Propaganda

“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.”

Aside from being a metaphorical reference to the invisible government, the importance of this passage is that it is a primary example of the technical language register employed by Bernays. The reference to the mechanical components—electrical wires and harness—suggests two different periods in history.

“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.”

This passage is important because it betrays Bernays’s tendency toward a benign sort of despotism or at least an ambiguity about democracy. In the first sentence, he suggests that perhaps it would be easier or more efficient to adopt a more autocratic class to lord over us, which is An Endorsement of Elitism. In the second sentence, he seems resigned to democracy and competition.

“The instruments by which public opinion is organized and focused may be misused. But such organization and focusing are necessary to orderly life.”

This passage promotes a value-free conception of propaganda as a tool or a technology made for everyday use. In other words, one can’t abandon progress because there is minimal risk that someone will misuse it. In Bernays’s view, the good—organizing and focusing messages to the public—outweighs the possible misuse of propaganda.

“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.”

Bernays asserts that civilization is advancing into an increasingly technological era. This progress is challenging because the additional floods of information will confuse the masses, while the parallel improvement in technical advancement will reduce the noise, producing clarity. The invisible government is working behind the scenes to make these connections.

“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.”

What is implicit and important in this statement, for Bernays, is the assumption that the public mind can indeed be controlled and whether that skilled “pleader” can do so with such precision. In this case, the pleader would need to understand how the mechanism works or whether it works at all.

“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.’”

Bernays views propaganda as value-free and not weighted with either a positive or a negative charge. In other words, propaganda is a technology and a tool to employ in daily life. It is only the baggage of custom that would cast shade on propaganda, just as the term suffered following its use during World War I.

“A presidential candidate may be ‘drafted’ in response to ‘overwhelming popular demand,’ but it is well known that his name may be decided upon by half a dozen men sitting around a table in a hotel room.”

This is an arresting passage because the detail and activity suggest a crime is taking place. The half dozen men sitting around a table in a hotel room are also reminiscent of Bernays’s poker table in the green house. In either case, there is too much detail, at least in comparison to the shadowy, unseen members of The Myth of the Invisible Government. The metaphor or myth is perfectly sensible in the narrative and serves to corroborate Bernay’s thesis.

“In some instances the power of invisible wirepullers is flagrant. The power of the invisible cabinet which deliberated at the poker table in a certain little green house in Washington has become a national legend.”

This passage points to a moment in the text where it becomes clear that The Myth of the Invisible Government is just that, a myth or a metaphor. The inconsistency shown here is the specific detail used to describe the poker table and the little green house, even while there is no evidence provided whatsoever about the identity of the shadowy intellectual minority.

“There are invisible rulers who control the destinies of millions. It is not generally realized to what extent the words and actions of our most influential public men are dictated by shrewd persons operating behind the scenes.”

The hyperbolic word choice—destinies of millions, shrewd persons—is intended to mystify and further intrigue the reader about the shadowy invisible government. The import of the passage is ominous, and that must be by design.

“Public opinion is the unacknowledged partner in all broad efforts.”

This sentence is easily misinterpreted upon first reading because Bernays has been arguing that public opinion is not a legitimate partner since it is created and shaped by an invisible government and through no volition of its own. However, this is also an acknowledgment of the dual communication between the public and the client or entity. If the public becomes apathetic, the relationship breaks down, and that is why the public, in this instance, matters significantly.

“Because man is by nature gregarious he feels himself to be member of a herd, even when he is alone in his room with the curtains drawn. His mind retains the patterns which have been stamped on it by the group influences.”

This quote is a reference to the work of Wilfred Trotter, who studied the herd instinct in humans. Trotter theorized that even individuals separated from the herd are influenced by the views of the group. The herd instinct, for Trotter, functioned as a binding mechanism.

“A man sits in his office deciding what stocks to buy. He imagines, no doubt, that he is planning his purchases according to his own judgment. In actual fact his judgment is a mélange of impressions stamped on his mind by outside influences which unconsciously control his thought.”

This statement is a specific example of Trotter’s herd instinct. Humans imagine that they are making independently decided choices, but they cannot help but be influenced by the opinions that have been shaped by their group experience.

“The ideas of the new propaganda are predicated on sound psychology based on enlightened self-interest.”

This sentence is noteworthy simply because of the abstraction of its jargon—new propaganda, sound technology, enlightened self-interest. The adjective “sound” is interesting because of its different meanings, and the adjective-noun combination “enlightened self-interest” is a little too bold and bright. Bernays's use of the technical language register is intended to sound sophisticated and lofty.

