May 2, 2018 • 51 mins
In Stuff They Don't Want You To Know's inaugural podcast, Ben and Matt explored the strange career of Edward Bernays, the then-obscure Father of Public Relations responsible for selling the American public on everything from bacon as breakfast to corporate-driven wars in South and Central America. All for some greater good packaged as 'democracy'. Today, many institutions, governments and organizations remain publicly convinced that some form of democracy is the superior -- or simply the least worst -- way to run these large groups of people we call countries. However, not everyone agrees. Join the guys as they delve into the story of Walter Lippmann, the Bernays-esque figure responsible for pushing the argument against democracy (and toward governance by an elite cabal) into the public sphere.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. Hello,
(00:24):
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt. They
call me Ben. Our compatriot Knell is away for the moment,
but never fear. Our super producer Paul Decont is here.
Most importantly, you're here, and you are you that makes
this stuff they don't want you to know. Now, you
may recall our very first episode ever on a gentleman
(00:48):
named Edward Berney's one of the most important and uh
slightly obscure, at least until our episode came out thinkers
in history right, Yes, the the man commonly known as
the father of public relations, the most famous, the most
(01:10):
famous relative of Sigmund Freud in our modern age. Both
of those things are true. If you're a fan of
this show and you haven't listened to that episode of
the podcast, it is one of the few that Matt
Nike had agorically recommend you listen to and share with
your friends, family, and colleagues. Without going too far into
(01:31):
what happens in that episode, Let's put it this way.
Edward Bernets is the reason that you and your loved ones,
as well as your enemies to probably practice several things
that seem normal today seem normal, Yeah, because you know
that very very quickly. It's insane how quickly people can
(01:52):
become accustomed to something, something that is not normal, and
then all of a sudden becomes normal to the average individual,
to an our community perhaps or even civilization as a whole,
something that was never done before and now it's normal. Right. Yeah,
it's likewise astonishing how rarely we question bizarre things. So
often we hide behind the idea of tradition as a species,
(02:16):
I mean, or so often we uh, we don't ask
fundamental questions about why something has framed the way it
is or presented the way it is. For instance, why
do we eat bacon for breakfast? This was not the
case for the vast majority of human eras on this planet.
(02:37):
Why are we actually at war with a particular country
at any given time? And one that I always go
back to as as a strange example here is Matt,
why why do people wear ties like neck ties? Oh? Well,
it's because of the form. It's all about form, not
so much function. Uh yeah, it just looks really good
(02:57):
to have that line going down the chest. Someone's read
a couple of fashion guides. I see, yes, make it work.
So there, Yeah, that's that's a good point. We did
earlier on a different show that we've worked within the
past called brain Stuff. We looked at the origin of
where neckties come from. And Matt, you are spot on correct.
(03:20):
It serves no function. It's not I was talking from
that took us. It's not a it's not a functional thing.
That took us is more functional than an actie. So
leading to this, why why does a country work a
certain way? Folks think about the government in the country
(03:41):
that you live in today or the governments in countries
used to live in. Right, how closely does the government
in practice adhere to the theory of government as outlined
in your country's constitution or other documents? Yeah, wres this?
You know? Getting it right? For some of the most part, well,
(04:04):
most people, regardless of where they live, will generally agree
that there is at least some degree of difference between
the government on paper and the government in practice. Right,
And in some cases this can seem like a relatively
obscure difference, right, or it can seem like a matter
(04:26):
of persnickety, nitpicking interpretation. But speaking of obscure, today's episode
focuses on another figure, sort of like bern As, another
profoundly important, equally obscure historical figure, Walter Lippmann. Now when
(04:49):
we say he's obscure, we mean to the public, to
the every day Joe and Jane walking around. Uh, they
probably don't know who Walter Lippan is. I did not
know who this person was until we started thinking about
this episode and reading some of the materials. Um just
like Edward Berne. But but these gentlemen were very much
(05:12):
well known within circles of the powerful. I think we
should at least like put that out there right like
they were. They were the guy. Yeah, yeah, the we were.
It's funny because before Paul, Matt and I went on
air today, I brought in a a fancy glass for
my typical coffee because we are talking about the elite,
(05:35):
and it looks like an absentthe glass. Gotta be honest
with you, Well, I'll tell you what it is. Truth
be told. Not as convenient as the regular mug or
cup that I would typically use, but you know tradition.
So so here are the facts. About Walter Lippmann. As
(05:57):
we said nowadays, Walter Lippman is, let's say, obscure enough
that were you to walk on a on the average
city street and ask someone you know identify the following figures, say,
you know Neil Armstrong, probably know that, No, he's some
(06:19):
sort of astronaut. Maybe at the least identify you know,
the big current or past presidents. They probably probably at
least recognized the name of past presidents, right. Uh. But
if you said, who's Walter Lippman, they would say does
he Does he on the grocery store? I don't know, unless,
of course, you were asking someone in Harvard, and then
(06:41):
the answer might very well be I think that's a
building on campus. I'm pretty building. But as you said, Matt,
in his day, this man was profoundly influential and remains so,
so let's get to know him a little bit. Walter
Lippman was born on September eight nine, eighteen eighty nine,
(07:02):
in New York. He was a child of privilege. He
attended the Sacks School for Boys before matriculating into Harvard.
Now Sacks by the way, s A C. H. S.
You might recognize that name somewhere with a goldman in
front of it, like golden sax yes um. And this
is where he studied at Harvard under the famous philosopher
(07:24):
and novelist George Santayana, who was a teacher of numerous
other numerous other people who went on to become literary lions.
You know, T. S. Eliott would be one of the
most famous examples. Then in May of nineteen ten, he
(07:44):
began his career in journalism as a cub reporter with
the Boston Common after he dropped out of his the
master's course that he was taking at Harvard University. And
this this is interesting because we found a couple of
different things in the research. Will find many biographies to
say he graduated right in nineteen ten, and then you'll
find other writers who say that he dropped out. Yeah,
(08:09):
so either way, he did go to Harvard. At some
point he was assistant to the philosopher novelist George Santiana. Uh.
In nineteen thirteen, Lippman co founded a paper called The
New Republic. It's a liberal American magazine. The published articles
on politics and and the arts and UH. In that
(08:29):
same year he published a book called A Preface to
Politics and his writing, his philosophy at this time, in
this early phase, garnered the attention of one Woodrow Wilson.
Just a little side note there about the New Republic
at the time when he founded it, in quite for
(08:50):
quite some time afterwards, it had a fairly small readership
of only you know, ten to twenty thousand people. But
the people reading that magazine were the important people, right,
the bankers, the professors, the jurists. And in nineteen fourteen
Lippman was appointed as an advisor to President Wilson Woodrow Wilson,
(09:12):
and during this time he helped the president draft a
famous speech about World War One and was called the
Fourteen Points. You can read it in full online today.
So Lippman was at this point an interventionist in a
largely isolationist society. And what what we mean by that
(09:36):
is that the majority of the US public did not
support foreign intervention because there was this feeling that, well, one,
why should we get involved, right, It's it's imperialist on
some level. And two we're separated by oceans, right, and
(10:02):
there's no imminent threat at this point in this isolationist society,
Lippman was an interventionist. He was one of the people
who argued that it was both rational and advantageous for
the United States to enter into World War One in
(10:25):
some capacity or another. He wrote propaganda that was meant
to sway the needle on public support. Right, because in
a representative democracy, the theory goes that the voters must
support a large scale government action, or at least the
majority of voters must support something for it to occur. Yes,
(10:49):
because the representative part of that government, the the people's
part of the government in Congress, they are the ones
that actually declare war in an act war, especially at
this time for World War One. So you had to
get the voters and the people's voice to say, yes,
let's do this. And so Lippman and Edward Bernese both
(11:10):
worked for what was called the Committee on Public Information.
I love that name, the Committee on Public Information. And
this was a wartime propaganda institution built to do two things. First,
to spread or propagate pro intervention, pro war literature, art, music,
(11:33):
anything in pop culture, as well as academic arguments for
intervention on the part of the US. And then the
second task was to suppress, discredit, or destroy anything that
was anti war. So if you uh, just pulling an
(11:56):
example out of thin air, right, and one way in
which something like this might occur still happens today, it
happened for decades after, uh, would be Let's say there
are two there are two art galleries in a town,
and one of them has has a featured artist who
(12:19):
is glorifying the moral duty or imperative to save people
in another country. And this this gallery is filled with
this one artist work. And then in the other gallery, uh,
there's someone who has a exhibits about imperialism and the
unintentional tyranny of intervening, whatever your intentions, in a culture
(12:46):
you don't understand and a civilization that never asked for
nor needed your help. What this sort of operation would
do would not be to have the government openly shot
them down. You would have critics from newspapers praising whichever side,
it doesn't matter what side we're talking about. We have
(13:07):
critics praising the interventionist if they want to intervene, or
praising the isolationists, and then you would have them also
dismissing or ignoring the other side of that cultural argument.
