Can Democracy Survive the 21stCentury?
By: Todd Burst
Tags: Politics, Propaganda, Advertising, Democracy, Reason

It is amazing that democracy survived the 20thcentury, but the 21st… I do not know. Don’t get me wrong, I support democracy. I would never follow a dictator; a despot; or have blind faith in a ruler of this or any other nation, but Democracy — a political theory born in the Enlightenment (not counting Greece) — is far afield from what people had envisioned. Either Democracy needs to be revamped or… [dare I say] dropped altogether?

America (the U.S.) is a Republic, not a true democracy. I had to get that out of the way at the beginning, because someone would inevitably have responded about the difference. In a true Democracy everyone votes on just about everything and all votes matter. In a Republic, we elect people to represent our interests in the Senate and House and even President. A Republic is democracy by proxy. The argument against a true democracy is that people are too uninformed and practices of a true Democracy would be too time-demanding and complicated.

In the Enlightenment, European thinkers believed all people were endowed with Reason. Reason, properly used, would guide a person to making the Right decision about anything. In capitalism, for instance, if the public were given total information about two different products, the could use their faculty of Reason to make the best decision on what to buy. Note that the transparency of information is important. While Enlightenment thinkers believed all humans were endowed with Reason, they were not thinking in terms of peasants or the poor. They were thinking in terms of the educated classes.

In a Democratic election, ideally, all the people would receive as much of the information about the candidates running and using the faculty of Reason, they would make the best decision for themselves and their country. Democracy without Reason is not possible. European thinkers in the Eighteenth Century knew people were gullible. They feared what would happen if normal people were allowed to make big decisions, but they also thought that these people could be taught how to use Reason.

In the 20thcentury, with the rise of mass media (via the radio) and film, countries learned about the benefits of propaganda. Governments such as Nazi Germany and Japan come to mind, but other countries, such as the U.S. also used propaganda.

In WWI, the U.S. government censured news coverage of the war, but George Creel, from Colorado, convinced Woodrow Wilson to put a spin on news coverage i.e. propaganda. Creel told Wilson the news should “focus on asserting positive values and the encouragement of patriotism.” [1] He helped Wilson win the public’s support for war. [2]

When propaganda reached marketing, the traditional view of capitalism — espoused by Adam Smith — was no longer viable. Companies could embellish truth in many ways to appeal to popular sentiment instead of intellect, thus encouraging people to purchase non-essential goods.

In the 1920s, George Washington Hill stated: “If I can crack that market, it will be like opening new gold mine right in our front yard.” His first target were women. Prior to WWI, women who smoke were associated with prostitutes and an unsavory section of the American population. He hired Edward Berney’s to reconstruct this view of women smokers in hopes of selling more Lucky Strikes.

Berney started the “Torch Program.” During the 1929 Easter Day Parade, several women lit up cigarettes; women paid by Berney. “Bernays proclaimed that smoking was a form of liberation for women, their chance to express their new-found strength and freedom.” “The New York Times dated 1st April 1929 ran a story titled, “Group of Girls Puff at Cigarettes as a Gesture of ‘Freedom”. [3]

Today, the President of the United States lies consistently, but he still has a deep following. It would appear that information (manufactured information) guides American consumerism and politics. The hope that Reason could weed out truth from false claims is just a hope without any real-world application.

If propaganda and soundbites control the electoral progress, we simply live in a simulacrum.

To reclaim democracy, we must first focus on information and how it is used and abused, but the future does not look bright.