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Propaganda is accustoming the public to change and progress
The industrial interests can furnish to the schools, the colleges and the postgraduate university courses the exact truth concerning the scientific progress of our age. They not only can do so; they are under obligation to do so. Propaganda as an instrument of commercial competition has opened opportunities to the inventor and given great stimulus to the research scientist. In the last five or ten years, the successes of some of the larger corporations have been so outstanding that the whole field of science has received a tremendous impetus.
Edward Bernays, “Propaganda”, p. 148Again: that quote is now almost a century old. Yet today a vast majority of industrial leaders hold such truths to be just as exact as Edward Bernays seems to have held them to be exact a century ago.
The motion picture can standardize the ideas and habits of a nation. Because pictures are made to meet market demands, they reflect, emphasize and even exaggerate broad popular tendencies, rather than stimulate new ideas and opinions. The motion picture avails itself only of ideas and facts which are in vogue. As the newspaper seeks to purvey news, it seeks to purvey entertainment.
Edward Bernays, “Propaganda”, p. 156
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays Perhaps Edward Bernays was one of the most influential pioneers to introduce the term “mainstream” as a verb. As shown here, Adam Smith’s notion of an invisible hand, which motivates the main streams of public consciousness to gravitate towards whatever is in vogue, is apparently worthy of utmost respect — a force to be reckond with (and not against). In this vein, propaganda succeeds if (and only if) the propagandist’s message successfully aligns with prevailing natural market forces.
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Peak ASS (Artificially Sentient Slop)
Without understanding much regarding the details of what “OpenAI” announced on Friday, I will nonetheless venture out on a limb and suggest that we have now reached Peak ASS (Artificially Sentient Slop).
Therefore, I have chosen to interrupt my sort of “Reflections on Propaganda (as told by Edward Bernays)” to bring you a message from my own little “Emergency Broadcast Service” regarding what apparently just happened.
I don’t know how many players are currently “leading” in the so-called field of “Super-Intelligence” (also known as “artificial intelligance” [AI] ). Presumably each of the so-called “leaders” uses some kind of branding in order to differentiate their own SI from other SIs. My own gut feeling is that “OpenAI” ought to have something to do with being “open”.
So I view it as somewhat ironic that the new announcement from “OpenAI” seems to be saying that henceforth “OpenAI” will be shut (or maybe closed, walled off or something like that).
“Securing our frontier model training environment” This post describes how we secure the environments that we use to train and evaluate frontier models. These research settings differ from those in which customers use our released models: models in development may not yet have completed safety and alignment training, and we deliberately test them under adversarial conditions to expose weaknesses. Before making models available for broader use, we conduct safety and alignment assessments and put production safeguards in place.
https://openai.com/index/securing-our-frontier-model-training-environmentI wonder if someone with a better understanding of branding could educate me on the efficacy of naming a cleaning company “Dirty Cleaners” or perhaps naming a delivery service “Slow Delivery”. It seems to me that using a brand name which outright contradicts your organization’s raison d’etre might be interpreted by your target audience as ridiculous. Perhaps such surprising and / or shocking news might be “just what the doctor ordered” … and I guess it might also simply underscore that I am not a doctor, I am not a lawyer and I am not an expert.
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The great enemy of any attempt to change men’s habits is inertia
Of course: that’s another quote from Edward Bernays’ “Propaganda” (p. 135).
Apparently even 100 years ago, there was nothing easier than to accuse the mass of men with leading lives of lacking motivation. It seems that throughout time the slogan “Just Do Something” would also have been less popular than to “Just Do Nothing”.
Yet I think there is nonetheless (at least) one characteristic which distinguishes humanity from beings fully and completely devoted to slothery. I have a hunch that this characteristic is quite closely related to a sort of Narcissistic attitude. It can be expressed simply as:
No-one wants to pay, but everyone wants to get paid.
moi
get paid to sleep [1] More and more content is freely shared. Any somewhat aware reader of Esther Dyson’s writings could have predicted this decades ago. Heck, if you were even just slightly prone to thinking outside of the box, you could have had an inkling that this was certainly on some distant horizon upon reading George Orwell’s seminal work “1984”. All we are experiencing today is the mass production of content via so-called algorithmic machinery … i.e., Artificially Sentient Slop (ASS). This crap is being turned out at a rate that people all over consider to be “too cheap to meter”. Why read it — why pay attention at all?
Except, of course, for the very exceptional case: you should pay attention to me. 😉
[1] ““get paid to …”” [ https://squ.data.blog/2026/10/17/get-paid-to ] see also “The Whole World is Sleeping“
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Nuances in Milieus
The state university prospers according to the extent to which it can sell itself to the people of the state.
