One Idea to Rule Them All

This is an eye-opening history of propaganda and public relations (for which the author coins the term ‘idea bullying’) going back to its origins with the publication of Gustave Le Bon’s best-selling 1886 book The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind. Le Bon recommended appeals to sentiments rather than reason, explaining techniques to manipulate the subconscious mind through images, words, simplified ideas, affirmation, repetition, contagion, imitation, prestige and authority. The first widespread use of these propaganda techniques was by the US government during World War I, with its creation of the Committee on Public Information where one of its slogans was ‘make the world safe for democracy,’ a high-sounding yet rather nebulous goal using a recognisable buzzword as part of ‘an extensive fabric of persuasion’ to promote the message of war.

Two of the key protagonists in the 1920s were the journalist Walter Lippman and the pioneer of PR, Edward Bernays. They both reached the conclusion that ordinary people were incapable of rational thought and that public opinion should be guided by ‘enlightened and responsible elites.’ Narratives should be selected by experts and fed to newsroom editors to support an agreed storyline and correspondingly suppress alternative viewpoints. The public needed to trust experts who would then steer them to the best decisions. As we have seen since, this modus operandi represents the corruption of the basic journalistic function involving the quest for truth and holding the powerful accountable. In the meantime, there has been enormous consolidation of the media and cross-fertilisation with other corporate boards, not to mention CIA infiltration through Operation Mockingbird. The real news crisis stems from systemic media corruption that has been metastasising for over 100 years. Lippman himself stated that news and truth were not the same thing: ‘the function of news is to signalise an event… and make a picture of reality upon which men can act.’ (p. 43) A key development has been a shift of primacy from words and arguments to images with their immediate and subliminal emotional impact.

An early iteration of PR was Bernays’ stagecraft where events are choreographed towards a predetermined outcome, which he himself applied as an opinion-moulding tactician influencing and directing reactive public attitudes in the marketplace of ideas. For tyranny, competing ideas are dangerous and to be censored, while in systems of free speech, all ideas are welcome and to be tested – we do not need to be protected. The use of the word propaganda has mutated to be applied only to the enemy communications. Already in the 1930s, the Institute of Propaganda Analysis produced guidelines to protect democracy from the threat of propaganda and social engineering. (pp. 66 ff.) It was in the same decade that technocracy was developed at Columbia University.

A key chapter explains Le Bon’s infrastructure of belief, consisting of five pillars: imagination, language, authority, social pressure, and experience, all of which are hardwired into the nonrational part of the brain and trade on trust in the service of manipulation (see chart on p. 76). The next two chapters introduce the key concepts of Operation Sheepskin and Operation Spider’s Web. The first is defined as ‘the ability to amplify certain ideas and steer public opinion down a predetermined path toward specific ends that have been disguised as being in the public’s best interest.’ (p. 2 and see the SDG example below) The second involves the creation of a powerful network of interlocking interests and influence involving interconnected and well-financed authoritative voices and entities. The author gives specific examples, for instance the CIA coup in Guatemala, where Bernays was a key strategic advisor to protect US commercial interests. Structurally, Operation Sheepskin (see chart on p. 102) involves a co-ordinated campaign set-up of problem – reaction – solution through the initial promotion of a fear-inducing narrative leading to the proposal of a prefabricated solution that is in fact part of a larger hidden agenda. Perceived escalation of a threat increases the likelihood of manipulation towards desired outcomes. (p. 107)

Operation Spider’s Web is the longest chapter in the book, containing crucial background and insights drawing on classic analyses, for instance the 1956 book by C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite, and Peter Phillips’ more recent Giants: The Global Power Elite (2017) analysing the reach of the Transnational Capitalist Class and highlighting the role of Public Relation Propaganda firms controlled by the very same monied interests as the corporations and providing 70% of corporate media content. (p. 123) And just out of the blocks is Seamus Bruner’s The Controligarchs. The author provides an invaluable chart (p. 141) detailing the interconnections of the Spider’s Web woven by the multinational mega PR firms, with major informal groupings such as the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg Group, the G30 and the World Economic Forum around the edge (the WTO is listed but not the UN); the next layer consists of universities, corporations, medicine, politicians, non-profit organisations and foundations, the justice system, science, and government and regulatory agencies. News media set the narrative and only platform approved spokespeople, sometimes through front groups.

Foundations like the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation play a key role of funnelling money into potentially lucrative research projects, results of which are publicised through institutes and think tanks funded by the same people. This forms an intellectual cartel ‘that maintains a chokehold on the perennial idea incubators in society – the universities.’ This Idea Syndicate (p. 129) controls the flow of money and dominates the intellectual marketplace with a fundamentally materialist ideological scaffolding. The spread of an idea orthodoxy is reinforced by social pressure to conform to avoid cancellation, and the reputational or even livelihood cost of not doing so can be ruinous. A systemic triangulation process ‘locks onto “trust” and dismisses other non-authoritative sources as garbage, stigmatising their proponents as conspiracy theorists.’ The original CIA dispatch relating to critics of the Warren Commission admitted that the term lacked any fixed definition, ‘but it does serve a fixed function’ in stigmatising dissidents from officially sanctioned orthodox beliefs. These tactics were used extensively during the pandemic, accompanied by unprecedented and systematic censorship. Rising global leaders are trained by existing influencers within bodies such as the Council on Foreign Relations and the WEF. Inexorably, unaccountable corporate interests have come to prevail over public interest, partly through Public Private Partnerships. Historically, the author charts four propaganda eras leading to the consolidation of wealth, resources and power, with critical inflection points as the Kennedy assassination and 9/11.

Propaganda on a planetary scale with coordinated branding is being deployed around Agenda 2030 and the 17 sustainable development goals, with a parallel system of monitoring and tracking. As the author rightly points out, the buzzwords and packaging are anodyne enough, but the devil is in the details. An important chapter is devoted to the war of words in terms of direction, reality, definition and relationships. Underpinning this is an attack on spiritual values that hold cultures together. This is conducted through the use of ‘god terms’ of approval as opposed to ‘devil terms’ denoting reproach and is applied to the legitimacy of knowledge and moral demands relating to the planet and our fellow humans. American Christians can now be framed as ‘narrow, selfish, greedy, racist, and anti-intellectual.’ (p. 171) A genuine dialogue of subjects entails mutual respect and mutual search for truth, whereas where language is used in service of an ulterior motive without regard for truth, people become objects to be manipulated and controlled. Among key cultural watersheds were the invention of the term ‘hate crime’ and the establishment of group rights, including the right not to be offended – all this undermines individual rights and freedom of speech enshrined in the US Constitution, forming a deep cultural divide.

The Network is concerned with both the scientific domain of facts and data, and the spiritual domain of ultimate value and goals, also studied in the humanities. It is values that constitute the core of culture and embodied in wise teachers grounded in cosmic love, freedom and truth. As the Bulgarian sage Peter Deunov (Beinsa Douno) put it, ‘The supreme goal of human life is that people should be free and to serve Love, Wisdom and Truth.’ The demand for uniformity can crush the human spirit, and ‘a culture that has elevated safety and security above all else will ultimately succumb to tyranny. Orthodoxy will be elevated over variability and the free exchange of ideas.’ (p. 190) Forewarned is forearmed – this highly accessible and informative book equips readers to recognise the pervasiveness of propaganda in our media landscape, providing sound guidance and telling examples. It is vital that a critical mass of people become aware of the history related in this book, otherwise we will sleepwalk backwards into a digital dystopia instead of upholding human dignity and unity in diversity.