Bernays: Your Friend & Mine!

I could easily a see a knee-jerk reaction to what Bernays writes, so I'll write against that.

There is a definite tendency to negatively perceive the notions of propaganda and manipulation. Certainly these methods can, have, and will be used for the wrong purposes. In fact it was mentioned in class that wrongful manipulation of the public has been a problem since the days of Socrates. Plato wrote a work entitled "Gorgias" that basically shows that there are some people who consciously exist outside the common realm of logic, reason, and decency, and that knowingly and willfully use rhetoric to get what they want out of a situation, no matter how wrong that seems to the rest of us.

But really, that isn't everyone who gets up to a podium.

Firstly, we can sometimes overlook the fact that not everyone who wants to use propaganda to manipulate the audience is good at doing it. Actually, I think most people are very bad at it-- those are the people doing three-hour infomercials about the Egg Wave in the middle of the night. Yes, we can cut our way through ninety percent of the crap if we keep our minds attentive, and that goes for politics as well. There are probably only a handful of corporations and politicians who really know how to play the game, and people like that will always find a way of getting what they want. They always have.

But there really are GOOD uses for Bernays' tactics such as using "manipulation" to convince someone that Physics explains motion & energy and not their crazy parents or a magical talking bird. Bernays gives an example of a "proper" use of his ideas. The example is in reference to the Civil Rights movement, and how to overcome the obstacle of convincing all those die hard racists that racism is bad. Case in point, Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech is not hinged on reason, necessarily, but on "manipulative" rhetoric. There are good, responsible people in the world that could make use of these methods to work against what the bad people do with them. Logic and reason can't always work because logic and reason aren't the best persuasive tools. Fear and flattery are.

Furthermore, writers of any genre can make use of Bernays' concept of "manipulation" for everyone's benefit. A reader can be entertained, a writer can make money and have the pleasure of pleasing. In fact, it's likely that most successful writers are highly conscious of when and when not to use certain words. That in itself is manipulation because it is twisting a description or situation to get a particular emotional response. If you use sophisticated ways of leading your audience in order to create a mood, what do you call that? Do you call that scary? Do you call it ethically questionable? Personally, I call it craftsmanship.