...and the winner is

Of the two, I definitely favored Bernays writing style. On a general note, his writing style was easier for me to relate to and I just found him to be a lot more personable. The examples he used were good because they really showed the range in which rhetoric has its effects. I also liked how he used analogies that related the practice of manipulating opinions/ rhetoric to a play. And essentially, that’s what it is, a calculated, practiced, persuasive act.

However, on making a clear point, Lippmann does a little better than Bernays. I wasn’t a huge fan of Lippmann's tone, but I do think he made some really valid points. There was one in particular that really got my attention. He wrote something about how the American public tends to let decisions be made by people we feel are apt enough to make them. We don’t trust ourselves enough to make decisions because we don’t feel that we are educated enough to make the right choice. Apart from being a very interesting observation, it exposes a problem. Let’s say that the general public is by far the largest demographic. This leaves a very small group of “elite” decision makers. The problem? By leaving just a select few to make all the decisions, we are undermining the whole idea of democracy. Of all the different scare and shame tactics that Lippmann tried to use, I liked this one the best.

The most interesting thing to me about these articles, however, was the relevancy. They were both written nearly a century ago, but they still carry a lot of weight in our society. I guess we'll just call it a draw.