Propaganda by Edward Bernays

Book Summary

This is a comprehensive summary of “Propaganda” by Edward Bernays. The book explores the art of public communication and relations.

what’s in it for me? a plain-speaking defense of propaganda.#

Introduction

propaganda by edward bernays think about all the decisions you make over the course of an average day.

what you choose to wear, how you get to work, which type of computer you use.

all of these have been your own conscious decisions, right?

well, not exactly.

odds are, all of these choices have been strategically planted in your mind to convince you that you chose them on your own.

when in reality, behind that outfit or computer is a well-executed plan to manipulate the way you think.

and that is called propaganda.

edward bernays styled himself as a propagandist for propaganda.

and at the time, that shocked people.

isn't propaganda supposed to be a bad thing?

but shocking ideas ran in bernays' family.

his uncle, sigmund freud, had scandalized polite society with his theories about the sexual and aggressive drives lurking behind the civilized facade of modern life.

in this way, freud was a great influence on bernays.

it was freud who put him onto the idea that irrational, unconscious desires drive our decision-making.

bernays took that thought and ran with it.

later, he came to think that those irrational desires don't just operate at the level of individuals.

they shape and undermine entire societies.

but if that was the diagnosis, what, bernays wondered, was the treatment?

he found his answer during the first world war.

propaganda.

psychoanalysts use their understanding of their patients' psyches to steer them toward healthier behavior.

for bernays, a propagandist is a kind of psychoanalyst to the masses.

and if that propagandist understands society's psyche, he can steer the masses toward healthier behavior.

bernays thought that was exactly what propagandists could and should do.

and in this chapter of his 1928 book, propaganda, we lay out his reasoning.

mass propaganda was first used as a tool to mobilize societies for war.#

chapter 1.

mass propaganda was first used as a tool to mobilize societies for war propaganda plays a leading role in the drama of the 20th century.

and, like so many of the things we associate with that turbulent age, its significance first became apparent during world war i.

so that's where we'll start.

the conflict that broke out on july 28, 1914 wasn't like earlier wars.

its scale was different, for one.

involving every major european empire, it spanned the globe.

that's why it was a world war.

but it was different in other ways, too.

it wasn't restricted to the battlefield.

of course, soldiers served at the front in the trenches, but a new term entered people's vocabulary.

the home front.

this second domestic front was just as important.

it was here, after all, that the rifles, machine guns, shells, and rations needed by those soldiers were produced.

the newfound importance of civilians in what became known as the war effort made them military targets.

cities were bombed from the air, and ships carrying grain were torpedoed from beneath the waves.

put differently, the scope of war had changed.

war had become all-consuming.

it now affected every part of life, eroding the distinction between soldiers and civilians.

this was total war.

and total war required total mobilization.

states took charge of economies, dictating who would produce what and when.

food was rationed, and the price of staple goods controlled.

governments began marshalling entire populations.

it became more important than ever to convince people that these hardships and losses were necessary, that they served a higher purpose, that the war, however terrible, had to be fought to the bitter end.

and that's where propaganda came in.

propaganda was the tool governments used to justify all that suffering and motivate people to keep fighting and dying, to mobilize societies for war.

which brings us to 1917, the year a 26-year-old american press agent named edward bernays joined a newly created government department.

it was called the committee on public information, and it was tasked with mobilizing american society after the united states entered the war.

the thing was, american public opinion was largely anti-war.

if europeans wanted to slaughter one another, people said, that was their business.

the united states was better off keeping out of the bloodbath.

the government took a different view.

president woodrow wilson believed the country should play a larger role in global affairs, not only for its own benefit, but also for the world's.

the committee was set up to push regular americans to adopt exactly that point of view.

they started by rebranding the war.

the united states wouldn't be helping distant european empires settle scores.

it would be making the world safe for democracy.

that became the slogan of the american war effort.

it was a task that spoke to the founding ideals of the republic.

the united states had to aid democratic france and britain against despotic germany, and it was the patriotic duty of citizens to support that righteous cause.

it was a winning message.

americans rallied to the flag and support for the war skyrocketed.

bernays saw firsthand how propaganda could mobilize a society for war, and it made him think, could it also be used during peacetime?

