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Propaganda, Edward Bernays, 1928 - ch 1
Propaganda (1928)
by Edward Bernays
CHAPTER I
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ORGANIZING CHAOS
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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 increas ingly 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 ethical, 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 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 Convention 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.
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