Good timing! I've just finished Le Bon and Bernays.
> people may draw completely different conclusions from the same facts
Le Bon points out a more basic issue. He wrote about the kinds of crowds who used to storm the Bastille and so on—and appear to have returned to American history today after a long vacation. He concluded that the members of such crowds simply don't do things like considering facts or drawing conclusions. Instead, they associate chains of images and follow suggestions from prestigious leaders. TV advertisments do exactly what he suggested, and so does Donald Trump. It appears to work.
This puts me in a dilemma. As a physicist with egalitarian tendencies, I want everyone to take action that will provide the things they want and need, according to valid arguments founded on the laws of nature. But apparently, one of those laws of nature says that valid reasons have nothing in common with the reasons people do things.
Bernays resolved that dilemma by telling people like me to manipulate everyone else into doing what (we believe) is in their best interest. I'm really uncomfortable with that position, but it's hard to see an alternative.
> For voters, improve their ability to make the right choice via education and representative (not direct) democracy
The common theme of Le Bon and Bernays was that such groups as "the voters" are inherently not capable of making deliberate choices, and those choices will be made for them by propagandists. I find that depressing, but their arguments for it are convincing.
> The common theme of Le Bon and Bernays was that such groups as "the voters" are inherently not capable of making deliberate choices, and those choices will be made for them by propagandists. I find that depressing, but their arguments for it are convincing.
It wasn't always the case that "fake news" aka propaganda made so much headway. The degree to which that was happening from ~2015 until now is a unique phenomenon not paralleled since Lippmann's time.
> people may draw completely different conclusions from the same facts
Le Bon points out a more basic issue. He wrote about the kinds of crowds who used to storm the Bastille and so on—and appear to have returned to American history today after a long vacation. He concluded that the members of such crowds simply don't do things like considering facts or drawing conclusions. Instead, they associate chains of images and follow suggestions from prestigious leaders. TV advertisments do exactly what he suggested, and so does Donald Trump. It appears to work.
This puts me in a dilemma. As a physicist with egalitarian tendencies, I want everyone to take action that will provide the things they want and need, according to valid arguments founded on the laws of nature. But apparently, one of those laws of nature says that valid reasons have nothing in common with the reasons people do things.
Bernays resolved that dilemma by telling people like me to manipulate everyone else into doing what (we believe) is in their best interest. I'm really uncomfortable with that position, but it's hard to see an alternative.