Kanye West Tells His Followers To Research Edward Bernays, The Father Of Propaganda

For the past month, rapper and producer Kanye West has been making headlines by saying things that celebrities aren't supposed to say. The controversy began last month when Kanye began posting support for Donald Trump on Twitter, and telling TMZ that "slavery was a choice." When asked to explain his statements, Kanye said his support for Trump has nothing to do with his policies, but the fact that he has opened the door for celebrities to become president, something that Kanye is interested in doing someday.

As far as his comments on slavery, Kanye explained that he was speaking about mental slavery, and how some people are unable to see the oppression that they experience in society. It seems that Kanye has spent the month researching to better articulate his points, because he dropped a bomb for his Twitter followers this week, suggesting that they research Edward Bernays, the father of propaganda.

 Public Relations, better known as advertising, is one of the most  important industries to reinvent itself in the 20th century and most  people actually know very little about it. It has changed the way we are  governed and has laid the foundation for our materialistic consumer  culture, as well as opened the floodgate for advanced psychological  warfare. From propaganda to deceptive marketing, the field of public relations  has allowed politicians and corporations to manipulate the desires and  opinions of the working class. 

These practices were put in place so the  ruling class could have better control over the much larger peasant  population. In the early 20th century, there was growing discontent among the  general public, who had finally become tired of being treated like  second class citizens. The people began to hold strikes, boycotts and  take any action they could to weaken the establishment, in hopes to  bring about a more humane society and working environment. This was bad  news for those in control because they need the cooperation of the  average person to build their empires and fill the ranks in their  armies. 

The government and corporations needed a more respectable image, and  that need gave rise to the public relations movement. There were many  minds that made this movement possible, but the field itself is most  typically associated with a man named Edward Bernays. Bernays is known  as the father of public relations not because he was the first or only  person to study propaganda, but rather because he was the first person  to explain its practical use in a published work.  Bernays was also the first person to use the term “public relations”  to describe the work of the propagandist. 

In his famous book bluntly  titled “Propaganda,” Bernays highlighted his own work and the works of  many other prominent figures in the public relations industry. It is  important to mention that Edward Bernays came from a very prominent  family in the field of psychology, as he was the nephew of Sigmund  Freud, the “father of psychology.” Freud’s discoveries about the human  unconscious were the basis of his nephew’s work. Bernays used what he  knew about the inner workings of the mind as a tool of persuasion to  control the masses through their subconscious. 

In “Propaganda” Bernays doesn’t even attempt to sugarcoat his sinister plan when he makes statements like this one: “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…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…who understand the mental processes  and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires that  control the public mind.” 

Before Bernays published “propaganda” in 1928, advertisements were  far less complicated than the ones that were seen after. 

While  advertisements in the past would just describe a product and its uses,  now they would appeal to the viewer’s subconscious fears and desires in  order to make a mental connection between product and consumer. Do you  ever wonder why commercials often times have absolutely nothing to do  with the product they are trying to sell? 

It is because they are trying to sell an image that you can relate to, not just a product.  

An unbelievable amount of thought, time and energy are put into every  advertisement. Just think about how much money a 30-second commercial  spot during the super bowl costs. These corporations know exactly what  they are doing. 

They are playing on your emotions and subconscious  through their advertisements so you buy their product, whether you want  to or not. Edward Bernays clients were some of the most successful  businesses of the time, thanks to Bernays cunning advertisements. Betty Crocker approached him when  they were having trouble selling their instant cake mix. Bernays  instructed them to change the recipe by adding an egg, which would make  the consumer feel that they weren’t just using an “instant mix.” Bernays  trick worked, and sales soared. 

His next client, however, was far less innocent. A short time after  the success with Betty Crocker, Bernays was approached by the American  Tobacco Company who was trying to figure out how to convince females to  smoke cigarettes. Apparently, at the time there was a stigma attached to  females smoking as it was not “lady like.”

 Bernays and the ATC wanted  to end this taboo and open up the tobacco market to the feminine half of  the human population, which would double sales. 

Bernays exploited the  women’s civil right struggle by making advertisements that claimed it  was liberating and empowering for women to smoke cigarettes. In his  advertisements, Bernays called cigarettes “torches of freedom” and  encouraged young feminists to “light up.” Again his deceptive marketing  worked and the American Tobacco Company doubled their revenue. These sentiments are echoed in Bernays work as well, 

In Propaganda, he writes “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……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.”  

This twisted world view was common among the intellectual elite at  the time and still resonates today through their teachings. “Propaganda”  actually wasn’t a bad word until it was picked up and used by Hitler,  who was an avid reader of the work coming from western PR experts. Prior  to Hitler, propaganda was a totally acceptable word that was used by  politicians and advertisers frequently.  

Below is the documentary that Kanye tweeted to his followers.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY:

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My name is John Vibes and I am an author and researcher who organizes a number of large events including the Free Your Mind Conference. I write for numerous alternative media websites, including The Free Thought Project @tftproject and The Mind Unleashed. In addition to my first book, Alchemy of the Timeless Renaissance, I have also co-authored three books with Derrick Broze @dbroze : The Conscious Resistance: Reflections on Anarchy and Spirituality, Finding Freedom in an Age of Confusion and Manifesto of the Free Humans

I just won a 3-year-long battle with cancer, and will be working to help others through my experience, if you wish to contribute to my medical bills, consider subscribing to my podcast on Patreon.