The Bare-Knuckled Truths of Edward Bernays

We may not like the father of modern PR (I don’t) but we must understand him

I am not sure that I personally like Edward Bernays (1891–1995). But I admire his skills as a communicator — and, it must be stated plainly, a manipulator of communication.

In Crystalizing Public Opinion, written in 1923, Bernays foresaw, from his early vantage point as a “public relations counsel,” how to manufacture media narratives and leverage the power of cultural debates. Although Bernays died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a generation ago, his fingerprints remain etched on nearly all facets of modern life.

The pioneering PR strategist considered himself part of an intellectual and economic elite entitled to govern public opinion and global policy. Yet Bernays also foresaw today’s cultural decay, from online hate to widely used debate tropes and marketing concepts, like few intellectuals of the last century.

Crystalizing Public Opinion captures uncomfortable truths about the malleability of public attitudes. Given the coarsened state of our politics and culture, I believe we must learn how to use the master strategist’s ideas — and use them ethically, a matter that Bernays, not always convincingly, insisted he cared about.