/lit/ - Literature

>Public Opinion - Lippmann
>Propaganda - Bernays
>Crystallizing Public Opinion - Bernays
>Propaganda - Ellul
>The Hidden Persuaders - Packard
>Manufacturing Consent - Chomsky
>The Image - Boorstin
>The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion - Zaller
>The Spiral of Silence - Neumann
>Mein Kampf (Volume 1 Ch 6 + Volume 2 Ch 11) - Hitler
>The True Believer - Hoffman
>The Crowd - le Bon
>Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego - Freud
>Rhetoric - Aristotle
>PR! - Ewen
>The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere - Habermas
>On Communication and Social Influence - Tarde
>Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses - Althusser
>Crowds and Power - Canetti
>Distinction - Bourdieu
>The Battle of the Mind - Sargent
>The Rape of the Mind - Meerloo
>Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism - Lifton

>>16147892
Bases, thank you anon. Anything I should know/understand before getting into these?

>>16147918
Just be careful with how far you take the idea of crowd psychology. A lot of people apply it to mean the psychology of any large group of people, but it really only applies to large groups of people confined in a particular area with a unified purpose. So crowd psychology is at work in stuff like protests or riots or political rallies, but not in mediums like radio or television where individuals don't have physical proximity.

>>16147859
Ellul, Lippmann, and Bernays. Aristotle will not help you understand a phenomenon that belongs to the age of mass literacy and culture.

bump.

>>16147892
Missing quite a lot of early twentieth century thought, as well as Jung.

>>16148615
Fill in the gaps then.

A little obliquely related but I would recommend Rieff's Charisma

>>16147859
Just read biographies of the groups of faggot psychopaths that successfully get rich from bullshit social marketing strategies

>>16148726
Like who

>>16148812
Not that anon, but P.T. Barnum.

>>16148125
I think his Pathos/Nomos/Ethos distinction is useful.

>>16147859
Twitter

>>16149735
There is nothing of value to be found on twitter.

Bump for interest,

>>16147859
http://dissident-mag.com/2020/08/05/fink-me-once-shame-on-jews-fink-me-twice/

The Prince unironically

>>16148125
Not necessarily. His remarks on the kinds of people you might be speaking and their interests are still solid insights.

>>16148021
>>16147892
I just finished reading propaganda by Barney’s. What’s your thoughts on it?

bump

>>16152553
Did you read Ellul yet? Ellul rejects the idea that liberal democracy and propaganda can co-exist, whereas Barney's embraces this coexistence. With liberalism, the human masses would inevitably succumb to manipulation--and therefore the (((good))) propagandists could compete with the evil, without incurring any marginal moral cost.

>>16148125
His analysis of how a tyrant should behave is pretty spot on even today, dunno what you're talking about

>>16152553
Bernays is to a degree correct in his postulation that some kind of propaganda is a necessary part of modern democracy. All political societies require some minimal mechanical solidarity (unity through similarity of belief), despite what many hardcore libertarians may believe. Of course, there are already arms of the government that provide this: public education, museums, national holidays, the laws; and the arms of civil society also further them through acculturation from family and peers. It has long been a part of the liberal tradition that the state has some role as a political educator to the citizens.
But, modern democracy has a population problem; there are far too many people to have a truly representative or well functioning democracy. In Athens and Rome, true democratic participation was only able to be achieved by the small number of citizens who practically all knew each other personally; in mass-society, you aren't likely to even know your local mayor, never mind the members of federal politics. So personal accountability through Aristotelian Ethos is practically impossible. Modern citizens are also nothing like classical citizens. The history of political franchise could almost 1:1 be tracked with freedom from labour up until its radical expansion in the 19th and 20th centuries. And, i would say, for good reason: proper political participation requires a great deal of time and energy, a time and energy that wage-labourers simply do not have. This is one of the reasons Aristotle supported slavery—he thought manual labour degrading and that a proper, virtuous republic impossible to sustain if the citizens never had the time to devote themselves to the public good. Communities aren't nearly as tight-knit as previously, where a similarity of lived-experiences formed an invisible glue that assured similarity in thinking and common direction.
So a clear gap emerges between proper democracy and its modern functioning. it is intuitive that some propaganda is necessary to band-aid the problems and to guide the great mass of disparate views, lives, and experiences towards important common goals. But Bernays steps over the line of guidance towards direction, which throws away the very democracy the propaganda is meant to be supplementing. Further, his methods and the methods of all modern PR bastards is completely unsuited to the task. Being the (much loathed) cousin of Freud, his techniques are all based on manipulating the repressed emotions—the sexual and aggressive unconscious—to manipulate opinion and action. That is, the manipulation of emotion over reason. But this is completely inimical to any long-term development of poltiics.

