The Engineering of Consent - the manipulated voter

The Engineering of Consent - Wikipedia





Bernays describes engineering consent as "use of an engineering approach—that is, action based only on thorough knowledge of the situation and on the application of scientific principles and tried practices to the task of getting people to support ideas and programs." [1]




Bernays explained, "Professionally, [public relations] activities are planned and executed by trained practitioners in accordance with scientific principles, based on the findings of social scientists. Their dispassionate approach and methods may be likened to those of the engineering professions which stem from the physical sciences."[2]




The threat of engineered consent in democracy has been expressed in a textbook on American government:[3]




Under modern conditions of political advertising and manipulation, it has become possible to talk of the engineering of consent by an elite of experts and professional politicians. Consent that is thus engineered is difficult to distinguish in any fundamental way from the consent that supports modern totalitarian governments. Were the manipulated voter to become the normal voter, the government he supports could hardly be said to rest on his consent in any traditional sense of that word.




To some observers, consumer psychologists have already made the choice for people before they buy a certain product. Marketing is often based on themes and symbols that unconsciously influence consumer behavior.




The "Engineering Consent" chapter of Christopher Bryson's book The Fluoride Deception describes how Bernays helped the water fluoridation campaign in the USA.



The idea of “Engineering of Consent” was motivated by Freud’s idea that humans are irrational beings, and are motivated primarily by inner desires hidden in their unconscious. If one understood what those unconscious desires were, then one could use this to one’s advantage to sell products and increase sales.

1. Bernays, Edward (1969). The engineering of consent. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 9780806103280. 
2. Bernays 1955 page 4 
3. John C. Livingston & Robert G. Thompson (1966) The Consent of the Governed, 2nd edition, page 11, Collier Macmillan 
4. Bernays, Edward L. (March 1947). "The Engineering of Consent" (PDF). Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 250 (1): 113–120. ISSN 0002-7162. doi:10.1177/000271624725000116. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 13, 2012. Retrieved February 24, 2016.