You Are Being Hacked.

by Arcana Corvus

As the title says: You are being hacked.  You are running vulnerable software.  You are vulnerable.

This vulnerability doesn't lie in your custom-built desktop computer or your meticulously maintained server.  It lies deep within you - a biological rootkit.  You are being hacked.

You cannot make yourself unhackable, and to think it possible is dangerous.  Those with a false sense of security are often the most at risk.  I am going to tell you about something you've likely never heard of, building on the theories of men you've never heard of.  These men are, in my opinion, hackers.  Hackers of the biological computer that ticks within each one of us.

I think few among us would deny that social engineering is a form of hacking.  To pose as an overworked IT support tech, to convince someone, just through language, to hand over access to their technical, digital, or physical systems.  This hacking exists on a massive, collective scale.  Capable of not just hacking specific systems, but entire societies and culture itself.  This hacking technique is what I am about to explain.  It is the hacking technique famously described by (((Walter Lippmann))) as "the engineering of consent."

Let's begin with a question: do you know who (((Edward Bernays))) is?  Some of you might be hearing the ringing of bells here, perhaps you've watched Adam Curtis' documentary The Century of the Self, or you've read the work of Bernays himself.  I'm going to presume, however, that most of you have no idea who that is.  Would it surprise you if I said that he was the man who effectively created the world we are living in?  He found a hack within the human psyche and the world has never been the same since.

In 1895, the French philosopher Gustave Le Bon published the work The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind.  In it, he argued that collectively, humans operate on a different psychological level to individually.  "The conscious life of the mind is of small importance in comparison with its unconscious life," he writes, and continues on to suggest that the subconscious desires of crowds operate on a simplistic level that can be hijacked and manipulated with words.  This formed a baseline, an early formulating of the theories that would set the stage for an entire century and more of psychological warfare.

"In place of thoughts it has impulses, habits, and emotions."  --- Propaganda (1928).

Fast forward to The Great War and a young press agent originally from Austria has been hired by the "(((Committee on Public Information)))."  This organization was active in promoting the cause of the U.S. entry into WWI both domestically and abroad, and it did so with resounding success.  During this time, Bernays refined the early ideas he'd developed as a press agent, and building upon the work of Le Bon and his uncle (((Sigmund Freud))), he set about formulating a framework that would allow any who used it to control the masses.

In 1928, Bernays published Propaganda.  This short but instructive work proposed that people do not largely form their own decisions and that a small number of people can and do control their actions.  He termed this "the invisible government."  Bernays was a supporter of this idea, and being liberally minded in the face of growing fascism and communism, saw this intelligent use of propaganda as saving democracy.  Where fascism and communism could rule through conscious direction, democracies could compete through subconscious direction.  This did not make his ideas immune from use by such other governments however.  Goebbels, in particular, was an eager student, something that the jewish Bernays resented heavily.

One thing that Bernays did insist upon was that propaganda, meaning to propagate information, solely functioned to serve the truth.  It is a common misconception that "propaganda" means falsehoods or lies, and certainly Lord Arthur Ponsonby in his 1928 book attributed much of the war propaganda to falsehoods.  Propaganda however, in its purest form, means to spread information and educate.  Equating "educate" with "propaganda" may feel strange - perhaps it reminds you of certain political figures deriding their opposition.  This too is the influence of Bernays as he so eloquently put when he wrote the following in his 1923 work Crystallizing Public Opinion:

"The only difference between 'propaganda' and 'education,' really, is in the point of view.  The advocacy of what we believe in is education.  The advocacy of what we don't believe in is propaganda."

Here we see that despite Bernays' apparent insistence that propaganda be used essentially for good (as subjectively assessed via his world view), he himself used "propaganda" as a dirty word, and even as early as 1923 was using and defining language to manipulate and change opinion.  "Public relations" was his clean word for "propaganda" and these words ultimately mean one and the same.  A PR department is a propaganda department following Bernays' designs as set forth in his work.

Much of Bernays' post-WWI work was focused on the rising corporate world of America.  What worked for government to promote support for war, public policies, and public figures (such as in his PR campaign to put the "cool" in Calvin Coolidge) would surely work for business.  Bernays was of course correct.  It did work, and it worked well.  His foundational ideas became picked up by copycats, others who wrote upon his theories, taught them as "public relations" to this day.  All of this shapes the world around us.  This article is meant as a concise introduction to this world, but I encourage everybody to read these works for yourself.  Recommending Propaganda is the RTFM to understand how this world we live in has been put together.  Perhaps this sounds silly or far-fetched, but when I first read these works, many years ago now, it was like I could see the Matrix.  Propaganda is all around us, and you start to notice the many instructions that Bernays laid out right in front of your eyes.  On billboards, on the news, on YouTube.  Everywhere.

Speaking of YouTube'rs, it's a good lead-in to a brief explanation of a key technique devised by Bernays.  In 1924, Cheney Brothers, a silk manufacturer, was losing market share rapidly.  Seeking out Bernays for help, he was able to link their silk product to celebrities and even had American silk exhibited in the Louvre.  The results were predictable - sales soared.  Thought leaders, celebrities, influencers.  PR 101.  You don't sell a product, you subtly change the behavior and desires of your audience to make them demand it.  Today it might not be silk in the Louvre but sponsored YouTube'rs in Dubai, micro-targeted ads, and viral memes reshaping the electoral landscape as propaganda becomes unchained from its creators.  Mutated into a dangerous and seductive egregore - a self-replicating force of mass social engineering.

Before I finish up this brief, slightly chaotic, but hopefully insightful article, I would like to provide you with a short list of PR campaigns that Bernays worked on.  Look into them, think about them, and ultimately, understand them and the huge influence Bernays has had on the 20th century and beyond:

  • Popularized ballet among Americans.
  • 1920 (((NAACP))) convention hosted to change southern opinions on Blacks.
  • Conditioned children to enjoy and advocate for Procter & Gamble soaps.
  • Saved the American silk industry.
  • Increased popularity of President Coolidge.
  • Influenced women to take up smoking by associating cigarettes with proto-feminist liberation: "Torches of Freedom."
  • Convinced the public to accept water fluoridation.
  • Popularized bacon and eggs for breakfast.
  • Assisted the United Fruit Company in their successful 1954 coup of Guatemala.
  • Influenced the regulation on hairnets.
  • Promoted anti-smoking campaigns.

"We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of."  --- Propaganda (1928).

The first step in avoiding an exploit is to understand it.  There is no patch, only vigilance.  Understand how ideas enter your mind.  Question who benefits.  You may have hardened your firewall, but when was the last time you actually checked what your senses are downloading?  Never forget it.  We have been hacked, and like all good hacks, it worked before you noticed.

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