How to sell the idea of the European Union and the Euro elections?
Propaganda, PR, Communications Policy….you name it!
The Engineering of Consent: the EU case
In the age of mass production and mass democracy, there must be a technique of mass distribution of ideas. Even by reading this article now you automatically become a recipient of this mass dissemination of information. Too late, you already started reading.
And how about an anti-EU campaign? Here is the slogan: “Don’t you dare vote! Do not fall into the trap of EU’s propaganda”. How easy it is to manipulate the irrational and primitive emotions of human beings? What about pulling the wires which control the public mind? The psychological techniques to control human irrationality are not really a new invention. Attempts to manipulate public opinion using the Freudian subconscious are easy to spot throughout recent history, reaching their peak the past century helped by the unprecedented technological advance. Or is it that we haven’t yet experienced the most profoundly manipulative campaign?
A simple or simplified dichotomy is usually mentioned: in peace period this is called public relations. In war time it is simply propaganda. Many politicians, journalist, trend-setter or citizens believe that the EU officials are simply trying to proselytise ignorant citizens. So, do we really have to deal with a new type of info-war (even if we are in a peaceful period) or by attributing these kinds of characterisations to the Directorate General Communication or even to the EU Commissioner in charge of the Communications Policy, are we simply being unfair to Goebbels or even to Edward Bernays and Ivy Lee?
There is an EU Policeman inside all our heads: He must be destroyed!
In the period of economics recession, it is the most suitable time to start selling the idea of Europe even to its enemies or to promote anti-EU feelings. I am sure there are citizens who are discontent with the civilisation as we know it and who are discontent with their national governments. In a periods of crisis, socio-economic and mental instabilities the rational ability to discuss and debate is easily erased or forgotten. Right! This is the time for worlds eminent political spin doctors and PR gurus to take some action.
Here is the plan: the EU employed a bunch of marketers, trend setters, opinion leaders and publicists, whose job is to generate and manage publicity for further EU integration, aiming to alter and control the inner drive of EU citizens who must lose their national identity in favour of a supranational super state. Who is so smart to design and promote such a public persuasion campaign with the permission given by the democratically elected European Parliament, the democratically elected national governments and without any criticism by the vigilant eye of different kind of Mass Media across Europe? Final target: to influence the masses with or without their conscious co operations.
Are we so naïve and conspiracy theories lovers to believe that the motto of the Brussels based Eurocrats is Walter Lippman’s legendary phrase “the engineering of consent”, which is based on the belief that not all people have reliable judgment? By admitting the latter, we simply agree that the EU as an international-transnational organisation shares the same characteristics with authoritarian regimes of the past and present. The difference is that they are very well hidden.
Why we all of the sudden criticise the “subliminal strategies for social control” allegedly undertaken by the Brussels based politicians to manage the “irrational anti-European forces of ignorant and nationalistic masses”? Do we trust national governments more? Do we pay attention more to what local politicians say instead of the European Parliament members? And finally, do we really have to deal with the sentimental pseudo dilemma: national sovereignty versus European loyalty?
When parties like the UK based “BNP”, the “Libertas” or the Greek xenophobic party “Laos” emerge in an era of mass democracy, what is wrong with the so called democracy itself in Europe? Can people be trusted to vote or are they simply chaotic? Do we trust “swing voters” or democracy is simply a “necessary evil”?
What is it that leads people to drop their moral “defences” and become fascists or anarchists? Do elites really do no more than create and sustain the conditions for democracy or/and as easily deconstruct them (the latest financial and political scandals across Europe and within the European Parliament being starting points for this deconstruction). The “arrogant ruling elite” knows what is good for the public. Right? Unemployment, illegal immigration from third non EU countries, criminality connected to immigrants or even the slavery through unbearable employment or through mortgages and the income disparity itself, can simply boost “crowd psychology” irrational emotions, which emerge within disappointed groups. The Libidinous forces of desire, existence, survival and racial perpetuation are given to the leader. The wrong leader. Spectators of a repeated circus, which ends up being a farce: the unconscious mind, “the herd instincts” of the masses versus the active citizenry emerge. Nationalism and anti-Europeanism emerge from the swamp of unconscious desires.
EU Happiness Machines: La parabole des dix vierges
Do the Europhobes and the rest foolish virgins actually believe that the Europhiles experience a kind of “lobotomised EU related happiness”? Do they really believe that the MEPs elected by the biggest transnational elections the humanity has ever experienced and supported by their national political parties, are targeting the easily controllable and brainwashed citizens of this continent? Is this ever feasible? Are Europeans such a “one dimensional” group of people? And on top of that, is the EU simply a panacea to all our everyday problems? Calm down and think reasonably.
