The One Great Thing (Pt. I)

 

 

Molding young minds

In the reading for today, we glance inside the smoke-filled rooms within Plato's kallipolis where decisions about censorship are made. If you've not noticed by now, I'm making some very explicit connections between Plato's Republic and our 21^st century world. The reason for this is that when considering statecraft (the skillful management of the inner workings of a political entity), as we are doing for the Ninewells territory, it is helpful to see how other political entities, both real and imaginary, are made to function well. We will see what Plato has in store for us below, but first I wanted to take a look at some events from the 20^th century that shed light on how the population is compelled to fall in line with the interests of the political elite. In particular, I'd like to take a look at the dawn of public relations.

Edward Bernays (1891-1995) claimed that his specialty was ‘the conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses’ (Kinzer 2007: 134), and it was he who is considered the father of public relations. Public relations is the practice of managing and disseminating information, whether it be from an individual or an organization (such as a business or a government agency), out to the public such that the public comes to a particular conclusion about the business or organization and their actions. In his 1928 book Propaganda, Bernays gave an overview in the basics of these public communications techniques. But, while PR is interesting (and controversial) in and of itself, I'd rather not give a detailed rundown of the actual practices of the field. Instead, I want to give you an example of how these practices have been used in the past in political matters. For this we can look at the work of none other than Bernays himself. I've pulled all the following information from Tye (1998), who gives a history of Bernays and his work, and Kinzer (2007).

Let's begin with some notable PR campaigns by Bernays. In the 1920s, Bernays was hired by the Beech-Nut Packing Company to increase consumer demand for pork. Bernays used his uncle’s ideas—his uncle being Sigmund Freud—to promote the idea that bacon and eggs ought to be eaten at breakfast. Basically, he got a physician (who also worked for Beech-Nut Packing Company) to claim that breakfasts should be more dense; this doctor then sent out his "findings" to other doctors to see if they agreed, and many said they did. Bernays used this as part of his marketing campaign to great success. In the late 1920s, American Tobacco Company hired Bernays to promote their Lucky Strike cigarette brand to women, a demographic with which the company struggled. For his campaign, Bernays promoted that women smoke instead of eat by promoting the ideal of thinness (Tye 1998: 23-26). Later, to promote women smoking in public, Bernays rebranded Lucky Strike cigarettes as “torches of freedom” by paying women to smoke them during the 1929 Easter Sunday Parade in New York. He also tried to make the brand’s shade of green a more fashionable color. Interestingly, though, According to Tye (1998: 89), Bernays declined to work with the Nazi Socialist Party, the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, and Richard Nixon, but did work for the NAACP and various other non-profit organizations. But Bernays was just getting started.

To understand Bernay's most infamous campaign, we first need a little context. First, you should know that Guatemala turned democratic in 1944. When this happened, Sam Zemurray, the visionary ‘Banana Man’ head of the United Fruit Company (who had organized the overthrow of President Miguel Dávila of Honduras in 1911), sensed that Guatemala's reforming government would hurt his bottom line—that is, give his company financial troubles in the form of fewer profits. And so, although Zemurray was reluctant to make United Fruit the first American corporation to wage a propaganda campaign in the United States against the democratically-elected president of a foreign country, he eventually hired Bernays. Zemurray wanted Bernays to agitate against the Guatemalan president Jacobo Árbenz. Things weren't moving very fast, but “then, in the spring of 1951, Bernays sent him a message with alarming news. The reformist leader of faraway Iran, Mohammad Mossadegh, had just done the unthinkable by nationalizing the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. ‘Guatemala might follow suit,’ Bernays wrote in his note” (Kinzer 2007: 134). In other words, at least one nationalist reformer was making waves around the world, and Zemurray was worried this might inspire Árbenz to do the same. Kinzer then writes “that was all Zemurray needed to hear. He authorized Bernays to launch his campaign,” which included “glowing dispatches about United Fruit and terrifying ones about the emergence of Marxist dictatorship in Guatemala” (Kinzer 2007: 134).¹

The rest of this story is complicated, but here are the highlights:

 

 

What have we learned so far? Well, we might say that PR campaigns are extremely useful in persuading large segments of the populace that a given policy is good. The question I'd like to tackle here, though, is not really about U.S. presidents' and companies' uses of PR; we know that there have been some regrettable instances of this. The question I'd like to pose to you is this: as the (temporary) ruling council in Ninewells, would you be willing to use PR for benevolent reasons, to persuade the population that some unpopular policy is actually good for them if it's good for the functioning of the city as a whole? In other words, are you ok with persuading people to agree with things that are for the good of the polity? Here's some Food for thought...

 

 

Before diving into Republic, let's take a look at the Cognitive Bias of the Day:

 

 

Argument Extraction

 

 

 

Teaching Patriotism

It's perfectly natural, I think, to have a feeling of wariness as one reads the pages of Republic. To modern eyes, there is something sinister about how the kallipolis is turning out to be. What isn't natural, however, is to take a closer look at our own society and question aspects of it that are similarly disconcerting—if one pays close attention. Are there aspects of American society that are the way they are because the population has been spoonfed a carefully crafted misinformation campaign? If there are, are these aspects of American society contributing to the overall well-functioning of society? If so, do we want to reproduce these in Ninewells? These are controversial questions. Some are offended when I merely ask them (and they get too mad to even hear my answer!). So, I'll proceed more cautiously here. Let's start with this seemingly innocuous question: What is the function of primary school education?

