In 1988, just a few years after the end of the Cold War, Noam Chomsky and Edward Samuel Herman published the well-known essay entitled “The Consensus Factory,” an indictment of the American mass media and in particular of American newspapers guilty, in their view, of becoming mere uncritical mouthpieces of the state, of the strong powers operating within it, even going so far as to engage in unsolicited and, often and willingly, not even imposed self-censorship.
Infact, the book is still a, in some ways highly topical, ) ‘accuse that is articulated in over four hundred pages packed with examples, although in times closer to us precisely the U.S. press has proven that it knows how to exercise its freedom of expression by criticizing the Trumpian establishment.
A striking example of the permanence of that modus operandi in the overseas press is related to the exposure of the events surrounding the so-called Havana Syndrome: specifically, for a good six years, the most reliable media have supported and fed the idea that what caused the long list of discomfort detected among U.S. diplomatic personnel-first in Cuba and then around the world-was an obscure enemy, an opposing nation, in possession of fearsome futuristic weapons, and this on the basis of a theory promoted by Washington, which starting in 2016 funded an unspecified research financed with millions of USD having the purpose of identifying the obscure and undefined and definable enemy: a veritable ridiculous witch hunt that ended in January 2022 when, with some embarrassment, the CIA finally admitted that the overwhelming majority of the illnesses recorded in the embassies were attributable to natural factors or, more precisely, the result of a collective hysteria that had caused the cascade of events that led to the Cuban case.
Well, on that occasion even though the U.S. media could have lent a hand in dismantling that abstruse and fanciful conspiracy theory, almost nothing was done, if only in the sense of advancing the hypothesis that Washington was blowing the whistle and that giving rise to the Havana Syndrome was not any state or organization devoted to destroying the United States: as such, the behavior of the American press showed an almost total subservience to the official narrative, a subservience underlying which was the same self-censorship that Chomsky and Herman had written about decades earlier.
Now a similar trend threatens other countries as well, and among them Switzerland, which in May 2022 was seen plummeting from 10th to 14th place in the ranking compiled by “Reporters without Borders” of the countries with the greatest press freedom: definitely a bad fall from grace on which the outcome of the Feb. 13, 2022 vote that will accelerate the inexorable reduction in the diversity of newspapers has weighed, the first step on the path leading to the design of new “muzzling” procedures, that is, procedures designed to make it easier to block a publication for precautionary purposes.
Under these conditions doing journalism, especially doing investigative journalism, will be increasingly difficult and, in some ways, “dangerous” paradoxically at the very time when the growing complexity of the world would require greater freedom of the press and not the mere edification of stereotypical consensus factories.
In light of these considerations, I believe it is not only legitimate, but incumbent upon us to ask what value can still be attributed nowadays to so-called public opinion, that is, to that collective judgment and way of thinking of the majority of citizens also understood as a system of beliefs about public affairs born with the modern idea of representative democracy, defined by the philosopher J. Locke as the government of opinion.
Public opinion from this point of view is such not only because it is diffused among the many or most, but also because it tends to be addressed to the public and in this sense constitutes the framework of values and the belief system about public affairs on which the rule of law should rest. Beginning in the early twentieth century, a whole series of studies on the relations between public opinion and mass society flourished in the fields of especially sociology and psychology (G. Le Bon, G. Tarde, F. Tonnies, C.H. Cooley, W. Lipmann), which gave impetus to a wide variety of empirical research and application programs based on the techniques of propaganda, polling and marketing, intended to analyze or manipulate the states of public opinion in the different arenas, economic or political, in which they manifest themselves. With the development of mass communication tools, the problem of public opinion essentially becomes one of understanding the ways (critical or passive, cognitive or emotional) through which different ‘specialized publics’ interact with information flows, as well as the outcomes of this interaction on the structure of society.
In a context heavily polluted by the manipulative practices of political marketing such as the current one, electoral consultations have lost much of their original meaning and value in that talking about free and, above all, conscious voting is practically impossible.
Many are the times when in most think they choose and few the times when they actually choose: psychology teaches us that this opportunity is the prerogative of a small minority of at most 10% (other studies speak of 20%) of the population, so that 80-90% of the population chooses, and consequently votes, what others have decided for them.
Conformism, imitation, qualunquism, fatalism, suggestion, identification, plagiarism, and so on are just some of the names by which social and clinical psychology has called the recessive “devilry” by which the various “consensus factories” manage the illusory choices of millions and millions of people around the world.
Awareness, grown and consolidated in the field, of the possibility of human persuasion makes it possible to peer into that abyss into which even the dignity of the individual sinks and it is something into which everything descends thanks to various techniques, each of which can be traced back to some basic psychological principle that guides and governs human behavior.
It is precisely by properly leveraging such principles that persuasion techniques give those who know and use them immense power.
