Accordingly is Propaganda effective in the current Western culture to, for example, engage the victims in war or extermination.
Even if the area of Rhetoric, the art of persuasion, is ancient is the form of Rhetoric that today is called Propaganda a new and a very special form of Rhetoric developed to not only persuade but to direct in a hidden manner.
The man that put together Rhetoric, Platonism and the use of the Massmedia and invented Propaganda as a practical tool was Edward Berneys (1891−1995).
Read his book Propaganda (1928), full text, and you will understand the current Western culture and your life.
Here is the beginning of Chapter I, Organizing Chaos.
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.And do watch the eminent documentary The Century of the Self (2002) made by Adam Curtis that tells the story about Edward Berneys in the first section.
We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.
Curtis says in, How Freud got under our skin, Tim Adams, The Guardian, 10 March 2002.
… what we are seeing is a kind of pseudo democracy, which listens all too carefully to the population, but not really to its rational thought, and allows itself to be shaped by that. ...BBC's presentation of The Century of the Self, 28 February 2002.
