I think Chris Hedges in today’s links has an answer. Chomsky too.

Noam Chomsky – musings about our thought environment (from “Manufacturing Consent” and “Deterring Democacy”):

“… the press has a job: its job is to keep people from understanding the world, and to keep them indoctrinated … and the point is, if you want to be a “responsible” journalist, you have to understand what’s important, and what’s important is things that work for the cause – US corporate power, that’s the cause. And you will not stay in the press very long unless you’ve internalized and come to understand these values ??virtually intuitively – because there’s a whole elaborate process of filtering and selection in the institutions to eliminate people who don’t understand them and to help advance people who do … And of course, it’s also part of the way the propaganda system keeps everyone else from understanding the elementary realities, too.”

Referencing Edward Bernays, “father of the public relations industry” who quipped that “the very essence of the democratic process is the freedom to persuade and suggest – the engineering of consent”, Chomsky says about the public relations industry that it has devoted huge resources to “educating the American people about the economic facts of life” to ensure a favorable climate for business. Its task is to control “the public mind”. Bernays went on to say “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society … It is the intelligent minorities which need to make use of propaganda continuously and systematically.” The intelligent minorities have long understood this to be their function.

Chomsky: “This manufacture of consent is a system of indoctrination. It targets the stupid and ignorant masses. They must be kept that way, diverted with emotionally potent oversimplification, marginalized, and isolated. Ideally, each person should be alone in front of a television watching sports, soap operas, or comedies … the proper targets of mass media and a public education system geared to obedience and training in needed skills, including the skill of repeating patriotic slogans on timely occasions …

“The public are to be observers, not participants, consumers of ideology as well as products … the majority must resign itself to the consumption of fantasy. Illusions of wealth are sold to the poor, illusions of freedom to the oppressed, dreams of victory to the defeated and of power to the weak. Nothing less will do.

“The great British Enlightenment thinker John Locke observed that “the day-laborers and tradesmen, the spinsters and dairymaids (the common people) must be told what to believe; the greatest part (most people) cannot know and therefore they must believe”.

“The idea that the common people should be denied the right even to discuss public affairs remains a basic principle of modern democratic states, now implemented by a variety of means to protect the operations of the state from public scrutiny: classification of documents on the largely fraudulent pretext of national security, clandestine operations, and other measures to bar the “rascal multitude” (the masses) from the political arena.

“The 18th century Scottish philosopher David Hume found “nothing more surprising than to see the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and to observe the implicit submission with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers. When we enquire by what means this wonder is brought about, we shall find, that as Force is always on the side of the governing, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. ‘Tis therefore, on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and popular.”

“Hume was an astute observer; his insight explains why elites are so dedicated to indoctrination and thought control.
20th century American political commentator and intellectual Walter Lippmann observed “the public must be put in its place, so that we may live free of the trampling and roar of a bewildered herd whose function is to be interested spectators of action, not participants”.

“In the contemporary period, Hume’s insight has been revived and elaborated, but with a crucial innovation: control of thought is more important for governments that are free and popular (ie, “democratic”) than for despotic and military states. The logic is straightforward. A despotic state can control its domestic enemy by force, but as the state loses this weapon, other devices are required to prevent the ignorant masses form interfering with public affairs, which are none of their business. …the public are to be observers , not participants, consumers of ideology as well as products.”