Psychology isn’t just about understanding individuals, nor is it always used for our benefit.
Originally shared by Johnny Stork, MSc
Engineering Consent – Manipulation of the Masses
This is NOT conspiracy theory, but fact which can be confirmed very easily through online and academic research. This is presented simply as a reminder that not all of your ideas, desires or beliefs came to you of your own independent and free will/decision. Although this is common knowledge to many, it is good to be reminded of the need for critical thinking and careful evaluation of your own deeply held perceptions, assumptions and ideas.
“The business and political world uses psychological techniques to read, create and fulfill the desires of the public, to make their products or speeches as pleasing as possible to consumers and citizens.”
As we all settle into the after-glow of our holiday parties and family gatherings, we may begin to look at all the “stuff” that’s on sale now during the Boxing Day/Week/Month sales. Before you cave into that instinctively and emotionally driven desire to “buy something”, consider where this urge may have been created and used to manipulate you into thinking you need to buy something, to “consume” a product or service. This is called the “engineering of consent” and has been used by governments and commercial interests for nearly 100 years as a form of crowd/consumer manipulation.
• In the 20’s and 30’s, Sigmund Freud’s ideas on personality came into fashion and proclaimed that unconscious instincts (Id) towards survival, pleasure, sex etc, as well as irrational desires, drive much of human behavior and consciousness (Ego).
• During this time, Freud’s nephew (Edward Bernays – the “father” of public relations) was working for the administration of President Woodrow Wilson during World War 1 and through various public information and propaganda campaigns, was able to utilize the “crowd psychology” ideas of Gustave LeBon to significantly influence public opinion on America’s war efforts.
• Following on the war-time success of applying Freud’s psychological unconscious drives model and the crowd psychology ideas of LeBon in influencing public opinion during war-time, Bernay’s wondered if these crowd-manipulation techniques could be applied during peacetime. Due to the negative implication of the use of the term “propaganda” which was used by the Nazi’s, Bernay’s coined the term “Public Relations” and called his techniques “engineering consent”.
“If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it? The recent practice of propaganda has proved that it is possible, at least up to a certain point and within certain limits.” (Edward Bernays)
• Some of Bernay’s most significant and successful commercial applications of his “Public Relations” campaigns designed to manipulate the masses, was a campaign to make smoking “sexy” and an “expression of freedom” for woman (which catapulted cigarette sales to women), and to popularize the idea of “bacon and eggs” for breakfast (to increase the sale of bacon) by using “third party authorities” (scientists, doctors etc).
• Following the phenomenal successes of many of Bernay’s “Public Relations” (propaganda) campaigns which significantly influenced public perception and behaviors on both political and commercial grounds, Bernay’s went on to work for and “engineer consent” for many large and recognizable companies as well as various governments.
• A quick review of today’s political and commercial marketing efforts uniformly demonstrate all the same basic methods for “engineering consent” and manipulating “public opinion” in order to steer opinions or consumer behavior.
• Most advertising today is still designed to influence you into thinking consciously, or unconsciously that you “need” this or that to feel successful, happy, fulfilled or to eliminate feelings of inadequacy, anxiety etc.
So before you are swayed into thinking you should go stand in line for hours away from your friends and family to buy the latest TV, Tablet, Smart Phone or whatever, consider the difference between “needing” something and “wanting” something. And if you decide you simply “want” this new gadget, electronic toy or wardrobe, consider where that “want” might have come from and the possibility that you may have been manipulated into developing that “want” (your consent was engineered).
“Bernays’s vision was of a utopian society in which individuals’ dangerous libidinal energies, the psychic and emotional energy associated with instinctual biological drives that Bernays viewed as inherently dangerous given his observation of societies like the Germans under Hitler, could be harnessed and channeled by a corporate elite for economic benefit. Through the use of mass production, big business could fulfill the constant cravings of the inherently irrational and desire-driven masses, simultaneously securing the niche of a mass production economy (even in peacetime), as well as sating the dangerous animal urges that threatened to tear society apart if left unquelled.” (Wikipedia)
#psychology #freud #bernays #manufacturingconsent #publicrelations