"Commercials don't work on me."
I'm one of those people who thinks I'm too smart to be influenced by propaganda. But revelations prove how wrong I am, time and again.
Mind control for political as well as commercial purposes is an ancient art, but in the 20th Century it became a science, founded and propelled by Freud's nephew, Edward Bernays. Bernays believed in a paternalistic social order, because ordinary people lack the judgment to make decisions in a complex society. He thought too much democracy was a dangerous thing, and evolved techniques for managing public opinion. Bernays wrote a book on Propaganda, and when the word developed negative connotations, he invented Public Relations.
Since the 1970s, the science of propaganda has become devastatingly effective. In the 21st Century, it has been individualized with devices that collect information about us, so as better to sell to us and to influence our minds beneath the level at which we can evaluate rationally.
I'm writing this because I don't trust the people who are using this technology, and I'd rather trust you. Understand propaganda so you begin a long process of liberating your independent thinking.
Abby Martin interviews Mark Crispin Miller
And if you think you're already an independent thinker,
consider that that's exactly what They want you to think.
In the 1920s, Edward Bernays devised a campaign to convince women that smoking was a way they could assert their independence.
"We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of." -- Edward Bernays
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