The Century of the Self - Part 1: "Happiness Machines"

Summary

The documentary "The Century of the Self - Part 1: "Happiness Machines" delves into the impact of Sigmund Freud's theories on human nature and their application by those in power to control the masses in a democratic age. Focusing on Freud's American nephew, Edward Bernays, who utilized these ideas to manipulate public desires, the episode unravels the emerging concept of consumerism and its role in shaping society. Central to this narrative is how Bernays used psychoanalysis to understand and influence mass consumer behavior, reflecting on how democracy itself evolved into a mechanism for maintaining societal control while fostering individual desires.

Highlights

• Sigmund Freud's exploration of hidden human instincts reshaped societal control. 💡
• Edward Bernays utilized Freud's ideas to create consumer demand for unnecessary products. 🛒
• Bernays' 'torches of freedom' campaign empowered women to smoke, linking consumption to liberation. 🚬
• Nazis also exploited crowd psychology, ironically inspired by Freud's findings. ⚠️
• The post-WWI period saw a shift towards using consumerism to manage public unrest. ⚙️

Key Takeaways

• Sigmund Freud's theories on human nature influenced mass control techniques. 🧠
• Edward Bernays, Freud's nephew, pioneered modern public relations. 🗣️
• Consumerism emerged as a control mechanism in democratic societies. 🛍️
• Bernays manipulated public desires by linking products to emotions. 💔
• The stock market crash challenged Bernays' methods, revealing limits of public manipulation. 📉

Overview

The documentary kicks off by introducing Sigmund Freud's game-changing theories, which suggested that human beings are driven by instinctual, primitive forces beneath the surface. These ideas, once controversial, became instrumental in the hands of Edward Bernays, who saw an opportunity to wield them in the arena of public relations. By manipulating subconscious desires, Bernays effectively changed consumer habits, introducing a new era where products were no longer just necessities but a way to express one's identity and desires.

As narrated in the documentary, Bernays' strategic endeavors to link consumer goods with emotional fulfillment triggered a seismic shift in American society. This shift not only spurred the growth of the consumer economy but also redefined democracy itself. The positive reception to consumerism was momentarily interrupted by the Wall Street crash, challenging the premises of mass manipulation and the idea of an endlessly expanding economy. Despite the setback, the documentary exposes how insights from psychoanalysis continued to shape societal structures.

The film draws a parallel between Bernays' methods and the manipulative strategies of the Nazis, noting the chilling potential of psychological manipulation in politics. This connection highlights the dual-edged nature of Freud's insights, capable of both promoting personal happiness and potentially paving the way for mass coercion. The episode ends by foreshadowing post-WWII efforts in America to harness these psychological controls for political stability, setting the stage for future government endeavors in mental manipulation.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction and Freud's Theories Sigmund Freud introduced a groundbreaking theory about human nature over a century ago, positing that humans harbor primitive sexual and aggressive forces deep within their minds. According to Freud, these forces, if left unchecked, could lead to chaos and destruction for both individuals and societies.
• 01:00 - 05:00: Edward Bernays and Mass Manipulation The chapter delves into how those in power have attempted to control the masses using Freud's theories, especially in the context of mass democracy.
• 05:00 - 08:00: Freud's Vienna and America's Consumer Culture The chapter discusses the impact of Bernays, a significant figure in the 20th century who extended Freud's ideas to manipulate public desires.
• 08:00 - 13:00: Stock Market Crash and its Impact The chapter titled 'Stock Market Crash and its Impact' discusses the emergence of a new political idea designed to control the masses by appealing to their inner selfish desires. This approach aimed to make people content and thus more compliant, giving rise to what is referred to as the all-consuming self, a concept that has become prominent in today's world.
• 13:00 - 18:00: Roosevelt's New Deal and George Gallup Chapter Title: Roosevelt's New Deal and George Gallup. A discussion on Fry's ideas about the human mind's functioning, showing their widespread acceptance within modern society. It also touches upon the prominence of psychoanalysts, as indicated by the grand annual Psychotherapy Ball held in Vienna, attended by psychotherapists, advanced patients, and advocates.
• 18:00 - 24:00: Rise of Nazi Germany and its Influence The chapter explores the popularity of social events like elegant balls in Vienna, contrasting it with the societal disdain for Sigmund Freud's ideas a century ago. It points out the cultural and societal shifts in Vienna, once the center of a vast empire, highlighting the changing attitudes and influences over time.
• 24:00 - 29:00: Annexation of Austria and Freud's Escape The chapter discusses the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany and the escape of Sigmund Freud during this tumultuous period. Freud's ideas on psychoanalysis, revolving around self-examination and the analysis of one's inner feelings, threatened the status quo upheld by the powerful Hapsburg nobility. The nobility, possessing absolute control, found such introspective practices embarrassing and potentially destabilizing to their authority. The narrative emphasizes the cultural and political climate of the time, where expressing personal discontent or emotions was deemed unacceptable.
