Propaganda

“Our invisible governors are, in many cases, unaware of the identity of their fellow members in the inner cabinet.”

This sentence further mystifies this idea of an invisible government, especially if the alleged leaders are not even aware of the identity of their shadowy colleagues. Bernays shrouds The Myth of the Invisible Government in mystery.

“It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.”

Aside from being a metaphorical reference to the invisible government, the importance of this passage is that it is a primary example of the technical language register employed by Bernays. The reference to the mechanical components—electrical wires and harness—suggests two different periods in history.

“It might be better to have, instead of propaganda and special pleading, committees of wise men who would choose our rulers, dictate our conduct, private and public, and decide upon the best types of clothes for us to wear and the best kinds of food for us to eat. But we have chosen the opposite method, that of open competition. We must find a way to make free competition function with reasonable smoothness. To achieve this society has consented to permit free competition to be organized by leadership and propaganda.”

This passage is important because it betrays Bernays’s tendency toward a benign sort of despotism or at least an ambiguity about democracy. In the first sentence, he suggests that perhaps it would be easier or more efficient to adopt a more autocratic class to lord over us, which is An Endorsement of Elitism. In the second sentence, he seems resigned to democracy and competition.