>>16155193
It is in essence a back-sliding towards an elite-dominated system that the revolutions were meant to dispose of. I am still a bit of a Kantian at heart, so i think using another simply as a means to an end degrades their position as a rational moral agent, and i further agree in with his point in 'what is enlightenment' that, if we're ever going to get close to the democratic ideal, people need to learn to use their own reason, not the reason of another, in their understanding. That alone wont fix things, but is at least a necessary precondition for a functional demos. Democracy is a long-term project that hasn't been achieved and maybe will never be achieved, but it definitely will never be achieved under the ministration of Bernays and his ilk. It didn't require all this to say it, but Bernays' position is elite self-interest masquerading as a public necessity. But propaganda still has its place, just no Bernaysean propaganda.
In my view, this minimal mechanical solidarity needs to be axiomatic, not specific. Hayek has a concept called 'spontaneous order', which essentially just Smith's invisible hand applied more broadly to society. The major point is that much of society is merely a natural outcome of cooperative individuals, not created, shaped, and directed from above. I don't follow him in suggesting that self-interest is the only force that provides this, but rather that any axiomatic foundation will create its own spontaneous order. In essence, the political education of the state should be limited to setting up the foundations upon which people will naturally reason towards a united goal.The role of propaganda is continuing that. Rather than retarding the functioning of the citizenry, you are promoting it.
So the problem with Bernays comes in telling people what to think instead of on what basis to think for themselves. An odd distinction, but an important one. In any popular system, the citizens shape the government and the government shape the citizens in a reflexive cycle. But the former propaganda method puts inordinate power in the top while the latter empowers the bottom. Putting the power of direction in the hands of a self-interested elite is a disaster, and blurs the line between servant and master.
All of which is why Bernays deserves to be rightly spat on and hated.

>>16147859
Manufacturing Consent and Necessary Illusions by Chomsky et al.

>>16155193
>>16155202
What must I read to become as erudite as you?

>>16154225
Ellul is right.

>>16152553
Most of it felt like a How To Advertise a Product, but still good and relevant. The major flaw in our democracy is that propaganda is far less diversified, with mass media creating a unitary conformist thought amongst a large portion of the population. Instead of having a conscious based around your local community and meaningful issues (issues and solutions that are unique to you), mass media creates an environment where everyone is the same. Crowds and groups are subject to irrational impulse and immune to reason as LeBon pointed out decades earlier. Never debate with normies; if you want to spread an idea you speak with the leader of the group.

>>16148615
>>16148620
Why are faggots on this board quick to tell people they're wrong but disappear the second they're asked to explain why?

>>16147892
Wow fucking based anon.

>>16155524
haha, i'm not erudite at all. That post was all over the place. But if you want to learn, just read the canon books on political philosophy, political science, sociology, and ethics. There are plenty of good charts and reading lists out there that will point you in the right path.

>>16155193
>But, modern democracy has a population problem; there are far too many people to have a truly representative or well functioning democracy. In Athens and Rome, true democratic participation was only able to be achieved by the small number of citizens who practically all knew each other personally.
I agreed more or less with the rest of your assertions, but this particular one struck me as nonsense. The advantage of a slim voting population is exponential, so much so that at the scale of even a city-state, it is negligible. How much more unity in purpose one has as compared to two, sure, but ten thousand as compared to twenty thousand? It's bean counting at that point. I say that philia, the glue of democracy, outside of the extreme circumstances of a literal handful of people, has nothing to do with their number and everything to do with factors such as ethnic, religious, ideological, linguistic, geographic, historical, cultural, and, placed last because it is the least durable, *practical* commonality.
>This is one of the reasons Aristotle supported slavery—he thought manual labour degrading and that a proper, virtuous republic impossible to sustain if the citizens never had the time to devote themselves to the public good.
Here, too, I agree with the Philosopher, but not quite with your conclusion. We have, larger than ever in the history of the American republic, a dedicated political class, termed by those of the right as the "deep state." Even beyond those cogs, there exists a press and academia who, materially speaking, are not all that different from the aristocrats of old who floated on the labor of slaves to lofty heights sufficient to contemplate important ideas. Why, then, is the American republic in worse shape institutionally, with a democratic, liberal character on the verge of suicide every four years?