One potential answer comes from Loewen (2007/1995). Loewen begins his Lies My Teacher Told Me with an odd admission: college history teachers—which is what he is—have to routinely disabuse students of what they learned in their high school history education. In other words, every semester Loewen and other history professors have to correct all the erroneous information that was imparted in their students while they were in high school. Why is this the case? After systematically and exhaustively reviewing their curriculum, Loewen could not help but come to the following conclusion: high school history classes’ main function is to teach students blind nationalism and patriotism in addition to a mindless optimism.

I cannot possibly summarize all of Loewen's argument here (but please do see the interview in the FYI section and/or read his book). I will simply give you one example of what he found. Let's talk about heroification. Heroification is the process by which history textbooks turn historical figures into national heroes without flaws that exemplify national standards (see Loewen 2007, chapter 1). For example, history textbooks heavily sanitize the first deaf-blind person who earned a Bachelor of Arts degree, Helen Keller. It is absolutely important to mention her plight so that we can empathize more easily with individuals with disabilities. But that cuts off Keller's story too soon. What did she do after graduation? What the history books leave out is that Keller was a radical socialist who joined the Industrial Workers of the World, the syndicalist union persecuted by then-President Woodrow Wilson. Why leave this part out? Because for much of the 21^st century, being a socialist was thought of as less-than-American. It's only recently that the label "socialist" has been rehabilitated in at least some political circles. So, Keller's politics are not mentioned in high school, much less all the interesting conversations that would've accompanied that lesson. This is because Keller realized that blindness disproportionately affected the poor; in other words, it was a class issue: those with low socioeconomic status were more likely to become blind. Loewen explains:

I can't help but to include this example. It seems that Woodrow Wilson, for his part, was also sanitized. There is usually no mention of his fifteen(!) interventions in Latin America, the secret aid he sent to the anti-communist “Whites” in the Russian Civil War, or his racism. Wilson was, by the way, very racist.

 

 

How does heroification lead to blind nationalism and mindless optimism? We'll have to leave the optimism part for a later lesson, but here's what we can say about nationalism. If you regularly portray your own people as good and courageous and strong and committed to freedom, etc., then you are inculcating in young minds the idea that their side is always right; it's other peoples that makes mistakes, commit attrocities, and in general do bad things. Your side is good; everyone else is, in the very least, not as good. This is a recipe for nationalism and patriotism—just like Plato wrote in Republic.

How does this patriotism get taught? Textbook authors use interesting techniques when they are sanitizing historical figures with immoral or “un-American” positions (like socialism) in their track records. Omission (i.e., leaving parts out) is a commonly used technique. Smiley (2014) argues that the last year of the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. is often ignored, yet this is his most militant and radical period. Consider this excerpt from his Beyond Vietnam speech:

Other times, textbook authors only tell half of the story. For example, with regards to the Wilson administration’s interventions in Mexico, textbook authors “identify Wilson as ordering our forces to withdraw, but nobody is specified as having ordered them in!” (Loewen 2007: 18). I found this pretty jaw-dropping. Wilson somehow gets credit (sorta) for ordering the troops out of Mexico even though he's the one that ordered them in in the first place. It boggles the mind.

 

 

Here are two more examples. Oversimplification is a strategy used to teach moral lessons. For example, Helen Keller, once she is sanitized, is a hero that exemplifies the virtues of self-help and hard work, thereby dispelling the notion that opportunity might be unequal in America (see Loewen 2007: 27). (Stay tuned.) As one last example, consider crafty wording. Loewen explains:

Don't get me wrong. I'm not necessarily trying to say that teaching blind patriotism is a bad idea. I, as is my custom, am merely raising some questions. Perhaps all nations need national myths that foster a sense of cohesion and patriotism? Perhaps nations that don’t utilize their educational institutions to perform this function dissolve? Perhaps something like this has been occurring in the American system? Perhaps Plato's ideas weren't all that bad?

 

 

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To be continued...

 

FYI

Suggested Reading: Edward Bernays, The Marketing of National Policies: A Study of War Propaganda

TL;DR: Eudaimonia, How to Control What People Do | Propaganda - EDWARD BERNAYS | Animated Book Summary

Supplemental Material—

• Audio: Alix Spiegel, Freud's Nephew and the Origins of Public Relations

Advanced Material—

• Book: Edward Bernays, Propaganda

  • Note: Only the first six chapters are available on this link.

Related Material—

• Reading: Scott Hensley, U.S. Apologizes For Syphilis Experiments In Guatemala

• Reading: James Gerstenzang abd Juanita Darling, Clinton Gives Apology for U.S. Role in Guatemala

• Podcast: Letters and Politics, Reflecting on Martin Luther King Jr.

  • Note: This installment of Letters and Politics features an interview with Tavis Smiley where he discusses his book on the last year of the life of Martin Luther King, Jr.

• Video: James Loewen, Interview on Lies My Teacher Told Me

 

Footnotes

1. Mario Vargas Llosa concludes his 2019 Tiempos Recios with his thoughts on how counterproductive Washington’s coup d’état against Árbenz was, along with the subsequent rebellions and assassinations. It led to a skyrocketing of anti-Americanism across South America. It impelled many to turn radical in Cuba, eventually leading to Fidel Castro’s victory. It made it clear that conquered armies had to be annihilated, as Che Guevara himself oversaw the execution of the Cuban military. Most importantly, the overthrow is what made revolutionaries across the world feel so compelled to explicitly ally with the Soviet Union—so that Washington would think twice about attempting to interfere in their affairs.