“But in a broader sense the very activities of social service are propaganda activities. . . . . Social progress is simply the progressive education and enlightenment of the public mind in regard to its immediate and distant social problems.” ~E Bernays

Part 11 of this 13-part series analyzes  Edward Bernays’ Chapter 9 ‘Propaganda and Social Service’, which further exposes Bernays’ determination that the wealthy should direct the priorities of a particular society.

Bonus: This episode also features an interview with the former Boston Globe journalist Larry Tye, author of ‘The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays and the Birth of Public Relations’. Larry discusses meeting the man himself, what it was like to sift through his collection of things at the Library of Congress, and what he gleaned from talking to over 100 of his closest friends and relatives.

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Chapter 9 Transcript – “Propaganda In Social Service”

The public relations counsel is necessary to social work. And since social service, by its very nature, can continue only by means of the voluntary support of the wealthy, it is obliged to use propaganda continually. The leaders in social service were among the first consciously to utilize propaganda in its modern sense.

The great enemy of any attempt to change men’s habits is inertia. Civilization is limited by inertia.

Our attitude toward social relations, toward economics, toward national and international politics, continues past attitudes and strengthens them under the force of tradition. Comstock drops his mantle of proselytizing morality on the willing shoulders of a Sumner; Penrose drops his mantle on Butler; Carnegie his on Schwab, and so ad infinitum. Opposing this traditional acceptance of existing ideas is an active public opinion that has been directed consciously into movements against inertia. Public opinion was made or changed formerly by tribal chiefs, by kings, by religious leaders. To-day the privilege of attempting to sway public opinion is every one’s. It is one of the manifestations of democracy that any one may try to convince others and to assume leadership on behalf of his own thesis. Continue reading →