American vs British propaganda

Thu May 1 09:09:15 CDT 1997

At 11:19 AM 05/1/97 BST, andrew at cee.hw.ac.uk wrote:

>I'm recalling a point made in Vineland where the onset of the Reagan
>years is claimed to have qualitatively changed the nature of the
>security services' (FBI/CIA) task. Rather than having to `turn'
>youngsters through disillusioning them of their youthful faith in
>rebellion, the flat-foots and spooks find that the young are queueing
>up to join The Force. The US did indeed go through its strident,
>martial propaganda phase after the war. But rather than spend this
>inheritance US capitalist has invested it in far more subtle and
>sophisticated means of persuasion.

[snip truly brilliant analysis of American propaganda and distribution system]

I'd like to add to this some extensive observations:

There is no doubt that Hitler was one of history's most brilliant
propagandists and graphic designers. He was an excellent painter and
draftsman as well, although his works aree uniformly dismissed as without
merit becauise, I think, no one can look at them without thinking who
created them. I will make the obligatory observation that I say this both as
a Jew and a rather competent publicist.

Hitler himself, however, commented that the superiority of British
psychological warfare and propaganda was an important factor in the Great
War, and that Germany had to learn from this and surpass it. I would say
that British advertising today is primitive compared with American
advertising but that the British, not the Americans, invented and executed
the most sophisticated techniques of political persuasion in the form of the
myth of the royal court. This has been analyzed in fascinating detail in
"The Invention of Tradition" (Cambridge University Press). I am going to
take the chance of boring others and wasting some bandwith by inserting here
an essay from one of my current works in progress, "The Human Robot: Essays
on the Emotional Effects of Industrialism."

[The following material is (no satire intended) copyright © Jules Siegel and
all rights are reserved, despite the fact that it is being published in a
public forum and recorded in the pynchon-l archive. In case anyone doesn't
understand what that means, you can quote brief passages with full
attribution under the terms of fair use, but if you wish to publish the
entire excerpt or a substantial portion, you will need my written permission.]

Begin Excerpt
-------------

At the beginning of the Sixteenth Century, what is now the United Kingdom
was a patchwork of tiny semi-independent principalities speaking their own
languages and wearing their traditional costumes. Nominally Christian, they
celebrated an almanac of rituals dating back to pre-historic times. Their
notions of private property were minimal. Many lands were held more or less
in common, especially among shepherds.
As a result of the worldwide prosperity associated with the discovery of the
New World and rising demand for consumer goods, especially clothing, the
communal lands were fenced in by the emerging mercantile nobility. The
crofters were driven off the pastures they had worked for centuries. They
collected in the cities, where they formed a vast pool of cheap labor as
well as a market for cheap consumer goods, now that they were no longer
independent and self-reliant. More efficient proto-industrial methods of
sheep raising and clothing production were introduced.

The English overlords conquered the remaining independent centers by force
of arms in Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and then attempted to erase the
native languages and traditions of the British Isles. They forbade speaking
anything but English and even banned the traditional Scottish breacan or
belted plaid coat.

During the 1700s, they began inventing traditions to replace the ones they
destroyed. According to Hugh Trevor-Roper, the kilt was first designed and
worn by an English Quaker Industrialist in the 1730s. In 1819, a clothing
manufacturer seems to have thought up the idea of assigning different plaids
to the different clans. The MacPherson tartan, for example, was originally
known as Kidd, because a Mr. Kidd used to order it in bulk for his West
Indian slaves. Before that it had been Nº 155. Trevor-Roper concludes: The
kilt is a purely modern costume, bestowed on the highlanders in order not to
preserve their traditional way of life but to ease its transformation: to
bring them out of the heather into the factory.

It seems the English did this everywhere they went. In Wales, learned texts
were forged and circulated as history. In Africa and India they invented
complete new political systems, created monarchies where there had formerly
been elected leaders, issued coats of arms and titles. They did not invent
the future but the past. These were instruments of control whose power came
from supposedly sacred history that in fact was created by the British to
legitimatize the throne. Although we think of English royalty as descendants
of Arthur, and the rituals surrounding the monarchy as hallowed by time, the
institution is surprisingly modern and so are the rituals.

In his introduction to The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge University
Press), the anthology from which this information comes, Professor Eric
Hobshawm comments: Traditions which appear or claim to be old are often
quite recent in origin and sometimes invented.

Royal coronations and funerals were once private affairs, often unimpressive
to the point of being tawdry. In 1820 The Times of London editorialized on
the death of George IV: There never was an individual less regretted than
this deceased king. What eye has wept for him? What heart has heaved one
throb of unmercenary sorrow? Victorias coronation was completely
unrehearsed, writes David Cannadine. The clergy lost their place in the
order of service. The ring wouldnt fit. Two train bearers talked throughout
the ceremony.

