If those in charge of our society--politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television--can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves.
Because force is held in reserve and the control is not complete, we can call ourselves a "democracy." True, the openings and the flexibility make such a society a more desirable place to live. But they also create a more effective form of control. We are less likely to object if we can feel that we have a "pluralist" society, with two parties instead of one, three branches of government instead of one-man rule, and various opinions in the press instead of one official line.
A close look at this pluralism shows that it is very limited. we have the kinds of choices that are given in multiple-choice tests, where you can choose a, b, c, or d. But e, f, g, and h are not even listed.
And so we can have the Democratic and Republican parties (choose a or b), but not others are really tolerated or encouraged or financed. Indeed, there is a law limiting the nationally televised presidential debates to the two major parties.
We have a "free press," but big money dominates it; you can choose among Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report. On television, you can choose among NBC, CBS, and ABC. There is a dissident press, but it does not have the capital of the great media chains and cannot get the rich corporate advertising, and so it must strain to reach small numbers of people. There is public television, which is occasionally daring, but also impoverished and most often cautious.
We have three branches of government, with "checks and balances," as we were taught in junior high school. But one branch of government (the presidency) gets us into wars and the other two (Congress and the Supreme Court) go sheepishly along.
There is the same limited choice in public policy. During the Vietnam War, the argument for a long time was between those who wanted a total bombing of Indochina and those who wanted a limited bombing. The choice of withdrawing from Vietnam altogether was not offered....
In debates on the military budget there are heated arguments about whether to spend $300 billion or $290 billion. A proposal to spend $100 billion (thus making $200 billion available for human needs) is like the e or f in a multiple-choice test--it is missing. To propose zero billion makes you a candidate for a mental institution.
On the question of prisons there is debate on how many prisons we should have. But the idea of abolishing prisons is too outrageous even to be discussed.
We hear arguments about how much the elderly should have to pay for health care, but the idea that they should not have to pay anything, indeed, that no one should have to pay for health care, is not up for debate.
Thus we grow up in a society where our choice of ideas is limited and where certain ideas dominate: We hear them from our parents, in the schools, in the churches, in the newspapers, and on radio and television. They have been in the air ever since we learned to walk and talk. They constitute an American ideology--that is, a dominant pattern of ideas. Most people accept them, and if we do, too, we are less likely to get into trouble.
The dominance of these ideas is not the product of a conspiratorial group that has devilishly plotted to implant on society a particular point of view. Nor is it an accident, an innocent result of people thinking freely. There is a process of natural (or rather, unnatural) selection, in which certain orthodox ideas are encouraged, financed, and pushed forward by the most powerful mechanisms of our culture. These ideas are preferred because they are safe; they don't threaten established wealth or power.
For instance:
These ideas are not accepted by all Americans. But they are believed widely enough and strongly enough to dominate our thinking. And as long as they do, those who hold wealth and power in our society will remain secure in their control.
In the year 1984 Forbes magazine, a leading periodical for high finance and big business, drew up a list of the wealthiest individuals in the United States. the top 400 people had assets totalling $60 billion. At the bottom of the population there were 60 million people who had no assets at all.
Around the same time, the economist Lester Thurow estimated that the 482 very wealthy individuals controlled (without necessarily owning) over $2,000 billion ($2 trillion).
Consider the influence of such a very rich class--with its inevitable control of press, radio, television, and education--on the thinking of the nation.
Dissident ideas can still exist in such a situation, but they will be drowned in criticism and made disreputable, because they are outside the acceptable choices. Or they may be allowed to survive in the corners of the culture--emaciated, but alive--and presented as evidence of our democracy, our tolerance, and our pluralism.
A sophisticated system of control that is confident of its power can permit a measure of dissidence. However, it watches its critics carefully, ready to overwhelm them, intimidate them, and even suppress them should they ever seriously threaten the system, or should the establishment, in a state of paranoia, think they do. If readers think I am exaggerating with words such as "watching...overwhelm...suppress...paranoia," they should read the volumes of reports on the FBI and the CIA published in 1975 by the Senate Select Committee on Government Operations.
However, government surveillance and threats are the exception. What normally operates day to day is the quiet dominance of certain ideas, the ideas we are expected to hold by our neighbors, our employers, and our political leader; the ones we quickly learn are the most acceptable. The result is an obedient, acquiescent, passive citizenry--a situation that is deadly to democracy.
If one day we decide to reexamine these beliefs and realize they do not come naturally out of our innermost feelings or our spontaneous desires, are not the result of independent thought on our part, and, indeed, do not match the real world as we experience it, then we have come to an important turning point in life. Then we find ourselves examining, and confronting, the American ideology.