"Common ground for a common good" seems to be the new mantra of the communitarians amongst us.  I am not sure, exactly, how one defines a communitarian, but it appears to be the new terminology for those who believe the values and beliefs of all people should be reduced to the lowest common denominator and everybody should be compelled to help foster that "common good."  This utopian mindset maintains that if everyone believes the lowest common denominator and nothing more, then disagreement and dissent will be eliminated. 

Of course, this will never work because of humankind's sin nature, but most communitarians believe that people are basically good.  Hm.  Is this a disaster in the making?

 “The Engineering of Consent”

            Béarnaise is a classic French cooking sauce made from tarragon vinegar, white wine, shallots, and egg yolks. This delicate sauce is used to “dress-up” beef and chicken dishes, giving them a gourmet presentation and a unique French flavor.  The addition of béarnaise sauce can make even a lowly cut of meat seem elegant and desirable.  Perhaps, then, there is some irony in the fact that Eddie Bernays’s name is similar to béarnaise. Although not a familiar name to most Americans, Eddie Bernays has impacted daily life in the United States, and the world, through his development of public relations techniques.  Bernays taught people how to engineer public agreement through the use of mind manipulation.  Using psychology and sociology, Eddie Bernays maintained that people could be controlled, influenced and “engineered to consent” to a “common good.”  Furthermore, Bernays believed that this manipulation was necessary for a democracy to survive.  So, like covering a lowly cut of meet with a delicious béarnaise sauce, Eddie Bernays developed ways to make unappealing ideas seem good, right, and acceptable to the masses, even when the ideas might not otherwise be very palatable.

             Edward Bernays was born in 1891, in Vienna, Austria, but he grew up in the United States.  He was the nephew of Sigmund Freud, a fact that Bernays, during his lifetime, let no one forget (SourceWatch 1).  Larry Tye, Boston Globe reporter and author of The Father of Spin, states, “Eddie Bernays himself desperately craved fame and a place in history” (1).  To gain this fame, Bernays worked tirelessly on his techniques:  to control the masses, to influence people’s choices, and to engineer the public’s consent. 

            First, Bernays believed that democracies needed to control people through mind manipulation because physical coercion was lacking in such a form of government.  He asserted that a democracy without propaganda would disintegrate into complete disorder and confusion (Tye 2).  In his book Propaganda, Bernays “argued that scientific

manipulation of public opinion was necessary to overcome chaos and conflict in society” (Tye 2).  He also maintained that the power elite in any government needed to “pull the wires which . . . [controlled] the public mind” (Tye 2).  In his autobiography, Biography of an Idea, Bernays notes his “shock” upon discovering that his book Crystallizing Public Opinion was heavily used by the Nazis, planning and organizing their termination campaign against the Jews in accordance with Bernays’s mind control principles (Tye 2).  Nevertheless, Bernays’s choice to include this disgusting example shows some pride in the effectiveness of his techniques.  Bernays, despite the destructive use of his ideas during World War II, continued to maintain the necessity of mind control in democratic countries.

            A second point which Edward Bernays promoted was the need for influencing the beliefs of people. He commonly used the propagandistic technique of appealing to experts in order to sway public opinion.  For example, Bernays once conducted a survey of doctors who agreed to the printed statement that a “hearty breakfast” was good for people.  Then Bernays, working for a bacon company, went on to publish informational tracts saying that doctors agreed that a hearty breakfast, like bacon and eggs, helped people to stay healthy and productive during a lifetime (Spiegel).  Bernays, working for the American Tobacco Company, pulled off a similar persuasion by connecting women’s smoking to women’s rights and liberation (Tye 3).  Throughout his career in public relations, Bernays worked for Proctor and Gamble, CBS, the American Tobacco Company, General Electric, and Dodge.  The concepts of Eddie Bernays have infiltrated much of modern political life in the United States and the world.  President Calvin Coolidge was actually a client of Bernays, and Franklin Roosevelt carried on correspondence with him.  In the 1950s, Bernays, working for the United Fruit Company, was instrumental in undermining the moderate government of Guatemala by labeling it a “banana republic” and pro-communist.  In this manner, Edward Bernays was able to influence the thinking of millions of people and numerous members of the United States Congress (SourceWatch 2).

            A third point which Bernays promoted was the “engineering of consent” (SourceWatch 2).  He felt that controlling and influencing the masses was not enough; sometimes, people needed to believe that they had given their consent, agreement to an idea.  Because of his connection, promotion, and agreement with Sigmund Freud, Bernays sought to find ways to “unearth [people’s] unconscious drives and hidden motives” (Tye 2).  Bernays used this information to persuade people to agree to a specific point, value, or belief. He asserted that this was a natural and good thing to do.  In a Bill Moyer's interview, Bernays stated that he “hoped it was ‘proper-ganda’ and not ‘improper-ganda’” (Tye 2).  However, during his lifetime, Bernays seemed to determine the “proper” from the “improper” by who was paying him.

            Like serving a hamburger patty or pre-formed chicken nuggets covered with gourmet béarnaise sauce, Eddie Bernays specialized in taking ideas and making them appear good, attractive, and desirable, even when they were not.  In other words, Eddie Bernays taught the world how to “spin” the truth and make it seem different from what it really is.  Although Bernays never actually reached the pinnacle of popular success for which he hoped, the effects of his techniques are still impacting the world as it now is.  Therefore, people need to wake up and be aware that the ideas of Eddie Bernays have spawned many chefs in the corporate, philanthropic and governmental arenas who know how to cook up a lot of bologna and cover it with delectable béarnaise sauce. 

Works Cited

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The Rise of Neo-evanglicalism