Drastic changes were made in the nature of the British Monarchy after 1820.
By now, the true rulers of England were industrialists and merchants,
because they paid all the bills. As the power of the throne steadily eroded,
the ceremonial function expanded. Queen Victoria no longer ruled. She
symbolized the state. The management of the nations affairs was taken over
by a cadre of professional administrators and politicians who adapted modern
methods of advertising and propaganda to control the masses. The eccentric
country gentlemen who had once been so influential in British life were left
in the dust by the captains of industry.

Between the late 1870s and the outbreak of the World War I, mass
circulation illustrated newspapers centered in London swamped the highly
intellectual and rational provincial press. They presented the royal family
bathed in honey light. At the same time, what had once been family affairs
now became public spectacles, professionally staged theatrical productions
with music especially written by Elgar and others. The priests began wearing
rich vestments.

Cannadine says flatly that the motive was a wish to appeal to the working
classes. After Victorias Golden Jubilee celebrations everyone feels that
the socialist movement has had a check, noted the Archbishop of Canterbury.

In our time, the advent of radio and television brought the royal family in
to the home. The media reported the great ceremonies of state in an awed and
hushed manner. No criticism was permitted. Aside from this, the Kings and
Queens of England had been transformed into celebrities. The methods were
theatrical rather than political.
Thus in an age of space ships, the Queen of England arrives at Westminister
Abbey in a grand coach drawn by magnificent horses. For the funeral of
Edward VII, Victorias successor, there was a long procession through the
streets of London behind a casket on a gun carriage pulled by sailors
followed by lying in state at Westminister. These were not ancient English
traditions. They were invented in our century by Reginald Brett, Viscount
Esher, the royal master of pageantry.

It is true that during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, England and
Europe had powerful royalty who had lavish ceremonies. Elizabeth I
commissioned John Milton to write Comus for a theatrical presentation with
music by Henry Lawes and sets by Inigo Jones, for example. These were
private parties, however. The public was not invited and were it not for the
magnificence of the designs and the fame of the artists, we would probably
know nothing about them today. There is no connection to the present.

Nor is there any real connection between Elizabeth I and Elizabeth II, much
less to Arthur Pendragon, the fabled King Arthur of the Table Round. There
is some scant evidence to suggest Arthur was an historical figure, but since
his reign is dated somewhere in the 5th Century it would have been
mathematically impossible for even Elizabeth I to have claimed very much
mutual blood with the Pendragons, as there would have been millions of
collateral descendants over the twelve centuries that intervened. It is more
probable that the myth of Arthur was promoted as political propaganda to
sanctify the Tudor victory over the Plantaganets.

Elizabeth II is a descendant of the House of Hanover, who were not even
English but Germans, distant relatives invited to take over the British
throne in the 18th Century when the English royal line abruptly ended
without a legitimate heir. George I hardly spoke English. The Hanovers ruled
Saxony. The term Anglo-Saxon was probably invented to help legitimatize this
embarrassing fact. The Angles were English. They lived in the British Isles.
The Saxons were German. They lived in Germany. Germanic raiders did invade
England during the 5th Century and leave elements of their language in the
tongues spoken at the time, just as the Normans left much French, but the
term Anglo-Saxon for Old English probably came into use after the ascent of
the Hanovers, not before.

[I will especially appreciate any comments about the paragraph above. Am I
right? Wrong? Fair? Unfair? Mainly, are te historical facts correct?]

Are these tawdry lies worth dying to protect? Yet this is how the English
rule us to this day. How many American soldiers have lost their lives to
defend a Camelot that never was? How many American souls suffer the torments
of this psychological prison in the pathetic delusion that to be Anglo-Saxon
is somehow superior to a real life?
During a post-mortem discussion of the 1988 Presidential election, Playboy
Editorial Director Arthur Kretchmer told me, They voted for John Wayne.
This is almost true, although Bush was hardly John Wayne. They voted, in
fact, for the Queen of England and the kilt over the swarthy little Greek
immigrant. So powerful indeed is the lie, that you can be sure that many a
member of an ethnic sub-group voted for the myth rather than reality. The
British may have lost in 1789, but they merely shifted the battle to another
theater. Here they rule us to this day.

----------------
End Excerpt

Americans have mastered the supermarket. They buy and sell physical wants by
manipulating Freudian psychological drives. The British have mastered power.
They buy and sell souls by manipulating Jungian archetypes. Hitler was much
closer to Jung than Freud (whom I believe he hated, as did Stalin) in his
methods and interests. His inspiration was British, not American, and his
visual style was very much heraldic rather than popular. Bob Dylan may have
turned John Lennon and the Beatles on to pot, according to Victor Maymudis,
who told me he was there when it happened, but it was the Beatles who fully
realized the concept of rock stars as global religious cult leaders,
although Elvis Presley was first and foremost.

--
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