The Century of the Self (Adam Curtis)

 

Voor mij een van de grootste eye-openers ooit. Er wordt onder andere behandeld hoe Edward Bernays propaganda succesvol omtoverde tot PR, en dit ons nu nog dagelijks om de oren wordt geslagen. Voor velen, zelfs bij navraag aan professionals en docenten in communicatie, tot op de dag van vandaag onbekend. Onvoorstelbaar gezien zijn gigantische invloed, politiek en commercieel!

 

Wikipedia zegt over deze documentaire:
The Century of the Self (of Century of Self) is een vierdelige serie documentaires die Adam Curtis in 2002 maakte voor de BBC.

De reeks is onderverdeeld in vier logisch op elkaar volgende programma's van één uur per stuk:

• Happiness Machines
• The Engineering of Consent
• There is a Policeman Inside All Our Heads: He Must Be Destroyed
• Eight People Sipping Wine in Kettering

De rode draad van de serie is Freuds theorie van de psychoanalyse en hoe die door de jaren heen door verschillende mensen gebruikt en misbruikt is om het grote publiek te manipuleren. Curtis richt zich in The Century of the Self met name op de politiek en het grote bedrijfsleven.

Belangrijke personen in de serie zijn Freuds neef Edward Bernays (één van de grondleggers van de public relations), Freuds dochter en kinderpsychologe Anna Freud en Wilhelm Reich, een van Freuds grootste criticasters. Zij groeiden in de loop van de 20e eeuw uit tot basis van grote invloeden op de consumptiemaatschappij en beïnvloeding van de moderne democratie. The Century of the Self verslaat het gebeuren van de genesis, begin twintigste eeuw, tot aan de huidige verschijningsvormen. De politieke verhoudingen en strategieën in met name Engeland (Labour versus de Conservative Party) en de Verenigde Staten (de gegroeide invloed van de Neo-Conservatives) begin 21e eeuw dienen daarbij ter illustratie.

 

 Alle vier de delen in 1 video:



Deel 1:
The story of the relationship between Sigmund Freud and his American nephew, Edward Bernays. Bernays invented the public relations profession in the 1920s and was the first person to take Freud's ideas to manipulate the masses. He showed American corporations how they could make people want things they didn't need by systematically linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires.

Bernays was one of the main architects of the modern techniques of mass-consumer persuasion, using every trick in the book, from celebrity endorsement and outrageous PR stunts, to eroticising the motorcar.

His most notorious coup was breaking the taboo on women smoking by persuading them that cigarettes were a symbol of independence and freedom. But Bernays was convinced that this was more than just a way of selling consumer goods. It was a new political idea of how to control the masses. By satisfying the inner irrational desires that his uncle had identified, people could be made happy and thus docile.

It was the start of the all-consuming self which has come to dominate today's world.

Originally broadcast on 29th April 2002.

The Century of the Self - Part 1: "Happiness Machines"
 



Deel 2:
This episode explores how those in power in post-war America used Freud's ideas about the unconscious mind to try and control the masses.

Politicians and planners came to believe Freud's underlying premise - that deep within all human beings were dangerous and irrational desires and fears. They were convinced that it was the unleashing of these instincts that had led to the barbarism of Nazi Germany. To stop it ever happening again they set out to find ways to control this hidden enemy within the human mind.

Sigmund Freud's daughter, Anna, and his nephew, Edward Bernays, provided the centrepiece philosophy. The US government, big business, and the CIA used their ideas to develop techniques to manage and control the minds of the American people. But this was not a cynical exercise in manipulation. Those in power believed that the only way to make democracy work and create a stable society was to repress the savage barbarism that lurked just under the surface of normal American life.

Includes copyrighted material from Zodiak Entertainment.

Originally broadcast on 30th April 2002

The Century of the Self - Part 2: "The Engineering of Consent"




Deel 3:
In the 1960s, a radical group of psychotherapists challenged the influence of Freudian ideas in America. They were inspired by the ideas of Wilhelm Reich, a pupil of, who had turned against him and was hated by the Freud family. He believed that the inner self did not need to be repressed and controlled. It should be encouraged to express itself.

Out of this came a political movement that sought to create new beings free of the psychological conformity that had been implanted in people's minds by business and politics.

This programme shows how this rapidly developed in America through self-help movements like Werber Erhard's Erhard Seminar Training - into the irresistible rise of the expressive self: the Me Generation.

But the American corporations soon realised that this new self was not a threat but their greatest opportunity. It was in their interest to encourage people to feel they were unique individuals and then sell them ways to express that individuality. To do this they turned to techniques developed by Freudian psychoanalysts to read the inner desires of the new self.

Originally broadcast on 2nd May 2002.

The Century of the Self - Part 3: "There is a Policeman Inside All Our Heads; He Must Be Destroyed."




Deel 4:
This episode explains how politicians on the left, in both Britain and America, turned to the techniques developed by business to read and fulfil the inner desires of the self.

Both New Labour, under Tony Blair, and the Democrats, led by Bill Clinton, used the focus group, which had been invented by psychoanalysts, in order to regain power. They set out to mould their policies to people's inner desires and feelings, just as capitalism had learnt to do with products.

Out of this grew a new culture of public relations and marketing in politics, business and journalism. One of its stars in Britain was Matthew Freud who followed in the footsteps of his relation, Edward Bernays, the inventor of public relations in the 1920s.

The politicians believed they were creating a new and better form of democracy, one that truly responded to the inner feelings of individual. But what they didn't realise was that the aim of those who had originally created these techniques had not been to liberate the people but to develop a new way of controlling them.

Originally broadcast on 3rd May 2002

The Century of the Self - Part 4: "Eight People Sipping Wine in Kettering"