>>16157232
>as nothing to do with their number and everything to do with factors such as ethnic, religious, ideological, linguistic, geographic, historical, cultural, and, placed last because it is the least durable, *practical* commonality.
I'm not sure what you mean by practical commonality, but i would not consider much of the above agnostic of population size. The larger the population, the more diverse and divergent all of these are likely to be and become. I'm also not sure if that is meant to be an ordering, but if it is i disagree with the placements.
>a dedicated political class, termed by those of the right as the "deep state."
The deep state is just the state bureaucracy. They have little to say about what is done, but how it is done. It's true they have a bit more influence than that insofar as civil servants often suggest and draft policies for representatives, but they aren't the decision makers.
>there exists a press and academia who, materially speaking, are not all that different from the aristocrats of old who floated on the labor of slaves to lofty heights sufficient to contemplate important ideas.
They are wage-labourers themselves, they vary significantly materially from old aristocrats. They also aren't the sole political decision makers. I don't think this is a useful comparison.
>Why, then, is the American republic in worse shape institutionally
I'm not American and i don't suppose to be able to diagnose the cause of every ill befalling the country. But, from the outside it looks like the institutions of the republic are as strong as ever; the courts still operate successfully, the state can still effectively collect taxes, the army is still effective and loyal, i know of no major problems with any specific governmental agency. There's a lot of hot air, but the nation seems to have puttered along the same as ever in the last few years. And how much of the catastrophe merely apparent?
If anything, the problems seem extra-institutional.

>>16149206
>>16154434
These have nothing to do with the formation of "public opinion."
>>16152456
What is this supposed to mean?
>>16154225
The problem with Bernays's idea is that there is no objective definition of "good." Each interest group believes that they are on the side of justice, and each uses exactly the same methods of propaganda to achieve those goals. In every case, we see the deliberate manipulation of the individual and their environment in the service of goals that are not necessarily in their own interests.
This is the problem that Ellul points out, and he is correct in arguing that it contradicts the spirit and proclaimed goals of liberal democracy. Its legitimacy relies on the supposed relationship between the expressed will of the people, i.e. voting and public opinion, and the makeup and policies of the elected government. But I think that we should accept the reality and instead ask questions about the locus of sovereignty in the liberal democratic system. Who actually decides on policy? Who determines the course of public opinion? Who determines what is and is not an issue, and what opinions can and cannot be expressed in the public sphere? Who determines what forms of illegal activity are and are not acceptable, and who determines what will and will not be made legal? I think if we can answer these questions, we will have a clearer idea of the nature of liberal democracy and be better posed to address the question you raised.

bumping a quality thread.

>>16157790
Rhetoric influences propaganda which influences public opinion.

bumping a quality thread

>>16157637
>practical commonality
Shared interests.
>[The state bureaucracy] have little to say about what is done, but how it is done.
I would seriously beg to differ, but on second thought, to the extent they do wield outsized power unaccountable to the people, they cannot be really compared to ancient aristocrats. Their time is occupied much more by administration than necessarily pondering Federalist No. 10, that is, eternal political questions. The difference is somewhat material but much more a matter of character.
I do not concede that the press and academia are not comparable to the old aristocrats, though.
>They are wage-laborers themselves, they vary significantly materially from old aristocrats. They also aren't the sole political decision makers.
I guess they can be described as wage-laborers, but their labor *is* their published thinking. I do not think an academic is limited by anything economic if he wishes to explore some political question. I suppose you're right that they are not the sole political decision makers, but on the topic of propaganda, any academic that is followed by agents of the press become by proxy the social decision makers. Take for instance the head of the New York Time's 1619 Project, essentially a task of anti-American historical revisionism, she is basically an academic. Given the arm of the press, she was able to effect a sweeping narrative change in how many Americans view history in the span of a *single* year, and now it is not uncontroversial to think the Founding Fathers were devils and the Constitution their satanic pact lorded over blacks. She is technically a wage-labourer de jure, but de facto she has a freedom from material that is comparable to old aristocrats.
That is but one example for my assertion that the parallel to the "old aristocrats" who were sufficiently free from concerns of labor such that they could etch out De Oficii is, without serious material difference, the press and academia, the class of people whose subsistence *is* publishing such content.
t. not into propaganda /lit/ and lacking sophistication on this topic, which is why most of this is just observations.