In the past, techniques have been used that were based on six basic elements : consistency-commitment , reciprocity, social reproof (also called imitation), authority, sympathy, and scarcity (or fear of being left wanting). All techniques, however, can never disregard one thing : the real need–or made to be perceived as such–of the subject or group of people whose behavior or choices are to be directed.
In order to achieve this, it is necessary to motivate the subject to act according to the persuader’s wishes, and such motivation is nothing more than the set of factors that underlie a person’s behavior (acting) to achieve a goal.
However, motivation depends mainly on two elements:
- competencies: what the individual is capable of doing (or what we want him or her to understand that he or she is capable of doing, such as, for example, in politics, bringing about “change” in the general arrangement of the country in which he or she lives)
- personal values: what the individual wants to do.
The motivational drive begins whenever the individual feels a need. Now paradoxically, in politics, the one who generates the need, the one who is the cause of that need, is then the same individual who in fact puts himself forward as the one who will solve every problem : thus a kind of perverse double bond is created between voters and elected officials, between the people and the political class , a kind of perverse double bond.
Past history basically is precisely the narrative of how this sick relationship arose, developed and has come down to us if not in form certainly in substance. The relationship that binds peoples to the religious establishment : with my inventions I appropriate the concept of God, manipulate it and make it a “someone” who demands certain behaviors whose violation provokes the wrath of the God and in me generates the sense of guilt, the sense of sin.
At this point I put myself forward as the one who can act as a go-between, who can intercede in some way for you to receive forgiveness but…, but to obtain this forgiveness I require you to follow my rules and …. and that’s it!
In politics it is exactly the same thing: politicians are pieces of that system (or aspirants to be part of it) that created the evils from which descend the needs that motivate the people to action and whether they are called Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Bush, Berlusconi, Andreotti, Ciampi or Grillo or Renzi or Salvini or Di Maio …. matters little because the music is always the same .What are these needs ? Mind you that the need may not be real but the important thing is that it is perceived as such, and to this end the advertising machine and the control of information channels are the necessary and sufficient tools to create both the need and the aggregation of those who that need or those needs share : here is created an electoral base.
Cohesion among potential voters is achieved by keeping the spotlight on the problem(s) by constantly proposing oneself as the solver(s) of it all provided one is elected or re-elected, in the latter case, if nothing has been done at the first round, it will suffice to point to the public mockery of opponents or an imaginary enemy, or create one ad hoc: it can be the mythical tax evader presented in the manner of the ‘untore of Manzoni’s memory, the Jew (this too is now politically incorrect), the immigrant, the terrorist, and you name it.
If the end sought is commercial, the need is the perception of an imbalance between the current situation and a desired situation. Need rather than being generated is itself a state of dissatisfaction that causes man to procure the necessary means (goods) or governing structure (party) to end or limit it.
Maslow’s pyramid of needs is the ultimate motivational model.
Introduced in 1954 by psychologist Abraham Maslow, the motivational model of human development is based on a “hierarchy of needs,” that is, a series of “needs” ordered hierarchically according to which the satisfaction of the most basic needs is the condition for letting higher order needs emerge.
At the base of this veritable pyramidal structure we find the needs essential to survival while ascending to the top we encounter the more intangible needs.
Starting from the base of the Motivational (or Needs) Pyramid we find:
- PHYSIOLOGICAL needs: hunger, thirst, sleep, thermoregulation, etc. These are the needs related to the physical survival of the individual. They are the first to be satisfied because of the instinct of self-preservation;
- SAFETY needs: protection, tranquility, predictability, suppression of worries and anxieties, etc. They must provide the individual with protection and tranquility;
- the needs of BELONGING: to be loved and cherished, to be part of a group, to cooperate, to participate, etc.; This category represents everyone’s aspiration to be an element of the community;
- STEM needs: to be respected, approved, recognized, etc. The individual wants to feel competent and productive;
- the needs of SELF-REALIZATION: realizing one’s identity according to expectations and potential, occupying a social role, etc. This is the individual aspiration to be what one wants to be by making use of our mental and physical faculties.
The main difference between basic needs and social and relational needs consists of the fact that the former, once satisfied, tend not to reoccur, unlike social and relational needs, which tend to be reborn with new and more ambitious goals to achieve.
According to Maslow’s inferences from all this, it follows that dissatisfaction, whether at work or in public and private life, is a widespread phenomenon that may find its cause in the failure to realize one’s potential: it is no coincidence that for Maslow, self-realization requires a whole series of personality characteristics, social skills and technical abilities to which today I believe must be added a further series of elements imposed by the emergence of social networks, elements that contemplate physical appearance, the ability to be fashionable the ability to be popular, to amaze always and at any cost, the possession of certain cult objects, the ability to interact in real time with the people of the web in order to be able to increase the number of one’s followers, to capture attention, to be present online for as long as possible in order to keep the interest of one’s followers alive by astonishing them, as well as to fend off attacks from critics or haters, the ability to manipulate.
