Black Friday and all it represents, has gone viral. As its creeping talons grasp across the Atlantic to our shores, this festival of iniquity is restrained only by the working day. In the US, Black Friday is a yearly holiday in many states and, make no mistake, if UK consumers were not compelled to go to work, similar scenes of horror would flood the airwaves and soil the turf with shame. In recent years, countless injuries, including some deaths, have accompanied the zombie-like swarms of bargain-obsessed consumers, stampeding one another for the sake of a few-dollar-saving on material objects. Unfortunately, Black Friday is not the virus, it is a symptom.
I Just Have to Have it!
Many citizens across the planet have been convinced that the ownership of things trumps all; worth is measurable against pre-defined images of success; liberation is accomplished through consumption. The promise of ownership of predetermined objects, guided by mass hysteria, is reason enough to trample each other into the dust. And yet, unknown to most, the birth and growth of western consumerism did not happen by accident. The drive to attain ‘needful things’ was created, quite deliberately, by the hand of man. Within this doctrine, liberation is only attained through purchase and conformity.
By the end of his life and following the rise of Nazi Germany, Sigmund Freud took an increasingly cynical view of the human nature, viewing it as an inherently dangerous beast, whose motivations and actions are derived predominately from instinctive, unconscious drives, grossly out of control. His view is succinctly defined, “In the depths of my heart I can’t help being convinced that my dear fellow-men, with a few exceptions, are worthless”[i]. Edwards Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud, is an individual whose impact on western society is immeasurable, but whose profile is largely unknown. The first paragraph in Bernays book, ‘Propaganda’, reads: “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”[ii].
Bernays is widely credited with drawing on his uncle’s Sigmund’s theories to help shape the USA’s consumer landscape. He rose to prominence following a successful campaign during WW1 to smooth public reaction to US engagement despite many of his fellow countrymen having their roots in Germany; no easy task. Concerned about the pejorative conception of the word propaganda, Bernays smoothly re-defined the process of mass manipulation as “public relations”. Most famously, Bernays influenced scores of women in the USA to take up smoking through a clever advertising campaign on behalf of the American Tobacco Company. In a staged, press invited event, he hired a woman called Bertha Hunt to light up in the street. She then reportedly said to a journalist, “I hope that we have started something and that these torches of freedom… will smash the discriminatory taboo on cigarettes for women and that our sex will go on breaking down all discriminations”[iii]. What Bertha Hunt did not tell journalists was that she was working for Bernays who, in turn, was working on behalf of The American Tobacco Company. New York Times reported, “Group of Girls Puff at Cigarettes as a Gesture of ‘Freedom’”[iv]. Soon after, women were smoking on mass once they were convinced that this represented freedom and liberation.
Bernays also worked for General Electric and Procter & Gamble amongst others. He commonly used his knowledge on behalf of corporate interests to the benefit of his bank balance, status and prestige. As suggested by his own daughter in a recent documentary, “The Century of the Self”[v], Bernays had little respect for human kind and believed that we inherently “stupid”. From this base assumption springs the modern world of corporate PR and marketing. Once executives grasped the ease at which people can be controlled, the floodgates opened. Once they understood that simple, clear messages tapping into unconscious wants, needs and desires can prompt indoctrination, mass acceptance and manic purchase, the train was on its way. As eloquently summarised by Noam Chomsky, the primary goal of advertising is to undermine markets. People want to feel that they are informed consumers making rational choices, but in actuality, propagandists create a climate whereby uninformed consumers make irrational choices[vi]. The aim, outlined in Bernay’s writing, was to focus people on fashionable consumption through commercial advertising to exert control over the population. This was no longer possible via traditional measures such as violence and intimidation, democratic states required a new, more subtle form of regulation.
Irrational Zeal
The same psychological systems operate when concerning ‘fanaticism’ (defined as excessive, irrational zeal) of any sort. It is surely inarguable that an adult, on Black Friday, stealing an item from the clutches of a toddler in a mega-store to save $20 is an act of consumer fanaticism? How else could one label a stream of human beings ripping doors off and nonchalantly trampling a store worker to death to score a bargain? The problem is, we understand this type of fanaticism because we exist within a cultural climate where such behaviour is understood and even welcomed. Hence, we do not live in fear of rampant consumerism and the implications this holds for humanity. What is deemed extreme or fanatical is a highly arbitrary thing in our society.
