every citizen may vote
for whom he pleases. Our Constitution does not
envisage political parties as part of the mechanism
of government, and its framers seem not to have
pictured to themselves the existence in our national
politics of anything like the modern political machine.
But the American voters soon found that
without organization and direction their individual
votes, cast, perhaps, for dozens or hundreds of candidates,
would produce nothing but confusion. Invisible
government, in the shape of rudimentary
political parties, arose almost overnight. Ever since
then we have agreed, for the sake of simplicity and
practicality, that party machines should narrow down
the field of choice to two candidates, or at most three
or four.
In theory, every citizen makes up his mind on
public questions and matters of private conduct. In
practice, if all men had to study for themselves the
abstruse economic, political, and ethical data involved
in every question, they would find it impossible to
come to a conclusion about anything. We have
voluntarily agreed to let an invisible government
sift the data and high-spot the outstanding issues so
that our field of choice shall be narrowed to practical
proportions. From our leaders and the media they
use to reach the public, we accept the evidence and
the demarcation of issues bearing upon public questions;
from some ethical teacher, be it a minister, a
favorite essayist, or merely prevailing opinion, we
accept a standardized code of social conduct to which
we conform most of the time.
In theory, everybody buys the best and cheapest
commodities offered him on the market. In practice,
if every one went around pricing, and chemically
testing before purchasing, the dozens of soaps or
fabrics or brands of bread which are for sale, economic
life would become hopelessly jammed. To
avoid such confusion, society consents to have its
choice narrowed to ideas and objects brought to its
attention through propaganda of all kinds. There
is consequently a vast and continuous effort going on
to capture our minds in the interest of some policy or
commodity or idea.
It might be better to have, instead of propaganda
and special pleading, committees of wise men who
would choose our rulers, dictate our conduct, private
and public, and decide upon the best types of clothes
for us to wear and the best kinds of food for us to
eat. But we have chosen the opposite method, that
of open competition. We must find a way to make
free competition function with reasonable smoothness.
To achieve this society has consented to permit
free competition to be organized by leadership and
propaganda.
Some of the phenomena of this process are criticized—
the manipulation of news, the inflation of
personality, and the general ballyhoo by which politicians
and commercial products and social ideas are
brought to the consciousness of the masses. The instruments
by which public opinion is organized and
focused may be misused. But such organization and
focusing are necessary to orderly life.
As civilization has become more complex, and as
the need for invisible government has been increasingly
demonstrated, the technical means have been
invented and developed by which opinion may be
regimented.
With the printing press and the newspaper, the
railroad, the telephone, telegraph, radio and airplanes,
ideas can be spread rapidly and even instantaneously
over the whole of America.
H. G. Wells senses the vast potentialities of these
inventions when he writes in the New York Times:
"Modern means of communication—the power
afforded by print, telephone, wireless and so forth,
of rapidly putting through directive strategic or technical
conceptions to a great number of cooperating
centers, of getting quick replies and effective discussion—
have opened up a new world of political processes.
Ideas and phrases can now be given an
effectiveness greater than the effectiveness of any
personality and stronger than any sectional interest.
The common design can be documented and sustained
against perversion and betrayal. It can be elaborated
and developed steadily and widely without personal,
local and sectional misunderstanding."
What Mr. Wells says of political processes is
equally true of commercial and social processes and
all manifestations of mass activity. The groupings
and affiliations of society to-day are no longer subject
to "local and sectional" limitations. When the Constitution
was adopted, the unit of organization was
the village community, which produced the greater
part of its own necessary commodities and generated
its group ideas and opinions by personal contact and
discussion directly among its citizens. But to-day,
because ideas can be instantaneously transmitted to
any distance and to any number of people, this geographical
integration has been supplemented by many
other kinds of grouping, so that persons having the
same ideas and interests may be associated and regimented
for common action even though they live
thousands of miles apart.
It is extremely difficult to realize how many and
diverse are these cleavages in our society. They may
be social, political, economic, racial, religious or eth-
ical, with hundreds of subdivisions of each. In the
World Almanac, for example, the following groups
are listed under the A's:
The League to Abolish Capital Punishment; Association
to Abolish War; American Institute of
Accountants; Actors' Equity Association; Actuarial
Association of America; International Advertising
Association; National Aeronautic Association; Albany
Institute of History and Art; Amen Corner;
American Academy in Rome; American Antiquarian
Society; League for American Citizenship; American
Federation of Labor; Amorc (Rosicrucian Order);
Andiron Club; American-Irish Historical
Association; Anti-Cigarette League; Anti-Profanity
League; Archeological Association of America; National
Archery Association; Arion Singing Society;
American Astronomical Association; Ayrshire Breeders'
Association; Aztec Club of 1847. There are
many more under the "A" section of this very
limited list.
The American Newspaper Annual and Directory
for 1928 lists 22,128 periodical publications in
America. I have selected at random the N's published
in Chicago. They are:
Narod (Bohemian daily newspaper); Narod-Polski
(Polish monthly); N.A.R.D. (pharmaceutical);
National Corporation Reporter; National Culinary
Progress (for hotel chefs); National Dog Journal;
National Drug Clerk; National Engineer; National
14
Organizing Chaos
Grocer; National Hotel Reporter; National Income
Tax Magazine; National Jeweler; National Journal
of Chiropractic; National Live Stock Producer;
National Miller; National Nut News; National
Poultry, Butter and Egg Bulletin; National Provisioner
(for meat packers); National Real Estate
Journal; National Retail Clothier; National Retail
Lumber Dealer; National Safety News; National
Spiritualist; National Underwriter; The Nation's
Health; Naujienos (Lithuanian daily newspaper);
New Comer (Republican weekly for Italians);
Daily News; The New World (Catholic weekly);
North American Banker; North American Veterinarian.
The circulation of some of these publications is
astonishing. The National Live Stock Producer has
a sworn circulation of 155,978; The National Engineer,
of 20,328; The New World, an estimated
circulation of 67,000. The greater number of the
periodicals listed—chosen at random from among
22,128—have a circulation in excess of 10,000.