“The public has its own standards and demands and habits. You may modify them, but you dare not run counter to them. […] The public is not an amorphous mass which can be molded at will, or dictated to. Both business and the public have their own personalities which must somehow be brought into friendly agreement.”

This passage shows the reciprocal action between propaganda and the public. Even though Bernays leaves the reader with the impression that there is no escape from thought manipulation by some shadowy cabal, in this passage, the amorphous mass has agency. The ideal would be the dramatization of personalities and a felicitous engagement.

“The success of such issues depends upon the general record of the concern in the business world, and also upon the good will which it has been able to create in the general public.”

This passage emphasizes the importance of the reciprocal relationship between the business and the public, and one depends on the other. Without the goodwill of the public, the business will not be able to expand as it wishes to do. Hence, there is the necessity of the general record of concern.

“Amusement, too, is a business—one of the largest in America. It was the amusement business—first the circus and the medicine show, then the theater—which taught the rudiments of advertising to industry and commerce. The latter adopted the ballyhoo of the show business. But under the stress of practical experience it adapted and refined these crude advertising methods to the precise ends it sought to obtain. The theater has, in its turn, learned from business, and has refined its publicity methods to the point where the old stentorian methods are in the discard.”

In this passage, Bernays reveals the communication between different registers of social life in politics, business, and art. He highlights how, in this modern era, there has been a general movement from the brash amusements of the medicine show and the theater to a more refined communication that is more fluid and efficient, that is, the flow of benign propaganda.

“An automaton cannot arouse the public interest. A leader, a fighter, a dictator, can. But, given our present political conditions under which every office seeker must cater to the vote of the masses, the only means by which the born leader can lead is the expert use of propaganda.”

The import of this statement is based on the fact that Bernays is talking about a democracy, albeit a hierarchical one. Therefore, a dictator, fighter, or even a leader will be constrained from leading by the necessity of portraying oneself favorably to gain votes. In other words, the only option possible for a leader is to be skilled at propaganda.

“Many of our leading universities rightly feel that the results of their scholarly researches should not only be presented to libraries and learned publications, but should also, where practicable and useful, be given to the public in the dramatic form which the public can understand.”

The author would prefer if there were more interest and thus more support for education. However, it is a simple fact of higher education that scholarly journal articles are not found on grocery store newsstands. Bernays wrote at a time when most people were not college-educated, but he is vague about the type of “dramatic form” that would be understood by the public.

“Social service, in fact, is identical with propaganda in many cases.”

This statement is important because it serves one of the purposes of the text and that is to redeem the term “propaganda” from the negative press it received in the years before the book was published. Bernays asserts that social service is harmless, and if social service is propaganda, then propaganda is also harmless.

“Propaganda assists in marketing new inventions. Propaganda, by repeatedly interpreting new scientific ideas and inventions to the public, has made the public more receptive. Propaganda is accustoming the public to change and progress.”

Sometimes, technology—here designated as propaganda—moves ahead of the public’s comfort level. For example, this happens in the art of the avant-garde, where the new is associated with noise. However, the communication prompted by propaganda assists in moving society forward by introducing and acclimatizing the public to new ideas. That which is strange and unknown becomes normal and familiar through propaganda.

“There is no means of human communication which may not also be a means of deliberate propaganda, because propaganda is simply the establishing of reciprocal understanding between an individual and a group.”

One of Bernays’s objectives in this text was to redeem the technical meaning of the word “propaganda” after it fell into ill repute following World War I. This sentence is deliberately disarming because it oversimplifies the mechanism of propaganda as that of reciprocal communication.

“The public instinctively demands a personality to typify a conspicuous corporation or enterprise.”

There are at least two interpretations of this quote, and it is the combination of meanings that makes it particularly relevant. The compulsion to anthropomorphize an industrial entity, that is, to designate a personality to a corporation or a factory, seems, in one sense, primitive. However, the desire to see a personality or image associated with something is a sign of heightened communication, which is facilitated by propaganda.

“If the public becomes more intelligent in its commercial demands, commercial firms will meet the new standards. If it becomes weary of the old methods used to persuade it to accept a given idea or commodity, its leaders will present their appeals more intelligently.”

The reaction to this quotation is connected to what one thinks about the invisible government. If the public disregards a message either from lack of interest or concern, Bernays asserts the intellectual minority will simply respond with greater alacrity. Propagandists will simply find newer, savvier ways to present their messaging.