And it's like it's almost this um uh soft aggression
(13:29):
tactic that that is employed by this stuff, and in
a weird way, it's it's not fully going after a
lot of times, at least from what I was reading
this research, the the Committee on Public Information wouldn't necessarily
physically go after anyone, but they would use the media to,
like you said, ben, completely ignore or just trash something
(13:50):
that they didn't agree with. Right, yes, exactly. And the
most important part of that is in these sorts of operations,
you wouldn't know the ultimate force behind this trend. It
would appear to be and this is the most important part,
it would appear to be an organic consensus arrived at
(14:11):
by every Jane John and Jimmy Smith in America, just
to pick I don't know, ridiculous. It's almost like the
rotten tomato score. If the tomato score is at a
certain height, or you know, if it's in the eighties,
you're like, oh, man, okay, I'm gonna go see that.
You don't even have to read the stuff about it.
If it's in like the thirties or twenties, and then oh,
(14:32):
I'm never probably not gonna go see that trash because
you don't have time usually if you're the average person
to go through and read every single review now you
want the bottom line the best news, Explain it to
me now, because I'm almost off the elevator, right or
the light almost turned green, as the case would be
(14:52):
from any communities, only have twenty bucks to spend, and
I gotta choose where I'm gonna spend it. Even better,
Lippman also traveled the world and wrote extensively, prolifically. That's
that's such a fantastic dream life. You know. I think,
here I am in Vienna, and here was my thoughts
on the Viennese. Oh, man, you want to be Anthony
(15:15):
Boordain so badly, don't you? Lippin know you? Oh you
know what? You know what? Uh? A little food centric?
I think, Yeah, I think he's doing a great job
being Anthony boording Okay, but but I appreciate it. Yeah,
I'd love Who wouldn't love to travel the world and write?
I don't know, Yeah, I can't think of anyone. So
(15:37):
Lippman was no exception to that, that rule that we
have arbitrarily decided as almost universal. So then on September eight,
n Lippman's column for The New York Herald, which was
called Today and Tomorrow. I love that title. It first appeared,
and eventually this was syndicated to more than two and
fifty newspapers within the United States and then another twenty
(16:00):
five other nations. And then it also won two Pulitzer Prizes,
one in ninety eight and another in nineteen sixty two.
So in his day, Walter Lippman was a world famous
columnist for the New York Times and other papers of note,
and overall the world held his opinion in tremendously high regard.
(16:23):
He lived amid New York's elite and therefore a a
percentage of the world's elite. He dined with presidents, he
would write speeches for them, He advised them in formal
and informal capacities. He was a true man behind the curtain.
So let's talk about what he truly believed in. Right, Yeah,
(16:47):
this so well and good? But why why is he
the subject of today's episode? Uh? Is he them? Is
he that? They? And stuff? They don't want you to know.
What did he actually leave? We'll tell you after a
word from our sponsor. So let's bring the rubber to
(17:11):
the road. Matt Walter Lippman is responsible for creating, popularizing,
coining several terms that you have almost certainly used at
some point in your life, friends and neighbors. The first
one is the well let's let's do let's do one
(17:32):
that's little us specific first, that's the Cold War. He
is the person who popularized the term Cold war with
a series of articles Inn called the Cold War right
pretty good. When you title something, it's probably gonna stick. Uh.
In those articles, he was speaking out against President Truman's
(17:56):
policy of containment. Uh. And the more popular term that
you have you have obviously heard. There's no one who
has not heard this, this term, at least no one
that speaks English has not heard this term. And that
is stereotype. Yes. One of his works, Public Opinion, It
(18:18):
begins with the world outside and the Pictures in our heads.
This is the chapter that introduced his idea of a stereotype,
what what a stereotype is? And Uh. It explained how
public opinion was formed and how it was manipulated because
of what we trust as what he called an authentic messenger. So,
(18:39):
as we mentioned before, Littman was working um with the
Committee on Public Information also called the Creole Committee, and
they were influencing public opinion by censoring information that was
anti war they're also producing thousands of these pro war
pamphlets and cartoons and magazines, movies, all kinds of media. Also,
the USA enter World War One or World War let's say,
(19:04):
in the nineteen seventeen it wasn't a one at the time, nobody,
nobody was waiting for the sequel. But the whole idea
is that the United States said it was not going
to enter World War One no matter what, and this
committee is sitting there actively trying to make it happen. Right. So, this,
this idea of a stereotype, the picture in our heads
(19:25):
versus the world outside is is the subject of a
great deal thought in public opinion in the Lippman book.
In this work, he attempts to explain how these pictures
that arise almost spontaneously in people's minds. He was hoping
to explain how those come about. The most simple way
(19:48):
to say it would be that, according to Lippman, we
all live in these second hand worlds, and we live
this way because we are aware of much more than
we have ever personally experienced. You know, we like Neil Armstrong,
we know that astronauts exist, but many people have never
(20:12):
met and we'll never meet one we know that billionaires exist,
but many people have never met and will never meet.
When we know that what Reddit loves this joke about
this town in Germany that everyone says doesn't exist. Maybe
a better example would be Bhutan. You know, the nation
of Bhutan exists, but many people will never go there.
(20:35):
According to this, Lipman's argument is that our own personal
experience is primarily second hand, primarily indirect. We read about things,
we watch things about things, and hope that the people
who have experienced it directly are telling us something objective, rational,
(20:55):
and accurate. Yeah, in other words, the truth. That's why
when you get Mermaids on Discovery Channel, you're like, what,
oh boy, sorry, I think enough time has passed for
us to tell people we've talked about it before. So
here's another aspect. What did he think of democracy? Because
(21:19):
you see, Lippmann wouldn't have considered himself just a journalist.
In fact, he considered himself a public philosopher, and most
of his work centered around the concept of democracy in
all its forms, representative democracy, so on. So what did
you think of it? Unfortunately it's a terrifying question. Early
(21:43):
on he was optimistic about this American US flavor of democracy.
He embraced what we will call a Jeffersonian perspective. He
believed that the American public would become intellectually engaged in
political world issues and that they would fulfill the ultimate
role of the public right, which is to be an
(22:06):
educated electorate. Not only does everyone vote, but everyone understands
the issues of play and why they're voting the way
that they do. If you ask them who the h
if you ask them who the county commissioner is going
to be and why, they would know. If you ask
them about humanitarians spending in you know, Yemen or in
(22:29):
Mauritania or something, not only would they know their position
on it, but they would know why, Yeah, do you
support engaging Germany and defending Poland or you know, some
something to that effect. And you would hope that the
person would come back with a reasoned argument about why
or why not. That would be nice. Sure, well that
was that That's the optimistic view. But with the rule
(22:53):
of industrialization weighing heavy in his mind the events leading
to World War Two and the spread of totalitarianism, Lippman
came to reject this view. Instead, he felt that nobody
was questioning fundamental assumptions of democracy. Yeah, he didn't believe
(23:19):
democracy as we understand it was working at all, And specifically,
he didn't believe that the average citizen was in any
way qualified to have any kind of input in the
rebel of politics or in the actions of the state,
and basically that the public was being led around like
this pack of animals by journalists and the media and
(23:40):
people who reported what the government was saying. Right. During
the nineteen twenties, Lippman published two more books which were
criticisms indictments of humanity. They were, in the parlance of
our time, they were distracts, right mix like hot mixtape distracts.
(24:00):
One was called Criticizing Democracy, one was called Public Opinion,
and the other was called The Phantom Public. The American voter,
Lippman claimed, was not capable of acting out of any
rational collective self interest or even fully considering the issues
at hand in a rational way, not only not having
(24:21):
an answer to a question, but not understanding the question. Instead,
he said, the average voter was ill informed, my opic,
and prone to fits of enthusiasm. So in his disillusionment,
if we were to put it in a modern context,
would be something along the lines of, hey, you are
(24:45):
supposed to vote in every election based on your aggregate calculation,
whenever that might be of who becomes the best candidate, right,
or why you think a certain local law shoot or
should not be in place. When he says that a
voter is ill informed, he means that they He means
(25:10):
they don't know what they're talking about, right, they don't
understand the issue for one reason or another. And when
he says biopic, he means that they might be what's
often called a single issue voter, someone who says, well,
I will typically vote, you know, for a certain ideological
standpoint or a certain party line, but the only thing
(25:32):
I really care about is, you know, the the the
illegality of owning a will to beast. I think it
should be illegal. I think that, you know, the country's
going to hell in a handbasket if one more person
can own a will to beast. Well, yeah, and that's
(25:53):
that's what I vote on. That's it. And that's that's
where you get some of the more social issues becoming
the most prominent things that are spoken about in the media.
