(06-21-2025, 12:18 PM)FCD Wrote: Sure, it's called "propaganda", the intentional manipulation of minds to make people believe something which is counter to their culture, upbringing and instincts. Propaganda has been around, in officially recognized and organized form, since the 1920's. It has been around a lot longer than that but people didn't really understand it as a formal process back then. It was just some 'Dr. Evil' figure conjuring up some wicked plan from inside his lair in a volcano. It wasn't until Edward Bernays started categorizing and documenting it in the late 1920's that it became an actual goal with a repeatable process behind it.
There are numerous forms of propaganda. That is to say, there are numerous ways to achieve the end-goal of whatever the person, government or organization wants to achieve by making people think differently. Sometimes propaganda can be very subtle, and other times it can be 'in your face'. There are numerous famous examples, but probably the most recognizable one is smoking and the tobacco industry. Although smoking had been done for thousands of years prior to the tobacco industry getting involved, but it was the tobacco industry who made it mainstream.
As a former smoker myself, I am not one of those "former smoker nazi's" you see so often, so I have a somewhat ambivalent view of smoking in general. That said, even some light reading into how the tobacco industry followed Bernays' principles, almost down to the letter, and the absolutely stunning results from those efforts is a real eye opener. I smoked because I liked it, and when I quit I missed it, and still do sometimes. Not because of the addiction (although that was there too, but that's not why I started smoking). After some careful introspection one day, I realized one of the reasons I liked smoking was because I fell for some of the mind games played out on the populace by the tobacco industry and marketing firms. I digress a little bit, but if you step back from it and look, there are numerous similarities between smoking and communism in terms of propaganda and how it is used on people. I just use smoking as a good example and illustration of how propaganda works.
I highly recommend everyone read the book, "Propaganda", by Edward Bernays published in 1928. You won't believe how overt it is and yet you never even thought about all the ways your own thinking has been manipulated by propaganda over your lifetime. It's a real shocker! It's not a collection of case studies, but rather a step by step process with the reasoning behind each element and step. "Crystalizing Public Opinion", published 5 years earlier in 1923, also by Bernays, is an excellent read also. I recommend reading 'Propaganda' first and then reading 'Crystalizing Public Opinion' afterwards. The latter will make much more sense if read in that order. 'Crystalizing Public Opinion' is akin to the "What?" and the "Why?". 'Propaganda' equates to the "How? Where? and When?" elements.
Tobacco is good example of propaganda , too bad i am really crappy reading book`s ...i am sure those Bernays book`s are very good read . I could not say that influencing people with propaganda has gone harder, it may have gone even easyer with adding internet in to equation , as there are as yet not enough safeguards in place . Conspiracy theories may also be used to try influence others to install some sort of propaganda/views , if wanted so .
Overall , the information space seems quite baffling, confusing often . People may feel like they don’t allways know what to believe anymore, because the high saturation of many different views 24/7 . Maybe that´s the goal, getting people dazzled .
Life was more simpler before internet
. The similarities between smoking and communism in terms of propaganda and how it is used on people sounds interesting .