Mercury Rising 鳯女

John Pilger:

Edward Bernays, the American nephew of Sigmund Freud, is said to have invented modern propaganda. During the First World War, he was one of a group of influential liberals who mounted a secret government campaign to persuade reluctant Americans to send an army to the bloodbath in Europe. In his book, “Propaganda,” published in 1928, Bernays wrote that the “intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses was an important element in democratic society” and that the manipulators “constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power in our country.” Instead of propaganda, he coined the euphemism “public relations.”

The American tobacco industry hired Bernays to convince women they should smoke in public. By associating smoking with women’s liberation, he made cigarettes “torches of freedom.” In 1954, he conjured a communist menace in Guatemala as an excuse for overthrowing the democratically-elected government, whose social reforms were threatening the United Fruit company’s monopoly of the banana trade. He called it a “liberation.”

One should note that what Pilger calls elite liberalism is actually oligarchy. And it should be noted that long before 1917, manipulation of public opinion in the name of the greater good was well-established. Wikipedia:

Propaganda has been a human activity as far back as reliable recorded evidence exists. The Behistun Inscription (c. 515 BC) detailing the rise of Darius I to the Persian throne, can be seen as an early example of propaganda. The Arthashastra written by Chanakya (c. 350 – 283 BC), a professor of political science at Takshashila University and a prime minister of the Maurya Empire in ancient India, discusses propaganda in detail, such as how to spread propaganda and how to apply it in warfare. His student Chandragupta Maurya (c. 340 – 293 BC), founder of the Maurya Empire, employed these methods during his rise to power. The writings of Romans such as Livy (c. 59 BC – 17 AD) are considered masterpieces of pro-Roman propaganda.

In other words, the massification of public manipulation is simply a development of early 20th century scientism. Just as Henry Ford applied it to manufacturing cars, Bernays took advertising and applied it to manufacturing opinion.

But this tale is a caution for today, as Pilger recites just how badly we have been deceived on Iraq, on the bank bailout, and on the New Democrat paradigm. The fact that Bernays thought that what he was doing was in the public good– and, in the case of World War I, may well have been– tells us that when the power of government is turned to a task, there needs to be close oversight to make sure that it is not turned to evil.

Pilger does close on this note:

Of course, the good news is that false realities often fail when the public trusts its own critical intelligence, not the media. Two classified documents recently released by WikiLeaks express the CIA’s concern that the populations of European countries, which oppose their governments’ war policies, are not succumbing to the usual propaganda spun through the media. For the rulers of the world, this is a conundrum, because their unaccountable power rests on the false reality that no popular resistance works. And it does.