Shoure you think about stances on abortion or stances on
Second Amendment rights, things that aren't necessarily the most important
things to be focusing on, but they become the one
(26:15):
thing that the voter will latch onto. And that's the
craziest part because essentially it makes this an exercise in
mad lib in a very dangerous way. Uh. I hope
everybody has had the wonderful opportunity to play mad lib
on a road trip or something growing up. But mad
lib is a game wherein you ask talking to people
(26:36):
like they don't know what mad libs are. I feel
like we can't make assumptions. I guess, so, yeah, you're right,
what are you? Let's let's tell people what mad lives are.
You do it, but do it in the voice, okay? Uh?
Mad lives you, guys, is where you got a bunch
of blanks in a sentence, a long set of sentences perhaps,
and you fill those blanks in with nouns and adjectives, adverbs,
(27:01):
and then you read the whole thing and you've got
this jumble whacked noodle sentence. I feel like you are
unfairly criticizeing v I I don't know, not everybody, okay
it maybe maybe everybody knows what bath libs are. You
think they do I don't know. I think you're I
(27:21):
think we're somewhere in the middle. Some people don't know
what they are, but people who are listening to this podcast,
yeah probably do. Okay, all right, okay, right in conspiracy
and how stuff works, that come you know what a
mad lib is. So so the reason I'm setting that up, Matt,
(27:43):
is because the it's it's a fundamental assumption that you
and I are making. That absolutely right, people would all
know what a mad lib is and how it functions. Right,
And so the idea of fits of enthusiasm, right, that's
the last the last piece of his his primary criticism there. Uh,
the idea of fits of enthusiasm would be the best
(28:05):
explained today by social media. Right, So you see a
post and it's shared over and over. Look at all
these assholes buying wilde beast, you know what I mean?
This has to stop. And then all of a sudden,
somebody who ordinarily would never vote whenever, you know, go
(28:26):
to a protest or maybe even isn't that active, uh,
and their social media. Right, then all of a sudden
it's the most important thing, you know. And we we've
talked a little bit about the really uh, really depressing,
borderline disgusting news cycle that occurs not just in mass media,
(28:50):
broadcast media, but also in social media, where where you
see a tragedy, a real, genuine tragedy occur and then
two weeks later, the people who were incredibly incensed about
it have completely forgotten because now, god forbid, someone wears
(29:10):
something stupid at an award show, which I know it
sounds brutal, but that that's the fact of the matter.
So that's what I think he's talking about when he
says fits of enthusiasts. I think you're absolutely right. And
another thing that you could kind of lop into that
would be the sloganism that has occurred at least in
the past two elections, and it occurs throughout American elections.
(29:32):
But having yes we can chanted by people and then
put on bumper stickers and then that's that single sentimentality
of yes we can do it, becoming this moving force
for voters and then make America great again as well.
Just something that encapsulates the enthusiasm of the people who
you are trying to get behind you oh yeah, I
(29:54):
don't know, or or denigrades the the value of the
perception of people are institutions that are against what you
want to have happen, right, like dirty wilde beasters. I
don't know. I'm just gonna ride this wilde beeste comparison
to the ground. Oh boy, yeah, we ah, we could.
(30:15):
I should have Oh there we go. I should have
picked a better I should have picked a better animal.
I think will be so great. I'm actually I'm learning
about wilde beast. Uh for an unrelated thing happens to
the best of us. Sounds a little sketchy, but it's
a it's a true story, right in, let us know
about your experiences with wilde beast. So this this idea
(30:40):
that voters will tend to not know what's going on,
will tend to focus on only one thing, and will
tend to uh impulsively lash out and sporadic burst or
impulsively participate in sporadic first rather than continually exercising the
rights and responsibilities of citizenship. Uh. This, he argued, was
(31:05):
being used to insidious advantage by other forces in play. Yeah,
he thought other parts of the government perfected the art
of manipulating the public. It's this idea of manufacturing consent.
You might recognize that phrase from some of Noam Chomsky's work.
He took it directly from Walter Littman, and he stated
(31:25):
that before, um, like, you know, it's this idea of right,
we've always been at war with East Asia? Oh man, Right,
I thought we had always been at war with Oceana.
Another one of Littman's beliefs was that the American people's
increasing obsession with consumerism was causing them to have a
(31:49):
decreased awareness and concern for pressing public issues. So basically,
they were being distracted by constantly wanting to buy new things,
upgrade at this point, their house, upgrade, their lives, um
and the things around them, rather than the larger issues
that were looming overhead. Okay, I see, So that the
(32:10):
idea then that keeping up with the Joneses becomes one
of the number one policy issues for a household. Well yeah, yeah,
just the You're absolutely right. The policy issue is now
within the home and the clothes that you're wearing and
the food that you're eating. And it's just it doesn't
(32:31):
matter if there's something going on in Europe. Right, I
see all these people posting these high minded, sanctimonious arguments
about owning wild animals, But did they even have a refrigerator,
did they even have cable? And where are they posting them?
And then like a bulletin board. That's what it is,
(32:51):
the community bulletin board. Yeah, at the corners at the
general store. Yeah, good call. Though Matt so he felt
that journalism was partially to blame for this because it
was not fulfilling what he saw as its correct duties,
which again in theory on paper, would be providing rational,
accurate information. And one big issue for him in this
(33:16):
regard was what was known as muckraking or what we
call investigative journalism. If we want to put a necktie
on it, uh, And he he objected to this because
he saw as a means to foment distrust of public
institutions and officials. And then Flipman wondered, you know what,
why should someone who isn't a physicist have a voice
(33:41):
in conversations about physics? And you know that makes sense,
right if the if the physicists of the world are
all one room and they're arguing about the the latest
theory and physics, right, and and what we can learn
the future rushes towards us infinite in its promise, and
(34:03):
it's danger. And then there's one guy who's not a physicist.
He's just like in the room, he's a psychiatrist. Okay,
sure he's qualified in something else. Maybe he's a psychiatrist.
What what can he lend to this conversation. I happen
to think psychiatrist would be able to lend a lot
of insight into a conversation with physicist. Yeah, he just
(34:26):
he's he can't spell very well. So he saw the
sign on the door coman physicist, and he thought he
was in the right place. There we go. That seems
to make sense right on some level. So Lippman, if
you can imagine him scratching his chin for a second
here and thinks, yeah, that checks out. So how is
(34:49):
the world of politics any different? And we'll explore Lehman's
thought on that right after this. This is the dangerous part.
No single individual, Lippmann thought, could easily understand the complexity
of the modern world. There's just too much stuff going on. Furthermore,
(35:13):
he believed that the idea of an authentic public opinion,
meaning a consensus or agreement formed by people who were
knowledgeable about public affairs and interested in public affairs. He
believed this was mainly a myth. This was a unicorn,
this was winning the lottery seventeen times in two weeks.
I guess it could happen. Yeah, you would have to
(35:37):
have a lot of things go perfectly right in order
to achieve that state. I think so. I think perhaps
Littman might be on the right track there, But he's
a bit polarizing about he's just one way or the
other way. He proposed that the most effective form of
governance would be a world in which the elite, the cognocenti. Oh,
(36:00):
the cognisenti. That's uh, those who are in the know,
just like you listening out there. Um, he thought they
would have. If these people had all of the authoritative agency,
then they could make these benevolent, indisputable decisions for all
of us, the unwashed masses, right, the hoi poloi, the peasants,
(36:23):
the uneducated. That that's actually you and me and Ben
according to them, but not Paul. Paul is one of
the Gosh, you can just see the eliteness on his face.
He wears a tuxedo to work every day. Oh it
does look nice though, And I have to say, Paul,
I respect you because I notice it's always a different tuxedo.