Edward Bernays, “Propaganda”, p. 124Many millennia ago, not a single human activity was remunerated — (perhaps) simply because the concept of money had not yet been invented. Today, there seems to be no human activity left for which there does not exist a milieu for remuneration — and I am quite certain that there exist many economists who undoubtedly prefer that I would have said “marketplace” instead of “milieu”.
I am reminded of an academic colleague (in information science) who was very prone to point out the many dozens or even hundreds of definitions for the German word “Satz”. In sharp contrast, I have a strong hunch that the present-day predisposition to general artificial intelligence is completely and utterly un-able to deal with the innumerable nuances that exist within the vast diversity of milieus.
Quite recently, for example, I have become fascinated by the way the English word “relationship” today has become particularly focused only on relationships among human beings. Apparently, anything non-human can no longer be in any kind of relationship with anything else (other than, perhaps, with a human being).
As I continue my trek through Edward Bernays’ “Propaganda”, I repeatedly note that this extremely myopic focus apparently did not exist just one hundred years ago.
Milieus exist everywhere, and perhaps most obviously as we travel through time and space. Yet the importance of nuance in milieus is probably most severely ignored if and when some ignoramus (and / or robot) traverses from common language across the wide variety of academic disciplines, let alone the finer differentiations across dialects, jargons and various other socio-linguistic phenomena.
Having written that, I can oddly sense John C. Dvorak’s critique and can almost hear him admonishing me from some cloud floating in heaven to steer clear of pedantry (and oddly also his often-repeated tip to not focus on obstacles). At the same time, I also remember another quip I’ve heard second-hand (via my father): “if it weren’t for us nit-pickers, we’d all be knee-deep in nits”.
Source: Nits On Paper Towel [ https://www.animalia-life.club/qa/pictures/nits-on-paper-towel ] -
Business Languages
After much thought, I have come to the conclusion that I want to extend my interest in “Wants” (see http://Wants.Blog ) to more professional, career oriented “business interests“.
Over the years. I have noticed that very few people seem to be aware of the fact that business actually refers to the state of being busy. Likewise, the “milieu” concept seems rather nebulous to most, even though the word is quite obviously internationally known and dates back several millennia (at least).
Therefore, I hope to shed more light on these issues by creating a new website devoted to “Milieus Networking” (see http://Milieus.Blog ). Although John C. Dvorak (see “Life is a Scam“) was really the first person to direct my attention to milieus (see e.g. “Mainstream Milieus” and other articles about the “milieu” concept), I feel that it is through the writing of Edward Bernays that the importance of the linguistic nature of business activity became much more clear and focused to me:
it is one of the functions of the public relations counsel to discover at what points his client’s interests coincide with those of other individuals or groups
Edward Bernays, “Propaganda”, p. 59and furthermore:
Such coincidence and overlapping of interests is as infinite as the interlacing of group formations themselves. For example, a railway wishes to develop its business. The counsel on public relations makes a survey to discover at what points its interests coincide with those of its prospective customers. The company then establishes relations with chambers of commerce along its right of way and assists them in developing their communities. It helps them to secure new plants and industries for the town. It facilitates business through the dissemination of technical information. It is not merely a case of bestowing favors in the hope of receiving favors; these activities of the railroad, besides creating good will, actually promote growth on its right of way. The interests of the railroad and the communities through which it passes mutually interact and feed one another.
Edward Bernays, “Propaganda”, p. 60
source: “Human Brain Conditioner: Human Nature is a Top Secret Affair“ Unlike Edward Bernays, I view business networking as an element of the interactions among people in the ways they use and implement natural language and also cultural activities and norms in their own daily life. So, in contrast to the traditional advertising model, I believe people do not orient their behavior to the advice of leaders, spokespersons, role models, etc. I believe they act according to their own convictions — albeit these convictions are expressed, as Wittgenstein was want to saying, in languages which thereby (i.e. “naturally“) sort of limited their own powers (or “ability” or perhaps “capability”) of expression (see also “The further on I go, the less I know” and other articles about “Wittgenstein“).
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Rational Media + Business Communications
Besides trudging through Edward Bernays’ book (“Propaganda”) I am also currently on vacation trudging through mountainous terrains in central Europe — perhaps I will update with more images later, but let me start off with this image of collaboration between business and communications first:
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication I also offer (as somewhat of a preview) another quote from Edward Bernays:
The media through which a political campaign may be brought home to the public are numerous and fairly well defined. Events and activities must be created in order to put ideas into circulation, in these channels, which are as varied as the means of human communication. Every object which presents pictures or words that the public can see, everything that presents intelligible sounds, can be utilized in one way or another.
