The Unknown Citizen Manipulation Quotes

Is the lack of an "official complaint" the reason he gets a monument dedicated to him? It’s as if the State were saying, "If you don’t cause us any headaches, monument-viewer, you could have a nice big marble monument, too!" The problem with monuments is that you usually only get one after you die. When you think about it, it’s a pretty paltry payoff for a lifetime of straightedge existence. These lines an interesting question: what would have happened to the Unknown Citizen if there had been an official complaint against him? Would the still be dedicated to him?

In this society, there isn’t just one over-arching bureaucracy. There are many different layers of bureaucracy, and they are all looking over their shoulders at the level below. That’s paranoia for you. In this case, the Union is watching over the Unknown Citizen to make sure he pays his dues, and the government is watching over the Union to make sure it doesn’t encourage communist and socialist agitators.

We have no idea how the Press would know these things, but it probably involves some sneakiness and manipulation. Do they have a guy follow him around town to see if he buys a paper? Or maybe they just interviewed his friends and coworkers. Nor do we know exactly what a "normal" reaction to an advertisement is, apart from the one desired by the advertiser: buying stuff.

The State and corporations depend on one another, so the State is happy when the Unknown Citizen buys stuff from corporations. The people with the most money in a society are almost always the ones with the most power. The monument is designed to manipulate the viewer by convincing him or her that these expensive appliances are "necessary." This is still how advertising works today: "You mean you don’t have the newest iPod?"

Who decides when there is peace and when there is war? Usually, the people who deploy the troops: the government. Sometimes war is inevitable and necessary, but sometimes it’s not, and it sounds like the Unknown Citizen was not one to ask questions. If no one asks questions, the State can do almost whatever it wants. The "war" referred to here could be World War I, which made a huge impact on the psyche of Europeans like Auden. But, ominously, this poem was also written around the time World War II started. If you want to read a great Auden war poem, check out "September 1, 1939".

The Eugenist manipulates people by telling them how many kids they should have. Although Eugenics become something of a dirty word after Hitler came along, some countries still practice a version of population control. Again we see that the UC had an appropriate lifestyle when it came to his children.

This point is kind of buried near the end of the poem, but it’s really important. If parents show no involvement in their kids’ education, the State gains that much more influence over what children learn. Many of the twentieth’s centuries most ruthless and manipulative governments, including Nazi-era Germany and China during the Cultural Revolution, used public education to indoctrinate students with harmful ideas.

This line is both funny and bone chilling. If we lived in this society, we wouldn’t want the State to know about our problems. The State has a different idea of what it means for things to be going "wrong" than the individual does.