(36:45):
You're not phoning it in. So away from tuxedos and
and back to the elite. Lippman is essentially arguing that
the informed public does not exist, that the public is,
despite what is on paper about democracy, inherently incapable of
(37:07):
doing what is right, doing what is smart, doing what
is good for lack of a better word, So instead
he pictures this sort of technocracy, this uh, this leadership
of scientists and longtime politicos who will be able to
(37:27):
make the decisions on behalf of all the other people
in a country. And this this means that not only
would you as a voter not have a say in
something like a it is something like a law about
pollution or a law about regulation and deregulation, which you
(37:52):
also wouldn't have knowledge of what was going on. So
that's as idea that the control of information, both gathering
it and distributing it, would be in the hands of
this technocracy that would be trusted to use scientific methods
to figure out what was really going on and make
(38:14):
good decisions not just about what's happening, but about who
should receive specific messages. He wanted to establish a semi
governmental or quasi governmental intelligence bureau that would evaluate information,
supply it to other elites to make decisions. And this
bureau could also determine which pieces of information should be
(38:36):
transmitted through the mass media to the public and which
pieces of information people were better off not knowing. And
he would have he would have gotten away with it
if it wasn't for those dastardly kids coming up with
the old Internet thing. Absolutely absolutely, and a Scooby Doo
moment is appropriate here. We should say that Walter Lippman
(38:58):
later stepped away, retreated from this latest argument to a degree,
but that idea remains massively influential and not too unfamiliar
historically when we consider the past governments of earlier civilizations. Right,
there's a king and all the people that the king's
(39:19):
ancestors slept with, and they're in charge. That's just the
way it is, especially if they have divinity about them
that God has somehow chosen them. Right, Or there's a chieftain,
same thing, or there's a you know, there's religious leader,
same thing. Here's where it gets crazy. Not only did
(39:44):
Lippman think that democracy was more or less impossible in
its current form, but more and more people seem to
impractice agree with him. Today they do, And this is
what we've spoken about already on the show. Critics of
both the theoretical function of the current government and the
practical function of the government seemed to often agree that
(40:07):
the average voter, you and me and everybody else doesn't
know much but is instead ruled by emotion and is
prone to impulsive irrational decisions. Now are irrational here would
mean voter decisions um are actually working against the voters
self interest. What you would you should be voting for,
you can There are a lot of examples with that,
(40:28):
especially when you talk about tax reform, and then you know,
the majority of the voters, especially in the lower to
the middle class, you know, not seeing the benefits that
may perhaps people in the upper classes would see. Um,
and you have more voters in that lower class, but
you're still going to get a popular consent a lot
of times, right of course. And this is not something
(40:50):
that is in any way exclusive to a political party,
no a genre of a political party, or an issue
or an issue. Yeah, this is a This is a
tendency that Lipman sees and that the current people in
charge whatever that time is and whatever, uh really, whatever
(41:13):
post Lippman ideology you wanna you wanna grasp at, this
is typically what people in power will believe, and we
can see this in action. There's an interesting tendency here
because later critics such as William F. Buckley on the
on the right side of American politics were Noam Chomsky
on the left side, both saw a special interest as
(41:35):
the ultimate decision makers in too many political discussions. Of course, uh,
these these two fellows, these two guys would not agree
with each other, and I'm sure they would disagree on
exactly which organizations they considered tyrannical special interest groups. But
the point remains. In Chomsky's arguments, in particular, the media
(42:00):
is seen as acting as a street enforcer for what
he sees as special interests. This inextricably entwined system of
government officials, heads of businesses, large corporations, these powers behind
the throne too often are seeing as the real voters.
(42:23):
And that's unfortunately a common thread that you will here
discussed more and more in recent years. These critics would
argue these special interest whatever they may be in special
interest itself is sort of an umbrella term, sort of
a thought uh thought, terminating cliche, right, special interest it's
(42:45):
a bit of a boogeyman. But these are the forces
pushing the public in one direction or another, framing issues
in a way that benefits their own internal aims, regardless
of their effect on the common good. For the majority
of U. S citizens, if their common aime aligns with
the common good, then great, fine, bully for us, Go team,
We've vultron together. We've done our Captain Planet thing. This
(43:09):
law made the world a better place. But the problem
is that even if it acts against the public interests,
then okay, great for us, go team, We've vultron together,
and profits are going to rise. Jeezs. Optimists once imagined
that the age of information was going to be one
of unending elucidation, a world in which every single person
(43:31):
had equal access to knowledge and equal ability to act
on that knowledge in a smart way toward a common good.
But you can ask people from the entire gamut of
fields social scientists, statisticians, political pundits. They are often now
(43:51):
convinced this is not the case. Yeah, right now we're
in the sea change, some kind of paradigm shift in
the world of news cover. You've got broadcast in print
falling behind as online news sources begin their rise or
continue to rise um including the news aggregators like the
reddits of the world. Social media platforms are on the rise,
(44:13):
where people are getting most of their information, even news information,
from these sources. The the increasing likelihood of the so
called search bubble, where you get stuck in and inside
this world of news and algorithms that just reinforce the
views that you've already shared or liked or you know,
(44:33):
submitted as your preferences. And the emphasis then is not
on critical thought but rather on the enjoyment of it all, right,
Like the goal is not to inform you so much
as it is to continue your time on the device,
on the platform, right, just stay here longer. It's mentally
(44:53):
or psychologically, it's similar to some of the tricks casinos use.
It's it's very very similar to that, so that this
idea is dangerous. And there's there's another point like that
ad here on on the concept of whether or not
democracy is impossible. And it's something that you and I, Matt,
(45:13):
have talked about at length before. I think we mentioned
on air, but we talked about off air often off air.
Often it's the concept of Dunbar's number. The gist is
that human brains seem to be hardwired to accept only
a certain number of other human beings around about a
hundred and fifty as other humans. The rest the other
(45:39):
billions of people in the world are either functions or
grouped into broad categories. You don't know a Canadian person.
That's not what your one fifty we guess what everyone
who lives there is just one of the Canadians to you,
maybe divided by what you see as their gender or
what you see as their job. Right. The problems here
(46:02):
are readily apparent. If you are a propagandist like Lippman
or Bernese or so many other people working today, you
only have to convince the victim of your propaganda to
stop thinking of some people as individuals, make them think
of people as categories. Convince them that whatever decision you'd
like them to make, whatever protests you'd like them to attend,
(46:23):
whatever vote you want them to cast, or whatever products
you want them to boycott, just convince them it's in
the best interest not of the world, not of the country,
but of the one hundred and fifty people that they
think of as real people. So the game is is
a little bit smaller and not as difficult as it
might appear. And for the leader of a country or
(46:45):
you know, some political arm uh. This shows us that
after a certain population size, it becomes very difficult for
any individual to function as a genuine representative of the
people they leed. Because if the Unbar's number turns out
to be true, and there should be more research on it,
but if Dunbar's number holds holds up, then these leaders
(47:08):
are incapable of recognizing their constituents as human beings. Yikes.
And just to that end, if we want to analyze
perhaps what what Walter Littman's Dunbar number would be if
we're sticking with one fifty uh. He was a member
of this place called the Metropolitan Club of the City
(47:30):
of Washington. There are Metropolitan Clubs in several other places,
but this one is very particular because it is in Washington,
d C. It's a private social club in close proximity
to the White House. I'm going to read you a
quote here from their website. The Metropolitan Club is one
of Washington's oldest and most valued private institutions since its
founding in eighteen sixty three at the height of the
(47:52):
Civil War, by six Treasury Department officials. It has pursued
its primary goal of furthering literary improvement, mutual movement, and
social purposes, whatever that means. Other members of this social
club included influential journalists, policy makers, and quote nearly every
US president since Abraham Lincoln. Now, this is the kind
(48:12):
of place where you pay an exorbitant amount of money
every year and you get to go there and just
talk with your your people. Who are you know, at
your stature, I guess, at your place in life. And
this is where he would spend a lot of his time.
And you can imagine that if these are your one
(48:33):
and fifty people, because there were I think active members
around the time, twelve members. I mean, you can't go
much higher than that. Sure, And then it seems from
a biographical note there, it seems pretty logical that he
would say, you know, who should be in charge the
(48:55):
people I know, the people from the Metropolitan Club. It's
not that different from most human reasoning. Who should be
in charge of the people that you know and the
people that you like that you have experienced firsthand? Right,
So we have to ask ourselves when we feel like
we are making a decision, especially if we're making a
(49:18):
decision on something that would affect the course of our government,
the course of our community. Whatever. It doesn't have to
be I know this has been heavy on the political
aspects because of Lippman's background, but it doesn't have to
be that. You have to ask yourself how much if
your mind and your actions are a car, how much
(49:41):
time are you at the wheel? And how much time
are you writing shotgun? And when you are not driving?
Who is? This appears to be the stuff mass media
doesn't want you to know, at least according to Walter Lippman.
And again, he may seem obscure today, but like berness is,
legacy remains relevant today. And to conclude today's episode, we
(50:06):
have to ask you, where is democracy as a concept going? What?
What trends do we see? Is the age of spontaneous
almost endless information helping or hurting what so many people
have praised and criticized for centuries now? And where is
(50:28):
the American public going? And specific Yeah, do you think
we are all distracted and disinterested to the point of
not being able to make decisions informed or otherwise for ourselves? Um,
just maybe you personally. Do you feel that way? I
know sometimes I feel that way depending on the day.
