Edward Bernays: The brainwashing of a nation

I want the story told by Edward Bernays, the father of Marketing and Public Relations of the calls. So I want to show how our society is manipulated and controlled, without that we remember what happened with us.

Born in Vienna on November 22, 1891, he was the nephew of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. From his uncle, he had a great deal about the psyche of man and learned he applied this knowledge in a completely new way. He developed his opinion campaigns to make on the basis of mass psychology. Bernays argued: "If we are the mechanism and motives of the group-thinking understand, it is now possible to the masses, without their knowledge, according to our desire to control and manage." In his well-known book "propaganda" that, incidentally, as a model for Joseph Göbbels and his entire National Socialist propaganda served, he wrote "The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Who the unseen society mechanisms manipulated, forms an invisible government, the real rulers of our country is power. We are governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested largely by men, of whom we have never heard. This is A logical result of the way our democratic society is organized. Large numbers people must cooperate in this way if they compensated in a functioning society together. 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 a relatively small number of persons dominated by the mental processes and behavior patterns of the masses. They are the ones who pull the strings, which the government thought control. "Wow, so open and entlarvenrende statement by the inventor of propaganda about how to manipulate the people has been incredible.

One of the most effective experiments Bernays and thus succeeded his career started in America and was so famous, like the women he brought to smoke. We are in the year 1920 in New York. For women had been smoking completely taboo. One of his first clients George Hill, president of the American Tobacco Corporation Bernays instructed to break this taboo. He said: "We are losing half of our market because men for a ban on smoking by women in the public have expressed. Can you do something about it? . " Bernays said: "Let me think about it." And then he said "Can I take a psychoanalyst to consult to find out what cigarettes for women mean?" . What he most of the time psychoanalyst Dr. A. Brill called and asked for help. For a large fee Bernays said this then, the cigarette is for the woman is a symbol of the penis and a sign of male sexual potency. He said even if they find a way, the cigarette, and the challenge of male power to combine, then women would smoke, because then they would have its own penis.

Every year in New York on Easter Monday instead of a big parade, where thousands. There Bernays decided to stage an event to Dr. Brill's proposal into practice. He persuaded a group of wealthy debutantes from the best company, cigarettes under their skirts to hide in the parade and participate in a signal from him on the cigarettes dramatic manner and conditions to smoke. Then Bernays informed the press and said he had heard a group of suffragettes would prepare a demonstration in which they set fire to something which they would "torches of freedom." He knew it would be an outcry, and he knew the photographers would be there at this moment. The slogan "torches of freedom" as he had been headline vordiktiert journalists. So now we have a symbol, the young women smoking in public and on the other side of this sentence, with each of the equal rights, the women in the ensuing debate must of course support. We have emotions, a memorable action and a rational saying, everything together. The next day was not only in the newspapers in New York reported, but everywhere in America and around the world. From that moment on, the sales of cigarettes among women in the height and the cigarette industry was extremely satisfied with Bernays. He made smoking for women in the society with a symbolic act acceptable. Bernays managed What was the idea that if women smoke, then they would be strong and independent, an idea which continues to this day. He realized that it was possible people to an irrational act to move when a product with emotional desires, Feelings and desires. The idea that smoking by women is of course free to make totally irrational, but it gave them a sense of independence. Yes Indeed the opposite is the case, because you Nikotinsüchtig by smoking, and thus dependent, and less free. But the applied psychological trick meant that irrelevant objects to a strong emotional symbol could be transformed, as you so in the eyes of the other wishes to be seen. What Bernays was recognized, it does not sell products to the intellect, you have to buy this car because it is the best, but you should have this car because you feel so good. You do not need these shoes, you feel better with these shoes. He invented the idea of an emotional connection to a product or a service.

What Bernays was reached total fascination for the American industry, because it offered them the solution to a problem. What they fear is great after 1 WK had was the over-production by the introduction of the floating band. It would be reached a point where too many products on the market would be, but all the people what they already had and needed nothing more to buy. Until 1920 products to the general masses on the basis of need. Products were promoted because they were functional and durable. This provoked but now no longer enough for selling and it Had new needs to be awakened. The industry realized that they would have to now the way the public thought about the products change, it had a Notwendigkeit- America by a desire to transform society. The people must be trained new things to be desired, before the old consumed or worn, because that would be a lot more products can be purchased and the over-production tasks. So they created a new mentality in America, the desires and wishes of the people, the need for people overshadowed. And the man at the center of this change in the mentality was Edward Bernays.

In my next article, I describe how Bernays and his ideas were used, not only the perfect consumers to create, thereby, to complete egoists, the slave of his own ego's, his inner desires, desires and feelings, because he kept with always had to satisfy new products, but also by how the powerful people generally manipulated and controlled.
Edward Bernays: The consumer-Democracy