Edward Bernays ‘The Father of Pubic relations’. (November 22, 1891 – March 9, 1995)
“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.
Edward Bernays ‘Propaganda’ 1928 pg 37.
“Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government.”
Edward Bernays ‘Propaganda’ 1928 pg 48.
“If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without them knowing it.”
Page 71 (1928 edition?)
“Goebbels was using my book ‘Crystallizing Public Opinion’ as a basis for his destructive campaign against the Jews of Germany. This shocked me.”
Edward Bernays
And why We @ Eternal Vigilance bother to blog…
“The best defense against propaganda: more propaganda.”
Edward Bernays
That’s just what he wants you to believe.
Its true though Reed, because the battlefront is in the mind and it is an Ideological war.
Goebbells whom was a master of Propaganda was in awe of Churchill… who was perhapse the greatest Propagandist of them all.
Many people mistake the term ‘Propaganda’ to mean ‘Bullshit’. This is not true. Propaganda can be Good and true… or falce.
Its all in the speeches.
How would you suggest combatting Propaganda?
By my understanding the idea “Propaganda” includes… deceit, repetition, fallacious reasoning, manipulation, repetition; and it appeals to:- emotional thinking, lust, greed, envy, hatred, fear and repetition.
If we subtract the bad things from the idea of propaganda then what is left?
Not much.
I don’t consider your writings to be propaganda.
If we could, should we control and regiment the masses according to our good will without them knowing it?
What’s good for the goose is good for the ‘ganda.
Reed,
One mans truth are ‘Lies’ to those who don’t agree… thus one person will say… “that is a wonderful exposition”…another will say “ that is Dirty Propaganda!”
This has tended to make people think the term is inseparable from subversion and deceit.
Yet Look at those quotes above at how Bernays responded to the Idea that Evil men (The Nazis) were using his book for evil ends.
He shows us that his personal notion of how propaganda ought to be used was as a means of swaying public opinion in a democracy towards supporting Good political policy, and that to use it to present perverse politics by telling lies *is Evil*.
The Idea of Propaganda actually stems from the Christian church’s ‘Propagation’ of the Gospel… ‘Growing Believers’.
This is what we are doing @ Eternal Vigilance… to what level of success is irrelevant.
Propaganda is Value-loaded persuasion attempting to propagate ‘beliefs’… attempting to sway an audience (Population/ mass) to a certain point of view… trying to get them to choose a particular side of an argument over the others.
This ought to be by preaching the truth and making appeals to Ethical Ideals, yet sadly can also be done by preaching lies and appealing to popular phobias and prejudices.
‘Propaganda’ is commonly mistaken to be the preserve of ‘Governments’, yet as we well know Opposition parties are just as busy as those in power in trying to sway the Masses…even if they have no seats in parliament. (Therefore as an Independent Politician opposed to the status quo I fit into this category as a Propagandist)
Lets look at a few quotes from Wikipedia…
Propaganda…
“…is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position.”
“As opposed to impartially providing information, propaganda, in its most basic sense, presents information primarily to influence an audience. Propaganda often presents facts selectively (thus possibly lying by omission) to encourage a particular synthesis, or uses loaded messages to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented. The desired result is a change of the attitude toward the subject in the target audience to further a political agenda. Propaganda can be used as a form of political warfare.”
*And YET…*
“While the term propaganda has acquired a strongly negative connotation by association with its most manipulative and jingoistic examples, propaganda in its original sense was neutral, and could refer to uses that were generally benign or innocuous, such as public health recommendations, signs encouraging citizens to participate in a census or election, or messages encouraging persons to report crimes to the police, among others….”
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To understand the vital roll of Propaganda in a Democracy or in fermenting a revolution is vital.
The Libertarianz Party Correctly realized that while it would be great to get Libertarianz into parliament that it was more important to get *our policies in* thus the Libz Party was doing very well at getting the debates to include Libertarian arguments, and putting pressure on the status quo. This way they were able to mitigate what happened in parliament though they were not even present… ie I believe Nanny state would be a lot worse today had it not been for the efforts of that tiny regiment of vocal freedom fighters.
And here we see the truth in what Bernays says regarding the power of Propaganda to influence society… even though we are not in power!… We have true social power because we are at work where the true power is that underpins Democracy… We have the invisible powers that struggles and win victories in the minds of the masses. Thus we ought to never to underestimate our power as Propagandists for freedom and justice, nor take defeat at the polls as evidence that our energies have expended been in vain. We are Sowers of seeds… The minds of the Masses are the mission field… Let us never shrink from our mission!
Tim Wikiriwhi
Whether it is : 9/11 official account; Colin Powell with the tiny vial of yellow cake uranium; Bush and Cheney saying Iraq has WMD’s, Sandy Hook hoax; the Boston Bombing exercise; or the current “bush-it” being spouted by Obama that the Russian’s shot down Malaysian MH 17, its all propaganda that can be summed up simply as ” 2 + 2 = 5 “.Art can be used to effect and open the minds of the masses and its an honor to do so.