(50:48):
We'd love to hear from you. You can find us
on social media where we are conspiracy Stuff and most
of the places Facebook and Twitter we are conspiracy Stuff,
show on Instagram, and if you don't want to do
any of the social media stuff off, just send us
a good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at how
stuff works dot com, m
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. Hello,
(00:24):
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt. They
call me Ben. Our compatriot Knell is away for the moment,
but never fear. Our super producer Paul Decont is here.
Most importantly, you're here, and you are you that makes
this stuff they don't want you to know. Now, you
may recall our very first episode ever on a gentleman
(00:48):
named Edward Berney's one of the most important and uh
slightly obscure, at least until our episode came out thinkers
in history right, Yes, the the man commonly known as
the father of public relations, the most famous, the most
(01:10):
famous relative of Sigmund Freud in our modern age. Both
of those things are true. If you're a fan of
this show and you haven't listened to that episode of
the podcast, it is one of the few that Matt
Nike had agorically recommend you listen to and share with
your friends, family, and colleagues. Without going too far into
(01:31):
what happens in that episode, Let's put it this way.
Edward Bernets is the reason that you and your loved ones,
as well as your enemies to probably practice several things
that seem normal today seem normal, Yeah, because you know
that very very quickly. It's insane how quickly people can
(01:52):
become accustomed to something, something that is not normal, and
then all of a sudden becomes normal to the average individual,
to an our community perhaps or even civilization as a whole,
something that was never done before and now it's normal. Right. Yeah,
it's likewise astonishing how rarely we question bizarre things. So
often we hide behind the idea of tradition as a species,
(02:16):
I mean, or so often we uh, we don't ask
fundamental questions about why something has framed the way it
is or presented the way it is. For instance, why
do we eat bacon for breakfast? This was not the
case for the vast majority of human eras on this planet.
(02:37):
Why are we actually at war with a particular country
at any given time? And one that I always go
back to as as a strange example here is Matt,
why why do people wear ties like neck ties? Oh? Well,
it's because of the form. It's all about form, not
so much function. Uh yeah, it just looks really good
(02:57):
to have that line going down the chest. Someone's read
a couple of fashion guides. I see, yes, make it work.
So there, Yeah, that's that's a good point. We did
earlier on a different show that we've worked within the
past called brain Stuff. We looked at the origin of
where neckties come from. And Matt, you are spot on correct.
(03:20):
It serves no function. It's not I was talking from
that took us. It's not a it's not a functional thing.
That took us is more functional than an actie. So
leading to this, why why does a country work a
certain way? Folks think about the government in the country
(03:41):
that you live in today or the governments in countries
used to live in. Right, how closely does the government
in practice adhere to the theory of government as outlined
in your country's constitution or other documents? Yeah, wres this?
You know? Getting it right? For some of the most part, well,
(04:04):
most people, regardless of where they live, will generally agree
that there is at least some degree of difference between
the government on paper and the government in practice. Right,
And in some cases this can seem like a relatively
obscure difference, right, or it can seem like a matter
(04:26):
of persnickety, nitpicking interpretation. But speaking of obscure, today's episode
focuses on another figure, sort of like bern As, another
profoundly important, equally obscure historical figure, Walter Lippmann. Now when
(04:49):
we say he's obscure, we mean to the public, to
the every day Joe and Jane walking around. Uh, they
probably don't know who Walter Lippan is. I did not
know who this person was until we started thinking about
this episode and reading some of the materials. Um just
like Edward Berne. But but these gentlemen were very much
(05:12):
well known within circles of the powerful. I think we
should at least like put that out there right like
they were. They were the guy. Yeah, yeah, the we were.
It's funny because before Paul, Matt and I went on
air today, I brought in a a fancy glass for
my typical coffee because we are talking about the elite,
(05:35):
and it looks like an absentthe glass. Gotta be honest
with you, Well, I'll tell you what it is. Truth
be told. Not as convenient as the regular mug or
cup that I would typically use, but you know tradition.
So so here are the facts. About Walter Lippmann. As
(05:57):
we said nowadays, Walter Lippman is, let's say, obscure enough
that were you to walk on a on the average
city street and ask someone you know identify the following figures, say,
you know Neil Armstrong, probably know that, No, he's some
(06:19):
sort of astronaut. Maybe at the least identify you know,
the big current or past presidents. They probably probably at
least recognized the name of past presidents, right. Uh. But
if you said, who's Walter Lippman, they would say does
he Does he on the grocery store? I don't know, unless,
of course, you were asking someone in Harvard, and then
(06:41):
the answer might very well be I think that's a
building on campus. I'm pretty building. But as you said, Matt,
in his day, this man was profoundly influential and remains so,
so let's get to know him a little bit. Walter
Lippman was born on September eight nine, eighteen eighty nine,
(07:02):
in New York. He was a child of privilege. He
attended the Sacks School for Boys before matriculating into Harvard.
Now Sacks by the way, s A C. H. S.
You might recognize that name somewhere with a goldman in
front of it, like golden sax yes um. And this
is where he studied at Harvard under the famous philosopher
(07:24):
and novelist George Santayana, who was a teacher of numerous
other numerous other people who went on to become literary lions.
You know, T. S. Eliott would be one of the
most famous examples. Then in May of nineteen ten, he
(07:44):
began his career in journalism as a cub reporter with
the Boston Common after he dropped out of his the
master's course that he was taking at Harvard University. And
this this is interesting because we found a couple of
different things in the research. Will find many biographies to
say he graduated right in nineteen ten, and then you'll
find other writers who say that he dropped out. Yeah,
(08:09):
so either way, he did go to Harvard. At some
point he was assistant to the philosopher novelist George Santiana. Uh.
In nineteen thirteen, Lippman co founded a paper called The
New Republic. It's a liberal American magazine. The published articles
on politics and and the arts and UH. In that
(08:29):
same year he published a book called A Preface to
Politics and his writing, his philosophy at this time, in
this early phase, garnered the attention of one Woodrow Wilson.
Just a little side note there about the New Republic
at the time when he founded it, in quite for
(08:50):
quite some time afterwards, it had a fairly small readership
of only you know, ten to twenty thousand people. But
the people reading that magazine were the important people, right,
the bankers, the professors, the jurists. And in nineteen fourteen
Lippman was appointed as an advisor to President Wilson Woodrow Wilson,
(09:12):
and during this time he helped the president draft a
famous speech about World War One and was called the
Fourteen Points. You can read it in full online today.
So Lippman was at this point an interventionist in a
largely isolationist society. And what what we mean by that
(09:36):
is that the majority of the US public did not
support foreign intervention because there was this feeling that, well, one,
why should we get involved, right, It's it's imperialist on
some level. And two we're separated by oceans, right, and
(10:02):
there's no imminent threat at this point in this isolationist society,
Lippman was an interventionist. He was one of the people
who argued that it was both rational and advantageous for
the United States to enter into World War One in
(10:25):
some capacity or another. He wrote propaganda that was meant
to sway the needle on public support. Right, because in
a representative democracy, the theory goes that the voters must
support a large scale government action, or at least the
majority of voters must support something for it to occur. Yes,
(10:49):
because the representative part of that government, the the people's
part of the government in Congress, they are the ones
that actually declare war in an act war, especially at
this time for World War One. So you had to
get the voters and the people's voice to say, yes,
let's do this. And so Lippman and Edward Bernese both
(11:10):
worked for what was called the Committee on Public Information.
I love that name, the Committee on Public Information. And
this was a wartime propaganda institution built to do two things. First,
to spread or propagate pro intervention, pro war literature, art, music,
(11:33):
anything in pop culture, as well as academic arguments for
intervention on the part of the US. And then the
second task was to suppress, discredit, or destroy anything that
was anti war. So if you uh, just pulling an
(11:56):
example out of thin air, right, and one way in
which something like this might occur still happens today, it
happened for decades after, uh, would be Let's say there
are two there are two art galleries in a town,
and one of them has has a featured artist who
(12:19):
is glorifying the moral duty or imperative to save people
in another country. And this this gallery is filled with
this one artist work. And then in the other gallery, uh,
there's someone who has a exhibits about imperialism and the
unintentional tyranny of intervening, whatever your intentions, in a culture
(12:46):
you don't understand and a civilization that never asked for
nor needed your help. What this sort of operation would
do would not be to have the government openly shot
them down. You would have critics from newspapers praising whichever side,
it doesn't matter what side we're talking about. We have
(13:07):
critics praising the interventionist if they want to intervene, or
praising the isolationists, and then you would have them also
dismissing or ignoring the other side of that cultural argument.