Edward Bernays, “Propaganda”, p. 103I also ask you to consider how the messaging from Edward Bernays compares with my own messaging about “Rational Media”. [1]
As I am only somewhat or even just very slightly in a “business communications” state of mind at the moment, I hope to update more about these ideas in the coming days (or at the very latest by next weekend). So please practice your patience and try to bridge the gap by reading up and maybe even by actually thinking for yourself, trying to connect the dots, and maybe even arriving at conclusions before I manage to do so myself. 😉
[1] https://phlat.design.blog/2024/01/14/rational-media
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Our Engagement = Strictly Business + Professional Relationships
Reading “Propaganda” has been fascinating (so far). This week I have been ploughing through one of the longest chapters, which addresses issues that seem to me have been largely neglected over the past century.
The new technique of public relations counsel is serving a very useful purpose in business by acting as a complement to legitimate advertisers and advertising in helping to break down unfair competitive exaggerated and overemphatic advertising by reaching the public with the truth through other channels than advertising. Where two competitors in a field are fighting each other with this type of advertising, they are undermining that particular industry to a point where the public may lose confidence in the whole industry. The only way to combat such unethical methods, is for ethical members of the industry to use the weapon of propaganda in order to bring out the basic truths of the situation.
Edward Bernays, “Propaganda”, p. 79-80That is quite a mouthful, and I wonder whether any person today would have enough confidence to speak so boldly … perhaps besides the late great John C. Dvorak? (see “Life is a scam” [ https://obit.news.blog/2026/07/26/life-is-a-scam ] ) Bernays proposes that publics can be “managed” — whether to buy cigarettes or to follow Adolf Hitler or start wars, drop bombs, build secret laboratories … and maybe even to annihilate all of civilization. In the so-called “Western World” (primarily in the USA) so-called “private corporations” in the Twentieth Century took on the challenge, stepped up to the plate, time and again wrecked havoc, and were repeatedly ultimately “bailed out” by so-called “governments”. And yet apparently no one really wants to think about so-called “irrational exuberance” … or about whether we are satisfied with a situation in which most of the so-called mainstream headlines revolve around whether this or that so-called “leader” will be able to so-called “save” humanity … or NOT.
Almost single-handedly, Edward Bernays introduced the notion of a “truthful” leader, whom the public relations counsel could manage to behave rationally. He was able to sell this idea over and over again to people willing to become such leaders all over the globe (see also “There’s a Sucker Born Every Minute“).
At least until now. At what point will an offer to “join the circus” become viewed as something perhaps NOT completely rational?
Source: Sydney Sweeney Teams Up With Novig for Bold New “Just Sports” Campaign [ https://novig.com/blog/sydney-sweeney-teams-up-with-novig-for-bold-new-just-sports-campaign ] -
Rational – Irrational – Differently Rational
I find it very difficult to write about this topic, because most people seem unwilling to see my point of view. For most people there is only the dichotomy “rational” versus “irrational” — “differently rational” is not a category they feel comfortable with. [1]
It is evident that the successful propagandist must understand the true motives and not be content to accept the reasons which men give for what they do.
Edward Bernays, “Propaganda”, p. 52Although the word “rationalisation” exists, and also the word “rationality” and its plural form are both well-known and hardly incomprehensible, the notion of different kinds or modes of rationality still simply does not compute, make sense or anything like that.
In contrast, there are many people who maintain that most humans are irrational when it comes to decision-making.
Yet the advertising industry — and especially the quasi-scientific approach that Edward Bernays introduced it to — has become very adept at telling stories that increasingly make consumers buy it (whatever “it” is). This is based on insights that are downright predictable — decisions are not made irrationally, they are simply differently rational.
Note that while consumer behavior is obviously very well researched, virtually none of the insights gained are widely published. Competitive companies have little or no interest in sharing their own trade secrets with their own competitors.
I don’t know much about Edward Bernays, and I also never studied “public relations”. Yet I did learn about him through my work (in a field called “information science”) — and I am fascinated by his “story”. A significant part of this story is beyond the shadow of a doubt his close relationship to his “double” [1] uncle (Sigmund Freud). And I find it particularly noteworthy to point out that he and his double uncle did not develop their double relationship into a professional relationship to “treat” the psychological issues that they observed in the context of “mass psychology”; instead, they did develop a professional relationship to exploit the psychological issues they observed in the context of “mass psychology” (for mutual financial gain).
