IN 1928 Edward Bernays, often called ‘the father of public relations’, wrote the manual for propagandists, appropriately called Propaganda.
Typical of the contents is this passage: ‘The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.’
His great-nephew Marc Bernays Randolph (born April 29, 1958) is an American tech entrepreneur and the co-founder and first CEO of Netflix.
Most readers will have encountered the publicity for the Netflix series, Adolescence. [Spoiler alert] It tells the story of a pleasant 13-year-old boy whose mind has been sufficiently poisoned by social media that he stabbed to death a pleasant 13-year-old girl.
I could stay awake long enough to watch only one and a half episodes of this turgid story. It moves at a snail’s pace and consists of long passages of misery interspersed with periods of torment with dashes of tragedy. It will undoubtedly win all sorts of awards.
The co-creators, Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne, have called for the series to be shown in schools. Their plea has been echoed by the Toolmaker’s Son, who opined: ‘This violence carried out by young men, influenced by what they see online, is a real problem. It’s abhorrent, and we have to tackle it.’
So there we have it. Invent a problem (nice white boy becomes a crazed maniac because of social media), foment a reaction (through mass publicity, questions in Parliament, ‘something must be done!’), manufacture a solution (beware of seemingly nice white boys and ban them from social media to prevent them investigating the crimes of those in authority).
As Lenin said, ‘Of all the arts, for us the cinema is the most important.’
I pity the poor teachers who have to force their classes to endure this garbage.
Edward Bernays would be proud.