that was the pressing question on his mind when peace was finally declared in 1918.

propaganda is a universal human activity.#

chapter 2.

propaganda is a universal human activity.

bernays was proud of his role in the committee's work.

he shared wilson's view of america's calling in the world and truly did believe that defeating germany had been a righteous cause.

but he was a plain talker.

he hated euphemism.

the committee, he said in 1918, hadn't been in the business of public information.

that implied that it had disinterestedly supplied facts for people to use to make up their own minds.

but wilson's administration hadn't tried to facilitate a debate at all.

it had led the public and actively molded popular opinion.

that, for bernays, was propaganda.

bernays got in trouble for saying as much.

the government of the united states, his employer insisted, doesn't spread propaganda.

it persuades free citizens.

that was a distinction without a difference, bernays said.

in 1928, when he wrote his book on propaganda, he explained why.

just as it is today, propaganda was a dirty word back then.

people heard it and thought of deceit and manipulation.

it was something other people did.

our enemies propagandize.

we inform.

the irony is that propaganda's bad reputation was the result of a successful propaganda campaign.

during the war, british and american propagandists contrasted their own public information with the enemy's propaganda, a word that took on a sinister german inflection.

for bernays, that was evidence enough that people had gotten themselves into a muddle over the p-word.

so how should we understand propaganda?

bernays appeals to the word's etymology.

it comes from the latin propagare, meaning to propagate.

to propagandize is to spread a view, to sow the seeds of ideas.

that's why the catholic church's missionary office is called propaganda fide.

it's the office for propagating the faith.

understood this way, propaganda is everywhere.

companies spread the word about products.

they, too, try to lead and mold popular opinion.

they just call it advertising.

other industries call it spin, pr, or public information, or some other euphemism.

but wherever there's a consistent, enduring effort to shape how people think, there's propaganda.

according to bernays, then, propaganda is an ethically neutral means to an end.

morality has to do with the end itself.

defeating german militarism was a noble end.

whipping up hatred of a racial minority is an evil end.

propaganda in service of the first cause is admirable.

in the second case, it's deplorable.

similarly, advertising that manipulates consumers into buying products they desire but don't need is fine.

but tricking people into buying poison disguised as a miracle cure isn't.

let's say we accept this definition.

propaganda is a neutral activity.

what matters is what you use it for.

okay, that kind of makes sense.

but where does that definition leave us, though?

well, it brings us to an important question.

who decides?

who gets to say whether the ends justify the means?

that a cause is noble, not deplorable?

that manipulative marketing is fair game rather than simple fraud?

the short version of bernays' answer is as blunt as it is unappealing.

it's simple, he says.

a small group of intelligent experts should decide.

men like him, in other words.

the reasoning that gets him to that conclusion is a little subtler.

it starts with an argument about democracy and its flaws.

chapter 3.

democracy requires rational citizens – but we’re irrational herd animals.#

democracy requires rational citizens, but we're irrational herd animals.

let's begin with two famous quotes.

the first is from the french king louis xiv, who claimed, l'état, c'est moi.

i am the state.

what he meant was that no one but him called the shots in his kingdom and that he didn't have to explain himself to anyone.

the second is an ancient proverb revived by the kind of 18th century democrats who wanted to topple tyrannical kings like louis.

it says that vox populi, vox dei.

the voice of the people is the voice of god.

government, in other words, is a servant of a higher power.

it's citizens.

it's easy to run a country if you subscribe to louis xiv's view.

basically, you tell people what to do and throw them in prison if they don't do it.

it's a bit trickier if you take the second view.

democracy only really works if people are capable of ruling themselves.

those 18th century democrats were optimists.

since humans are rational beings, they said, we can all weigh the evidence and coolly examine complex economic, political, and moral matters.

when we come together to discuss our views with other rational citizens and voters, the best ideas are sure to carry the day.

democracies, they concluded, would harness the wisdom of the crowd.

that optimistic view came under sustained attack in the late 19th century.

when psychologists looked at actual democracies, they didn't see crowds of enlightened individuals harnessing their collective wisdom.

they saw skittish herd animals making a mess of things.

one of these thinkers was named gustave le bon.

like freud, he had a profound influence on bernays' view of the world.