The diversity of these publications is evident at a
glance. Yet they can only faintly suggest the multitude
of cleavages which exist in our society, and
along which flow information and opinion carrying
authority to the individual groups.
Here are the conventions scheduled for Cleveland,
Ohio, recorded in a single recent issue of "World
Cenvention Dates"—a fraction of the 5,500 conventions
and rallies scheduled.
The Employing Photo-Engravers' Association of
America; The Outdoor Writers' Association; the
Knights of St. John; the Walther League; The National
Knitted Outerwear Association; The Knights
of St. Joseph; The Royal Order of Sphinx; The
Mortgage Bankers' Association; The International
Association of Public Employment Officials; The
Kiwanis Clubs of Ohio; The American Photo-Engravers'
Association; The Cleveland Auto Manufacturers
Show; The American Society of Heating and
Ventilating Engineers.
Other conventions to be held in 1928 were those
of:
The Association of Limb Manufacturers' Associations;
The National Circus Fans' Association of
America; The American Naturopathic Association;
The American Trap Shooting Association; The
Texas Folklore Association; The Hotel Greeters;
The Fox Breeders' Association; The Insecticide and
Disinfectant Association; The National Association
of Egg Case and Egg Case Filler Manufacturers;
The American Bottlers of Carbonated Beverages;
and The National Pickle Packers' Association, not to
mention the Terrapin Derby—most of them with
banquets and orations attached.
If all these thousands of formal organizations and
institutions could be listed (and no complete list has
ever been made), they would still represent but a
part of those existing less formally but leading
vigorous lives. Ideas are sifted and opinions stereotyped
in the neighborhood bridge club. Leaders
assert their authority through community drives and
amateur theatricals. Thousands of women may unconsciously
belong to a sorority which follows the
fashions set by a single society leader.
"Life" satirically expresses this idea in the reply
which it represents an American as giving to the
Britisher who praises this country for having no
upper and lower classes or castes:
"Yeah, all we have is the Four Hundred, the
White-Collar Men, Bootleggers, Wall Street Barons,
Criminals, the D.A.R., the K.K.K., the Colonial
Dames, the Masons, Kiwanis and Rotarians, the K.
of C, the Elks, the Censors, the Cognoscenti, the
Morons, Heroes like Lindy, the W.C.T.U., Politicians,
Menckenites, the Booboisie, Immigrants,
Broadcasters, and—the Rich and Poor."
Yet it must be remembered that these thousands
of groups interlace. John Jones, besides being a
Rotarian, is member of a church, of a fraternal order,
of a political party, of a charitable organization, of
a professional association, of a local chamber of
commerce, of a league for or against prohibition or
of a society for or against lowering the tariff, and of
a golf club. The opinions which he receives as a
Rotarian, he will tend to disseminate in the other
groups in which he may have influence.
This invisible, intertwining structure of groupings
and associations is the mechanism by which democracy
has organized its group mind and simplified its
mass thinking. To deplore the existence of such a
mechanism is to ask for a society such as never was
and never will be. To admit that it easts, but expect
that it shall not be used, is unreasonable.
Emil Ludwig represents Napoleon as "ever on
the watch for indications of public opinion; always
listening to the voice of the people, a voice which
defies calculation. 'Do you know,' he said in those
days, 'what amazes me more than all else? The
impotence of force to organize anything.'"
It is the purpose of this book to explain the structure
of the mechanism which controls the public
mind, and to tell how it is manipulated by the special
pleader who seeks to create public acceptance for a
particular idea or commodity. It will attempt at the
same time to find the due place in the modern democratic
scheme for this new propaganda and to suggest
its gradually evolving code of ethics and practice.
Chapter 2 - THE NEW PROPAGANDA
IN the days when kings were kings, Louis XIV
made his modest remark, "L'Etat c'est moi." He
was nearly right.
But times have changed. The steam engine, the
multiple press, and the public school, that trio of the
industrial revolution, have taken the power away
from kings and given it to the people. The people
actually gained power which the king lost For
economic power tends to draw after it political
power; and the history of the industrial revolution
shows how that power passed from the king and the
aristocracy to the bourgeoisie. Universal suffrage
and universal schooling reinforced this tendency, and
at last even the bourgeoisie stood in fear of the common
people. For the masses promised to become
king.
To-day, however, a reaction has set in. The minority
has discovered a powerful help in influencing
majorities. It has been found possible so to mold
the mind of the masses that they will throw
their newly gained strength in the desired direction.
In the present structure of society, this practice is
inevitable. Whatever of social importance is done
to-day, whether in politics, finance, manufacture, agriculture,
charity, education, or other fields, must be
done with the help of propaganda. Propaganda is
the executive arm of the invisible government.
Universal literacy was supposed to educate the
common man to control his environment. Once
he could read and write he would have a mind fit to
rule. So ran the democratic doctrine. But instead
of a mind, universal literacy has given him rubber
stamps, rubber stamps inked with advertising slogans,
with editorials, with published scientific data, with
the trivialities of the tabloids and the platitudes of
history, but quite innocent of original thought. Each
man's rubber stamps are the duplicates of millions
of others, so that when those millions are exposed to
the same stimuli, all receive identical imprints. It
may seem an exaggeration to say that the American
public gets most of its ideas in this wholesale fashion.
The mechanism by which ideas are disseminated on a
large scale is propaganda, in the broad sense of
an organized effort to spread a particular belief or
doctrine.
I am aware that the word "propaganda" carries to
many minds an unpleasant connotation. Yet whether,
in any instance, propaganda is good or bad depends
upon the merit of the cause urged, and the correctness
of the information published.
In itself, the word "propaganda" has certain technical
meanings which, like most things in this world,
are "neither good nor bad but custom makes them
so." I find the word defined in Funk and Wagnalls'
Dictionary in four ways:
"1. A society of cardinals, the overseers of foreign
missions; also the College of the Propaganda at
Rome founded by Pope Urban VIII in 1627 for the
education of missionary priests; Sacred College de
Propaganda Fide.
"2. Hence, any institution or scheme for propagating
a doctrine or system.
