Citizenship - "Tearing Citizenship Apart"

Walter Lippmann was the most highly regarded political writer in America and Freud’s conclusions about the beastliness of the average citizen profoundly affected him. World War One had proven what could happen when citizens gathered in crowds and got out of control. That experience, and Freud’s writings, convinced Lippmann that what was needed was a new democracy, one that saw irrational citizens (he termed them the “bewildered herd”) being controlled by a new elite. In other words, the masses had to be manipulated in order to be controlled.Up again popped Edward Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud and the master of public relations. He liked what Lippmann was saying and devised a new term for it – “the engineering of consent.” It was about to turn western societies upside down.At its heart, the very premise of democracy was about the ability of citizens to alter the political structure should they feel it necessary. Bernays believed instead that the masses had to be engineered so that the powerful elites would maintain their advantaged positions.  In his daughter’s own words: “My father saw the public as stupid.”The issue then became how to control that public, and Bernays believed he had the answer – the individual’s craving for things. He persuaded capitalists that the best way to keep everything under control was to keep citizens satiated with materialism so that they would remain content and unwilling to rise up for change. In the age of the growth of massive industries this fit seemed perfect.Except that it didn’t work. Bernays’s ideas fell into a crumpled heap as the stock market crash threw western economies into a tailspin and the average citizen, including those in Canada, found themselves in desperate times. The wealthy elite had failed to manage the economy properly and they ended up thrusting millions into hopelessness and poverty. The grand experiment of Edward Bernays seemed to be over.The new American president, Franklin Roosevelt, for all his elitist upbringing, believed the average person, the citizen, as capable of much good and industry and they he or she could be trusted to build a better future. His own sunny disposition matched that outlook perfectly. What citizens required, he reasoned, was immediate relief from their despair and a public infrastructure put in place that would assist them in building a more equal America. Corporate leaders hated every bit of it and fought him at every turn. But for a beleaguered public it was just the ticket. We all know what happened next – the New Deal, World War Two, the emergence of a powerful democratic ideal on the abilities of citizens to prove their worth. It set the stage for both social and economic growth in many nations like Canada for the next 50 years.As corporations and key business leaders watched in horror, the middle class emerged with unparalleled force. Roosevelt had used taxation to build the kind of public infrastructure that, although it benefitted business, was nevertheless targeted at getting citizens to claim their rightful place in society. Business decided to pull together to fight back and they turned to Bernays once more for ideas. He introduced them to the concept of business having its own unique relationship with citizens, who he preferred to call “consumers,” and relegating government itself to the periphery. To accomplish this he recruited the press into his plans and convinced them that while Roosevelt wanted active citizens, businesses wanted passive consumers. Far from having citizens in charge of their destiny (a frightening thought to Bernays), he believed it best if their desires were in charge; that way they could be controlled. If you could trigger their desires, you could get them to do as you wished.These are your citizen ancestors we’re talking about here. You are their legacy. But none of us should be blind to how they were perceived by the majority of the money barons and the elites of the day, including many politicians and journalists. It would be like leaders perceiving you as “stupid” and a mere part of the unthinking herd. How does it feel? There were numerous things wrong with Roosevelt’s approach, but at the heart of his philosophy he believed citizens were good and could be trusted. He attracted the best minds of his day to Washington to build a new economy on the basis of citizen strength and ingenuity. He attempted to save corporations from themselves by matching them with an enlightened and newly empowered citizenry. And the key agent for it all was a government that believed its people were more than their wallets.So here it was, the titanic struggle of outlooks, of people versus power, elitism versus enlightenment, personal finance versus public freedom. You – the citizen – were never destined to win this fight because the forces arrayed against you and your peers were just too powerful. But in a democracy, individuals or elites can’t just take over at will. And, as we’re about to see, they used the very trick of getting you to believe that you, and only you mattered, in order to take your better minds and spirits away from you.