This is the wikipedia article.
Especially interesting- this paragraph:
"Edward Bernays, nephew of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, was considered the father of the field of public relations. Bernays was one of the first to attempt to manipulate public opinion using the psychology of the subconscious. He felt this manipulation was necessary in society, which he felt was irrational and dangerous."
E-book on crowd psychology: Here
Thursday, October 16, 2008
On Crowd Psychology
at 9:00 AM
Labels: The Discussion Forum
1 comment:
very interesting. ive read some about this through chomsky and his thesis "the manufacture of consent", and he has chosen to take the exact opposite stand.
according to him the american government, when it discovered that it couldnt govern people through force, very consciously used the PR approach to governence and has greatly been helped by the media. it worked at generating an "impression of freedom" and open debate, while the fact is that the really important issues were always kept out of the parametres of debate. also it encouraged "fashionable consumption" (its steeped deeply into our lives for sure) to distract attentions.
all this stemmed from an "elitist" ideal, which considers the masses to be exactly as in your quote "irrational and dangerous". his exact lines are as follows:
“Much concerned with the fate of the democratic experiment, Thomas Jefferson drew a distinction between “aristocrats” and “democrats.” The “aristocrats” are “those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes.” The democrats, in contrast, “identify with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the honest & safe…depository of the public interest,” if not always “the most wise.”
two very fundamentally opposite ideals. im not sure which i uphold. but when i look at the common man in punjab, i somehow feel inclined towards the former.
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