"3. Effort directed systematically toward the
gaining of public support for an opinion or a course
of action.
"4. The principles advanced by a propaganda."
The Scientific American, in a recent issue, pleads
for the restoration to respectable usage of that "fine
old word 'propaganda.'"
"There is no word in the English language," it
says, "whose meaning has been so sadly distorted as
the word 'propaganda.' The change took place
mainly during the late war when the term took on a
decidedly sinister complexion.
"If you turn to the Standard Dictionary, you will
find that the word was applied to a congregation or
society of cardinals for the care and oversight of
foreign missions which was instituted at Rome in
the year 1627. It was applied also to the College of
the Propaganda at Rome that was founded by Pope
Urban VIII, for the education of the missionary
priests. Hence, in later years the word came to be
applied to any institution or scheme for propagating
a doctrine or system.
"Judged by this definition, we can see that in its
true sense propaganda is a perfectly legitimate form
of human activity. Any society, whether it be social,
religious or political, which is possessed of certain
beliefs, and sets out to make them known, either by
the spoken or written words, is practicing propaganda."
Truth is mighty and must prevail, and if any
body of men believe that they have discovered a
valuable truth, it is not merely their privilege but
their duty to disseminate that truth. If they realize,
as they quickly must, that this spreading of the truth
can be done upon a large scale and effectively only
by organized effort, they will make use of the press
and the platform as the best means to give it wide
circulation. Propaganda becomes vicious and reprehensive
only when its authors consciously and deliberately
disseminate what they know to be lies, or
when they aim at effects which they know to be prejudicial
to the common good.
'Propaganda' in its proper meaning is a perfectly
wholesome word, of honest parentage, and with an
honorable history. The fact that it should to-day be
carrying a sinister meaning merely shows how much
of the child remains in the average adult. A group
course of action in some debatable question, believing
that it is promoting the best interest of the community.
Propaganda? Not a bit of it. Just a plain
forceful statement of truth. But let another group
of citizens express opposing views, and they are
promptly labeled with the sinister name of propaganda.
'What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the
gander,' says a wise old proverb. Let us make haste
to put this fine old word back where it belongs, and
restore its dignified significance for the use of our
children and our children's children.
The extent to which propaganda shapes the progress
of affairs about us may surprise even well informed
persons. Nevertheless, it is only necessary
to look under the surface of the newspaper for a
hint as to propaganda's authority over public opinion.
Page one of the New York Times on the day these
paragraphs are written contains eight important news
stories. Four of them, or one-half, are propaganda.
The casual reader accepts them as accounts of spontaneous
happenings. But are they? Here are the
headlines which announce them: "TWELVE NATIONS
WARN CHINA REAL REFORM MUST COME BEFORE
THEY GIVE RELIEF," "PRITCHETT REPORTS ZIONISM
WILL FAIL," "REALTY MEN DEMAND A TRANSIT INQUIRY,"
and "OUR LIVING STANDARD HIGHEST IN
HISTORY, SAYS HOOVER REPORT."
Take them in order: the article on China explains
the joint report of the Commission on Extraterritoriality
in China, presenting an exposition of the
Powers' stand in the Chinese muddle. What it says
is less important than what it is. It was "made public
by the State Department to-day" with the purpose
of presenting to the American public a picture of the
State Department's position. Its source gives it authority,
and the American public tends to accept and
support the State Department view.
The report of Dr. Pritchett, a trustee of the Carnegie
Foundation for International Peace, is an attempt
to find the facts about this Jewish colony in
the midst of a restless Arab world. When Dr.
Pritchett's survey convinced him that in the long run
Zionism would "bring more bitterness and more unhappiness
both for the Jew and for the Arab," this
point of view was broadcast with all the authority
of the Carnegie Foundation, so that the public would
hear and believe. The statement by the president of
the Real Estate Board of New York, and Secretary
Hoover's report, are similar attempts to influence
the public toward an opinion.
These examples are not given to create the impression
that there is anything sinister about propaganda.
They are set down rather to illustrate how conscious
direction is given to events, and how the men behind
these events influence public opinion. As such they
are examples of modern propaganda. At this point
we may attempt to define propaganda.
Modern propaganda is a consistent, enduring effort
to create or shape events to influence the relations
of the public to an enterprise, idea or group.
This practice of creating circumstances and of
creating pictures in the minds of millions of persons
is very common. Virtually no important undertaking
is now carried on without it, whether that enterprise
be building a cathedral, endowing a university, marketing
a moving picture, floating a large bond issue,
or electing a president. Sometimes the effect on the
public is created by a professional propagandist,
sometimes by an amateur deputed for the job. The
important thing is that it is universal and continuous;
and in its sum total it is regimenting the public mind
every bit as much as an army regiments the bodies of
its soldiers.
So vast are the numbers of minds which can be
regimented, and so tenacious are they when regimented,
that a group at times offers an irresistible
pressure before which legislators, editors, and teachers
are helpless. The group will cling to its stereotype,
as Walter Lippmann calls it, making of those
supposedly powerful beings, the leaders of public
opinion, mere bits of driftwood in the surf. When
an Imperial Wizard, sensing what is perhaps hunger
for an ideal, offers a picture of a nation all Nordic
and nationalistic, the common man of the older
American stock, feeling himself elbowed out of his
rightful position and prosperity by the newer immi-
grant stocks, grasps the picture which fits in so neatly
with his prejudices, and makes it his own. He buys
the sheet and pillow-case costume, and bands with
his fellows by the thousand into a huge group
powerful enough to swing state elections and to
throw a ponderous monkey wrench into a national
convention.
In our present social organization approval of the
public is essential to any large undertaking. Hence
a laudable movement may be lost unless it impresses
itself on the public mind. Charity, as well as business,
and politics and literature, for that matter, have
had to adopt propaganda, for the public must be
regimented into giving money just as it must be regimented
into tuberculosis prophylaxis. The Near
East Relief, the Association for the Improvement of
the Condition of the Poor of New York, and all
the rest, have to work on public opinion just as
though they had tubes of tooth paste to sell. We
are proud of our diminishing infant death rate—and
that too is the work of propaganda.
