The H Word

The H word! Someone remind me of the H word that Dr. Mahoney put on the board today because I didn't write it down!

That is what Bernays article reminds me of. He seems to be saying that to persuade public opinion you must get certain groups to agree with something and by doing that, it is possible to get other groups to believe the same thing. First, sell a new product to upscale companies and convince important people to wear or use it, then the general public will see that this product is important in some way and that to be great too, or fashionable, or smart, they should buy it.

Yeah.

And for Lippmann, all I could think of was voting, or not voting- as it is. I voted as an immature, partially lazy 19-year-old and went with the popular opinion of those surrounding my life. I was scared about war and scared that it would come here if we took the guy who started the whole thing out of office, but I didn't look up any facts. I didn't worry about who said they would lower tuition, or participate in the important things that will help the environment, or even what Kerry intended to do about the war. I went with my gut-- my gut and those around me who felt the same way. Lippmann's article was right and so I listened and when he mentioned that most people admit that they don't really care about the election, I agreed.

Each of these men has a strong idea about how the general public thinks, what they think about and who has the power to change their thought. It isn't my favorite kind of reading, but looking at what I've learned, it was pretty interesting.