• 29:00 - 35:00: World War II and the Changing View of Democracy The chapter delves into the restrictions and expectations placed on women in society, particularly those in higher social classes who were unable to openly express their feelings or vulnerabilities. The societal norms required them to maintain respectability at all costs, which made seeking emotional support, even from someone close like a maid, difficult. The advent of Freudian thought began to challenge these norms by encouraging self-examination and expression of one's true feelings.

The Century of the Self - Part 1: "Happiness Machines" Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 he hated it said he wanted this um stuff 100 years ago a new theory about human nature was put forward by Sigman Freud he had discovered he said primitive sexual and aggressive forces hidden deep inside the minds of all human beings forces which if not controlled LED individuals and societies to chaos and destruction
• 00:30 - 01:00 this series is about how those in power have used Freud's theories to try and control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy at the heart of the story is not just Sigman Freud but other members of the Freud [Music] family when will call this episode is about Freud's American nephew Edward bernes bernes is almost completely known
• 01:00 - 01:30 today but his influence on the 20th century was nearly as great as his uncle's because bernes was the first person to take Freud's ideas about human beings and use them to manipulate the masses he showed American corporations for the first time how they could make people want things they didn't need by linking mass-produced Goods to their unconscious desires
• 01:30 - 02:00 out of this would come a new political idea of how to control the masses by satisfying people's inner selfish desires when made them happy and thus docile it was the start of the allc consuming self which has come to dominate our world today [Music]
• 02:00 - 02:30 Fry's ideas about how the human mind works have now become an accepted part of society as have psychoanalysts every year the psychotherapist ball is held in a grand palace in Vienna this is the Psychotherapy Ball psychotherapists come some Advanced patients come or former ations come and
• 02:30 - 03:00 many other people friends but also um um uh people from the vienes society who like to go to a nice elegant comfortable Ball but it was not always so a 100 years ago Freud's ideas were hated by vienes Society at that time Vienna was the center of a vast Empire ruling Central
• 03:00 - 03:30 [Music] Europe and to the powerful nobility of the hapsburg Court Freud's ideas were not only embarrassing but the very idea of examining and analyzing one's inner feelings was a threat to their absolute control you see at that time these people had the power and of course you just were not allowed to show your bloody feelings I mean you just couldn't you know I mean you couldn't if you were unhappy can you imagine you for instance
• 03:30 - 04:00 you sit somewhere on the country in a castle you are deeply unhappy you are a woman you couldn't go to your maid and cry on on her shoulders or you couldn't go into the village and and complain you know about your feelings I mean you couldn't it was like selling yourself to somebody you just couldn't you know because they had to respect you now of course frud you see put that thought very much into question because you you see to examine yourself you would have
• 04:00 - 04:30 to to put a lot of other things into question your Society everything what surrounds you and that wasn't a good thing at that time why not because your self-created Empire to a certain extent would have fallen into bits much earlier already but what frightened the rulers of the Empire even more was Freud's idea that hidden inside all human beings with dangerous instinctual drives Freud had devised a meth method he called
• 04:30 - 05:00 psychoanalysis by analyzing dreams and free association he had Unearthed he said powerful sexual and aggressive forces which were the remnants of our animal past feelings we repressed because they were too dangerous Freud devised a method for exploring a hidden part of the mind which we nowadays call the unconscious which a part that is totally unknown to our Consciousness that there exists a area in all our minds which
• 05:00 - 05:30 prevents these hidden and unwelcome impulses of the unconscious from emerging good night in 1914 the austr Hungarian Empire led Europe into war as the horror mounted Freud saw it as terrible evidence of the truth of his findings the saddest thing he wrote is that this is exactly the way we should
• 05:30 - 06:00 have expected people to behave from our knowledge of psychoanalysis governments had unleashed the Primitive forces in human beings and no one seemed to know how to stop them at that time Freud's young nephew Edward bernes was working as a press agent in America his main client was the world famous opera singer Caruso who was touring the United States
• 06:00 - 06:30 Bern's parents had immigrated to America 20 years before but he kept in touch with his uncle and joined him for holidays in the Alps but bernes was now about to return to Europe for a very different reason on the night that Caruso opened in Toledo Ohio America announced it was entering the war against Germany and Austria
• 06:30 - 07:00 as a part of the war effort the US government set up a Committee on Public Information and bernes was employed to promote America's War AIMS in the press the President woodro Wilson had announced that the United States would fight not to restore the old Empires but to bring democracy to all of Europe bernes proved extremely skillful in promoting this idea both at home and abroad and at the end of the war he was asked to accompany the president to the
• 07:00 - 07:30 Paris peace conference then to my surprise they asked me to go over with with woodro Wilson to the preest conference and at the age of 1926 I was in Paris for the entire time of the peace conference that was held in the suburb of Paris and we worked to make the world
