It has been the history of new professions—and every profession has been at some time a new profession—that they are accepted by the public and become firmly established only after two significant handicaps are overcome. The first of these, oddly enough, lies in public opinion itself; it consists of the public’s reluctance1 to acknowledge a dependence2, however slight, upon the ministrations of any one group of persons. Medicine, even to-day, is still fighting this reluctance. The law is fighting it. Yet these are established professions.
The second handicap is that any new profession must become established, not through the efforts and activities of others, who might be considered impartial3, but through its own energy.
These handicaps are particularly potent4 in a profession of advocacy, because it is engaged in the partisan5 representation of one point of view. The legal profession is perhaps the most familiar example of this fact, and in this light at least a trenchant6 comparison may be drawn7 between the
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bar and the new profession of the public relations counsel.
Both these professions offer to the public substantially the same services—expert training, a highly sensitized understanding of the background from which results must be obtained, a keenly developed capacity for the analysis of problems into their constituent8 elements. Both professions are in constant danger of arousing crowd antagonism9, because they often stand in frank and open opposition10 to the fixed11 point of view of one or another of the many groups which compose society. Indeed it is this aspect of the work of the public relations counsel which is undoubtedly12 the foundation of a good deal of popular disapproval13 of his profession.
Even Mr. Martin, who on several occasions in his volume talks with severe condemnation15 of what he calls propaganda, sees and admits the fundamental psychological factors which make the adherents16 to one point of view impute17 degraded or immoral18 motives19 to believers in other points of view. He says:44
“The crowd-man can, when his fiction is challenged, save himself from spiritual bankruptcy20, preserve his defenses, keep his crowd from going to pieces, only by a demur21. Any one who challenges the crowd’s fictions must be ruled
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out of court. He must not be permitted to speak. As a witness to contrary values, his testimony22 must be discounted. The worth of his evidence must be discredited23 by belittling24 the disturbing witness. ‘He is a bad man; the crowd must not listen to him.’ His motives must be evil; he is ‘bought up’; he is an immoral character; he tells lies; he is insincere or he ‘has not the courage to take a stand’ or ‘there is nothing new in what he says.’
“Ibsen’s ‘Enemy of the People,’ illustrates25 this point very well. The crowd votes that Doctor Stockman may not speak about the baths, the real point at issue. Indeed, the mayor takes the floor and officially announces that the doctor’s statement that the water is bad is ‘unreliable and exaggerated.’ Then the president of the Householders’ Association makes an address accusing the doctor of secretly ‘aiming at revolution.’ When finally Doctor Stockman speaks and tells his fellow citizens the real meaning of their conduct, and utters a few plain truths about ‘the compact majority,’ the crowd saves its face, not by proving the doctor false, but by howling him down, voting him an ‘enemy of the people,’ and throwing stones through the window.”
If we analyze26 a specific example of the public relations counsel’s work, we see the workings of the crowd-mind, which have made it so difficult
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for his profession to gain popular approval. Let us take, for example, the tariff27 situation again. It is manifestly impossible for either side in the dispute to obtain a totally unbiased point of view as to the other side. The importer calls the manufacturer unreasonable28; he imputes29 selfish motives to him. For his own part he identifies the establishment of the conditions upon which he insists with such things as social welfare, national safety, Americanism, lower prices to the consumer, and whatever other fundamentals he can seize upon. Every newspaper report carrying the flavor of adverse30 suggestion, whether on account of its facts or on account of the manner of its writing, is immediately branded as untrue, unfortunate, ill-advised. It must, the importer concludes, it must have been inspired by insidious31 machinations from the manufacturers’ interests.
But is the manufacturer any more reasonable? If the newspapers publish stories unfavorable to his interests, then the newspapers have been “bought up,” “influenced”; they are “partisan” and many other unreasonable things. The manufacturer, just like the importer, identifies his side of the struggle with such fundamental standards as he can seize upon—a living wage, reduced prices to the consumer, the American standard of employment, fair play, justice. To each the contentions32 of the other are untenable.
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Now, carry this situation one step further to the point at which the public relations counsel is retained, on behalf of one side or the other. Observe how sincerely each side and its adherents call even the verifiable facts and figures of the other by that dread33 name “propaganda.” Should the importers submit figures showing that wages could be raised and the price to the consumer reduced, their adherents would be gratified that such important educational work should be done among the public and that the newspapers should be so fair-minded as to publish it. The manufacturers, on the other hand, will call such material “propaganda” and blame either the newspaper which publishes those figures or the economist34 who compiled them, or the public relations counsel who advised collating35 the material.