>>16157790
>Its legitimacy relies on the supposed relationship between the expressed will of the people, i.e. voting and public opinion, and the makeup and policies of the elected government.

There is no "will of the people". A democratic majority of people do not really "have beliefs". Put the right people in charge and in 10 years or so you could have everyone Sieg Heiling. Another 10 years, reading from Mao's Little Red Book. Another 10 years, and they could be made into Constitutional Conservatives. I don't see how anyone still believes democracy is some kind of social good when looking at history 1917-present - any account of man has to center on the malleability of his thoughts and submissiveness to authority.

>>16160379
The 1619 Project didn't affect a sweeping narrative change on its own. Such writings should be considered "potential narratives". They require support from authority to be made into societal "knowledge". So really it should be asked "Why do the US elite desire their subjects to adhere to a conception of history outlined by the 1619 Project?"

>>16157790
>The problem with Bernays's idea is that there is no objective definition of "good." Each interest group believes that they are on the side of justice, and each uses exactly the same methods of propaganda to achieve those goals. In every case, we see the deliberate manipulation of the individual and their environment in the service of goals that are not necessarily in their own interests.
This has been true for all of human history, or at least since Marc Antony.
>Its legitimacy relies on the supposed relationship between the expressed will of the people, i.e. voting and public opinion, and the makeup and policies of the elected government. But I think that we should accept the reality...
I do not think that there is an enormous gap between the expressed will of the people and the makeup and policies of the elected government. On certain specific issues, sure, but that has everything to do with the interests of partisans and their supporters, e.g. school choice is popular among voters of both parties, yet only one party, not beholden to the wishes of the teacher's unions who have an interest in preventing school choice, pursues it as a matter of actual policy. However, broadly speaking, there is a general consonance between public opinion and policy.
Of course, this means whoever controls public opinion are the real legislators :^)
>Who actually decides on policy? Who determines the course of public opinion? Who determines what is and is not an issue, and what opinions can and cannot be expressed in the public sphere? Who determines what forms of illegal activity are and are not acceptable, and who determines what will and will not be made legal? I think if we can answer these questions, we will have a clearer idea of the nature of liberal democracy and be better posed to address the question you raised.
To a large extent it is doubtlessly the media. Remember ages ago, think it was 2017, when there was that horrific video released of a white man, on his knees begging for his life, executed by SWAT in an Arizona hotel? It circulated a bit and then drifted into the sea. Yet three years later, a video is released of a black man, high on multiple drugs and less sympathetic, killed over nine minutes, and for an entire week there are chimpouts in every city in America and protests in the broader First World (proof that Europeans mentally live in America, but nevermind). The difference between these is that the media shilled one harder than another. Race is suddenly a surging issue, Robin DiAngelo is #1 on the Amazon charts. Cities cut their police budgets in weeks. Illegal activity, rioting, is explicitly sanctioned by the media. The virus is totally forgotten about, masses fill the streets for weeks. A month later, at the call of the press, they return to hysteria about the virus.

>>16160570
>et three years later, a video is released of a black man, high on multiple drugs and less sympathetic, killed over nine minutes, and for an entire week there are chimpouts in every city in America and protests in the broader First World (proof that Europeans mentally live in America, but nevermind). The difference between these is that the media shilled one harder than another. Race is suddenly a surging issue, Robin DiAngelo is #1 on the Amazon charts. Cities cut their police budgets in weeks. Illegal activity, rioting, is explicitly sanctioned by the media. The virus is totally forgotten about, masses fill the streets for weeks. A month later, at the call of the press, they return to hysteria about the virus.
It's an election year.