Propaganda does exist on all sides of us, and it
does change our mental pictures of the world. Even
if this be unduly pessimistic—and that remains to
be proved—the opinion reflects a tendency that is
undoubtedly real. In fact, its use is growing as
its efficiency in gaining public support is recognized.
This then, evidently indicates the fact that any
one with sufficient influence can lead sections of the
public at least for a time and for a given purpose.
Formerly the rulers were the leaders. They laid
out the course of history, by the simple process of
doing what they wanted. And if nowadays the
successors of the rulers, those whose position or
ability gives them power, can no longer do what
they want without the approval of the masses,
they find in propaganda a tool which is increasingly
powerful in gaining that approval. Therefore, propaganda
is here to stay.
It was, of course, the astounding success of propaganda
during the war that opened the eyes of
the intelligent few in all departments of life to
the possibilities of regimenting the public mind.
The American government and numerous patriotic
agencies developed a technique which, to most persons
accustomed to bidding for public acceptance, was
new. They not only appealed to the individual by
means of every approach—visual, graphic, and auditory—
to support the national endeavor, but they also
secured the cooperation of the key men in every group
—persons whose mere word carried authority to hundreds
or thousands or hundreds of thousands of
followers. They thus automatically gained the support
of fraternal, religious, commercial, patriotic,
social and local groups whose members took their
opinions from their accustomed leaders and spokesmen,
or from the periodical publications which they
were accustomed to read and believe. At the same
time, the manipulators of patriotic opinion made use
of the mental cliches and the emotional habits of the
public to produce mass reactions against the alleged
atrocities, the terror and the tyranny of the enemy.
It was only natural, after the war ended, that intelligent
persons should ask themselves whether it was
not possible to apply a similar technique to the problems
of peace.
As a matter of fact, the practice of propaganda
since the war has assumed very different forms from
those prevalent twenty years ago. This new technique
may fairly be called the new propaganda.
It takes account not merely of the individual, nor
even of the mass mind alone, but also and especially
of the anatomy of society, with its interlocking group
formations and loyalties. It sees the individual
not only as a cell in the social organism but as a cell
organized into the social unit. Touch a nerve at a
sensitive spot and you get an automatic response
from certain specific members of the organism.
Business offers graphic examples of the effect that
may be produced upon the public by interested
groups, such as textile manufacturers losing their
markets. This problem arose, not long ago, when the
velvet manufacturers were facing ruin because their
product had long been out of fashion. Analysis
showed that it was impossible to revive a velvet fashion
within America. Anatomical hunt for the vital
spot! Paris! Obviously! But yes and no. Paris is
the home of fashion. Lyons is the home of silk. The
attack had to be made at the source. It was determined
to substitute purpose for chance and to utilize
the regular sources for fashion distribution and to
influence the public from these sources. A velvet
fashion service, openly supported by the manufacturers,
was organized. Its first function was to establish
contact with the Lyons manufactories and
the Paris couturiers to discover what they were doing,
to encourage them to act on behalf of velvet, and to
help in the proper exploitation of their wares. An
intelligent Parisian was enlisted in the work. He visited
Lanvin and Worth, Agnes and Patou, and others
and induced them to use velvet in their gowns and
hats. It was he who arranged for the distinguished
Countess This or Duchess That to wear the hat or the
gown. And as for the presentation of the idea to the
public, the American buyer or the American woman
of fashion was simply shown the velvet creations in
the atelier of the dressmaker or the milliner. She
bought the velvet because she liked it and because
it was in fashion.
The editors of the American magazines and fashion
reporters of the American newspapers, likewise
subjected to the actual (although created) circumstance,
reflected it in their news, which, in turn,
subjected the buyer and the consumer here to the
same influences. The result was that what was at
first a trickle of velvet became a flood. A demand
was slowly, but deliberately, created in Paris and
America. A big department store, aiming to be a
style leader, advertised velvet gowns and hats on the
authority of the French couturiers, and quoted original
cables received from them. The echo of the
new style note was heard from hundreds of department
stores throughout the country which wanted to
be style leaders too. Bulletins followed despatches.
The mail followed the cables. And the American
woman traveler appeared before the ship news photographers
in velvet gown and hat.
The created circumstances had their effect. "Fickle
fashion has veered to velvet," was one newspaper
comment. And the industry in the United States
again kept thousands busy.
The new propaganda, having regard to the constitution
of society as a whole, not infrequently serves
to focus and realize the desires of the masses. A
desire for a specific reform, however widespread,
cannot be translated into action until it is made articulate,
and until it has exerted sufficient pressure upon
the proper law-making bodies. Millions of housewives
may feel that manufactured foods deleterious
to health should be prohibited. But there
is little chance that their individual desires will be
translated into effective legal form unless their halfexpressed
demand can be organized, made vocal,
and concentrated upon the state legislature or upon
the Federal Congress in some mode which will pro-
duce the results they desire. Whether they realize
it or not, they call upon propaganda to organize and
effectuate their demand.
But clearly it is the intelligent minorities which
need to make use of propaganda continuously and
systematically. In the active proselytizing minorities
in whom selfish interests and public interests
coincide lie the progress and development of America.
Only through the active energy of the intelligent
few can the public at large become aware of and act
upon new ideas.
Small groups of persons can, and do, make the
rest of us think what they please about a given subject.
But there are usually proponents and opponents
of every propaganda, both of whom are equally
eager to convince the majority.
This book is a fascinating view into the twisted minds of the self-appointed "intelligent few". I find it both disturbing and enlightening. A must-read for anyone who is aware of the "invisible government" (to which Bernays constantly refers throughout the book). If you are interested in reading more (please do so), the entire book can be downloaded for free here: https://knowledgefiles.com/authors/edward-l-bernays/propaganda/
Please feel free to comment.....I would love to hear others' thoughts on this issue.
PROPAGANDA
Chapter 1 - ORGANIZING CHAOS
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.
We are governed, our minds are molded, our
tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men
we have never heard of. This is a logical result of
the way in which our democratic society is organized.
Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in
this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly
functioning society.
Our invisible governors are, in many cases, unaware
of the identity of their fellow members in the
inner cabinet.
They govern us by their qualities of natural leadership,
their ability to supply needed ideas and by their
key position in the social structure. Whatever attitude
one chooses to take toward this condition, it
remains a fact that in almost every act of our daily
lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business,
in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are
dominated by the relatively small number of persons—
a trifling fraction of our hundred and twenty
million—who understand the mental processes and
social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the
wires which control the public mind, who harness old
social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide
the world.
It is not usually realized how necessary these invisible
governors are to the orderly functioning of
our group life. In theory, every citizen may vote
for whom he pleases. Our Constitution does not
envisage political parties as part of the mechanism
of government, and its framers seem not to have
pictured to themselves the existence in our national
politics of anything like the modern political machine.
But the American voters soon found that
without organization and direction their individual
votes, cast, perhaps, for dozens or hundreds of candidates,
would produce nothing but confusion. Invisible
government, in the shape of rudimentary
political parties, arose almost overnight. Ever since
then we have agreed, for the sake of simplicity and
practicality, that party machines should narrow down
the field of choice to two candidates, or at most three
or four.
In theory, every citizen makes up his mind on
public questions and matters of private conduct. In
practice, if all men had to study for themselves the
abstruse economic, political, and ethical data involved
in every question, they would find it impossible to
come to a conclusion about anything. We have
voluntarily agreed to let an invisible government
sift the data and high-spot the outstanding issues so
that our field of choice shall be narrowed to practical
proportions. From our leaders and the media they
use to reach the public, we accept the evidence and
the demarcation of issues bearing upon public questions;
from some ethical teacher, be it a minister, a
favorite essayist, or merely prevailing opinion, we
accept a standardized code of social conduct to which
we conform most of the time.
In theory, everybody buys the best and cheapest
commodities offered him on the market. In practice,
if every one went around pricing, and chemically
testing before purchasing, the dozens of soaps or
fabrics or brands of bread which are for sale, economic
life would become hopelessly jammed. To
avoid such confusion, society consents to have its
choice narrowed to ideas and objects brought to its
attention through propaganda of all kinds. There
is consequently a vast and continuous effort going on
to capture our minds in the interest of some policy or
commodity or idea.
It might be better to have, instead of propaganda
and special pleading, committees of wise men who
would choose our rulers, dictate our conduct, private
and public, and decide upon the best types of clothes
for us to wear and the best kinds of food for us to
eat. But we have chosen the opposite method, that
of open competition. We must find a way to make
free competition function with reasonable smoothness.
To achieve this society has consented to permit
free competition to be organized by leadership and
propaganda.
Some of the phenomena of this process are criticized—
the manipulation of news, the inflation of
personality, and the general ballyhoo by which politicians
and commercial products and social ideas are
brought to the consciousness of the masses. The instruments
by which public opinion is organized and
focused may be misused. But such organization and
focusing are necessary to orderly life.
As civilization has become more complex, and as
the need for invisible government has been increasingly
demonstrated, the technical means have been
invented and developed by which opinion may be
regimented.
With the printing press and the newspaper, the
railroad, the telephone, telegraph, radio and airplanes,
ideas can be spread rapidly and even instantaneously
over the whole of America.
H. G. Wells senses the vast potentialities of these
inventions when he writes in the New York Times:
"Modern means of communication—the power
afforded by print, telephone, wireless and so forth,
of rapidly putting through directive strategic or technical
conceptions to a great number of cooperating
centers, of getting quick replies and effective discussion—
have opened up a new world of political processes.
Ideas and phrases can now be given an
effectiveness greater than the effectiveness of any
personality and stronger than any sectional interest.
The common design can be documented and sustained
against perversion and betrayal. It can be elaborated
and developed steadily and widely without personal,
local and sectional misunderstanding."
What Mr. Wells says of political processes is
equally true of commercial and social processes and
all manifestations of mass activity. The groupings
and affiliations of society to-day are no longer subject
to "local and sectional" limitations. When the Constitution
was adopted, the unit of organization was
the village community, which produced the greater
part of its own necessary commodities and generated
its group ideas and opinions by personal contact and
discussion directly among its citizens. But to-day,
because ideas can be instantaneously transmitted to
any distance and to any number of people, this geographical
integration has been supplemented by many
other kinds of grouping, so that persons having the
same ideas and interests may be associated and regimented
for common action even though they live
thousands of miles apart.
It is extremely difficult to realize how many and
diverse are these cleavages in our society. They may
be social, political, economic, racial, religious or eth-
ical, with hundreds of subdivisions of each. In the
World Almanac, for example, the following groups
are listed under the A's:
The League to Abolish Capital Punishment; Association
to Abolish War; American Institute of
Accountants; Actors' Equity Association; Actuarial
Association of America; International Advertising
Association; National Aeronautic Association; Albany
Institute of History and Art; Amen Corner;
American Academy in Rome; American Antiquarian
Society; League for American Citizenship; American
Federation of Labor; Amorc (Rosicrucian Order);
Andiron Club; American-Irish Historical
Association; Anti-Cigarette League; Anti-Profanity
League; Archeological Association of America; National
Archery Association; Arion Singing Society;
American Astronomical Association; Ayrshire Breeders'
Association; Aztec Club of 1847. There are
many more under the "A" section of this very
limited list.
The American Newspaper Annual and Directory
for 1928 lists 22,128 periodical publications in
America. I have selected at random the N's published
in Chicago. They are:
Narod (Bohemian daily newspaper); Narod-Polski
(Polish monthly); N.A.R.D. (pharmaceutical);
National Corporation Reporter; National Culinary
Progress (for hotel chefs); National Dog Journal;
National Drug Clerk; National Engineer; National
14
Organizing Chaos
Grocer; National Hotel Reporter; National Income
Tax Magazine; National Jeweler; National Journal
of Chiropractic; National Live Stock Producer;
National Miller; National Nut News; National
Poultry, Butter and Egg Bulletin; National Provisioner
(for meat packers); National Real Estate
Journal; National Retail Clothier; National Retail
Lumber Dealer; National Safety News; National
Spiritualist; National Underwriter; The Nation's
Health; Naujienos (Lithuanian daily newspaper);
New Comer (Republican weekly for Italians);
Daily News; The New World (Catholic weekly);
North American Banker; North American Veterinarian.
