(Originally drafted in 2012)

Sigmund Freud theorized one hundred years ago that hidden deep inside the minds of all human beings was a primitive, sexual and aggressive nature. According to him, these forces needed to be controlled in order to keep individuals and societies from creating chaos and destruction.

It was Freuds American nephew, Edward Bernays who used Freud’s conclusions to devise a way of controlling the masses. Bernays realized that if you could invoke hidden desires and wants in the people you could link those desires to a product or an idea. In a sense, it was a way of manipulating millions of people on a subconscious level. Bernays looked at the masses as, in essence, a mindless herd driven not by rational logic but by hidden, subconscious desires.

Bernays pioneered a method of advertising that eventually would lead to mass consumerism. Before Bernays, goods where advertised as necessirites, and sold on their practicality. Afterward, People no longer bought product for need as much as they did out of desire. They wanted watever image was linked to that product for themselves. According to Bernays’ theory, and his applications of that theory, if you could satisfy the hidden desires of the masses through consumerism, that in turn would make them docile and therefore easier to lead.

At the peak of Bernays’ popularity, he began to publish and promote his uncle, Sigmond Freud’s work. Freuds writings led many to believe that one of the guiding principles of mass democracy could be wrong; the belief that human beings could be trusted to make decisions based on rationality.

After world war two, business and government leaders in the United States where convinced that Freuds’ theories where indeed correct. An ideology was formed that, one needed to control and repress their deep “dangerous emotions.”

Anna Freud, daughter of Sigmund Freud was one of the first proponents of a new form of psychology called psychoanalysis. She claimed that if you could strengthen the conscious ego, you would have the ability to fight off subconscious desires.

Study groups from businesses and government where set out to uncover people’s hidden fears and to then, either create a product that eliminated the fear or, in the case of the government, harness that fear and use it to guide people in the direction that they wanted to guide them.

In the 1960’s, a psychotherapist named William Reich challenged the ideas of Freud. He believed that people’s inner desires did not need to be suppressed or controlled. He believed that those desires should be emraced and expressed in a form of individualism.

Oeioke stopped trying to supress what made them different and began taking ownership of who they were and how they felt. A sense of independence became important to the people. People could now be happy with themselves without influence of culture or society.

Of course, businesses then needed to find a way to use this new sense of individualism in the people to sell product. It was actually easier for them to do so. They seperated people into groups, value and lifstyle groups. They would then advertise their products as ways that people could express their individuality. In a sense, advertisers had the consumers convinced that you could “buy an identity.”

Politicians also took advantage of this new individualism movement. By asking people what they want, they could then appeal to those wants. That was as oppose to thinking that they know what is best for people and trying to manipulate their emotions to make the people follow their lead. Problem wat that, once these politicians found out what the people wanted they would offer false promises based on those wants just to be elected.

It seems as though for the entire 20th century, all that was being learned about the psychology of the masses and the psychology of the individual was being used to manipulate. From the beinning with Freud’s theory’s either businesses or politicians wanted to use people’s feelings and emotions to benifit themselves.

There is a bigger underlying theme to the documentary. Do people really have hidden desires that can be dangerous if not controlled, manipulated, embraced, or dealt with in any fashion? Is it detrimental for democracy to allow people to act on their whims whether concious or subconscious? Do we all need a higher level of guidance making the term “democracy” a facade? Can we come to realize what is really important and escape from the manipulation of our emotins that is predicated on others benefit?

This documentary does a good job explaining how we went from a society that was happy in it’s way of life, a society that understood the important values of life, to a society that is materialistic, cons meristic, and delusional to its own wants and needs.

Advertisers, Government, and personal enterprises spent the last century exploiting the findings of psychology experts to make money, or to control people into following their views.

I believe that if there was an enlightenment of a sort that would teach the masses what is important beyond materialistic goods it would be a huge benefit to the way of life. It would also benefit our democracy. People would be more concerned about important social issues than they would be chasing an eluding sense of happiness.

The consumer movement, to me, emphasized importance on fulfilling one’s self and making that a priority. If that is the case, how can a society ever work together to help one another out?

In the case of subconcious motivations in people, I do believe that to be ture. Those motivations don’t necessarily have to be dangerous. They could be. But they could also be the motivation to seek out love and fulfillment throug affection.

That’s not to say that people are completely irrational and incapable of making concious decisions with emotion to the side. If you look at the case studies of scientific polling when president Roosevelt was elected, it would support the fact that we indeed have a rational side. If we did not, than all our decisions would be made based on how it would make us feel immediately. We would not be able to foreshadow events or to ling past mistakes with future decisions.

It's hard to talk to the rational side of sciety in today’s day and age however, because of the developments of the past century. The developments of mass production and the need from large businesses for demand on the mass produced supply has resulted in an absolute attack on the citizens sense of reality and importance.

The shift in media coverage, the shift in advertisement, the shift in politics has all been geared toward the consumer. Killing the essence of a free minded rational individual. Sigmund Freud didn’t uncover something that had been hidden, and his family created something that may created something that may have never been there in the first place….. The Century of selfishness.

Ecudes 2012