And it's like it's almost this um uh soft aggression
(13:29):
tactic that that is employed by this stuff, and in
a weird way, it's it's not fully going after a
lot of times, at least from what I was reading
this research, the the Committee on Public Information wouldn't necessarily
physically go after anyone, but they would use the media to,
like you said, ben, completely ignore or just trash something
(13:50):
that they didn't agree with. Right, yes, exactly. And the
most important part of that is in these sorts of operations,
you wouldn't know the ultimate force behind this trend. It
would appear to be and this is the most important part,
it would appear to be an organic consensus arrived at
(14:11):
by every Jane John and Jimmy Smith in America, just
to pick I don't know, ridiculous. It's almost like the
rotten tomato score. If the tomato score is at a
certain height, or you know, if it's in the eighties,
you're like, oh, man, okay, I'm gonna go see that.
You don't even have to read the stuff about it.
If it's in like the thirties or twenties, and then oh,
(14:32):
I'm never probably not gonna go see that trash because
you don't have time usually if you're the average person
to go through and read every single review now you
want the bottom line the best news, Explain it to
me now, because I'm almost off the elevator, right or
the light almost turned green, as the case would be
(14:52):
from any communities, only have twenty bucks to spend, and
I gotta choose where I'm gonna spend it. Even better,
Lippman also traveled the world and wrote extensively, prolifically. That's
that's such a fantastic dream life. You know. I think,
here I am in Vienna, and here was my thoughts
on the Viennese. Oh, man, you want to be Anthony
(15:15):
Boordain so badly, don't you? Lippin know you? Oh you
know what? You know what? Uh? A little food centric?
I think, Yeah, I think he's doing a great job
being Anthony boording Okay, but but I appreciate it. Yeah,
I'd love Who wouldn't love to travel the world and write?
I don't know, Yeah, I can't think of anyone. So
(15:37):
Lippman was no exception to that, that rule that we
have arbitrarily decided as almost universal. So then on September eight,
n Lippman's column for The New York Herald, which was
called Today and Tomorrow. I love that title. It first appeared,
and eventually this was syndicated to more than two and
fifty newspapers within the United States and then another twenty
(16:00):
five other nations. And then it also won two Pulitzer Prizes,
one in ninety eight and another in nineteen sixty two.
So in his day, Walter Lippman was a world famous
columnist for the New York Times and other papers of note,
and overall the world held his opinion in tremendously high regard.
(16:23):
He lived amid New York's elite and therefore a a
percentage of the world's elite. He dined with presidents, he
would write speeches for them, He advised them in formal
and informal capacities. He was a true man behind the curtain.
So let's talk about what he truly believed in. Right, Yeah,
(16:47):
this so well and good? But why why is he
the subject of today's episode? Uh? Is he them? Is
he that? They? And stuff? They don't want you to know.
What did he actually leave? We'll tell you after a
word from our sponsor. So let's bring the rubber to
(17:11):
the road. Matt Walter Lippman is responsible for creating, popularizing,
coining several terms that you have almost certainly used at
some point in your life, friends and neighbors. The first
one is the well let's let's do let's do one
(17:32):
that's little us specific first, that's the Cold War. He
is the person who popularized the term Cold war with
a series of articles Inn called the Cold War right
pretty good. When you title something, it's probably gonna stick. Uh.
In those articles, he was speaking out against President Truman's
(17:56):
policy of containment. Uh. And the more popular term that
you have you have obviously heard. There's no one who
has not heard this, this term, at least no one
that speaks English has not heard this term. And that
is stereotype. Yes. One of his works, Public Opinion, It
(18:18):
begins with the world outside and the Pictures in our heads.
This is the chapter that introduced his idea of a stereotype,
what what a stereotype is? And Uh. It explained how
public opinion was formed and how it was manipulated because
of what we trust as what he called an authentic messenger. So,
(18:39):
as we mentioned before, Littman was working um with the
Committee on Public Information also called the Creole Committee, and
they were influencing public opinion by censoring information that was
anti war they're also producing thousands of these pro war
pamphlets and cartoons and magazines, movies, all kinds of media. Also,
the USA enter World War One or World War let's say,
(19:04):
in the nineteen seventeen it wasn't a one at the time, nobody,
nobody was waiting for the sequel. But the whole idea
is that the United States said it was not going
to enter World War One no matter what, and this
committee is sitting there actively trying to make it happen. Right. So, this,
this idea of a stereotype, the picture in our heads
(19:25):
versus the world outside is is the subject of a
great deal thought in public opinion in the Lippman book.
In this work, he attempts to explain how these pictures
that arise almost spontaneously in people's minds. He was hoping
to explain how those come about. The most simple way
(19:48):
to say it would be that, according to Lippman, we
all live in these second hand worlds, and we live
this way because we are aware of much more than
we have ever personally experienced. You know, we like Neil Armstrong,
we know that astronauts exist, but many people have never
(20:12):
met and we'll never meet one we know that billionaires exist,
but many people have never met and will never meet.
When we know that what Reddit loves this joke about
this town in Germany that everyone says doesn't exist. Maybe
a better example would be Bhutan. You know, the nation
of Bhutan exists, but many people will never go there.
(20:35):
According to this, Lipman's argument is that our own personal
experience is primarily second hand, primarily indirect. We read about things,
we watch things about things, and hope that the people
who have experienced it directly are telling us something objective, rational,
(20:55):
and accurate. Yeah, in other words, the truth. That's why
when you get Mermaids on Discovery Channel, you're like, what,
oh boy, sorry, I think enough time has passed for
us to tell people we've talked about it before. So
here's another aspect. What did he think of democracy? Because
(21:19):
you see, Lippmann wouldn't have considered himself just a journalist.
In fact, he considered himself a public philosopher, and most
of his work centered around the concept of democracy in
all its forms, representative democracy, so on. So what did
you think of it? Unfortunately it's a terrifying question. Early
(21:43):
on he was optimistic about this American US flavor of democracy.
He embraced what we will call a Jeffersonian perspective. He
believed that the American public would become intellectually engaged in
political world issues and that they would fulfill the ultimate
role of the public right, which is to be an
(22:06):
educated electorate. Not only does everyone vote, but everyone understands
the issues of play and why they're voting the way
that they do. If you ask them who the h
if you ask them who the county commissioner is going
to be and why, they would know. If you ask
them about humanitarians spending in you know, Yemen or in
(22:29):
Mauritania or something, not only would they know their position
on it, but they would know why, Yeah, do you
support engaging Germany and defending Poland or you know, some
something to that effect. And you would hope that the
person would come back with a reasoned argument about why
or why not. That would be nice. Sure, well that
was that That's the optimistic view. But with the rule
(22:53):
of industrialization weighing heavy in his mind the events leading
to World War Two and the spread of totalitarianism, Lippman
came to reject this view. Instead, he felt that nobody
was questioning fundamental assumptions of democracy. Yeah, he didn't believe
(23:19):
democracy as we understand it was working at all, And specifically,
he didn't believe that the average citizen was in any
way qualified to have any kind of input in the
rebel of politics or in the actions of the state,
and basically that the public was being led around like
this pack of animals by journalists and the media and
(23:40):
people who reported what the government was saying. Right. During
the nineteen twenties, Lippman published two more books which were
criticisms indictments of humanity. They were, in the parlance of
our time, they were distracts, right mix like hot mixtape distracts.
(24:00):
One was called Criticizing Democracy, one was called Public Opinion,
and the other was called The Phantom Public. The American voter,
Lippman claimed, was not capable of acting out of any
rational collective self interest or even fully considering the issues
at hand in a rational way, not only not having
(24:21):
an answer to a question, but not understanding the question. Instead,
he said, the average voter was ill informed, my opic,
and prone to fits of enthusiasm. So in his disillusionment,
if we were to put it in a modern context,
would be something along the lines of, hey, you are
(24:45):
supposed to vote in every election based on your aggregate calculation,
whenever that might be of who becomes the best candidate, right,
or why you think a certain local law shoot or
should not be in place. When he says that a
voter is ill informed, he means that they He means
(25:10):
they don't know what they're talking about, right, they don't
understand the issue for one reason or another. And when
he says biopic, he means that they might be what's
often called a single issue voter, someone who says, well,
I will typically vote, you know, for a certain ideological
standpoint or a certain party line, but the only thing
(25:32):
I really care about is, you know, the the the
illegality of owning a will to beast. I think it
should be illegal. I think that, you know, the country's
going to hell in a handbasket if one more person
can own a will to beast. Well, yeah, and that's
(25:53):
that's what I vote on. That's it. And that's that's
where you get some of the more social issues becoming
the most prominent things that are spoken about in the media.
