Image Versus Ideal: The Lack of Critical Thinking in the United States
In his seminal book Taking the Risk Out of Democracy: Propaganda in the US and Australia (University of NSW Press, 1995), Australian social critic Alex Carey argues that three major 20th century developments have helped shape present-day America: "the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy" (Carey, 1995:18). This paper argues that Carey is essentially correct. Further, the paper argues that, in the United States, corporate propaganda has won out, creating a world that possesses all the trappings of a democratic society while at the same time being little more than a way to protect the wealth and privilege of the elite or ruling class. In other words, the 1950s motto of "What's good for General Motors is good for America" remains in place today, with the word "democracy" substituted for "America."
Part of Carey's argument rests on the idea that Americans for the most part are not interested in subtleties or nuances. They are not interested in seeing both sides of the picture. Instead, they see the world in absolutes, black and white, good or evil. Their native pragmatism is at once their best and their most dangerous quality. While Americans are not willing to accept a priori beliefs without testing them for results, they often fall prey to mistaking image for ideal. In a sense, they have taken the Platonic Form, the mold from which Plato argued that actuality comes about, and flipped it around so that it has become the image of an ideal rather than the ideal itself. That image, thanks to the work of business propagandists, has been used to create the ideal of the so-called "free-enterprise system" while at the same time demonizing attempts at true democracy espousing the common good and values other than economic progress. The propaga
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