• 07:30 - 08:00 safe for democracy that was a big slogan Wilson's reception in Paris astounded bernes and the other American propagandists their propaganda had portray Wilson as a liberator of the people a man who would create a new world in which the individual would be free they had made him a hero of the masses and as he watched the crowd surge around Wilson bernes began to wonder
• 08:00 - 08:30 whether it would be possible to do the same type of mass persuasion but in peace time when I came back to the United States I decided that if you could use propaganda for war you could certainly use it for peace and propaganda got to be a bad word because of the Germans using it so what I did
• 08:30 - 09:00 did was to try to find some other words so we found the word Council on public relations bernes returned to New York and set up as a public relations Council in a small office off Broadway it was the first time the term had ever been used since the end of the 19th century America had become a mass industrial society with Millions clustered together in the
• 09:00 - 09:30 cities bernes was determined to find a way to manage and alter the way these new crowds thought and felt to do this he turned to the writings of his uncle Sigmund while in Paris bernes had sent his uncle a gift of some Havana cigars in return Freud has sent him a copy of his General introduction to psychoanalysis Bern's readit and the picture of hidden irrational forces inside human beings f ated him he
• 09:30 - 10:00 wondered whether he might make money by manipulating the unconscious what Eddie got from Freud was indeed this idea that there is a lot more going on in human decision making not only among individuals but even more importantly among groups than this idea that information drives behavior and so Eddie began to formulate this idea that you had to look at things that would play to people's ears irrational
• 10:00 - 10:30 emotions and you see that moved Eddie immediately into a different category from other people in his field and most government officials and managers of the day who thought if you just hit people with all this factual information they would look at that and say oh of course and Eddie knew that was not the way the world worked Bern set out to experiment with the minds of the popular classes his most dramatic experiment was to persuade women to smoke
• 10:30 - 11:00 at that time there was a taboo against women smoking and one of his early clients George Hill the president of the American Tobacco Corporation asked Beres to find a way of breaking it he said we're losing half of our Market because men have invoked a taboo against women smoking in public can you do anything about that I said let me think about it and then I said have I your permission
• 11:00 - 11:30 to see a psychoanalyst to find out what cigarettes mean to women he said what'll it cost so I called up Dr Brill AA Brill who was a leading psychoanalyst in New York at that time how come you didn't call your uncle why didn't you call your uncle cuz he was in Vienna a a Bru was one of the first Psy analysts in America and for a large fee
• 11:30 - 12:00 he told bernes that cigarettes were a symbol of the penis and of male sexual power he told bernes that if he could find a way to connect cigarettes with the idea of challenging male power then women would smoke because then they would have their own [Music] penises every year New York held an Easter Day Parade to which thousands came and burn decided to Stage an event
• 12:00 - 12:30 there he persuaded a group of Rich debutants to hide cigarettes under their clothes then they should join the parade and at a given signal from him they were to light up the cigarettes dramatically bernes then informed the press that he had heard that a group of suffragettes were preparing to protest by lighting up what they called torches of Freedom he knew this would be an outcry and he knew that all of the photographers would be there to capture the this moment and so he was ready with
• 12:30 - 13:00 a phrase which was torches of freedom and so here you have a symbol women young women debutants smoking a cigarette in public with a phrase that means anybody who believes in this kind of equality pretty much has to support them in the ensuing debate about this because torches a freedom I mean what's on All American coins it's liberty she holding up the
• 13:00 - 13:30 torch you see and so all of this is there together there's emotion there's memory there's a rational phrase even though it's using a lot of emotional elements it's a it's a phrase that works in a rational sense all of this is together and so the next day this was not just in all of the New York papers it was across the United States and around the world and from that point forward uh the sale of cigarettes to women began to to rise he had made them
• 13:30 - 14:00 socially acceptable with a single symbolic act what bernes had created was the idea that if a woman smoked it made her more powerful and independent an idea that still persists today embrace me my sweet embrace it made him realized that it was possible to persuade people to behave irrationally if you link products to their emotional desires and
• 14:00 - 14:30 feelings the idea that smoking actually made women Freer was completely irrational but it made them feel more independent it meant that irrelevant objects could become powerful emotional symbols of how you wanted to be seen by others Eddie bernes saw the way to sell product was not to sell it to your intellect that you ought to buy an automobile but that you will feel better
• 14:30 - 15:00 about it if you have this automobile I think he originated that idea that they weren't just purchasing something but they were engaging themselves emotionally or personally in in the product or service there it's not you you think you need a new piece of clothing but you'll feel better with the piece of clothing that was his contribution in a very real sense we see it all over the place today but I think he originated the idea of the emotional connect to a product or
• 15:00 - 15:30 [Music] service what bernes was doing fascinated America's corporations they had come out of the war rich and Powerful but they had a growing worry the system of mass production had flourished during the war and now millions of goods were pouring off production lines what they were frightened of was the danger of overproduction that there would come a point when people had enough goods and would simply stop by
