We are dominated by the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.
Interpretation
This quote highlights how a few individuals shape the beliefs and behaviors of the larger society through their understanding of human psychology.
Edward Bernays emphasizes the power of a select group of people who comprehend public opinion and psychological manipulation. He suggests that these individuals possess the ability to influence and control the masses, steering their thoughts and actions much like puppeteers control strings. This perspective invites reflection on the dynamics of influence and the responsibility that comes with such power in shaping societal views.
In practice
In a discussion about media influence during a sociology class.
The invisible government tends to be concentrated in the hands of the few because of the expense of manipulating the social machinery which controls the opinions and habits of the masses. To advertise on a scale which will reach fifty million persons is expensive. To reach and persuade the group leaders who dictate the public's thoughts and actions is likewise expensive.
Any person or organization depends ultimately on public approval, and is therefore faced with the problem of engineering the public's consent to a program or goal.
No serious sociologist any longer believes that the voice of the people expresses any divine or specially wise and lofty idea. The voice of the people expresses the mind of the people, and that mind is made up for it by the group leaders in whom it believes and by those persons who understand the manipulation of public opinion. It is composed of inherited prejudices and symbols and clichés and verbal formulas supplied to them by the leaders.
We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.
Men (people) are rarely aware of the real reasons which motivate their actions.
If we understand the mechanisms and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing it In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.
When you try to grasp the way the Western world is going, you see that we are on a ratchet towards a surveillance state, which is coming to include the whole population in its surveillance. This is our reward for accepting the restraints on the way we live now.
The life-converting experience is not the discovery that I have choices to make that determine the way I live out my existence, but the awareness that my that my existence itself is not in the center. Once I 'know' God, that is, once I experience God's love as the love in which all my human experiences are anchored, I can desire only one thing: to be in that love.
Once in our world, a Stable had something in it that was bigger than our whole world.
Simplicity is the essence of universality.
I find more and more, as I grow older, that I prefer women to men, children to adults, animals to humans.... And rocks to living things? No, I'm not that old yet.
The river of truth is always splitting up into arms that reunite. Islanded between them, the inhabitants argue for a lifetime as to which is the mainstream.
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