The only difference between “propaganda” and “education,” really, is in the point of view. The advocacy of what we believe in is education. The advocacy of what we don’t believe in is propaganda. Each of these nouns carries with it social and moral implications. Education is valuable, commendable36, enlightening, instructive. Propaganda is insidious, dishonest, underhand, misleading. It is only to-day that the viewpoint on this question is undergoing a slight change, as the following editorial would indicate:
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“The relativity of truth,”45 says Mr. Elmer Davis, “is a commonplace to any newspaper man, even to one who has never studied epistemology; and, if the phrase is permissible37, truth is rather more relative in Washington than anywhere else. Now and then it is possible to make a downright statement; such and such a bill has passed in one of the houses of Congress, or failed to pass; the administration has issued this or that statement; the President has approved, or vetoed, a certain bill. But most of the news that comes out of Washington is necessarily rather vague, for it depends on the assertions of statesmen who are reluctant to be quoted by name, or even by description. This more than anything else is responsible for the sort of fog, the haze38 of miasmatic39 exhalations, which hangs over news with a Washington date line. News coming out of Washington is apt to represent not what is so but what might be so under certain contingencies40, what may turn out to be so, what some eminent41 personage says is so, or even what he wants the public to believe is so when it is not.”
Most subjects on which there is a so-called definite public opinion are much more vague and indefinite, much more complex in their facts and in their ramifications42 than the news from Washington
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which the historian of the New York Times describes. Consider, for example, what complicated issues are casually43 disposed of by the average citizen. An uninformed lay public may condemn14 a new medical theory on slight consideration. Its judgment44 is hit or miss, as medical history proves.
Political, economic and moral judgments45, as we have seen, are more often expressions of crowd psychology46 and herd47 reaction than the result of the calm exercise of judgment. It is difficult to believe that this is not inevitable48. Public opinion in a society consisting of millions of persons, all of whom must somehow or other reach a working basis with most of the others, is bound to find a level of uniformity founded on the intelligence of the average member of society as a whole or of the particular group to which one may belong. There is a different set of facts on every subject for each man. Society cannot wait to find absolute truth. It cannot weigh every issue carefully before making a judgment. The result is that the so-called truths by which society lives are born of compromise among conflicting desires and of interpretation49 by many minds. They are accepted and intolerantly maintained once they have been determined50. In the struggle among ideas, the only test is the one which Justice
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Holmes of the Supreme51 Court pointed52 out—the power of thought to get itself accepted in the open competition of the market.
The only way for new ideas to gain currency is through the acceptance of them by groups. Merely individual advocacy will leave the truth outside the general fund of knowledge and beliefs. The urge toward suppression of minority or dissentient points of view is counteracted53 in part by the work of the public relations counsel.
The standards of the public relations counsel are his own standards and he will not accept a client whose standards do not come up to them. While he is not called upon to judge the merits of his case any more than a lawyer is called upon to judge his client’s case, nevertheless he must judge the results which his work would accomplish from an ethical54 point of view.
In law, the judge and jury hold the deciding balance of power. In public opinion, the public relations counsel is judge and jury because through his pleading of a case the public is likely to accede55 to his opinion and judgment. Therefore, the public relations counsel must maintain an intense scrutiny56 of his actions, avoiding the propagation of unsocial or otherwise harmful movements or ideas.
Every public relations counsel has been confronted
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with the necessity of refusing to accept clients whose cases in a law court would be valid57, but whose cases in the higher court of public opinion are questionable58.
The social value of the public relations counsel lies in the fact that he brings to the public facts and ideas of social utility which would not so readily gain acceptance otherwise. While he, of course, may represent men and individuals who have already gained great acceptance in the public mind, he may represent new ideas of value which have not yet reached their point of largest acceptance or greatest saturation59. That in itself renders him important.
As for the relations between the public relations counsel and his client, little can be said which would not be merely a repetition of that code of decency60 by which men and women make moral judgments and live reputable lives. The public relations counsel owes his client conscientious61, effective service, of course. He owes to his client all the duties which the professions assume in relation to those they serve. Much more important than any positive duty, however, which the public relations counsel owes to his client is the negative duty—that he must never accept a retainer or assume a position which puts his duty to the groups he represents above his duty to his
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own standards of integrity—to the larger society within which he lives and works.