• 15:30 - 16:00 up until that point the majority of products were still sold to the masses on the basis of need while the rich had long been used to luxury goods for the millions of workingclass Americans most products were still advertised as Necessities Goods like shoes stockings even cars were promoted in functional terms for their durability the aim of the advertisements was simply to show people the products
• 16:00 - 16:30 practical virtues nothing [Music] more what the corporations realized they had to do was transform the way the majority of Americans thought about products one leading Wall Street Banker Paul merer of layman Brothers was clear about what was necessary we must shift America he wrote from a needs to a desires culture people
• 16:30 - 17:00 must be trained to desire to want new things even before the old have been entirely consumed we must shape a new mentality in America man's desires must overshadow his needs prior to that time there was no American Consumer there was the American worker and there was the American owner and they manufactured and they saved and they ate what they had to and the people shopped for what they needed and while the very rich may have bought things
• 17:00 - 17:30 they didn't need most people did not and merer envisioned a break with that where you would have things that you didn't actually need but you wanted as opposed to needed and the man who would be at the center of changing that mentality for the corporations was Edward bernes bernes really is the guy within the United States more than anybody else who sort of brings to the table psychological theory as something that is an essential part
• 17:30 - 18:00 of how from the corporate side of how we are going to appeal to the masses effectively and the whole sort of merchandising establishment and stes and sales establishment is ready for Sigman Freud I mean they are ready for understanding what motivates the human mind and so that there's this real openness to Bern's techniques being used to theel products to the
• 18:00 - 18:30 masses beginning in the early 20s the New York Banks funded the creation of chains of department stores Across America they were to be the outlets for the mass-produced goods and Bern's job was to produce the new type of customer bernes began to create many of the techniques of mass consumer persuasion that we now live with he was employed by William Randolph Hurst to promote his new women's magazines and bernes glamorized them by placing articles and advertisements that link
• 18:30 - 19:00 products made by others of his clients to famous film stars like claraa B who was also his client bernes also began the practice of product placement in the movies and he dressed the Stars at the film's premieres with clothes and jewelry from other firms he represented he was he claimed the first person to tell car companies they could sell cars as symbols of male sexuality he employed psychologist to issue reports that said products were
• 19:00 - 19:30 good for you and then pretended they were independent studies he organized fashion shows in the department stores and paid celebrities to repeat the new and essential message you bought things not just for need but to express your inner sense of yourself to [Music] others there's a psychology of dress have you ever thought about it how it can express your character you all have interesting characters but some of them are all
• 19:30 - 20:00 hidden I wonder why you all want a dress always the same with the same hats and the same coats I'm sure all of you are interesting and have wonderful things about you but looking at you in the street you all look so much the same and that's why I'm talking to you about the psychology of dress try and express yourselves better in your dress bring out certain things that you think
• 20:00 - 20:30 are hidden I wonder if you thought of this angle of your personality I'd like to ask you some questions why do you like short goates oh because there's more to see what to see what what good does that do you my hands it makes you more attractive does in 1927 an American journalist wrote A
• 20:30 - 21:00 change has come over our democracy it is called consumptionism the American Citizen's first importance to his country is now no longer that of citizen but that of consumer the growing wave of consumerism helped in turn to create a stock market boom and yet again Edward bernes became involved promoting the novel idea that Ordinary People should buy share borrowing money from Banks he also
• 21:00 - 21:30 represented and yet again Millions followed his advice he was uniquely knowledgeable about how people in large numbers are going to react to products and ideas and so on but in term in political terms if he were to go out so I can't imagine that he could get three people stand and listen wasn't particularly articulate was a kind of funny looking and didn't
• 21:30 - 22:00 have any sense of reaching out for people one-on-one none at all he didn't talk about didn't think about people in groups of one thought about people in groups of thousands so I would have nothing to do with them hello ber soon became famous as the man who understood the mind of the crowd and in 1924 the president contacted
• 22:00 - 22:30 president kulage was a quiet taciturn man and had become a national joke the Press portrayed him as a d humorous figure Bern's solution was to do exactly the same as he had done with products he persuaded 34 famous film stars to visit the White House and for the first time politics became involved with public relations and I lined up these 34 people and and I'd say what's your name he'd
• 22:30 - 23:00 say Al Jose I'd say Mr President Al Jos next day every newspaper in the United States had a front page story president kulage entertains actors at White House and the times had a headline which said president nearly
• 23:00 - 23:30 left and everybody was [Applause] happy but while bernes became rich and Powerful in America in Vienna his uncle was facing disaster like much of Europe Vienna was suffering an economic crisis and massive inflation which wiped out all of Freud's savings facing bankruptcy he wrote to his nephew for help Bur responded by arranging for
