Here's a fun thought experiment: imagine America without Bernays. The pros are immediately obvious: less convincing people to buy stuff they don't really need, maybe less hateful propaganda from rising fascist groups, probably a somewhat more honest internet.
The cons are less obvious, but I wonder how much important Bernays's contributions to the engine of American economic progress have been, and I wonder if we'd even have an internet (at least as developed as we have it today) if it wasn't for his philosophy and observations.
My gut says he's still a net negative on the last 100 years, but maybe not by much, and maybe not at all.
I do like those kind of thought experiments. :) I'm sure that if it wasn't Bernays, someone else would've eventually observations about human behavior to help businesses benefit. The biggest tragedy is when governments abuse psychology & persuasion for warmongering (something as old as time). Take a look sometime at videos of Bernays talking about how excited politicians got about expanding their power while appearing to be the good guy. "Spreading democracy" was one of the 20th century outcomes. It's dark stuff, but fascinating.
Certainly! "expanding their power while appearing to be the good guy" is a pretty old trope too, something every ruler ever has tried to do. It must have been very appealing to hear a scientific basis behind this strategy laid out in modern terminology.
Here's a fun thought experiment: imagine America without Bernays. The pros are immediately obvious: less convincing people to buy stuff they don't really need, maybe less hateful propaganda from rising fascist groups, probably a somewhat more honest internet.
The cons are less obvious, but I wonder how much important Bernays's contributions to the engine of American economic progress have been, and I wonder if we'd even have an internet (at least as developed as we have it today) if it wasn't for his philosophy and observations.
My gut says he's still a net negative on the last 100 years, but maybe not by much, and maybe not at all.
I do like those kind of thought experiments. :) I'm sure that if it wasn't Bernays, someone else would've eventually observations about human behavior to help businesses benefit. The biggest tragedy is when governments abuse psychology & persuasion for warmongering (something as old as time). Take a look sometime at videos of Bernays talking about how excited politicians got about expanding their power while appearing to be the good guy. "Spreading democracy" was one of the 20th century outcomes. It's dark stuff, but fascinating.
Certainly! "expanding their power while appearing to be the good guy" is a pretty old trope too, something every ruler ever has tried to do. It must have been very appealing to hear a scientific basis behind this strategy laid out in modern terminology.