Is 'Propaganda' The Most Corrupted And Twisted Word Ever? A Look At Edward Bernays & The History Of Mass Hypnosis
A few weeks ago someone accused me of writing propaganda in a conversation and I was all ready to explain why what I was saying was accurate and backed up by evidence when I decided to look up the word 'propaganda' in a dictionary. To my total surprise I learned that the word is actually neutral and essentially means "the spreading of ideas" - there is no requirement for the ideas to be false/lies for the act to correctly be called 'propaganda'. Today I started reading the book 'Propaganda' by Edward Bernays (Sigmund Freud's nephew) for more insights...
Edward Bernays was perhaps the most successful 'PR' expert and mass manipulator of the 1900s. As the nephew of famous (and controversial) psychologist Sigmund Freud he had a strong background from which to draw when it came to studying human psychology and he chose to use it to manipulate us! His book 'Propaganda' was a kind of advertising tool, itself intended to convey to potential customers in governments and corporations why his services were needed and why they were a good thing.
He, like many of today's empire builders and controllers, concluded that most people are too unconscious and stuck in 'herd' mentality to be able to be trusted with the power of democracy. He reasoned that if people were so easily distracted and unable to ask important questions, then they would effectively destroy society by their ignorant voting and actions. Therefore, Bernays said, we need to have an invisible government that uses all manner of methods to 'guide' people into acting as the most 'qualified' in society decide they should act, but in such a way that the people never realise that they aren't making their own decisions.
As fascinating as this book is, the history of the word 'propaganda' is my topic here today though. The start of the book covers this topic specifically and makes clear how the word came to evolve from being a neutral word meaning to 'spread ideas' to being one that means 'misleading / treacherous' spreading of ideas.
The Propaganda of Propaganda
The word has a religious origin in Catholicism, according to some sources - where it relates to 'propagate', meaning to 'spread' (as with 'sow seeds'). The idea was that the 'wise church' would lead the people to (their version of) truth, in a good way and would therefore be propagandists, spreading truth (not lies). While many would say that this connection just re-enforces the current common meaning of the word as being related to lies, the point is that at least from the perspective of the people spreading the ideas, the intention was not to lie (maybe). The word was so uncommon in use up until the time of World War 1 that it didn't appear in the Encyclopedia Britannica at all.
This all changed during the World Wars though, as the governments on all sides made use of newly emerging media technologies to fully spread their ideas to their own people and that of their 'enemies'. This is where the situation gets weirdly ironic.
The American military made such use of the word propaganda when describing 'idea spreading' done by the Germans that people began to associate the word 'propaganda' only with 'bad' and 'deception'. The Americans never used the word 'propaganda' when referring to their own 'idea spreading' and so the neutrality of the word was lost. Propaganda itself became a victim of the propagandists!
When soldiers returned from war and the people gradually realised that they had been lied to by their own 'leaders' and government, they started to label the messages that they had been fed as propaganda too - retaining the negative connotation.
Bernays Attempts Damage Limitation
Since Edward Bernays was in the business of controlling people remotely while trying to appear honest and legitimate, he put considerable effort into trying to rebrand the word 'propaganda' back to it's original meaning. Unfortunately for him though, he appears to have actually really believed that 'people are dumb' and thus that he and his cronies legitimately should try to control them from the shadows and thus for any neutral observer he appeared to only be reinforcing the negative meaning of 'propaganda'. He was not helped by his work with Tobacco companies and countless others, misleading the world for profit!
There's a lot more to be said on this topic and how it applies to our modern world, politics and media systems - but for now I just want to pass on the reality that 'propaganda' is not what we've been led to believe! ;)
Wishing you well,
Ura Soul
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Yes. The language of words creates so many misunderstandings. But that is the world we are living in these days: 'I judge you by your words, not your deeds'.
Words are just the tip of the iceberg, but the largest part of the construct lies beneath the word, our Intention. Too often people we interprete others' words according to our very own personal meaning we give these words, to the extend that we victimize our entire emotional well-being to a superficial word used by someone, without seeing that it is OUR OWN emotional quagmire which causes our misery.
