{"id":769,"date":"2013-08-31T14:38:52","date_gmt":"2013-08-31T21:38:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/?p=769"},"modified":"2013-11-12T00:33:09","modified_gmt":"2013-11-12T08:33:09","slug":"review-of-century-of-the-self-bbc-documentary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/?p=769","title":{"rendered":"Review of “Century of the Self” (BBC documentary)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Edward<\/a>

Edward Bernays (1891-1995)<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

It may have been a patient (I can’t recall) who suggested I search online for the 2002 BBC documentary by Adam Curtis called Century of the Self<\/em>. \u00a0It turns out the video is freely available at several sites; the full four-hour documentary can be viewed or downloaded here<\/a>, or each of the hour-long installments\u00a0here<\/a>. \u00a0In briefest outline, Century of the Self<\/em> advances the thesis that Freud’s views of the unconscious set the stage for corporations, and later politicians, to market to our unconscious fears and desires. \u00a0It’s gripping, it explains a lot, and it reminds me of The Matrix<\/a><\/em>\u00a0in the way it portrays an ugly dystopian truth hidden behind bland normality. \u00a0Except Century of the Self<\/em> is real, not science fiction.<\/p>\n

One\u00a0reviewer<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0offers: “There are very few movies I wish I could force my friends to watch, that I feel encapsulate a feeling that I’ve had but have been unable to articulate.” \u00a0Indeed, Century of the Self<\/em> ties together several observations I myself have made over the years about corporate marketing \u2014 and then it goes much further, placing those observations in a broad context. \u00a0For example, in my youth I found it odd that any products at all could be marketed to hippies, those bastions of non-materialism. \u00a0Yet by the early 1970s the signature unkempt long hair became a “style” featured in fashion magazines and offered in hair salons, and blowdryers were widely sold to cater to this new look. \u00a0Less than a decade later, punk rockers pierced their clothes with rows of safety pins, and it wasn’t long before Macy’s sold brand new clothes with safety pins already inserted. \u00a0Goth, grunge, hip-hop, or hipster, it doesn’t matter. \u00a0Products will be sold. \u00a0As the Borg<\/a> say: “You will be assimilated. \u00a0Resistance is futile.”<\/p>\n

I noticed something similar at the other end of the materialism continuum as well. \u00a0By the 1980s, expensive, formerly niche products were being avidly marketed to ordinary consumers. \u00a0Regular cooks bought restaurant-grade pots and pans, average shutterbugs purchased advanced cameras, families who never left the suburbs drove SUVs that could go off-road and up mountainsides. \u00a0What motivated people to spend their hard-earned money on features they’d never use and quality they’d never fully appreciate? \u00a0Again, it was hard to escape the conclusion that corporations sold self-image and emotional aspirations, not rational goods and services.<\/p>\n

I’m old enough to remember when “lifestyle” was first popularized as a sales term, and when pitches aimed at self-image were still a little ham-handed and obvious (e.g., “What sort of man reads Playboy<\/em><\/a>?”).\u00a0 Now we fail to notice that it is literally impossible to sell a new car, or prescription medications to the public, with an appeal to rationality. No one even tries. \u00a0Back in\u00a0the mid-1970s it was novel and slightly jarring when gasoline companies ran ads not (directly) to sell gas, but to improve their corporate image. \u00a0We’ve come to accept that as routine<\/a>\u00a0nearly 40 years later.<\/p>\n

It hasn’t always been so. \u00a0Century of the Self<\/em> shows how advertising once aimed to influence rational<\/em> choice. \u00a0This gave way in the early 20th century to advertising aimed to connect feelings<\/em> with a product. \u00a0Amazingly enough, at the root of this change was Sigmund Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays<\/a>. \u00a0Bernays, an American propagandist in WWI, applied his wartime experience and his uncle’s theories of the unconscious to peacetime commerce. \u00a0He invented the field of public relations, popularized press releases and product tie-ins, and changed public opinion about matters ranging from women smoking to the use of paper cups \u2014 all to increase sales. \u00a0Viewing politics as just another product to sell, Bernays also helped Calvin Coolidge stage\u00a0one of the first overt media acts for a president, and helped engineer the 1954 coup in Guatemala on behalf of his client the United Fruit Company, by painting their democratically elected leader as communist.<\/p>\n

This and more happens in just the first hour of the documentary, titled “Happiness Machines.” \u00a0The second hour, the weakest in my view, is called “The Engineering of Consent” and\u00a0focuses on the ascendancy of psychoanalysis and\u00a0Anna Freud’s consolidation of power. \u00a0The point here is that the unconscious was seen as a dangerous menace that needed to be kept under lock and key. \u00a0Rational choice, especially by crowds, was unreliable under its influence, so “guidance from above” (in Bernays’ words) was needed from political leaders and corporations for the public good. \u00a0The conformity and mass-marketing of the 1950s reflects this view of a public that cannot be trusted to think for itself. \u00a0The pendulum swings the other way in the third and best installment, “There is a Policeman Inside All Our Heads [and] He Must be Destroyed.” \u00a0By the 1960s the human potential movement<\/a> urged the expression of impulses instead of their repression. \u00a0Business was eager to help. \u00a0By marketing products as a means of self-expression, business turned from channeling public impulses to pandering to them. \u00a0There is a fascinating discussion in the film about political activism being co-opted in this process: making the world a better place gave way to making oneself better in ways that, not coincidentally, required buying more goods and services. \u00a0The final segment, called “Eight People Sipping Wine in Kettering,” follows this impulse-pandering into politics. \u00a0Instead of political leadership, we now have politics led by focus groups. \u00a0The public gets what it asks for (V-chips<\/a> and populist slogans), not what it needs (healthcare and infrastructure improvements).<\/p>\n

Freud himself is treated ambiguously in the documentary. \u00a0Although he benefitted by his nephew’s promotion of his writing, one gathers he was uncomfortable with commercial exploitation of his ideas. \u00a0Enigmatically, the final camera shot zooms in on Freud’s tombstone. \u00a0Perhaps we are to imagine him turning over in his grave.<\/p>\n

How can democracy work best, given that our choices are inevitably swayed by irrational unconscious forces? \u00a0Curtis isn’t explicit, but implies that treating people as rational tends to make them moreso. \u00a0Even as a firm believer in the dynamic unconscious, I find this a hopeful point of view. \u00a0It also occurs to me that it is a researchable hypothesis, and that such research may in some measure counterbalance\u00a0commercial and political profiteering from research on unconscious influence. \u00a0The ethical implications of powerful social institutions exerting covert influence are only telegraphed in the documentary; they deserve a detailed analysis in their own right.<\/p>\n

Century of the Self<\/em> has engaging interviews, rare archival footage, a sweeping view of recent history, and, alas, somewhat irritating music. \u00a0It was reviewed<\/a>\u00a0quite<\/a>\u00a0positively<\/a> when it came out, and despite being over ten years old, still has a great deal to offer. \u00a0I don’t wish to\u00a0force anyone to watch it, but I do highly recommend it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Edward Bernays (1891-1995)<\/p>\n

It may have been a patient (I can’t recall) who suggested I search online for the 2002 BBC documentary by Adam Curtis called Century of the Self. It turns out the video is freely available at several sites; the full four-hour documentary can be viewed or downloaded here, or each […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,34],"tags":[13,16],"class_list":["post-769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-human-nature","tag-ethics","tag-pharmaceutical-marketing","odd"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=769"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":824,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769\/revisions\/824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.stevenreidbordmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}