Skip to main content

Book Club: Propaganda by Edward Bernays

Link to PDF

Link to epub

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.

The voice of the people expresses the mind of the people, and that mind is made up for it by the group leaders in whom it believes and by those persons who understand the manipulation of public opinion.

Edward Bernays is the tribal father of Public Relations, best known for selling cigarettes to feminists. Propaganda is a polemic for the role of propaganda in civil society and a sales pitch for his services.

Bernays takes a page from Pareto in modelling society as divided between a decision-making elite and those under their influence. This natural divide presents itself across various domains, from fashion to politics. Propaganda, he argues, is a critical tool in the arsenal of leadership and an essential aspect of organising civil society.

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.

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.

It was found too that four groups might help to change hat fashions: the society leader, the style expert, the fashion editor and writer, the artist who might give artistic approval to the styles, and beautiful mannequins.

By identifying where his client’s interests intersect with the relevant group-think leader, Bernays produces a propaganda campaign. This campaign must coordinate its impact from multiple angles; Bernays describes this as an application of the psychological sciences (science by its older meaning - a field of knowledge). A pattern to his technique emerges: identify the authority figures, what makes it appealing and how human emotional life can be tied in.

A number of familiar psychological motives were set in motion in the carrying out of this campaign. The aesthetic, the competitive, the gregarious, the snobbish (the impulse to follow the example of a recognized leader), the exhibitionist, and—last but by no means least—the maternal.

The book sells the role of Public Relations throughout its pages. The book proposed it as a solution to the race-to-the-bottom style of margin-cutting competition. Where consumers would benefit from lowered prices, companies can instead compete to sell an image by employing sophisticated advertising campaigns.

While advertising the field, Bernays uses both the carrot and the stick. He warns businesses of the dangers of the public’s mood swings. Without a well-paid consultant directing a company’s reputation, they may find themselves at the mob’s whims.

If today big business were to seek to throttle the public, a new reaction similar to that of twenty years ago would take place and the public would rise and try to throttle big business with restrictive laws. Business is conscious of the public’s conscience. This consciousness has led to a healthy cooperation.

And it is my conviction that as big business becomes bigger the need for expert manipulation of its innumerable contacts with the public will become greater.

I believe that competition in the future will not be only an advertising competition between individual products or between big associations, but that it will in addition be a competition of propaganda.

Bernay’s foretold propaganda-based competition shares a possible explanation for the state of corporate media today. The internet saw a relative calm before the onset of mass advertising, which would sanitise social media to maximise corporate image. Just as social media became increasingly artificial, the advertised moral and ideological positions have taken on increasing extremes. Could this attempt to compete by morally out-doing one another be the topsoil in which Woke Capital has grown?

Our author, famous for associating cigarettes with the women’s suffrage movement, has some interesting observations regarding how women have organised politically.

Women organised themselves and projected political power through their various clubs. Women built these clubs around hobbies or activities. The particular niche doesn’t seem of importance. What would begin as a club pushing for funding or policies directly relevant to their pursuit would soon become a mechanism for women to express power and influence society. After breaking through the societal inertia, they would entirely reshape society.

In the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, there are 13,000 clubs. Broadly classified, they include civic and city clubs, mothers’ and homemakers’ clubs, cultural clubs devoted to art, music or literature, business and professional women’s clubs, and general women’s clubs, which may embrace either civic or community phases, or combine some of the other activities listed.

More important, it constitutes an organized channel through which women can make themselves felt as a definite part of public opinion.

The great enemy of any attempt to change men’s habits is inertia. Civilization is limited by inertia.

Although the women’s clubs were not explicitly political, they came to wield significant political power. The many disenfranchised young men of today should take note of this as building similar groups is the first step towards re-asserting their societal position.

Films are named the latest and greatest in propaganda technology, and the same rings true today. Through YouTube, Odysee and Twitch, the video format has only gained popularity. Video games are also a novelty and have had a sizeable impact, particularly on today’s young men. However, its impact is particularly limited to this demographic.

The Dissident Right literature revival has brought fresh ideas and energy to an otherwise deeply stagnated landscape, even if still firmly within the underground. I hope to see this energy spread and similarly re-invigorate film and gaming.

If I were in his place I should have taken some of my brightest young men and set them to work for Broadway theatrical productions or apprenticed them as assistants to professional propagandists before recruiting them to the service of the party.

The American motion picture is the greatest unconscious carrier of propaganda in the world today. It is a great distributor for ideas and opinions.

Propaganda ends on a solid (perhaps even based, if I dare say) piece of advice and an appeal to the unavoidable reality of propaganda.

“If you are not capable of managing your own wife,” was the reply, “the people will certainly believe that you are not capable of managing their money.”

Propaganda will never die out. Intelligent men must realize that propaganda is the modern instrument by which they can fight for productive ends and help to bring order out of chaos.

Having finished the book, I’m left reflecting on the role of propaganda in leadership. Society has fallen under the sway of the mentally ill, who enjoy active promotion across all major forms of media. Is our current situation a failure to maintain a positive vision reinforced by effective propaganda for ordinary people?