REACTION PAPER
The Century of Self” is a very controversial documentary, made in 2002 by Adam Curtis, one of the best British cinematographer and producer that ever existed! The maine idea of the documentary is based on the work of Sigmund Freud, Anna Freud and Edward Bernays and how it was used by the government and big companies to manipulate the population.
The film is segmented in four main episodes that were not released at the same time, but at interspaces of 7 days sharp. Each of the chapters has its own point explaining how mass manipulation was used and how it negatively encouraged consumerism.
1st Episode: “Happiness Machines”

The first episode was released in March 17, 2012 and it talks about crowd behaviour and how easy it can be influenced. Edward Bernays was actually the first man to use Freud’s theories for mass-manipulation.
Edward Bernays is known as being the “father of public relations” and the “pioneer of propaganda”. Mixing the theories from Gustav Le Bon and Wilfred Trotter on crowd psychology with theories from his uncle, Freud, on psychoanalisys, he managed to become one of 100 most influential American in the world, according to Life Magazine.
Motivated by the thought that masses are influenceable and dominated by the “herd instinct”, he concluded that in order for a society to be “sane”, manipulation is necessary. One of the most interesting observations made by Bernays was when watching the crowd surging for president Woodrow Wilson and thought to himself “if you could use propaganda for war, you could certainly use it for peace”.
One of the most powerful propagandas, in my opinion, was the one made by the nazi party. It was so powerful that it shook democracy all over the world, replacing it with socialism; it was that powerful that it led to genocidal mass slaughter against jews and gypsies, not only with the permission of the population, but with the help and encouragement of people. If that does not confirm Freud’s theory about what lies in the human’s subconscious, I don’t know what does!
2nd Episode: “The Engineering of Consent”

The second episode was released seven days after the first one, on March 24, 2002 and it talks about the theories that Anna, Freud’s daughter, and Bernays developed and how they were used to manipulate the American society.
After the atrocities that have happened during the past decades, Freud’s ideas about the unconscious mind started to be taken more seriously and to be used as a way of manipulating the masses by those who were in power. The main purpose of these actions was to control the “hidden enemy” within the human mind.
Those in power were absolutely sure that “the only way of making democracy work and create a stable society, was to repress the savage barbarism that lurked just under the surface of normal American life”. That is why the US Government, the corporations and the CIA have worked hard on developing manipulation techniques based on Anna Freud’s and Edward Bernays’theories.
And this is how, step by step, people have become, as Vance Packard mentioned in his book called “The hidden Persuaders“, American people were reduced to “puppets who’s only function was to keep the mass production alliance running”. So, the power of psychoanalisys was starting to be used by corporations too; they started taking advantage of people’s unconscious desires and used them to create brand preferences regarding the same product and encourage consumerism.
3rd Episode: “There is a Policeman Inside All Our Heads: He Must Be Destroyed”

In the third episode, released in March 31, 2002, Freud’s theory is destroyed by another one saying that “the inner self did not need to be repressed and controlled; it should be encouraged to express itself”.
The thing is, control was still there, but it had changed its perspective: “those in power would now control the self not by repressing it, but by feeding its infinite desires”.
A new movement begins where the freedom of being oneself is encouraged; the more layers you strip off, the more you discover of your true self. VALS psychographic model was introduced to marketing research, focusing on the people’s values and lifestyle.
As mass production evolved, and goods were produced in large numbers, consumerism started to happen at whole new level! There was always this fear that offer would outstrip demand; but not anymore! With the “new self”, the market of limited needs has long gone; now we have a market of unlimited needs, dominated by self-expresiveness.
4th Episode: “Eight People Sipping Wine in Kettering”

In the fourth and last episoade, released on April 7, 2002, there is a belief that “the satisfaction of individual feelings and desires is our highest priority” nowadays.
In this case scenario, what did companies do?
They took Freud’s theories further, studied human’s deepest needs and desires in the greater goal of fulfilling them. Now you suddenly wake up you want to buy things you didn’t even know you wanted! Companies now have the power of anticipating one’s needs and fulfill them at their smallest detail.
“The most powerful people in the world are the people who are able to read their public’s mind.”
Companies do it, politicians do it and you can’t help but allowing it to happen. It’s not just physical now, it’s online too! There are tools such as Google Analytics that tell the website owner all that you did on his website, there are cookies that track everything you do online, there are huge data bases such as Facebooks’ and Google’s that know what you like, what you dislike, where you spend your time, how you spend your time and with who. Psychoanalisys has gone to a whole new level and we are the subjects, either we like it or not.
We may hide behind the excuse that it helps brands meet our needs in the most personal way possible, but our basic needs as humans are, in fact, simple! How can you tell between what you really need and what you’re told you need?
You don’t! Throughtout history, those in power have played the same manipulation mind tricks on us over and over again and the pretext was always the same “it’s for their own good”, but is it? Are we in any way better than out their manipulative propaganda?
I believe that people know what they really want deep down, they just want to be free to express themselves as they are, without having society telling them what they should be.