This type of approach is characteristic of the two main strands of employment which are one corporate and one political that today, however you want to put it, follow the same path since in both cases those who operate intend to achieve a result that allows them to achieve their goal by manipulating each other or a group of individuals or even an entire community: something that is the basis of consensus.
If from the corporate point of view this entails achieving the ability to modulate the management style and the definition of objectives and incentives, according to the level of satisfaction of the person’s needs thus starting from a procedure of detecting all possible elements of contrast between the worker’s development process and that of the corporate context in which he or she is inserted, from the political point of view all this translates into the need to proceed to the identification of all no one excluded, the individual and collective needs in order to emphasize their factual visualization as well as the visualization of each individual bearer of such needs while showing acceptance of their fears related to the continuation of their non-fulfillment in order to then put himself forward as the person who tackles everything and solves everything without the slightest concern to illustrate how, with what timing, tools, strategies, synergies, costs, competencies, skills: all of which the public will not ask about acted as it is by a desire to be reassured and, above all, left free of burdensome thoughts that might somehow disturb its peace of mind.
Usually in politics, when the vicious circle contemplating the systematic failure to solve the problems on the table reaches a dead end, in order to avoid a loss of consensus we take action to pull a new rabbit out of the usual hat consisting of the identification of a global panacea, or the identification of a new social distractor: these days the Green Revolution and the reduction of CO2 emissions have taken on this role and consensus has been restored and even increased by emphasizing the consequences that the failure to achieve these goals could have on the future of individuals, the community and future generations, while re-proposing itself, as always, as the only one capable of providing an adequate response.
In this context, in order to consolidate the consensus received, it will then be necessary to again leverage the fear arising from the failure to satisfy the new needs uncritically induced, but at the same time reassuring and always promising the miraculous “change,” as long as occult and adverse forces or undefined strong powers, or at any rate of the ideological, ethnic, geopolitical categories do not prevail, hindering the bright path toward the future goal.
Positive thinking and confidence are administered by the handful, and the whole thing is conveyed by means of simple messages or slogans that are all the more elementary and demagogic the larger the slice of the population reached and endeared.
It is a very old concept, this, used to great effect by Neoliberal, Soviet, Nazi , Fascist propaganda ….. as well as by all those who made these modes of operation their own in the past as today, and the recent propaganda of Premier Giorgia Meloni, as well as that of Ursula von der Leyen and the European Commission, i.e., the Donald Trump on duty, are or have been no exceptions.
Obviously starting from Maslow’s approach to thought -and those that preceded it- there have been notable developments that have aimed, as seen, at bringing out collective and external aspects that have expanded the vision codified by Maslow: a vision certainly too centered on the individual’s self-determination mechanism, which as such traces motivational drives exclusively to internal factors, ignoring the interaction between the individual and the external environment.Moreover, the “consensus factory” constructed from Maslow’s scale of needs is overly rigid both in terms of identifying the individual’s motivational drives and, even more so, in terms of the collective motivational drives that globalization has made paramount.
Just as the individual does not necessarily have to go through all levels of the hierarchical scale of needs , similarly the same thing does not happen for a collectivity. In the latter case it is extremely evident that acting on its behaviors may be more than one need at the same time.
At present it is the collective IO that is the starting point and this can be solicited much more easily by grasping the common elements and in particular those that concern the hierarchically lower, basic needs, primarily those concerning the need for security and visibility: this is where, for example, the U.S. geopolitical strategy all centered, starting with the attack on the Twin Towers, on the fight against terrorism has taken its cue.
Leveraging such aspects by enhancing in the collective imagination those related to the aforementioned needs for security and visibility through the constant highlighting of factors that increase the sense of fear and insecurity ensures a loyalty of the masses to the power group that most presents itself as the one whose ultimate goal is to provide security and accommodate individual and collective aspirations.
The constant media presence, then, enhances that apparent familiarity that breaks down all mistrust by acting as a substitute for direct acquaintance.
Persuasive force gains vigor and the loyalty of the electorate receives no small boost, and it is no wonder that every voice opposing all this is perceived as an attack to be recoiled at, every invitation to reflect as a provocation, every individual who stands for such analyses as a danger to the realization of the grand project of renewal loudly promised.
The so fan tutte and the constant affiliation only with those who manifest the same secular creed act as a sounding board and amplify belief.
On closer inspection, therefore, there is little room to speak of conscious electoral choices and plenty of room to speak of “electoral marketing” at most of greater or lesser effect, depending on the electoral result achieved, but still marketing.Complicating the picture, altering the balances achieved so far, has been globalization, which has brought new geopolitical players to the forefront, primarily China.