But what a great response that you looked up the actual original definition of the word "propaganda" after having been 'pillorized' wit his word by another user. The perfect way to direct rather negative energy into a creative endeavor! :)
If you look up this word in Wiki it specifically states to propagate information to the masses for gov't benefit. This is how far the apple has fallen from the tree and it's original meaning. But the Bernay's affect still looms when those who spread it are still gov'ts and their masters, the media and central wankers. But it's true none of it actually implies deception. We just all assume now (since WWII) that it does. Kinda Freudian if you ask me ;)
After witnessing the march against common sense led by the media and education system I am prone to agree, or if said more kindly I believe most are scared to do any thinking for themselves. The majority prefer their experts, and will deny reality to be led by them. Will ignore the abuse of their neighbors, their families, their own selves to have these leaders make all the decisions. It does lead one into questioning the wisdom of a full blown democracy. The minute a group sees the opportunity to reach into my pocket with their experts soldiers helping, they always seem to justify it.
My research ultimately points towards an almost total domination of the collective consciousness by those self elected leaders and their cronies - who have used Edward Bernays' logic with scientific precision. I think many of the patterns you have identified have been carefully engineered over generations through covert means to be present in quite a lot of people; though some are, certainly, traumatised through other means and end up the same way anyway.
The judgement that 'people are dumb' hides the actual mechanics of why the unconsciousness and will-less-ness is so common and we need to understand the wider causes if we are to understand much at all here. Denial is indeed a core issue, but we need to be very careful not to be involved in it's perpetuation by reinforcing the judgements that over simplify reality and keep us separated from important understandings.
In short, those who seek to exploit a weakened population are highly active in maintaining that weakness to ensure their own artificial power position in maintained.
As far as democracy goes - the only valid form of democracy for me is direct democracy and I am clear that the totally fake and controlled representational democracy is itself a deliberate creation of the very groups we know to manipulate us from the level of 'invisible government'!
I have my own theory on what is taking place based on research and self experimentation. I wrote about it in this post not long after I joined a month ago, if you would be interested in reading it. I have been fascinated with perception since I was a kid, and stumbled across some different ideas.
https://steemit.com/philosophy/@practicalthought/forgetting-to-remember
I'll check it out, thanks!
....concluded that most people are too unconscious and stuck in 'herd' mentality to be able to be trusted with the power of democracy.
...the older I get, the more I see this being the case, unfortunately.
Direct democracy ensures active participation and, to some degree, the people participating will be the ones talking to each other.
The ones where thinking is a normal part of daily activity.
... not slowly decaying, watching tv...
Great post
I upvoted this, as upvoting something a month old, doesn't really help anyone!
As somebody (if anyone knows please tell me who!) once said to this effect, "madness is rare in individuals, but in groups, parties nations, and ages it is the rule." I think this is apposite to your conversation and to your point, since clearly individuals are generally speaking intelligent enough to lead their own lives better than any central authority can govern them to, and Aristotelian democracy (if you give it any credit as it is direct democracy but for an elite, the citizens, while the majority of society didn't belong to the political community) is based on the principal that individualism produces the best collective decisions over time. So people must have been bred to be stupid if either of these evidences no longer stand. We do know that lemarkian euthenical breeding can produce such change within a single generation of offspring. By the same token this can be reversed.
Life and death is by the tongue, moreover when smart and ruthless propaganda is used. Thank you for this great lesson.
The oblique paradox of propaganda is that the lie in the throat becomes, by repetition, the truth in the heart.
The BBC documentary series, The Century of Self, looks at the progression of ideas and their applications from Freud through to Bernays - it's definitely worth watching.
I saw the documentation recently (again) as a preparation for my marketing lecture. It´s really awesome and an eye opener.
but the thing is ....
its a small thing yet so big :p
Thanks for share such a nice post. Really i appreciate you.
Great post, and yes in my opinion the current governments of all over the world are manipulative towards their people and influencing them and the common people also not standing for their rights and that's why the influence is spreading very easily. Thanks for sharing and wishing you an great day. Stay blessed. 🙂
The burning question is, who influences governments?
Its astonishing to see that most people believe that their government cares about them, and would never mistreat them.
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts completely.
In my opinion the truth is absolutely reverse, means they don't care they just pretend.
Curated for #informationwar (by @truthforce)
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