Shoure you think about stances on abortion or stances on
Second Amendment rights, things that aren't necessarily the most important
things to be focusing on, but they become the one
(26:15):
thing that the voter will latch onto. And that's the
craziest part because essentially it makes this an exercise in
mad lib in a very dangerous way. Uh. I hope
everybody has had the wonderful opportunity to play mad lib
on a road trip or something growing up. But mad
lib is a game wherein you ask talking to people
(26:36):
like they don't know what mad libs are. I feel
like we can't make assumptions. I guess, so, yeah, you're right,
what are you? Let's let's tell people what mad lives are.
You do it, but do it in the voice, okay? Uh?
Mad lives you, guys, is where you got a bunch
of blanks in a sentence, a long set of sentences perhaps,
and you fill those blanks in with nouns and adjectives, adverbs,
(27:01):
and then you read the whole thing and you've got
this jumble whacked noodle sentence. I feel like you are
unfairly criticizeing v I I don't know, not everybody, okay
it maybe maybe everybody knows what bath libs are. You
think they do I don't know. I think you're I
(27:21):
think we're somewhere in the middle. Some people don't know
what they are, but people who are listening to this podcast,
yeah probably do. Okay, all right, okay, right in conspiracy
and how stuff works, that come you know what a
mad lib is. So so the reason I'm setting that up, Matt,
(27:43):
is because the it's it's a fundamental assumption that you
and I are making. That absolutely right, people would all
know what a mad lib is and how it functions. Right,
And so the idea of fits of enthusiasm, right, that's
the last the last piece of his his primary criticism there. Uh,
the idea of fits of enthusiasm would be the best
(28:05):
explained today by social media. Right, So you see a
post and it's shared over and over. Look at all
these assholes buying wilde beast, you know what I mean?
This has to stop. And then all of a sudden,
somebody who ordinarily would never vote whenever, you know, go
(28:26):
to a protest or maybe even isn't that active, uh,
and their social media. Right, then all of a sudden
it's the most important thing, you know. And we we've
talked a little bit about the really uh, really depressing,
borderline disgusting news cycle that occurs not just in mass media,
(28:50):
broadcast media, but also in social media, where where you
see a tragedy, a real, genuine tragedy occur and then
two weeks later, the people who were incredibly incensed about
it have completely forgotten because now, god forbid, someone wears
(29:10):
something stupid at an award show, which I know it
sounds brutal, but that that's the fact of the matter.
So that's what I think he's talking about when he
says fits of enthusiasts. I think you're absolutely right. And
another thing that you could kind of lop into that
would be the sloganism that has occurred at least in
the past two elections, and it occurs throughout American elections.
(29:32):
But having yes we can chanted by people and then
put on bumper stickers and then that's that single sentimentality
of yes we can do it, becoming this moving force
for voters and then make America great again as well.
Just something that encapsulates the enthusiasm of the people who
you are trying to get behind you oh yeah, I
(29:54):
don't know, or or denigrades the the value of the
perception of people are institutions that are against what you
want to have happen, right, like dirty wilde beasters. I
don't know. I'm just gonna ride this wilde beeste comparison
to the ground. Oh boy, yeah, we ah, we could.
(30:15):
I should have Oh there we go. I should have
picked a better I should have picked a better animal.
I think will be so great. I'm actually I'm learning
about wilde beast. Uh for an unrelated thing happens to
the best of us. Sounds a little sketchy, but it's
a it's a true story, right in, let us know
about your experiences with wilde beast. So this this idea
(30:40):
that voters will tend to not know what's going on,
will tend to focus on only one thing, and will
tend to uh impulsively lash out and sporadic burst or
impulsively participate in sporadic first rather than continually exercising the
rights and responsibilities of citizenship. Uh. This, he argued, was
(31:05):
being used to insidious advantage by other forces in play. Yeah,
he thought other parts of the government perfected the art
of manipulating the public. It's this idea of manufacturing consent.
You might recognize that phrase from some of Noam Chomsky's work.
He took it directly from Walter Littman, and he stated
(31:25):
that before, um, like, you know, it's this idea of right,
we've always been at war with East Asia? Oh man, Right,
I thought we had always been at war with Oceana.
Another one of Littman's beliefs was that the American people's
increasing obsession with consumerism was causing them to have a
(31:49):
decreased awareness and concern for pressing public issues. So basically,
they were being distracted by constantly wanting to buy new things,
upgrade at this point, their house, upgrade, their lives, um
and the things around them, rather than the larger issues
that were looming overhead. Okay, I see, So that the
(32:10):
idea then that keeping up with the Joneses becomes one
of the number one policy issues for a household. Well yeah, yeah,
just the You're absolutely right. The policy issue is now
within the home and the clothes that you're wearing and
the food that you're eating. And it's just it doesn't
(32:31):
matter if there's something going on in Europe. Right, I
see all these people posting these high minded, sanctimonious arguments
about owning wild animals, But did they even have a refrigerator,
did they even have cable? And where are they posting them?
And then like a bulletin board. That's what it is,
(32:51):
the community bulletin board. Yeah, at the corners at the
general store. Yeah, good call. Though Matt so he felt
that journalism was partially to blame for this because it
was not fulfilling what he saw as its correct duties,
which again in theory on paper, would be providing rational,
accurate information. And one big issue for him in this
(33:16):
regard was what was known as muckraking or what we
call investigative journalism. If we want to put a necktie
on it, uh, And he he objected to this because
he saw as a means to foment distrust of public
institutions and officials. And then Flipman wondered, you know what,
why should someone who isn't a physicist have a voice
(33:41):
in conversations about physics? And you know that makes sense,
right if the if the physicists of the world are
all one room and they're arguing about the the latest
theory and physics, right, and and what we can learn
the future rushes towards us infinite in its promise, and
(34:03):
it's danger. And then there's one guy who's not a physicist.
He's just like in the room, he's a psychiatrist. Okay,
sure he's qualified in something else. Maybe he's a psychiatrist.
What what can he lend to this conversation. I happen
to think psychiatrist would be able to lend a lot
of insight into a conversation with physicist. Yeah, he just
(34:26):
he's he can't spell very well. So he saw the
sign on the door coman physicist, and he thought he
was in the right place. There we go. That seems
to make sense right on some level. So Lippman, if
you can imagine him scratching his chin for a second
here and thinks, yeah, that checks out. So how is
(34:49):
the world of politics any different? And we'll explore Lehman's
thought on that right after this. This is the dangerous part.
No single individual, Lippmann thought, could easily understand the complexity
of the modern world. There's just too much stuff going on. Furthermore,
(35:13):
he believed that the idea of an authentic public opinion,
meaning a consensus or agreement formed by people who were
knowledgeable about public affairs and interested in public affairs. He
believed this was mainly a myth. This was a unicorn,
this was winning the lottery seventeen times in two weeks.
I guess it could happen. Yeah, you would have to
(35:37):
have a lot of things go perfectly right in order
to achieve that state. I think so. I think perhaps
Littman might be on the right track there, But he's
a bit polarizing about he's just one way or the
other way. He proposed that the most effective form of
governance would be a world in which the elite, the cognocenti. Oh,
(36:00):
the cognisenti. That's uh, those who are in the know,
just like you listening out there. Um, he thought they
would have. If these people had all of the authoritative agency,
then they could make these benevolent, indisputable decisions for all
of us, the unwashed masses, right, the hoi poloi, the peasants,
(36:23):
the uneducated. That that's actually you and me and Ben
according to them, but not Paul. Paul is one of
the Gosh, you can just see the eliteness on his face.
He wears a tuxedo to work every day. Oh it
does look nice though, And I have to say, Paul,
I respect you because I notice it's always a different tuxedo.
