The Doors Of Perception: Why Americans Will Believe Almost Anything
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by Dr. Tim O'Shea
We are the most conditioned, programmed beings the world has ever known. Not
only are our thoughts and attitudes continually being shaped and molded; our
very awareness of the whole design seems like it is being subtly and
inexorably erased.
The doors of our perception are carefully and precisely regulated. Who
cares, right?
It is an exhausting and endless task to keep explaining to people how most
issues of conventional wisdom are scientifically implanted in the public
consciousness by a thousand media clips per day. In an effort to save time,
I would like to provide just a little background on the handling of
information in this country.
Once the basic principles are illustrated about how our current system of
media control arose historically, the reader might be more apt to question
any given story in today's news.
If everybody believes something, it's probably wrong. We call that
Conventional Wisdom.
In America, conventional wisdom that has mass acceptance is usually
contrived: somebody paid for it. Examples:
a.. Pharmaceuticals restore health
b.. Vaccination brings immunity
c.. The cure for cancer is just around the corner
d.. When a child is sick, he needs immediate antibiotics
e.. When a child has a fever he needs Tylenol
f.. Hospitals are safe and clean.
g.. America has the best health care in the world.
h.. And many many more
This is a list of illusions, that have cost billions and billions to conjure
up. Did you ever wonder why you never see the President speaking publicly
unless he is reading? Or why most people in this country think generally the
same about most of the above issues?
How This Set-Up Got Started
In Trust Us We're Experts, Stauber and Rampton pull together some compelling
data describing the science of creating public opinion in America.
They trace modern public influence back to the early part of the last
century, highlighting the work of guys like Edward L. Bernays, the Father of
Spin. From his own amazing chronicle Propaganda, we learn how Edward L.
Bernays took the ideas of his famous uncle Sigmund Freud himself, and
applied them to the emerging science of mass persuasion.
The only difference was that instead of using these principles to uncover
hidden themes in the human unconscious, the way Freudian psychology does,
Bernays used these same ideas to mask agendas and to create illusions that
deceive and misrepresent, for marketing purposes.
The Father Of Spin
Bernays dominated the PR industry until the 1940s, and was a significant
force for another 40 years after that. (Tye) During all that time, Bernays
took on hundreds of diverse assignments to create a public perception about
some idea or product. A few examples:
As a neophyte with the Committee on Public Information, one of Bernays'
first assignments was to help sell the First World War to the American
public with the idea to "Make the World Safe for Democracy." (Ewen)
A few years later, Bernays set up a stunt to popularize the notion of women
smoking cigarettes. In organizing the 1929 Easter Parade in New York City,
Bernays showed himself as a force to be reckoned with.
He organized the Torches of Liberty Brigade in which suffragettes marched in
the parade smoking cigarettes as a mark of women's liberation. Such
publicity followed from that one event that from then on women have felt
secure about destroying their own lungs in public, the same way that men
have always done.
Bernays popularized the idea of bacon for breakfast.
Not one to turn down a challenge, he set up the advertising format along
with the AMA that lasted for nearly 50 years proving that cigarettes are
beneficial to health. Just look at ads in issues of Life or Time from the
40s and 50s.
Smoke And Mirrors
Bernay's job was to reframe an issue; to create a desired image that would
put a particular product or concept in a desirable light. Bernays described
the public as a 'herd that needed to be led.' And this herdlike thinking
makes people "susceptible to leadership."
Bernays never deviated from his fundamental axiom to "control the masses
without their knowing it." The best PR happens with the people unaware that
they are being manipulated.
Stauber describes Bernays' rationale like this:
"the scientific manipulation of public opinion was necessary to overcome
chaos and conflict in a democratic society." Trust Us p 42
These early mass persuaders postured themselves as performing a moral
service for humanity in general - democracy was too good for people; they
needed to be told what to think, because they were incapable of rational
thought by themselves. Here's a paragraph from Bernays' Propaganda:
"Those who manipulate the unseen mechanism of society constitute an
invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are
governed, our minds 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.
In almost every act of our 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 that
control the public mind."
Here Comes The Money
Once the possibilities of applying Freudian psychology to mass media were
glimpsed, Bernays soon had more corporate clients than he could handle.
Global corporations fell all over themselves courting the new Image Makers.
There were dozens of goods and services and ideas to be sold to a
susceptible public. Over the years, these players have had the money to make
their images happen. A few examples:
Philip Morris Pfizer Union Carbide
Allstate Monsanto Eli Lilly
tobacco industry Ciba Geigy lead industry
Coors DuPont Chlorox
Shell Oil Standard Oil Procter & Gamble
Boeing General Motors Dow Chemical
General Mills Goodyear
The Players
Though world-famous within the PR industry, the companies have names we
don't know, and for good reason.
The best PR goes unnoticed.
