The Century of Self

Yesterday I downloaded the full series of the century of self from the BBC (as shown in Roma's first identities lecture). I have since watch the entire first episode which addresses propaganda in the first world war, the birth of public relations and how this effected America 1930-1940, Nazi Germany and present day living.

During the first world war Sigmund Freud's nephew Edward Bernays was asked to go to Europe and convince the masses to support president Woodrow Wilson in his efforts to support the war effort. After his astounding success he realized that propaganda could be used to control the masses in peace time, he called this public relations and set up an office in America after the first world war. Bernays looked to his uncles studies and took the idea that under the surface of civilized man are strong irrational forces from natural instinct. Bernays advised business that in order to sell their goods or service they must appeal to mans irrational desires rather than the logical mind.

After the success of Bernays techniques politicians began to think if man is irrational, how can he be trusted to vote responsibly within a democracy? Germany seemed to have a solution to these underlying primitive urges, an alternative to democracy, Nazism. It wasn't considered a form of autocratic control but a way of centralizing the desires of the masses to bind the nation together under service not self. In the west the answer was fulfill these desires and make the masses happy and docile, President Hoover called the public "Happiness machines", this meaning that the citizen had become the consumer, driving the economy whilst remaining content and unlikely to revolt.

I see Edward Bernays as a Duchamp figure, he could be considered a great hero or an terrible villain. Bernays is responsible for the emotional link between product and consumer, he incited the idea that one can express themselves through their dress and possessions. Bernays broke down social taboos such as women smoking in public but is equally responsible for the thousands of advertisements aimed towards our irrational wants and desires that we see everyday. Are we really slaves to our most basic instincts, or can we be held responsible for thoughts and actions in a democratic society?