I’d like to share a video I recently discovered and immediately watched twice!

The Century of the Self:  http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-century-of-the-self/

As a former PR person, I recall my first day on the job at the largest PR firm in Arizona, being told I must read a book about the father of PR, a book which disgusted me even though my new bosses thought the whole game it described was worthy of laughter.  (I didn’t stay there long.)

This video is definitely for anyone who wants to understand America – even if you think you already understand.  The facts are so beautifully documented.

From their webpage:

Happiness Machines. Part one documents the story of the relationship between Sigmund Freud and his American nephew, Edward Bernays, who invented Public Relations in the 1920s, being the first person to take Freud’s ideas to manipulate the masses.

The Engineering of Consent. Part two explores how those in power in post-war America used Freud’s ideas about the unconscious mind to control the masses.  Politicians and planners came to believe Freud’s underlying premise that deep within all human beings were dangerous and irrational desires.

There is a Policeman Inside All of Our Heads, He Must Be Destroyed. In the 1960s, a radical group of psychotherapists challenged the influence of Freudian ideas, which lead to the creation of a new political movement that sought to create new people, free of the psychological conformity that had been implanted in people’s minds by business and politics.

Eight People Sipping Wine In Kettering. This episode explains how politicians turned to the same techniques used by business in order to read and manipulate the inner desires of the masses. Both New Labor with Tony Blair and the Democrats led by Bill Clinton, used the focus group which had been invented by psychoanalysts in order to regain power.

The four parts are each an hour long.  Definitely worth the time.