It starts with Sigmund Freud.
NPR aired a segment on how Freud’s ideas were transmuted by Edward Bernays into the practice of public relations, or in a political context, propaganda. The premise is that rationality is just the thin veneer of human behavior. Sex, aggression, desire, security, mommy or daddy, are the subterranean drivers of human action that PR/propaganda seeks to tap. The field has advanced beyond polls and focus groups to include MRI brain scans so that our most reptilian reactions can be gauged before product rollout.
Along comes the Fourth World War. Tom Englehardt, at the always excellent Tomdispatch, explored the neocon rollout of WWIV. Elliot Cohen coined the term in 2001 in a WSJ opinion in which he outlined the standard neocon imperial program. In true Bernaysian form, he later recognized “…the right naming of things is far from a simple task.” And that’s been the whole problem. The name just hasn’t caught on with the war-consuming public. So much so that WWIV supporter Norman Podhoretz pouted about it in an article titled The War Against World War IV (WAWWIV – for those of you with scorecards).
The Bush cabal is using the American public as the world’s biggest focus group, trying out one name after another. John Brown’s ‘Why World War IV Can’t Sell' traces the war branding campaign. How about The Global War On Terror? The Long War? The War For Democracy? The Millenium War? Any of those stir your amygdalian reactions?
Yeah, Yogi, it is déjà vu all over again. Those with memories recall the justifications for the Iraq debacle – WMD and Al Qaeda. No, wait, how about regime change and liberation? Check that, try democracy for the greater Middle East. The sad, pathetic truth is that this rape of language and minds is not done in secret mirrored rooms with demographically correct focus groups wired to MRIs, but on a national scale before our eyes. Folks still buy beachfront property in Arizona. And we are still PT Barnum’s people.
It’s enough to make me roll over on the couch, turn to Sigmund and cry “I want my mommy!”
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