• 23:30 - 24:00 Freud's Works to be published for the first time in America and began to send his uncle precious dollars which Freud kept secretly in a foreign bank account he was Freud's agent if you will to get his books published well of course once the books were being published Eddie couldn't help himself but uh promote these books see that everybody read them make them controversial emphasize the fact that do you know what Freud says about sex and
• 24:00 - 24:30 what he says cigarettes are a symbol of and so on and so forth how do you suppose all those stories got out certainly the academics weren't spreading these around the country Eddie bernes was then when Freud became accepted well then of course to go to to a client and say well Uncle sigy see then that had some cache but notice there first Eddie created uncle sigy in the US made him acceptable secondly and thirdly then capitalized on Uncle sigy typical Bern's performance
• 24:30 - 25:00 Bernay also suggested that Freud promote himself in the United States he proposed his uncle write an article for cosmopolitan a magazine that Bern has represented entitled a woman's mental place in the home Freud was Furious such an idea he said was Unthinkable it was vulgar and anyway he hated America Freud was now becoming increasingly pessimistic about human beings in the mid-20s he retreated in the
• 25:00 - 25:30 Summers to the Alps sometimes staying in an old hotel the p meritz in beus Garden it is now a ruin Freud began to write about group Behavior about how easily the unconscious aggressive forces in human beings could be triggered when they were in crowds Freud believed he had underestimated the aggressive instincts in human beings they were far more dangerous than he had orig Al thought after World War I for was
• 25:30 - 26:00 basically a pessimist he felt that man is an Impossible Creature a very very sadistic and and uh bad species and did not believe that man can be improved man is fous animal the most ferocious animal that
• 26:00 - 26:30 exist they enjoy torturing and and killing and he didn't like [Music] men the publication of Freud's Works in America had an extraordinary effect on journalists and intellectuals in the 1920s what fascinated and frightened them was the picture Freud painted of submerged dangerous forces luring just under the surface of modern society forces that could erupt easily
• 26:30 - 27:00 to produce the frenzied mob which had the power to destroy even governments it was this they believed had happened in Russia to many this meant that one of the guiding principles of mass democracy was wrong the belief that human beings could be trusted to make decisions on a rational basis the leading political writer Walter Lipman argued that if human beings were in reality driven by unconscious IR rational forces then it was necessary to rethink
• 27:00 - 27:30 democracy what was needed was a new Elite who could manage what he called the bewildered herd this would be done through psychological techniques that would control the unconscious feelings of the masses so here you have Walter Litman probably the most influential political thinker in the United States who is essentially saying that the basic mechanism of the mass mind is unreason is irrationality is animality he
• 27:30 - 28:00 believes that the mob in the street which is how he sees Ordinary People Are People who are driven not by their minds but by their spinal cords the notion of kind of animal drives unconscious instinctual drives lurking beneath the surface of civilization and so they started looking towards psychological science as a way of understanding the mechanisms by which the popular mind works specifically with the goal of
• 28:00 - 28:30 figuring out how to understand how to apply those mechanism to strategies for uh social control Edward bernes was fascinated by litman's arguments and also saw a way to promote himself by using them in the 1920s he began to write a series of books which argued that he had developed the very techniques Litman was calling for by stimulating people's inner desires and then sating them with
• 28:30 - 29:00 consumer products he was creating a new way to manage the irrational force of the masses he called it the engineering of consent democracy to my father was a wonderful concept but I don't think he felt that all those publics out there would had reliable judgment uh and that that that they could that they very easily might vote for the wrong man or want the wrong
• 29:00 - 29:30 thing so that they had to be guided from above uh it's enlightened despotism in a sense you appeal to their desires and their unrecognized longings that sort of thing that you can tap into their deepest desires or their deepest fears and use that to your own purposes and then in 1928 a president came to
• 29:30 - 30:00 power who agreed with bernes President Hoover was the first politici to articulate the idea that consumerism had become the central motor of American life after his election he told a group of advertisers and public relations men you have taken over the job of creating desire and have transformed people into constantly moving happiness machines machines which have become the key to economic
• 30:00 - 30:30 progress what was beginning to emerge in the 1920s was a new idea of how to run Mass democracy at its heart was the consuming self which not only made the economy work but was happy and docile and so created a stable Society both ber and litman's concept of managing the masses takes the idea of democracy and it turns it into a
• 30:30 - 31:00 paliative it turns it into uh giving people some kind of feel-good Med medication that will respond to an immediate pain or an immediate yearning but will not alter the objective circumstances one iota I mean democracy really the idea of democracy at its heart was about changing the relations of power that had governed the world for so long and Bern's concept of democracy
• 31:00 - 31:30 was one of maintaining the relations of power even if it meant that one needed to sort of stimulate the psychological lives of the public and in fact in his mind that was what was necessary that if you can keep stimulating the irrational self then leadership can basically go on doing what it wants to do bernes now became one of the central figures in a business Elite that dominated American society and politics
