ORGANIZING CHAOS
Propaganda (1928)
by Edward Bernays
CHAPTER I
ORGANIZING CHAOS
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.
-cont. @ History is a Weapon
posted by Indigobusiness @ Friday, September 19, 2008
4 Comments
4 Comments:
I think that natural selection is operating among us as described - the proposition is a true one and scarcely conspirationalist. Neologisms apart, isn't it interesting to shine lights on the grotesque guignols in the human pantheon? Sometimes their scrawny necks spew from their suit collars and underneath, their flaccid white man breasts rise and fall with their rasping breath.
Anarchy could offer the antidote to rule by hierarchy if it ever managed to break out outside occasional side splitting banter sessions. Just give up the ghost man, that is, the holy ghost.
Z
OK, then. Done.
But, in the meantime of that grotesquery of preening Guignols (who obviously fancy themselves quite roguish and beguiling) we move as flocking birds, or frightened lemmings, in stampeded search of material salvation.
Yep - and flocks have shepherds, even free range sheep. You said birds and I say seagulls, I say those sheep are mine and I theirs, treachery is success's bedfellow and not shafting a mate is the best act in the Guignol's repertoire. On one level there lives a million assholes on Earth who are unmistakably each a kind of brother and sister.
Z
We're all bozos on this bus.
Even the puppeteers.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home