Source: “The Social Construction of Publishing“ In the century since they did so, the scientific investigation of propaganda techniques and technology has been expanded greatly, and it has gained momentum precisely because it was thereby discovered that this form of exploitation is an extremely lucrative business practice. So far, we are apparently nowhere near “peak propaganda” yet.
[1] For more about the concept of rationality, see also “Rational Media” [ https://phlat.design.blog/2024/01/14/rational-media ]
[2] I have just now made up this term on my own — I don’t know of a more “correct” term for the exact family relationship that existed between the two.
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AI = PR
Today, “propaganda” is closely associated with dictatorship. It is the boot stamping down on faces. Here in Germany I hear it mentioned time and again in messaging about historical facts together with historical footage — usually Adolf Hitler screaming into a microphone.
Yet propaganda also has a more innocent-looking face, which is (perhaps) in fact much more insidious. This is a world of poor huddled masses, hungering for small bits and pieces of truth, which — whenever one comes within reach — they reach out, grab, hold on to and eagerly consume and thereby internalize before it can be forgotten, or forever lost. Bridget Phetasy has employed this imagery repeatedly when checking for “news” in the dumpster in her podcast titled “Dumpster Fire”. [1]
In this second kind of propaganda, which we might refer to as consumer-driven propaganda or simply “consumer propaganda”, nothing like scientific scepticism plays any significant role: there is no burden of proof, because the consumers willingly consume any messaging dished out … as it is easier to simply consume indiscriminately than to ask questions or otherwise risk starvation.
This insight is nothing new. It is a basic premise of public relations and also obviously and transparently spelled out by Edward Bernays in the third chapter of “Propaganda”:
Source: https://squ.data.blog/2026/09/05/in-public-opinion-the-public-relations-counsel-is-judge-and-jury-because-through-his-pleading-of-a-case-the-public-may-accede-to-his-opinion-and-judgment Although today people have a somewhat more reserved stance when it comes to traditional advertising, few people bring a similar sceptical attitude to so-called “search results” or (as in this case) when a so-called “search engine” offers an answer from so-called “artificial intelligence” instead. On the contrary: many people use Google (or similar websites) as if they were proof of something! Especially young, naive people are particularly prone to thinking (for example) that if Google returns no matching result for a query that no such website exists anywhere on the Internet. To teach such young, naive people a little about the real world, you could simply ask them to use their favorite so-called “search engine” to search for the quote by Edward Bernays (above) and to see whether the post which I published just yesterday shows up (or NOT).
[1] See https://www.phetasy.com
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Pavlov, Natural Language, Rubber Stamps, Repetition, …
Nature and natural language are certainly forces to be reckoned with, and so Pavlov’s experiments showing that to some extent interpretations of the real world can be influenced by what has become referred to as “behavioral conditioning” were truly groundbreaking. At the same time, we need to recognize that human natural languages are a special case — insofar as humans themselves discern many species of language within the larger grouping we might refer to generally as “human language”. Even focusing directly on spoken or written languages, humans discern a wide variety, usually having to do with the different communities they also distinguish. [1]
Therefore, Edward Bernays’ manipulative approach of coopting celebrated spokespersons to endorse and advocate for particular products or services may very well be much less effective today than in the heyday of classical propaganda. While many more stalwart companies may still try to use such methods (particularly in more outdated media such as television or similar technologies based on “brought to you by” advertising methods). The innumerable repetitions of repeated rubber-stamp impressions are today hallmarks of bogus bullshit shunned by younger generations no longer innocent enough to be suckered into believing in the sponsors’ messages polluting the channels they have turned into toxic dumps.
Instead, the more inspired and interested youth of today (and in particular, the somewhat enlightened examples) shun irrational media [2] like the plague of bygone technlogy. They put print media on par with hieroglyphics. They compare radio waves with towers of Babel. They view centralization as a leather boot.
Source: “Irrational Media’s Business Model is Propaganda“ In contrast, today young, budding communities see enormous growth potential in networks of rational media. Interlocking communities of interest each revolving around linguistic communities identifying particular aspects of daily life and thereby focus on what matters most to their own as well as communal well-being. In this world, there is simply no need for any central authority to govern affairs. If there is any problem in any one particular camp, the wonders of the adaptiveness inherent in contiually evolving natural languages will immediately route around the problem — problem solved.
[1] For more about this phenomenon, please see “Propaganda Information Technology vs. Indigena Information Technology — the Basic Idea” [ https://indigenous.news.blog/2022/05/07/propaganda-information-technology-vs-indigena-information-technology-the-basic-idea ]
[2] See “Rational Media” [ https://phlat.design.blog/2024/01/14/rational-media ]
Social Business (WordPress weblog)