• 31:30 - 32:00 in the 1920s he also became extremely rich and lived in a suite of rooms in one of New York's most expensive hotels where he gave frequent parties oh my goodness he had a home in the corner Suite of the Sher Netherland hotel and here's this wonderful Suite with all these windows looking out on Central Park and across at the plaza and on the Square and he would use this place to hold a Suare the mayor would come all the media leaders would come the political Leaders The
• 32:00 - 32:30 Business Leaders the people in the Arts I mean it was a who's who people wanted to know Eddie bernes because you know he himself became a a sort of a famous man a sort of a magician who could make these things happen he knows everybody he knows the mayor and he knows the senator and he calls politicians on the telephone as if he did get a literally a high or a bang out of doing what he did and that's fine but
• 32:30 - 33:00 it it can be a little hard on the people around you especially when you make other people feel stupid people who worked for him were stupid and children were stupid and if people did things in a way that he didn't that he wouldn't have done them they were stupid that was it was a word that he used over and over and over dope and stupid and the masses they were
• 33:00 - 33:30 stupid but Bern's power was about to be destroyed dramatically and by a type of human irrationality he could do nothing to control at the end of October 1929 bernes organized a huge National event to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the invention of the light bulb President Hoover the leaders of major corporations and bankers like John D Rockefeller were all summoned by bernes to celebrate the power of American
• 33:30 - 34:00 business but even as they gathered news came through that shares on the New York Stock Exchange were beginning to fall [Music] catastrophically throughout the 1920s speculators had borrowed billions of dollars the banks had promoted the idea that this was a new era where Market crashes were a thing of the past but they were wrong what was about to happen was the biggest stock market crash in
• 34:00 - 34:30 history investors had panicked and begun to sell in a blind Relentless Fury that no reassurance by Bankers or politicians could Halt and on the 29th of October 1929 the market [Music] collapsed the effect of the crash on the American economy was was disastrous faced with recession and unemployment
• 34:30 - 35:00 millions of American workers stopped buying goods they didn't need the consuma boom that bernes had done so much to engineer disappeared and he and the profession of public relations fell from favor Bern's brief moment of power seemed to be [Music] over the effect of the Wall Street crash on Europe was also catastrophic it
• 35:00 - 35:30 intensified the growing economic and political crisis in the new democracies in both Germany and Austria there were violent Street battles between the armed wings of different political [Music] parties against this backdrop Freud who was suffering from cancer at the jaw retreated yet again to the Alps he wrote a book called civilization and its discontents it was a powerful attack on the idea
• 35:30 - 36:00 that civilization was an expression of human progress instead Freud argued civilization had actually been constructed to control the dangerous animal forces inside human beings what was implicit in Freud's argument was that the ideal of individual Freedom which was at the heart of democracy was impossible human beings could never be allowed to truly Express themselves because it was too dangerous they must
• 36:00 - 36:30 always be controlled and would thus always be discontent man doesn't want to be civilized and he is civilization brings discontent but is necessary to survival otherwise he couldn't survive so he must be discontent because this would be the only way to keep him within limits but what did Freud think about
• 36:30 - 37:00 the idea of the equality of man he didn't believe in it we had 32 parties and Hitler it before those parties don't vanish there is no Germany that's true you can't have 32 parties and so they felt this one person will put an end to this comedy Freud was not alone in his pessimism
• 37:00 - 37:30 politicians like Adolf Hitler emerged from a growing despair in the 1920s about democracy the Nazis were convinced that democracy was dangerous because it Unleashed a selfish individualism but didn't have the means to control it Hitler's party the national socialists stood in elections promising in their propaganda that they would abandon democracy because of the chaos and unemployment it led to
• 37:30 - 38:00 [Music] in March 1933 the national socialists were elected to power in Germany and they set out to create a society that would control human beings in a different way one of their first Acts was to take control of business the planning of
• 38:00 - 38:30 production would in future be done by the state the free market was too unstable as the crash in America had proved workers Leisure Time was also planned by the state through a new organization called strength through Joy one of its Motts was service not self but the Nazis did not see this as a return to an old form of autog control it was a new alternative to
• 38:30 - 39:00 democracy in which the feelings and the desires of the masses would still be Central but they would be channeled in such a way as to bind the nation together the chief exponent of this was Joseph gerb the minister of propaganda
• 39:00 - 39:30 Geral organized huge rallies whose function he said was to forge the mind of the nation into a Unity of thinking feeling and desire one of his Inspirations he told an American journalist was the writings of Freud's nephew Edward [Music] bernes in his work on crowd psychology Freud had described how the frightening irrationality inside human beings could emerge in tou groups the Deep what he called libidinal forces of Desire are
• 39:30 - 40:00 given up to the leader while the aggressive instincts are Unleashed on those outside the group Freud wrote this as a warning but the Nazis were deliberately encouraging these forces because they believed they could master and control them well was saying that nasses are bound by by liid