For decades they have created the opinions that most of us were raised with,
on virtually any issue which has the remotest commercial value, including:
pharmaceutical drugs vaccines
medicine as a profession alternative medicine
fluoridation of city water chlorine
household cleaning products tobacco
dioxin global warming
leaded gasoline cancer research and treatment
pollution of the oceans forests and lumber
images of celebrities, including damage control crisis and disaster
management
genetically modified foods aspartame
food additives; processed foods dental amalgams
Lesson #1
Bernays learned early on that the most effective way to create credibility
for a product or an image was by "independent third-party" endorsement.
For example, if General Motors were to come out and say that global warming
is a hoax thought up by some liberal tree-huggers, people would suspect GM's
motives, since GM's fortune is made by selling automobiles.
If however some independent research institute with a very credible sounding
name like the Global Climate Coalition comes out with a scientific report
that says global warming is really a fiction, people begin to get confused
and to have doubts about the original issue.
So that's exactly what Bernays did. With a policy inspired by genius, he set
up "more institutes and foundations than Rockefeller and Carnegie combined."
(Stauber p 45)
Quietly financed by the industries whose products were being evaluated,
these "independent" research agencies would churn out "scientific" studies
and press materials that could create any image their handlers wanted. Such
front groups are given high-sounding names like:
Temperature Research Foundation Manhattan Institute
International Food Information Council Center for Produce Quality
Consumer Alert Tobacco Institute Research Council
The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition Cato Institute
Air Hygiene Foundation
American Council on Science and Health
Industrial Health Federation Global Climate Coalition
International Food Information Council Alliance for Better Foods
Sound pretty legit don't they?
Canned News Releases
As Stauber explains, these organizations and hundreds of others like them
are front groups whose sole mission is to advance the image of the global
corporations who fund them, like those listed on page 2 above.
This is accomplished in part by an endless stream of 'press releases'
announcing "breakthrough" research to every radio station and newspaper in
the country. (Robbins) Many of these canned reports read like straight news,
and indeed are purposely molded in the news format.
This saves journalists the trouble of researching the subjects on their own,
especially on topics about which they know very little. Entire sections of
the release or in the case of video news releases, the whole thing can be
just lifted intact, with no editing, given the byline of the reporter or
newspaper or TV station - and voilá! Instant news - copy and paste. Written
by corporate PR firms.
Does this really happen? Every single day, since the 1920s when the idea of
the News Release was first invented by Ivy Lee. (Stauber, p 22) Sometimes as
many as half the stories appearing in an issue of the Wall St. Journal are
based solely on such PR press releases.. (22)
These types of stories are mixed right in with legitimately researched
stories. Unless you have done the research yourself, you won't be able to
tell the difference.
The Language Of Spin
As 1920s spin pioneers like Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays gained more
experience, they began to formulate rules and guidelines for creating public
opinion. They learned quickly that mob psychology must focus on emotion, not
facts. Since the mob is incapable of rational thought, motivation must be
based not on logic but on presentation. Here are some of the axioms of the
new science of PR:
a.. technology is a religion unto itself
b.. if people are incapable of rational thought, real democracy is
dangerous
c.. important decisions should be left to experts
d.. when reframing issues, stay away from substance; create images
e.. never state a clearly demonstrable lie
Words are very carefully chosen for their emotional impact. Here's an
example. A front group called the International Food Information Council
handles the public's natural aversion to genetically modified foods.
Trigger words are repeated all through the text. Now in the case of GM
foods, the public is instinctively afraid of these experimental new
creations which have suddenly popped up on our grocery shelves which are
said to have DNA alterations. The IFIC wants to reassure the public of the
safety of GM foods, so it avoids words like:
Frankenfoods Hitler biotech
chemical DNA experiments
manipulate money safety
scientists radiation roulette
gene-splicing gene gun random
Instead, good PR for GM foods contains words like:
hybrids natural order beauty
choice bounty cross-breeding
diversity earth farmer
organic wholesome
It's basic Freudian/Tony Robbins word association. The fact that GM foods
are not hybrids that have been subjected to the slow and careful scientific
methods of real crossbreeding doesn't really matter. This is pseudoscience,
not science. Form is everything and substance just a passing myth.
(Trevanian)
Who do you think funds the International Food Information Council? Take a
wild guess. Right - Monsanto, DuPont, Frito-Lay, Coca Cola, Nutrasweet -
those in a position to make fortunes from GM foods. (Stauber p 20)
Characteristics Of Good Propaganda
As the science of mass control evolved, PR firms developed further
guidelines for effective copy. Here are some of the gems:
a.. dehumanize the attacked party by labeling and name calling
b.. speak in glittering generalities using emotionally positive words
c.. when covering something up, don't use plain English; stall for time;
distract
d.. get endorsements from celebrities, churches, sports figures, street
people - anyone who has no expertise in the subject at hand
e.. the 'plain folks' ruse: us billionaires are just like you
f.. when minimizing outrage, don't say anything memorable, point out the
benefits of what just happened, and avoid moral issues
Keep this list. Start watching for these techniques. Not hard to find - look
at today's paper or tonight's TV news. See what they're doing; these guys
are good!