>>16160570 cont
This example, despite its boldness, does point out a critical flaw in the theory that modern liberal democracies cannot be anything but illiberal and under the control of, inevitably, the top propagandists, as >>16160409 and others say. The flaw is that despite the overwhelming power of the media, there is yet a significant plurality in this country who reject their narratives. Even if it is not a majority, it may be 40% or a third. How can this be explained by those who hold to a "hard" theory of democracy as really an oligarchy of propagandists?
Are these people just the drones of Fox as opposed to CNN, NBC, CBS, NYT? Maybe, I'd like to hear other anons speak on that.
I think that propaganda contends with some other factors for public opinion, most especially self-interest. That is also why I am sanguine about the current political moment, as this tidal wave is pure propaganda. How can the anti-West movement accomplish its goal of cultural, political revolution when it is endorsed by the status quo? What happens when Nike, Amazon, MLB, NFL, Google, Twitter, CNN, find that it is beginning to threaten their interests? The movement will surely collapse. It has only gotten this far because the elites wrongly think the costs of resisting to outweigh the cost of shilling propaganda and mandating diversity training. Bezos is not so much the object of this analysis as Bob is, though. Bob of Highland Park may repeat propaganda about police, race, and America, but what happens when it dawns on him that this agenda is counter to his obvious interests?
This optimism has its shortcomings, of course. We are observing that some (white) people *know* that what is happening is not in their self-interest but nevertheless sacrifice their self interest in the name of racial justice, e.g. the trend of not calling the police on vagrants and criminals for fear of perpetuating systemic racism. I do not think this will become so popular as to overcome the general self-interest of grillers, normal people, who at least want a secure environment in which to raise their children.

>>16160630
This. Very suspicious that BLM essentially vanishes from public affairs after 2016 but then suddenly comes back to the forefront in 2020. Almost like they did nothing between those two election years.

>>16160675
>The flaw is that despite the overwhelming power of the media, there is yet a significant plurality in this country who reject their narratives. Even if it is not a majority, it may be 40% or a third. How can this be explained by those who hold to a "hard" theory of democracy as really an oligarchy of propagandists?
People who oppose or disbelieve the Narrative tend to believe some other Narrative usually output by the same propagandists as controlled opposition. "Uncontrolled opposition" tends to get you assassinated.

>>16160675
>I think that propaganda contends with some other factors for public opinion, most especially self-interest. That is also why I am sanguine about the current political moment, as this tidal wave is pure propaganda. How can the anti-West movement accomplish its goal of cultural, political revolution when it is endorsed by the status quo? What happens when Nike, Amazon, MLB, NFL, Google, Twitter, CNN, find that it is beginning to threaten their interests?
They have to obey the Civil Rights Act like everyone else.

>Bob of Highland Park may repeat propaganda about police, race, and America, but what happens when it dawns on him that this agenda is counter to his obvious interests?
A democratic majority don't have "interests" except those dictated to them by authority.
>I do not think this will become so popular as to overcome the general self-interest of grillers, normal people, who at least want a secure environment in which to raise their children.
People said this about every Leftist wave under Democracy, it has never happened. The most leftist ideas just become normalized. By 2050 normies will celebrate being the victim of a crime as their righteous penance to be done in the name of racial equality, commit suicide for restorative justice, etc. if authority tells them to.

>This optimism has its shortcomings, of course. We are observing that some (white) people *know* that what is happening is not in their self-interest but nevertheless sacrifice their self interest in the name of racial justice, e.g. the trend of not calling the police on vagrants and criminals for fear of perpetuating systemic racism. I do not think this will become so popular as to overcome the general self-interest of grillers, normal people, who at least want a secure environment in which to raise their children.
People in Venezuela still support Maduro despite it being one of the least safe places in the world where the population is playing OSRS and WoW for money. It won't happen until some faction of the elite desires a change, which is unlikely.

>>16147892
>>16148615

imagine reading all that shit to be an autistic neet that refuses to speak to people

>>16160865
seething brainlet

>>16160678
All money given to BLM goes straight to Biden's election campaign.

It's actually pretty interesting how these things work. They sort of just throw out a bunch of different ideas, and anything that sticks they run with. I remember seeing an old /pol/ effort post, showing like 20 other "groups" started by the exact same people with the exact same funding as "Black Lives Matter". That was the one that stuck, so they consolidated all resources to that one.

>>16160675
>>16160764
On the last point, I think part of the problem is the total lack of alternative power structures. That is to say, say what you will about the Federal Government, ZOG, The Man, The System, whatever, but it is still the only power structure by which one can gain status, power, and privilege. Thus, it is the legitimate one.

The question, then, is how to build a power structure that doesn't get immediately flattened. Currently, I can't see this happening. But then, if Ozzy Spergler is right, we're going to see things change, so perhaps soon we can actually get other power structures.

>>16148615
>>16148620
Will he ever deliver?

>>16160865
What are you talking about?

>>16147859

>>16161354
>All money given to BLM goes straight to Biden's election campaign.
the next step in your intellectual development is when you realize you have that exactly backwards

>>16162480
Huh?