• 40:00 - 40:30 forces they love each other and delegate ideas and things to the chap on topit what AIT no forces well forces of love not ha ha is delicated to the others outside
• 40:30 - 41:00 [Music] the [Music] up I could see from afar looking up Willam towards un Lindon how there was 100,000 of people when they passed
• 41:00 - 41:30 Hitler they just became completely Delirious they began to shout pleas Tes I will never get out of my ears H zek demented and here I got confirmation how those irrational forces uncontrollable forces in Germany in the Germans had erupted had broken out we're running Riot we're
• 41:30 - 42:00 depart marching marching [Music] [Music] on and in America too democracy was under threat from the force of the angry mob the effect of the stock market crash
• 42:00 - 42:30 had been disastrous there was growing violence as an angry population took out their frustration on the corporations who were seen to have caused this disaster then in 1932 a new president was elected who was also going to use the power of the state to control the free market but his aim was not to destroy democracy but to strengthen it and to do this he was going to develop a new way of dealing with the
• 42:30 - 43:00 masses I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world may require but in the event that the National Emergency is still critical I shall not evade the clear course of Duty that will then confront me I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis broad executive
• 43:00 - 43:30 [Music] power it was the start of what would become known as the New Deal Roosevelt assembled a group of young technocrats and planners in Washington he told them that their job was to plan and run giant new industrial projects for the good of the nation Roosevelt was convinced that the stock market crash had shown that lacare capitalism could no no longer run modern industrial economies it had become the
• 43:30 - 44:00 job of government big business was horrified but the New Deal attracted the admiration of the Nazis especially Joseph Geral
• 44:00 - 44:30 but although Roosevelt like the Nazis was trying trying to organize Society in a different way unlike the Nazis he
• 44:30 - 45:00 believed that human beings were rational and could be trusted to take an active part in government Roosevelt believed it was possible to explain his policies to ordinary Americans and take into account their opinions to do this he was helped by the new ideas of an American social scientist called George Gallop favorite reading of New Deal Washington the survey of US public opinion from officers at Princeton New Jersey a Fame statistician Dr George Gallup tells
• 45:00 - 45:30 Washington from week to week what the nation is thinking and in New York Fortune Magazine's analyst Elmo roer compiles for publication a continuous record of the nation's approval or disapproval of how the country is being run gallop and rer rejected Bern's view that human beings were at the mercy of unconscious forces and so needed to be controlled their system of opinion in polling was based on the idea that people could be trusted to know what
• 45:30 - 46:00 they wanted they argued that one could measure and predict the opinions and behavior of the public if one asked strictly factual questions and avoided manipulating their emotions well how about this one do you think fton D Roosevelt's New Deal has been bad for the nation in general no that question is loaded it automatically suggests an answer well how about this is your present feeling toward President
• 46:00 - 46:30 Roosevelt one of General approval or general disapproval that's better prior to Scientific polling the view of of of many people was that um you couldn't trust public opinion it was irrational that uh it was Ill informed chaotic unruly and so forth and and so that opinion should be dismissed but with scientific polling um I think it established very clearly that people do are rational that they do
• 46:30 - 47:00 make good decisions and this offers democracy a chance to be truly informed by the public giving everybody a voice in the way the country is run I know my father wouldn't necessarily say the voice of the public is the voice of God but he he did feel very much that the the voice of the of the people is is a rational voice and should be heard what Roosevelt was doing was forging a new connection between the masses and
• 47:00 - 47:30 politicians no longer were they irrational consumers who were managed by sating their desires instead they were sensible citizens who could take part in the governing of the country in 1936 Roosevelt stood for reelection he promised further control over big business to the corporations it was the beginning of a dictatorship Roosevelt interferes with private Enterprise and he running the country into debt for generations to
• 47:30 - 48:00 come the way to get recovery is to let business alone but Roosevelt was triumphantly reelected it looks my friends like a real Landslide this time so please let me let me thank you again and tell you that I hope to see you all very soon and B you an affectionate good night faced with this business now decided to fight back to regain power in
• 48:00 - 48:30 America at the heart of the battle would be Edward bernes and the profession he had invented public relations following that election business people start to get together and start to carry on discussions primarily in private and they start talking to each other about the need to sort of carry on U ideological war Warfare against the New Deal and to sort of reassert the sort of
• 48:30 - 49:00 connectedness between the idea of democracy on the one hand and the idea of privately owned business on the other and so Under the Umbrella of an organization which still exists which is called the National Association of Manufacturers and whose membership included all of the major corporations of the United States a campaign is launched explicitly designed to create emotion attachments between the public and big
• 49:00 - 49:30 business it's Bern's techniques being used on a grand scale I mean totally the General Motors parade of progress traveling the high roads and by roads of America bringing to millions of Americans in their own Hometown the fascinating story behind modern industry showing act the campaign set up out to show dramatically that it was business not politicians who had created modern
