The Century Of The Self

This series by Adam Curtis is about how those in power have used Freud's theories to try to control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy.

Part 1 - The Happiness Machines
The story of Sigmund Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays, who invented the public relations profession in the 1920s, and used Freud's ideas to manipulate the masses. He showed American corporations how they could make people want things by systematically linking goods to their unconscious desires. Bernays was one of the main architects of the modern techniques of mass-consumer persuasion, from celebrity endorsement and outrageous PR stunts, to eroticizing the motorcar. His most notorious coup was persuading women that cigarettes were a symbol of independence and freedom. But Bernays was convinced that this was also a new method of political control, by triggering the inner irrational desires that his uncle had identified.



Part 2 – The Engineering of Consent
With the massive amount of soldiers suffering mental problems during WWII, the government and military becomes interested in psychoanalysis.



Part 3 - There is a Policeman in my Head
The self-expression and self-awareness methods of psychotherapy that were popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s are examined. Advertising companies learned how to sell products to people as a way to express their individuality and personality.



Part 4 - Eight People Sipping Wine
Modern day politicians looking to liberate their people from the confines of modern democracy end up enslaving them by using the same techniques used by business to market and supply products to interpreted public desires.