The circulation of some of these publications is
astonishing. The National Live Stock Producer has
a sworn circulation of 155,978; The National Engineer,
of 20,328; The New World, an estimated
circulation of 67,000. The greater number of the
periodicals listed—chosen at random from among
22,128—have a circulation in excess of 10,000.
The diversity of these publications is evident at a
glance. Yet they can only faintly suggest the multitude
of cleavages which exist in our society, and
along which flow information and opinion carrying
authority to the individual groups.
Here are the conventions scheduled for Cleveland,
Ohio, recorded in a single recent issue of "World
Cenvention Dates"—a fraction of the 5,500 conventions
and rallies scheduled.
The Employing Photo-Engravers' Association of
America; The Outdoor Writers' Association; the
Knights of St. John; the Walther League; The National
Knitted Outerwear Association; The Knights
of St. Joseph; The Royal Order of Sphinx; The
Mortgage Bankers' Association; The International
Association of Public Employment Officials; The
Kiwanis Clubs of Ohio; The American Photo-Engravers'
Association; The Cleveland Auto Manufacturers
Show; The American Society of Heating and
Ventilating Engineers.
Other conventions to be held in 1928 were those
of:
The Association of Limb Manufacturers' Associations;
The National Circus Fans' Association of
America; The American Naturopathic Association;
The American Trap Shooting Association; The
Texas Folklore Association; The Hotel Greeters;
The Fox Breeders' Association; The Insecticide and
Disinfectant Association; The National Association
of Egg Case and Egg Case Filler Manufacturers;
The American Bottlers of Carbonated Beverages;
and The National Pickle Packers' Association, not to
mention the Terrapin Derby—most of them with
banquets and orations attached.
If all these thousands of formal organizations and
institutions could be listed (and no complete list has
ever been made), they would still represent but a
part of those existing less formally but leading
vigorous lives. Ideas are sifted and opinions stereotyped
in the neighborhood bridge club. Leaders
assert their authority through community drives and
amateur theatricals. Thousands of women may unconsciously
belong to a sorority which follows the
fashions set by a single society leader.
"Life" satirically expresses this idea in the reply
which it represents an American as giving to the
Britisher who praises this country for having no
upper and lower classes or castes:
"Yeah, all we have is the Four Hundred, the
White-Collar Men, Bootleggers, Wall Street Barons,
Criminals, the D.A.R., the K.K.K., the Colonial
Dames, the Masons, Kiwanis and Rotarians, the K.
of C, the Elks, the Censors, the Cognoscenti, the
Morons, Heroes like Lindy, the W.C.T.U., Politicians,
Menckenites, the Booboisie, Immigrants,
Broadcasters, and—the Rich and Poor."
Yet it must be remembered that these thousands
of groups interlace. John Jones, besides being a
Rotarian, is member of a church, of a fraternal order,
of a political party, of a charitable organization, of
a professional association, of a local chamber of
commerce, of a league for or against prohibition or
of a society for or against lowering the tariff, and of
a golf club. The opinions which he receives as a
Rotarian, he will tend to disseminate in the other
groups in which he may have influence.
This invisible, intertwining structure of groupings
and associations is the mechanism by which democracy
has organized its group mind and simplified its
mass thinking. To deplore the existence of such a
mechanism is to ask for a society such as never was
and never will be. To admit that it easts, but expect
that it shall not be used, is unreasonable.
Emil Ludwig represents Napoleon as "ever on
the watch for indications of public opinion; always
listening to the voice of the people, a voice which
defies calculation. 'Do you know,' he said in those
days, 'what amazes me more than all else? The
impotence of force to organize anything.'"
It is the purpose of this book to explain the structure
of the mechanism which controls the public
mind, and to tell how it is manipulated by the special
pleader who seeks to create public acceptance for a
particular idea or commodity. It will attempt at the
same time to find the due place in the modern democratic
scheme for this new propaganda and to suggest
its gradually evolving code of ethics and practice.
Chapter 2 - THE NEW PROPAGANDA
IN the days when kings were kings, Louis XIV
made his modest remark, "L'Etat c'est moi." He
was nearly right.
But times have changed. The steam engine, the
multiple press, and the public school, that trio of the
industrial revolution, have taken the power away
from kings and given it to the people. The people
actually gained power which the king lost For
economic power tends to draw after it political
power; and the history of the industrial revolution
shows how that power passed from the king and the
aristocracy to the bourgeoisie. Universal suffrage
and universal schooling reinforced this tendency, and
at last even the bourgeoisie stood in fear of the common
people. For the masses promised to become
king.
To-day, however, a reaction has set in. The minority
has discovered a powerful help in influencing
majorities. It has been found possible so to mold
the mind of the masses that they will throw
their newly gained strength in the desired direction.
In the present structure of society, this practice is
inevitable. Whatever of social importance is done
to-day, whether in politics, finance, manufacture, agriculture,
charity, education, or other fields, must be
done with the help of propaganda. Propaganda is
the executive arm of the invisible government.
Universal literacy was supposed to educate the
common man to control his environment. Once
he could read and write he would have a mind fit to
rule. So ran the democratic doctrine. But instead
of a mind, universal literacy has given him rubber
stamps, rubber stamps inked with advertising slogans,
with editorials, with published scientific data, with
the trivialities of the tabloids and the platitudes of
history, but quite innocent of original thought. Each
man's rubber stamps are the duplicates of millions
of others, so that when those millions are exposed to
the same stimuli, all receive identical imprints. It
may seem an exaggeration to say that the American
public gets most of its ideas in this wholesale fashion.
The mechanism by which ideas are disseminated on a
large scale is propaganda, in the broad sense of
an organized effort to spread a particular belief or
doctrine.