le bon's idea, simply put, is that we lose our conscious personality when we become members of a large group.

we become part of a group mind whose behavior is erratic, emotional, and irrational.

bernays gives us an example to illustrate the group mind in action.

he asks us to imagine a man sitting alone in his office deciding what stocks to buy.

he thinks he's reasoning for himself, but why does he settle on a certain railroad company?

is he really acting logically?

bernays doesn't think so.

we're herd animals, after all, and we're influenced by what other people do and say, especially if they're high-status members of the herd.

our investor, for example, might be unconsciously influenced by his boss's remark that he enjoyed a pleasant journey on this company's trains.

or the article he read, which mentioned that j.p. morgan holds some of the company's shares.

whatever the nature of the influence, the upshot is that our decision-making can't really be described as rational.

often, it's not even really thoughtful.

bernays saw the herd instinct everywhere he looked.

it's the group mind that accounts for the sudden fashion for a certain fabric or hairstyle.

it's why one nervous depositor standing in line outside a bank attracts ten more, who magnetically attract a hundred, then a thousand more, until there's a run on that bank.

and it's why charismatic leaders spouting clichés about glory can attract a following large enough to topple governments.

this pessimistic line of thought led bernays to adopt a tragic view of democracy.

a state which actually believed that the voice of the people is the voice of god would be anything but effective.

it could only respond to the volatile emotions of the crowd.

it would forever be pandering to fashionable prejudices.

worst of all, it would find it impossible to do difficult but important things.

things like entering an unpopular war to secure the nation's long-term interests.

chapter 4.

there’s no special art of politics – it’s all marketing.#

there's no special art of politics.

it's all marketing.

bernays didn't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater, though.

yes, democracy is deeply flawed, but it's still a better form of government than dictatorship.

the real question, then, is how we can create democracies that accommodate irrational herd animals.

to get to that, we need to talk about bacon.

or, more precisely, how bacon is sold.

the old-school salesmen hired by america's meatpacking industry before the war had a pretty crude approach to selling cured pork.

they took out thousands of full-page adverts in newspapers and put up thousands of posters.

the message was always the same, and it went roughly like this.

we have bacon.

bacon is tasty and cheap.

buy bacon.

the theory was that you just have to keep telling people about your useful product, and they'll eventually start buying it.

the salesman who understands propaganda, bernays argues, has a more nuanced approach.

for starters, he knows that the rational consumer is a myth, just like the rational citizen.

consumers, like voters, follow the crowd, and the crowd takes its cue from the herd's most influential members.

so it's not enough to tell people about your product's merits.

you have to create a message that resonates with the desires of the irrational group mind.

knowing all that, the propagandist asks himself a simple question.

who influences the public's eating habits?

the answer is obvious.

doctors.

so here's what he'll do.

he'll find some prominent doctors to endorse his message.

they'll say that bacon is healthy and wholesome, or that nine out of ten physicians recommend it for breakfast because it gives you more energy throughout the day.

point is, the message will establish a link between the product and a powerful symbol, in this case, health and vitality.

and because people trust doctors, they'll buy more bacon.

you've probably already guessed that this salesman who understands propaganda is a stand-in for bernays.

the campaign isn't fictitious, either.

that really was how bernays helped drive up bacon sales in the 20s.

but what does all this have to do with democracy?

well, bernays thought that selling a policy, ideology, or political candidate was pretty much like selling anything else.

that bacon-boosting strategy, for example, was straight out of the committee on public information's playbook.

back in 1917, the committee picked ordinary members of the public to talk about why they supported america's entry into the first world war.

because voters didn't trust the wilson administration not to lie about its motivations, it was the very ordinariness of these people that made them influential in their communities.

why would they lie when they didn't have a stake in this contest?

that built trust.

and then they started talking in a way that connected the war with a powerful, emotionally resonant symbol, america's revolutionary history.

bernays' conclusion?

you can manipulate masses of people when you understand their unconscious desires and fears.

you can sell them bacon if a doctor says it's healthy.

and you can sell them a war if you play on their desire to live up to the ideals of revered ancestors.

politics, in short, isn't special.

it can be shaped and molded using the same tools you'd use to sell tubes of toothpaste.

isn't all this horribly cynical, though?

not according to bernays.

