Use of Propaganda in the 1930’s and in Brave New World

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Life in the 1930’s for Americans was very bewildering since the country was just coming out of the Red Scare. Aldous Huxley published a dystopian book, Brave New World, in which the fictional “controllers” in the novel could easily manipulate the ignorance of people through drugs and conditioning. The government used the drug soma as a way to make everyone high and agree to anything that the hierarchy wanted. Taking soma makes everyone crave it even more because it is an addictive drug. Within six years, scientists perfected the drug so that there would not be any side effects except one- the people would crave the drug even more (Hochman; Napierkowski; Stanley). During the year of 1919, fear of communism increased greatly when the Boston Police and steel and coal workers went on strike. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, who was working for President Woodrow Wilson, believed that communism was taking over the United States during World War I (Trueman; “The”). Educators, businesses, and governments have tried to influence the public through propaganda much like the shadow government in Brave New World. Propaganda tells the public what it wants to hear. Telling people what they want to hear distorts their decisions. Propaganda, then, distorts the public’s decisions so that the propagandists can get what they want.

What is propaganda? Propaganda is more of an observation of the group mind rather than a science studied in a laboratory with data. The accuracy of this science cannot be measured because the elements of the situation will always be beyond anyone’s control. In the same manner as economics and sociology, propaganda cannot be named as a definite science since its main focus is of the human being. It s...

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Ellul, Jacques. "Propaganda." Sociological. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Dec. 2013.

"Bias." Media Politics and Propaganda. Media, Politics and Propaganda, n.d. Web. 08 Dec. 2013.

Vidal, David. "Propaganda Is Everywhere." Propaganda Is Everywhere. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Dec. 2013.

Stokoe, Claire. 100 Years Of Propaganda: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Smashing Magazine, 13 June 2010. Web. 07 Dec. 2013.

Trueman, Chris. "The Red Scare in the 1920." History Learning Site. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Jan. 2014.

"1929 Torches of Freedom." The Museum of Public Relations. The Museum of Public Relations, n.d. Web. 29 Jan. 2014.

"The Palmer Raids." Between The Wars. Center For History and New Media, n.d. Web. 29 Jan. 2014.

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