I am aware that the word "propaganda" carries to
many minds an unpleasant connotation. Yet whether,
in any instance, propaganda is good or bad depends
upon the merit of the cause urged, and the correctness
of the information published.
In itself, the word "propaganda" has certain technical
meanings which, like most things in this world,
are "neither good nor bad but custom makes them
so." I find the word defined in Funk and Wagnalls'
Dictionary in four ways:
"1. A society of cardinals, the overseers of foreign
missions; also the College of the Propaganda at
Rome founded by Pope Urban VIII in 1627 for the
education of missionary priests; Sacred College de
Propaganda Fide.
"2. Hence, any institution or scheme for propagating
a doctrine or system.
"3. Effort directed systematically toward the
gaining of public support for an opinion or a course
of action.
"4. The principles advanced by a propaganda."
The Scientific American, in a recent issue, pleads
for the restoration to respectable usage of that "fine
old word 'propaganda.'"
"There is no word in the English language," it
says, "whose meaning has been so sadly distorted as
the word 'propaganda.' The change took place
mainly during the late war when the term took on a
decidedly sinister complexion.
"If you turn to the Standard Dictionary, you will
find that the word was applied to a congregation or
society of cardinals for the care and oversight of
foreign missions which was instituted at Rome in
the year 1627. It was applied also to the College of
the Propaganda at Rome that was founded by Pope
Urban VIII, for the education of the missionary
priests. Hence, in later years the word came to be
applied to any institution or scheme for propagating
a doctrine or system.
"Judged by this definition, we can see that in its
true sense propaganda is a perfectly legitimate form
of human activity. Any society, whether it be social,
religious or political, which is possessed of certain
beliefs, and sets out to make them known, either by
the spoken or written words, is practicing propaganda."
Truth is mighty and must prevail, and if any
body of men believe that they have discovered a
valuable truth, it is not merely their privilege but
their duty to disseminate that truth. If they realize,
as they quickly must, that this spreading of the truth
can be done upon a large scale and effectively only
by organized effort, they will make use of the press
and the platform as the best means to give it wide
circulation. Propaganda becomes vicious and reprehensive
only when its authors consciously and deliberately
disseminate what they know to be lies, or
when they aim at effects which they know to be prejudicial
to the common good.
'Propaganda' in its proper meaning is a perfectly
wholesome word, of honest parentage, and with an
honorable history. The fact that it should to-day be
carrying a sinister meaning merely shows how much
of the child remains in the average adult. A group
course of action in some debatable question, believing
that it is promoting the best interest of the community.
Propaganda? Not a bit of it. Just a plain
forceful statement of truth. But let another group
of citizens express opposing views, and they are
promptly labeled with the sinister name of propaganda.
'What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the
gander,' says a wise old proverb. Let us make haste
to put this fine old word back where it belongs, and
restore its dignified significance for the use of our
children and our children's children.
The extent to which propaganda shapes the progress
of affairs about us may surprise even well informed
persons. Nevertheless, it is only necessary
to look under the surface of the newspaper for a
hint as to propaganda's authority over public opinion.
Page one of the New York Times on the day these
paragraphs are written contains eight important news
stories. Four of them, or one-half, are propaganda.
The casual reader accepts them as accounts of spontaneous
happenings. But are they? Here are the
headlines which announce them: "TWELVE NATIONS
WARN CHINA REAL REFORM MUST COME BEFORE
THEY GIVE RELIEF," "PRITCHETT REPORTS ZIONISM
WILL FAIL," "REALTY MEN DEMAND A TRANSIT INQUIRY,"
and "OUR LIVING STANDARD HIGHEST IN
HISTORY, SAYS HOOVER REPORT."
Take them in order: the article on China explains
the joint report of the Commission on Extraterritoriality
in China, presenting an exposition of the
Powers' stand in the Chinese muddle. What it says
is less important than what it is. It was "made public
by the State Department to-day" with the purpose
of presenting to the American public a picture of the
State Department's position. Its source gives it authority,
and the American public tends to accept and
support the State Department view.
The report of Dr. Pritchett, a trustee of the Carnegie
Foundation for International Peace, is an attempt
to find the facts about this Jewish colony in
the midst of a restless Arab world. When Dr.
Pritchett's survey convinced him that in the long run
Zionism would "bring more bitterness and more unhappiness
both for the Jew and for the Arab," this
point of view was broadcast with all the authority
of the Carnegie Foundation, so that the public would
hear and believe. The statement by the president of
the Real Estate Board of New York, and Secretary
Hoover's report, are similar attempts to influence
the public toward an opinion.
These examples are not given to create the impression
that there is anything sinister about propaganda.
They are set down rather to illustrate how conscious
direction is given to events, and how the men behind
these events influence public opinion. As such they
are examples of modern propaganda. At this point
we may attempt to define propaganda.
Modern propaganda is a consistent, enduring effort
to create or shape events to influence the relations
of the public to an enterprise, idea or group.
This practice of creating circumstances and of
creating pictures in the minds of millions of persons
is very common. Virtually no important undertaking
is now carried on without it, whether that enterprise
be building a cathedral, endowing a university, marketing
a moving picture, floating a large bond issue,
or electing a president. Sometimes the effect on the
public is created by a professional propagandist,
sometimes by an amateur deputed for the job. The
important thing is that it is universal and continuous;
and in its sum total it is regimenting the public mind
every bit as much as an army regiments the bodies of
its soldiers.
So vast are the numbers of minds which can be
regimented, and so tenacious are they when regimented,
that a group at times offers an irresistible
pressure before which legislators, editors, and teachers
are helpless. The group will cling to its stereotype,
as Walter Lippmann calls it, making of those
supposedly powerful beings, the leaders of public
opinion, mere bits of driftwood in the surf. When
an Imperial Wizard, sensing what is perhaps hunger
for an ideal, offers a picture of a nation all Nordic
and nationalistic, the common man of the older
American stock, feeling himself elbowed out of his
rightful position and prosperity by the newer immi-
grant stocks, grasps the picture which fits in so neatly
with his prejudices, and makes it his own. He buys
the sheet and pillow-case costume, and bands with
his fellows by the thousand into a huge group
powerful enough to swing state elections and to
throw a ponderous monkey wrench into a national
convention.