Europe has given us the most recent important study of public opinion and its social and historical effects. It is interesting because it indicates the sweep of the development of an international realization62 of what a momentous63 factor in the world’s life public opinion is becoming. I feel that this paragraph from a recent work of Professor Von Ferdinand Tonnies is of particular significance to all who would feel that the conscious moulding of public opinion is a task embodying64 high ideals.
“The future of public opinion,” says Professor Tonnies, “is the future of civilization. It is certain that the power of public opinion is constantly increasing and will keep on increasing. It is equally certain that it is more and more being influenced, changed, stirred by impulses from below. The danger which this development contains for a progressive ennobling of human society and a progressive heightening of human culture is apparent. The duty of the higher strata65 of society—the cultivated, the learned, the expert, the intellectual—is therefore clear. They must inject moral and spiritual motives into public opinion. Public opinion must become public conscience.”
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It is in the creation of a public conscience that the counsel on public relations is destined66, I believe, to fulfill67 his highest usefulness to the society in which he lives.
THE END
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1
reluctance
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| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
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dependence
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| n.依靠，依赖；信任，信赖；隶属 | |
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impartial
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| adj.(in,to)公正的，无偏见的 | |
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potent
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| adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的 | |
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partisan
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| adj.党派性的；游击队的；n.游击队员；党徒 | |
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trenchant
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| adj.尖刻的，清晰的 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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constituent
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| n.选民；成分，组分；adj.组成的，构成的 | |
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antagonism
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| n.对抗，敌对，对立 | |
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opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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disapproval
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| n.反对，不赞成 | |
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condemn
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| vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑 | |
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condemnation
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| n.谴责; 定罪 | |
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adherents
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| n.支持者，拥护者( adherent的名词复数 )；党羽；徒子徒孙 | |
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impute
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| v.归咎于 | |
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immoral
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| adj.不道德的，淫荡的，荒淫的，有伤风化的 | |
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motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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bankruptcy
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| n.破产；无偿付能力 | |
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demur
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| v．表示异议，反对 | |
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testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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discredited
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| 不足信的，不名誉的 | |
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belittling
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| 使显得微小，轻视，贬低( belittle的现在分词 ) | |
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illustrates
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| 给…加插图( illustrate的第三人称单数 )； 说明； 表明； （用示例、图画等）说明 | |
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analyze
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| vt.分析，解析 (=analyse) | |
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tariff
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| n.关税，税率；(旅馆、饭店等)价目表，收费表 | |
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unreasonable
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| adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的 | |
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imputes
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| v.把（错误等）归咎于( impute的第三人称单数 ) | |
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adverse
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| adj.不利的；有害的；敌对的，不友好的 | |
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insidious
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| adj.阴险的，隐匿的，暗中为害的，（疾病）不知不觉之间加剧 | |
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contentions
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| n.竞争( contention的名词复数 )；争夺；争论；论点 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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economist
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| n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人 | |
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collating
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| v.校对( collate的现在分词 )；整理；核对；整理（文件或书等） | |
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commendable
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| adj.值得称赞的 | |
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permissible
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| adj.可允许的，许可的 | |
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haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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miasmatic
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| adj.毒气的，沼气的 | |
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contingencies
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| n.偶然发生的事故，意外事故( contingency的名词复数 )；以备万一 | |
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eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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ramifications
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| n.结果，后果( ramification的名词复数 ) | |
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casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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judgments
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| 判断( judgment的名词复数 )； 鉴定； 评价； 审判 | |
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psychology
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| n.心理，心理学，心理状态 | |
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herd
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| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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interpretation
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| n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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counteracted
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| 对抗，抵消( counteract的过去式 ) | |
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ethical
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| adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的 | |
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accede
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| v.应允，同意 | |
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scrutiny
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| n.详细检查，仔细观察 | |
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valid
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| adj.有确实根据的；有效的；正当的，合法的 | |
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questionable
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| adj.可疑的，有问题的 | |
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saturation
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| n.饱和(状态)；浸透 | |
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decency
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| n.体面，得体，合宜，正派，庄重 | |
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conscientious
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| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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realization
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| n.实现；认识到，深刻了解 | |
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momentous
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| adj.重要的，重大的 | |
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embodying
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| v.表现( embody的现在分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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strata
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| n.地层（复数）；社会阶层 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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fulfill
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| vt.履行，实现，完成；满足，使满意 | |
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