(36:45):
You're not phoning it in. So away from tuxedos and
and back to the elite. Lippman is essentially arguing that
the informed public does not exist, that the public is,
despite what is on paper about democracy, inherently incapable of
(37:07):
doing what is right, doing what is smart, doing what
is good for lack of a better word, So instead
he pictures this sort of technocracy, this uh, this leadership
of scientists and longtime politicos who will be able to
(37:27):
make the decisions on behalf of all the other people
in a country. And this this means that not only
would you as a voter not have a say in
something like a it is something like a law about
pollution or a law about regulation and deregulation, which you
(37:52):
also wouldn't have knowledge of what was going on. So
that's as idea that the control of information, both gathering
it and distributing it, would be in the hands of
this technocracy that would be trusted to use scientific methods
to figure out what was really going on and make
(38:14):
good decisions not just about what's happening, but about who
should receive specific messages. He wanted to establish a semi
governmental or quasi governmental intelligence bureau that would evaluate information,
supply it to other elites to make decisions. And this
bureau could also determine which pieces of information should be
(38:36):
transmitted through the mass media to the public and which
pieces of information people were better off not knowing. And
he would have he would have gotten away with it
if it wasn't for those dastardly kids coming up with
the old Internet thing. Absolutely absolutely, and a Scooby Doo
moment is appropriate here. We should say that Walter Lippman
(38:58):
later stepped away, retreated from this latest argument to a degree,
but that idea remains massively influential and not too unfamiliar
historically when we consider the past governments of earlier civilizations. Right,
there's a king and all the people that the king's
(39:19):
ancestors slept with, and they're in charge. That's just the
way it is, especially if they have divinity about them
that God has somehow chosen them. Right, Or there's a chieftain,
same thing, or there's a you know, there's religious leader,
same thing. Here's where it gets crazy. Not only did
(39:44):
Lippman think that democracy was more or less impossible in
its current form, but more and more people seem to
impractice agree with him. Today they do, And this is
what we've spoken about already on the show. Critics of
both the theoretical function of the current government and the
practical function of the government seemed to often agree that
(40:07):
the average voter, you and me and everybody else doesn't
know much but is instead ruled by emotion and is
prone to impulsive irrational decisions. Now are irrational here would
mean voter decisions um are actually working against the voters
self interest. What you would you should be voting for,
you can There are a lot of examples with that,
(40:28):
especially when you talk about tax reform, and then you know,
the majority of the voters, especially in the lower to
the middle class, you know, not seeing the benefits that
may perhaps people in the upper classes would see. Um,
and you have more voters in that lower class, but
you're still going to get a popular consent a lot
of times, right of course. And this is not something
(40:50):
that is in any way exclusive to a political party,
no a genre of a political party, or an issue
or an issue. Yeah, this is a This is a
tendency that Lipman sees and that the current people in
charge whatever that time is and whatever, uh really, whatever
(41:13):
post Lippman ideology you wanna you wanna grasp at, this
is typically what people in power will believe, and we
can see this in action. There's an interesting tendency here
because later critics such as William F. Buckley on the
on the right side of American politics were Noam Chomsky
on the left side, both saw a special interest as
(41:35):
the ultimate decision makers in too many political discussions. Of course, uh,
these these two fellows, these two guys would not agree
with each other, and I'm sure they would disagree on
exactly which organizations they considered tyrannical special interest groups. But
the point remains. In Chomsky's arguments, in particular, the media
(42:00):
is seen as acting as a street enforcer for what
he sees as special interests. This inextricably entwined system of
government officials, heads of businesses, large corporations, these powers behind
the throne too often are seeing as the real voters.
(42:23):
And that's unfortunately a common thread that you will here
discussed more and more in recent years. These critics would
argue these special interest whatever they may be in special
interest itself is sort of an umbrella term, sort of
a thought uh thought, terminating cliche, right, special interest it's
(42:45):
a bit of a boogeyman. But these are the forces
pushing the public in one direction or another, framing issues
in a way that benefits their own internal aims, regardless
of their effect on the common good. For the majority
of U. S citizens, if their common aime aligns with
the common good, then great, fine, bully for us, Go team,
We've vultron together. We've done our Captain Planet thing. This
(43:09):
law made the world a better place. But the problem
is that even if it acts against the public interests,
then okay, great for us, go team, We've vultron together,
and profits are going to rise. Jeezs. Optimists once imagined
that the age of information was going to be one
of unending elucidation, a world in which every single person
(43:31):
had equal access to knowledge and equal ability to act
on that knowledge in a smart way toward a common good.
But you can ask people from the entire gamut of
fields social scientists, statisticians, political pundits. They are often now
(43:51):
convinced this is not the case. Yeah, right now we're
in the sea change, some kind of paradigm shift in
the world of news cover. You've got broadcast in print
falling behind as online news sources begin their rise or
continue to rise um including the news aggregators like the
reddits of the world. Social media platforms are on the rise,
(44:13):
where people are getting most of their information, even news information,
from these sources. The the increasing likelihood of the so
called search bubble, where you get stuck in and inside
this world of news and algorithms that just reinforce the
views that you've already shared or liked or you know,
(44:33):
submitted as your preferences. And the emphasis then is not
on critical thought but rather on the enjoyment of it all, right,
Like the goal is not to inform you so much
as it is to continue your time on the device,
on the platform, right, just stay here longer. It's mentally
(44:53):
or psychologically, it's similar to some of the tricks casinos use.
It's it's very very similar to that, so that this
idea is dangerous. And there's there's another point like that
ad here on on the concept of whether or not
democracy is impossible. And it's something that you and I, Matt,
(45:13):
have talked about at length before. I think we mentioned
on air, but we talked about off air often off air.
Often it's the concept of Dunbar's number. The gist is
that human brains seem to be hardwired to accept only
a certain number of other human beings around about a
hundred and fifty as other humans. The rest the other
(45:39):
billions of people in the world are either functions or
grouped into broad categories. You don't know a Canadian person.
That's not what your one fifty we guess what everyone
who lives there is just one of the Canadians to you,
maybe divided by what you see as their gender or
what you see as their job. Right. The problems here
(46:02):
are readily apparent. If you are a propagandist like Lippman
or Bernese or so many other people working today, you
only have to convince the victim of your propaganda to
stop thinking of some people as individuals, make them think
of people as categories. Convince them that whatever decision you'd
like them to make, whatever protests you'd like them to attend,
(46:23):
whatever vote you want them to cast, or whatever products
you want them to boycott, just convince them it's in
the best interest not of the world, not of the country,
but of the one hundred and fifty people that they
think of as real people. So the game is is
a little bit smaller and not as difficult as it
might appear. And for the leader of a country or
(46:45):
you know, some political arm uh. This shows us that
after a certain population size, it becomes very difficult for
any individual to function as a genuine representative of the
people they leed. Because if the Unbar's number turns out
to be true, and there should be more research on it,
but if Dunbar's number holds holds up, then these leaders
(47:08):
are incapable of recognizing their constituents as human beings. Yikes.
And just to that end, if we want to analyze
perhaps what what Walter Littman's Dunbar number would be if
we're sticking with one fifty uh. He was a member
of this place called the Metropolitan Club of the City
(47:30):
of Washington. There are Metropolitan Clubs in several other places,
but this one is very particular because it is in Washington,
d C. It's a private social club in close proximity
to the White House. I'm going to read you a
quote here from their website. The Metropolitan Club is one
of Washington's oldest and most valued private institutions since its
founding in eighteen sixty three at the height of the
(47:52):
Civil War, by six Treasury Department officials. It has pursued
its primary goal of furthering literary improvement, mutual movement, and
social purposes, whatever that means. Other members of this social
club included influential journalists, policy makers, and quote nearly every
US president since Abraham Lincoln. Now, this is the kind
(48:12):
of place where you pay an exorbitant amount of money
every year and you get to go there and just
talk with your your people. Who are you know, at
your stature, I guess, at your place in life. And
this is where he would spend a lot of his time.
And you can imagine that if these are your one
(48:33):
and fifty people, because there were I think active members
around the time, twelve members. I mean, you can't go
much higher than that. Sure, And then it seems from
a biographical note there, it seems pretty logical that he
would say, you know, who should be in charge the
(48:55):
people I know, the people from the Metropolitan Club. It's
not that different from most human reasoning. Who should be
in charge of the people that you know and the
people that you like that you have experienced firsthand? Right,
So we have to ask ourselves when we feel like
we are making a decision, especially if we're making a
(49:18):
decision on something that would affect the course of our government,
the course of our community. Whatever. It doesn't have to
be I know this has been heavy on the political
aspects because of Lippman's background, but it doesn't have to
be that. You have to ask yourself how much if
your mind and your actions are a car, how much
(49:41):
time are you at the wheel? And how much time
are you writing shotgun? And when you are not driving?
Who is? This appears to be the stuff mass media
doesn't want you to know, at least according to Walter Lippman.
And again, he may seem obscure today, but like berness is,
legacy remains relevant today. And to conclude today's episode, we
(50:06):
have to ask you, where is democracy as a concept going? What?
What trends do we see? Is the age of spontaneous
almost endless information helping or hurting what so many people
have praised and criticized for centuries now? And where is
(50:28):
the American public going? And specific Yeah, do you think
we are all distracted and disinterested to the point of
not being able to make decisions informed or otherwise for ourselves? Um,
just maybe you personally. Do you feel that way? I
know sometimes I feel that way depending on the day.
(50:48):
We'd love to hear from you. You can find us
on social media where we are conspiracy Stuff and most
of the places Facebook and Twitter we are conspiracy Stuff,
show on Instagram, and if you don't want to do
any of the social media stuff off, just send us
a good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at how
stuff works dot com, m
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