297 | MP conclusion

fellowship among human beings has an important item in
the case against it. A rational society would be one in
which the material, economic and social conditions create a
social order in which we actually like to love our neighbour.

If, in order to be successful, mass propaganda has to
take people as they are, it is not likely genuinely to
develop our social instincts. As we saw, propaganda
increases the unity inside a group by simultaneously driving
one group against another, and by preaching aversion to
outsiders. It achieves social unity by fostering servility,
hatred, conceit and fear. I do not, however, regard this
as a decisive argument against the ability of propagandists
to improve the world. In this book I do not set myself
the ungrateful task of telling people what they should do.
All I intended was to explain what they actually do when
they make propaganda among the masses.