Identifying ourselves with a nation (e.g. French, Spanish etc) or with a supranational entity (e.g. the EU) could be a therapeutic process. The sense of belonging to one dimensional entity is essential for humans. The raise of sharing culture is one step further…There is no doubt that nation states are the dominant framework of reference and belonging for a vast majority of EU citizens.
The question is not a zero-sum game as it is commonly portrayed but one of ensuring that the collective “Heimat” can be sustained as the legitimate basis for the member states’ and EU’s present and future goals.
In a selfish civilisation, where we became slaves of our own desires and where we “buy” even a national identity, inner-directed people, self-driven citizens, self-motivated, self-selective and self-factualising individuals co-exist with irrational crowds, which are easily drugged into a savage neo-barbarism, where rational discussions and deliberations are replaced by the raise of a selfish individualism.
A new dilemma a la manière de Kastoriades “socialisme ou barbarie”: Animality or Europeanisation?
In an epoch where citizens are trained to desire almost everything, how can the fragmented EU appeal to the masses effectively? Do we need a new kind of mentality? Do we need to try to find smart ways to achieve an emotional connection to the EU, in the same way publicist do with products or services? And how possible and necessary is it to be engaged emotionally with the glass made faceless EU buildings and the long corridors of the gigantic EP headquarters in Brussels and Strasburg, or with the corridors of power in our own member states?
What motivates the human mind and what kind of psychological techniques/methods should be employed to understand the mind of the crowd and its instincts of essentialism or of biased patriotism, which perceives the EU project in a negative way?
If we need to win the minds and hearts of the Europeans as one more functional precondition for legitimate EU’s governance, perhaps we need to reinvent representative democracy as we know it. The vehicle to achieve the goal: a “two-way street democracy” and individual engagement. In order to unreservedly belong to a broader entity, you need first to get rid of the unwanted selfishness of ethnocentrism. The hidden EU enemy within the human mind (nationalism and racial discrimination to name few) needs to be constantly negotiated, re-examined or even controlled. However, instead of a controlled European citizen, we prefer a self expressive one, who autonomously believes that “a map of the world that does not include utopia is not worth even glancing” (Oscar Wilde).
The deconstruction of every kind of consent in Plato’s cave
Yes, it all ends up in media coverage and manipulation. In the post-modern wired global Plato’s cave, all kinds of actors and agents - chained or unchained - project their Euro-truths and Euro-myths [1] on the digital wall. Stories are being published about the EU, reported in the European traditional and new media, usually based on hearsay, rumours and half-truths, many of which have been repeated so often that they have become accepted truths within the public and media consciousness. Indicative headlines: “Brussels is to spend £600 million over six years on feeding young people EU “propaganda”" [2], “EU wants to purge the Queen from our passports” [3] etc.
Europe needs a “new philosopher” who will point out the shadows on the wall are not constitutive of reality at all, as he can perceive the true form of reality rather than the mere shadows seen by monolithic media-prisoners.
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Sources:
BBC Documentary “The century of the Self” by Adam Curtis
[1] http://www.openeurope.org.uk/media-centre/pressrelease.aspx?pressreleaseid=96
[2] http://ec.europa.eu/unitedkingdom/press/euromyths/myth160_en.htm
[3] http://ec.europa.eu/unitedkingdom/press/euromyths/myth164_en.htm
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No, Europe DOES NOT need a “new philosopher”! Very elitest article, quite scary actually, given Europe’s history.
What did Plato think of democracy?
QUOTE: “Unless the philosophers rule as kings or those now called kings and chiefs genuinely and adequately philosophize, and political power and philosophy coincide in the same place, while the many natures now making their way to either apart from the other are by necessity excluded, there is no rest from ills for the cities, my dear Glaucon, nor I think for human kind, nor will the regime we have now described in speech ever come forth from nature, insofar as possible, and see the light of the sun. UNQUOTE (Republic 473d-e)”
1) Yes, the article was meant to be scary…
2) The media world is still under the control of elites…you can’t avoid that
3) what you need to do is to be trained to decode the message
4) the passage you just quoted says exactly what you can read in my article as well: politicians who have the same characteristics with the philosophers… I know it is one more utopian platonic idea …but who knows, maybe it will become true
In any case thanx, Anna, for reading such an incomprehensible article.