Corporate power consistently acts with excessive, irrational zeal to preserve and extend wealth without the slightest care for those whose lives are destroyed. Tobacco companies continued to deny that smoking is harmful up to the 1990s, despite knowing it was carcinogenic since the 1950s. Also consider Exxon mobile’s continual evasions and denials of climate change, Monsanto’s ruin of the lives of thousands of farmers worldwide through manipulation of patenting laws or Nestle’s illegal use of palm oil sourced from Indonesian rainforests. The problem is, knowing these things about a corporation feels distant; it doesn’t engage our unconscious drives or inhibit our desperation to achieve the prescribed version of self-actualisation or “success”. These stories do not hit the right emotional keys to make many of us think twice about buying their products. We NEED these things, we have been convinced that they define who we are. And so we continue to be susceptible to Bernays’ “invisible government” and the consumerist train continues apace without challenge.
Language is the gateway to our narratives about the world and words are used, often unconsciously, to normalise rampant individualism. Black Friday’s madness has led to repugnant interactions between pugnacious consumers without the word ‘fanaticism’ or ‘extremism’ arising from commentators or more broadly, within the public sphere. For example, those who trampled staff at a Wal-Mart store were labelled, ‘unruly shoppers’[vii]. This is one of many examples of how words can be used, often unconsciously, to normalise rampant individualism.
West Meets East
Islamic extremists look different to the suit wearing, charm exuding extremists of the financial and corporate world, who look how we are all ‘supposed to look’ if we have succeeded in life. Wealthy, comfortable, powerful. And so we continue to buy their products, despite their flagrant consumer extremism and disregard for life outside the accumulation of capital.
Islamic extremism operates within an entirely different cultural climate, but activates similar aspects of unconscious human drives; the concept of freedom and liberation is, however, different when compared to the consumerist west (women just need to spark up, remember?!). As stated in the magazine produced by IS, ‘Dabiq’, “The modern day slavery of employment, work hours, wages, etc., is one that leaves the Muslim in a constant feeling of subjugation to a kāfir [infidel] master. He does not live the might and honour that every Muslim should live and experience”[viii]. Similar logic, that of attaining a universal human drive for liberation and freedom from subjugation is present in this and Bertha Hunt’s 1929 campaign for women to assert their independence via “torches of freedom”. What was spun as a feminist promotion of the freedom and emancipation of women was in reality a public relations ploy to open a new market for tobacco by getting women addicted to cigarettes. “Spiritual freedom” and freedom from colonialism is distorted by ISIS to justify mass murder, suicide attacks and expansionism. What is spun as a way to achieve martyrdom and divine providence is in fact a socio-political narrative that aims to undermine trust between Muslims and wider society and attempt to draw western countries militarily into battle to honour a prophecy.
In both examples the same psychological drives are drawn upon; the same processes of manipulation are used. The idea of freedom, power and liberation are both primitive and exceptionally attractive. Powerful people use persuasion and manipulation to propagate their agenda in a way that appears both sensible and palatable. As Bernays said later in his life, even age old customs can be overthrown by ‘dramatic appeal’. Also, by implication, new customs can also be established. In place of religion, its existential western brother, “self-actualisation”, is often distorted to justify rampant consumerism, individualism and selfishness. Whilst this observation is clearly untrue for many, the trend is exponential. As ‘needful things’ proliferate, so does the demise of collective responsibility in favour of individualism and ignorance. If people are utterly concerned with individual status via ownership of objects, money and status (as defined by others), they are, paradoxically less concerned with each other. They are so concerned with each other that they are unconcerned with each other. That is the end game of the consumer wave. Black Friday is a mere extension of this reality and a sharp example of Bernays’ methodological success.
Black Friday is a microcosm of the problem of consumerism. It happens every day in all four corners of the globe, but this fanaticism is normalised and accepted whilst other forms of extremism are (rightly) denounced without deeper analysis closer to home. Rising above the language-driven propaganda is no easy task, but the hard work is a price worth paying in a mass media age.
Written by Chris Bagley, edited by Kirstin Sillitoe
Footnotes
[i] Letters of Sigmund Freud, 1873-1939
[ii] Bernays, E L., and Irina Bazon. Propaganda (1928). Alexandria Publishing House, 2012.
[iii] Tye, L. The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays and the Birth of Public Relations. NY: Henry Holt & Co
[iv] http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/big-tobaccos-spin-on-womens-liberation/ For the original source scroll down. There is a link embedded in the article that leads to the New York Times archive.
[v] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0432232/?ref_=nv_sr_1
[vi] Chomsky, N. (1996) World Orders, Old and New. Columbia University Press
[vii] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/man-dies-after-wal-mart-stampede/
[viii] http://media.clarionproject.org/files/09-2014/isis-isil-islamic-state-magazine-Issue-3-the-call-to-hijrah.pdf
hiddendepthsblog 