remember, he believed that propaganda is ethically neutral.

it's the end that counts.

he also thought democracy was inherently unstable.

so what if propagandists manipulated the masses in pursuit of a noble end like the preservation of democracy?

wasn't that a good thing?

bernays thought so.

tragic premises justify elitist conclusions.#

chapter 5.

tragic premises justify elitist conclusions by 1928, american society was all but unrecognizable to its oldest citizens.

a once rural country was now an urban one.

radios and telephones spread new ideas at dizzying speeds.

women could vote.

workers demanded a say in how the nation was run.

products increasingly catered to desires, not needs, a byproduct of an economic boom and an emerging consumerist culture.

new fashions toppled age-old customs.

old certainties crumbled, and established hierarchies frayed.

life, in short, had become more complex.

it was faster, too.

people's attention spans were shorter.

for a man like bernays, who was convinced of society's inherent irrationality, this was a recipe for trouble.

good government, after all, is slow and deliberate.

debates about essential ideals like justice take time.

but how was this society supposed to have rational debates or reach sensible decisions?

the answer bernays came up with goes like this.

unrestrained freedom, he begins, is an admirable ideal, but it's impractical in a big nation like america with a population that isn't equal in talent.

what's needed are people who can sort through the ideas and options which compete for americans' attention and choose the best of them.

freedom of choice, in other words, will still exist, but the choices people can make will be vetted by experts.

these experts aren't would-be philosopher kings.

they're democratic propagandists.

ideally, we'd all study political and moral issues from every angle and vote for the best candidates.

in reality, that kind of system results in chaos.

it's the same with economics.

ideally, we'd all buy the best and cheapest products offered by the market.

but if we constantly consulted price indexes and went around chemically testing every bar of soap, economic life would grind to a standstill.

to avoid these logjams, we'd delegate lots of decisions to experts.

that's why political parties emerged in america even though the founders hoped they wouldn't.

narrowing the choice of candidates and political programs imposed order on a chaotic system.

similarly, we consent to have our choices narrowed to ideas and products which are brought to our attention through propaganda.

simply put, we accept the claims of marketers and advertisers because it makes our lives easier.

in fact, our thinking is dominated by a relatively small number of people who understand our collective desires in pretty much every area of life.

take fashion.

the typical consumer picks a blue shirt because he thinks he likes that color.

the fashion designer in paris or milan who chose that precise shade doesn't cross his mind.

he doesn't think about other, less influential designers who imitated her collection.

and he's unaware of the trade shows where department store buyers go to learn about trends in paris or milan.

what about the advertising hyping that shade of blue?

well, he doesn't pay attention to any of that.

he's guided by his own taste, after all.

that, bernays says, is exactly why propaganda is so powerful and useful.

the fashion industry realized that a long time ago.

so did bacon sellers.

it's politicians who are behind the curve.

if they looked to those industries, however, they'd soon realize that real political leadership isn't about responding to what people say they want.

it's about planting ideas in people's minds and presenting yourself as the answer to questions they think they're asking.

you can't go into a department store and demand any color you like, but that rarely bothers anyone.

we think we want a shirt in exactly that shade of blue.

a democracy that delegated power to expert propagandists would work in exactly the same way.

final summary#

Conclusion

you've just listened to our chapter to propaganda by edward bernays.

here's the most important thing to take away from all this.

propaganda has a bad reputation.

it's usually understood as little more than organized lying on behalf of despots.

edward bernays didn't see it that way.

for him, propaganda is a necessary tool of government in the modern age, and it's especially important in democracies, which tend toward chaos and irrationality.

okay, that's it for this chapter.

thanks so much for listening.

and if you can, please leave us a rating.

you can find the rate it button on your screen right now.

we always appreciate your feedback, and nine out of ten doctors agree that leaving a rating is part of a balanced breakfast.

see you in the next chapter.

Propaganda

Table of Contents

Book Summary

what’s in it for me? a plain-speaking defense of propaganda.#

mass propaganda was first used as a tool to mobilize societies for war.#

propaganda is a universal human activity.#

democracy requires rational citizens – but we’re irrational herd animals.#

there’s no special art of politics – it’s all marketing.#

tragic premises justify elitist conclusions.#

final summary#

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