In our present social organization approval of the
public is essential to any large undertaking. Hence
a laudable movement may be lost unless it impresses
itself on the public mind. Charity, as well as business,
and politics and literature, for that matter, have
had to adopt propaganda, for the public must be
regimented into giving money just as it must be regimented
into tuberculosis prophylaxis. The Near
East Relief, the Association for the Improvement of
the Condition of the Poor of New York, and all
the rest, have to work on public opinion just as
though they had tubes of tooth paste to sell. We
are proud of our diminishing infant death rate—and
that too is the work of propaganda.
Propaganda does exist on all sides of us, and it
does change our mental pictures of the world. Even
if this be unduly pessimistic—and that remains to
be proved—the opinion reflects a tendency that is
undoubtedly real. In fact, its use is growing as
its efficiency in gaining public support is recognized.
This then, evidently indicates the fact that any
one with sufficient influence can lead sections of the
public at least for a time and for a given purpose.
Formerly the rulers were the leaders. They laid
out the course of history, by the simple process of
doing what they wanted. And if nowadays the
successors of the rulers, those whose position or
ability gives them power, can no longer do what
they want without the approval of the masses,
they find in propaganda a tool which is increasingly
powerful in gaining that approval. Therefore, propaganda
is here to stay.
It was, of course, the astounding success of propaganda
during the war that opened the eyes of
the intelligent few in all departments of life to
the possibilities of regimenting the public mind.
The American government and numerous patriotic
agencies developed a technique which, to most persons
accustomed to bidding for public acceptance, was
new. They not only appealed to the individual by
means of every approach—visual, graphic, and auditory—
to support the national endeavor, but they also
secured the cooperation of the key men in every group
—persons whose mere word carried authority to hundreds
or thousands or hundreds of thousands of
followers. They thus automatically gained the support
of fraternal, religious, commercial, patriotic,
social and local groups whose members took their
opinions from their accustomed leaders and spokesmen,
or from the periodical publications which they
were accustomed to read and believe. At the same
time, the manipulators of patriotic opinion made use
of the mental cliches and the emotional habits of the
public to produce mass reactions against the alleged
atrocities, the terror and the tyranny of the enemy.
It was only natural, after the war ended, that intelligent
persons should ask themselves whether it was
not possible to apply a similar technique to the problems
of peace.
As a matter of fact, the practice of propaganda
since the war has assumed very different forms from
those prevalent twenty years ago. This new technique
may fairly be called the new propaganda.
It takes account not merely of the individual, nor
even of the mass mind alone, but also and especially
of the anatomy of society, with its interlocking group
formations and loyalties. It sees the individual
not only as a cell in the social organism but as a cell
organized into the social unit. Touch a nerve at a
sensitive spot and you get an automatic response
from certain specific members of the organism.
Business offers graphic examples of the effect that
may be produced upon the public by interested
groups, such as textile manufacturers losing their
markets. This problem arose, not long ago, when the
velvet manufacturers were facing ruin because their
product had long been out of fashion. Analysis
showed that it was impossible to revive a velvet fashion
within America. Anatomical hunt for the vital
spot! Paris! Obviously! But yes and no. Paris is
the home of fashion. Lyons is the home of silk. The
attack had to be made at the source. It was determined
to substitute purpose for chance and to utilize
the regular sources for fashion distribution and to
influence the public from these sources. A velvet
fashion service, openly supported by the manufacturers,
was organized. Its first function was to establish
contact with the Lyons manufactories and
the Paris couturiers to discover what they were doing,
to encourage them to act on behalf of velvet, and to
help in the proper exploitation of their wares. An
intelligent Parisian was enlisted in the work. He visited
Lanvin and Worth, Agnes and Patou, and others
and induced them to use velvet in their gowns and
hats. It was he who arranged for the distinguished
Countess This or Duchess That to wear the hat or the
gown. And as for the presentation of the idea to the
public, the American buyer or the American woman
of fashion was simply shown the velvet creations in
the atelier of the dressmaker or the milliner. She
bought the velvet because she liked it and because
it was in fashion.
The editors of the American magazines and fashion
reporters of the American newspapers, likewise
subjected to the actual (although created) circumstance,
reflected it in their news, which, in turn,
subjected the buyer and the consumer here to the
same influences. The result was that what was at
first a trickle of velvet became a flood. A demand
was slowly, but deliberately, created in Paris and
America. A big department store, aiming to be a
style leader, advertised velvet gowns and hats on the
authority of the French couturiers, and quoted original
cables received from them. The echo of the
new style note was heard from hundreds of department
stores throughout the country which wanted to
be style leaders too. Bulletins followed despatches.
The mail followed the cables. And the American
woman traveler appeared before the ship news photographers
in velvet gown and hat.
The created circumstances had their effect. "Fickle
fashion has veered to velvet," was one newspaper
comment. And the industry in the United States
again kept thousands busy.
The new propaganda, having regard to the constitution
of society as a whole, not infrequently serves
to focus and realize the desires of the masses. A
desire for a specific reform, however widespread,
cannot be translated into action until it is made articulate,
and until it has exerted sufficient pressure upon
the proper law-making bodies. Millions of housewives
may feel that manufactured foods deleterious
to health should be prohibited. But there
is little chance that their individual desires will be
translated into effective legal form unless their halfexpressed
demand can be organized, made vocal,
and concentrated upon the state legislature or upon
the Federal Congress in some mode which will pro-
duce the results they desire. Whether they realize
it or not, they call upon propaganda to organize and
effectuate their demand.
But clearly it is the intelligent minorities which
need to make use of propaganda continuously and
systematically. In the active proselytizing minorities
in whom selfish interests and public interests
coincide lie the progress and development of America.
Only through the active energy of the intelligent
few can the public at large become aware of and act
upon new ideas.
Small groups of persons can, and do, make the
rest of us think what they please about a given subject.
But there are usually proponents and opponents
of every propaganda, both of whom are equally
eager to convince the majority.