Manipulating the Public Opinion

I'm going to follow the train of apologies recently and ask for the same type of forgiveness from all of you. I originally planned to blog before the last class, but time did not prove to be on my side and ulitmately got the best of me--and then procrastination got the better of me before I finally posted this. I'm sorry. Here are my thoughts to the articles that we were supposed to read for last class--The Disenchantment Man and Manipulation the Public Opinion. We didn't discuss them in too much detail, though, so these thoughts should still prove to be relevant.

Anyway, getting to the two articles. I don't think I can thoroughly explain what I read, but I did, however, highlight some material that I think can add to the debate.

In the Disenchanted Man I hightlighted text that hits hard. "To the realm of executive acts, each of us, as a member of the public, reamains always external. Our public opinions are always and forever, by their very nature, an attempt to control the actions of others from the outside. If we can grasp the full significance of that conclusion we shall, I think, have found a way of fixing the role of public opinion in its true perspective; we shall know how to account for the disenchantment of democracy, and we shall begin to see the outline of an ideal of public opinion which, unlike that accepted in the dogma of democracy, may be really attainable." (pg. 41)

If our we can grasp our public opinions, thereby controlling the actions of others, then we can attain a purity that had not been shown in some time--I'm not sure how long that time goes back to, but I'm assuming that it's a very, very, very, very, long time.

In Bernays Manipulating the Public Opinion, there were also a few things that I believed to be important in the discussion.

"One method of changing people's ideas has been often used, and that is to substitute new ideas for old by changing cliches." (pg. 57)

By switching old representations, like the evacuation hospital example, to lesser expected responsibility type representations, evacuation post, then the public opinion can be switched to believe a mask of what once was. Euphamistic language is usually looked upon negatively, so this concept of ridding new cliches for old ones, is just another hinderance on the public opinion. We've been fooled before, so this isn't any different. What can we do to stop this? How about saying what we really mean?

"Occasionally, the manipulation of the public mind entails the removal of prejudice. Prejudices are often the application of old taboos to new conditions. They are illogical, emotional, and hampering to progress." (pg. 57)

Prejudice can hinder a person's opinion even if not justified. It carrys with a population, and can ultimately bury the subject if not properly cared for--sometimes it can't even stop that. (see margarine example.)