• 49:30 - 50:00 America better mode of living for all of us bernes was an adviser to General Motors but he was no longer alone the industry he had founded now flourished as hundreds of public relations advisers organized a vast campaign they not only used advertisements and billboards but managed to insinuate their message into the editorial pages of the newspapers [Music] it became a bitter fight in response to
• 50:00 - 50:30 the campaign the government made films that warned of the unscrupulous manipulation of the press by big business and the central villain was the new figure of the public relations man they tried to achieve their Ends by working entirely behind the scenes corrupting and deceiving the public the aims of such groups may be either good or bad so far as the public interest is concerned learned but their methods are a grave danger to democratic
• 50:30 - 51:00 institutions the films also showed how the responsible citizen could monitor the Press themselves they could create a chart that analyzed the reporting for signs of hidden bias but such Earnest instruction was to be no match for the powerful imagination of Edward [Music] [Applause] bernes he was about to help create a vision of the Utopia that free market capitalism would build in America if it
• 51:00 - 51:30 was unleashed the rain in 1939 New York hosted the World's Fair Edward bernes was a central adviser he insisted that the theme be the link between democracy and American Business [Music]
• 51:30 - 52:00 at the heart of the fair was a giant white Dome that Bern's named democrac [Music] City and the central exhibit was a vast working model of America's future constructed by the General Motors Corporation to my father the World's Fair was an opportunity to keep the status quo that is capitalism in a democracy democracy and and capitalism that
• 52:00 - 52:30 marriage right linking like just like that he did that by manipulating people and getting them to think that you couldn't have real democracy in anything but a capitalist society which was capable of doing anything of creating these wonderful highways of of making you know moving pictures inside everybody's house of of telephones that
• 52:30 - 53:00 didn't need cords of sleek roadsters I mean it was there were it was it was it was consumerist but at the same time you inferred that in a funny way democracy and capitalism went together the World's Fair was an extraordinary success and captured America's imagination the vision it portrayed was of a new form of democracy in which business responded to people's innermost
• 53:00 - 53:30 Desires in a way politicians could never do but it was a form of democracy that depended on treating people not as active citizens as Roosevelt did but as passive consumers because this bernes believed was the key to control in a mass democracy it's not that the people are in charge but that the people's desires are in charge the people are not in charge the people exercise no decision-making power within
• 53:30 - 54:00 this environment so democracy is reduced from something which assumes an active citizenry to the idea of the public as passive consumers oh driven primarily by instinctual or unconscious desires and that if you can in fact trigger those needs and desires you can get what you want from them but this struggle between the two views
• 54:00 - 54:30 of human beings as to whether they were rational or irrational was about to be dramatically affected by events in Europe events that would also change the fortunes of the Freud family in March 1938 the Nazis annexed Austria it was called the anus Hitler arrived in Vienna to an extraordinary outpouring of mass agulation but even as he drove through the city behind the scenes the Nazis were
• 54:30 - 55:00 systematically whipping up and unleashing the hatred of the crowd against the enemies of the new greater Germany the Angelos was a kind of explosion of terrible hatred against the enemies so-called enemies or whatever they considered enemies against the Jews in in in totally and also against a lot of very distan who had opposed the Nazis in
• 55:00 - 55:30 Austria they said it's legitimate now you can do what you want so they did it stealing robbing and killing I can't say it otherwise and human depravity of course is uh always near very near to to to normal behavior it be it can change very quickly [Music] as the violence and assassinations raged
• 55:30 - 56:00 in Vienna Freud decided he had to leave his aim was to go to Britain but he knew that Britain like many countries was refusing entry to most Jewish refugees but help came from the leading psychoanalyst in Britain Ernest Jones he was in the same Ice Skating Club as the Home Secretary s Samuel hore and Jones persuaded hore to issue Freud a British work permit [Music] and in May 1938 Freud his daughter Anna
• 56:00 - 56:30 and other members of his family set off for [Music] London Freud arrived in London as Britain Was preparing for war and he settled with his daughter Anna in a house in Hamstead but Freud's cancer was now far Advanced and in September 1939 just 3 weeks after the outbreak of War he
• 56:30 - 57:00 died the second world war would utterly transform the way governments saw democracy and the people they governed next week's program will show how the American government as a result of the war became convinced the were Savage dangerous forces hidden inside all human beings forces that needed to be controlled the terrible evidence from the death camps seemed to show what happened when
• 57:00 - 57:30 these forces were Unleashed and politicians and planners in postwar America would come to believe that hidden under the surface of their own population were the same dangerous forces and they would turn to the Freud family to help control this enemy Within ever adaptable Edward bernes would work not just for the American government but the
• 57:30 - 58:00 CIA and Sigman Freud's daughter Anna would also become powerful in the United States because she believed that people could be taught to control the irrational forces within them out of this would come vast government programs to manage the inner psychological life of the masses
• 58:00 - 58:30 [Music]