*PSEUDOUPDATE*!
(I posted this in the anarchists group, but I'm posting it here too because I think it is interesting as well as important for people to have at least an awareness of.)
Here is an interesting documentary, being hosted on information clearinghouse in four parts on the history of the propaganda/public relations industry; about the strength that it lended to corporate, state, and business power, the notions that it has engendered in the minds of citizenry - or "consumers", if you will - about their own roles as citizens.
All four parts are available for download or viewing from the webpage-- I've watched the first as of now.
The first part deals primarily with "Eddy" Bernays, Freud's nephew, who applied Freud's theories (as well as popularized his works) of unconsious desires and psychoanalysis to manipulating crowds. One could regard him as a psychotherapist of the modern private corporation; he improved their health through improving their bottom line, by increasing sales through engineered campaigns designed to convince people that they desired what the manufacturers were manufacturing.
Interesting stuff -- I had long been familiar with the ideas of Walter Lippman, Ed Bernays and the effects they've had on the political climate of democracy and corporate capitalism, but this documentary gives alot of intimate and personal insights from people who actually interacted with these guys as well as from historians.
EDIT:
Alright I've watched parts 2,3 and 4. Lippmann is only mentioned once in that Bernay's claimed to have devised practical techniques which implimented his ideas-- Lippmann thought the public was irrational, couldn't be trusted to know its own interests, and was needing of a educated source to direct them adequetly. His term for the public was "The Bewildered Herd".
The second part looks at Anna Freud her ideas about conformity and socialization and the influence, again, of those ideas on public policy, and business practice as well as the rise of the "mental health" profession in the United States. It's not as interesting as the first but some fun facts are mentioned such as Bernays role in the campaign for United Fruit in Guatamala, which orchestrated a coup that dismissed with the populist nationalist leader making the nation safe again favorable for American business interests and dictators, under the rubric of Soviet containment and anti-communism. The second mentioned is the memory wiping programs of the CIA and their quest to create fresh and moldable slates out of human beings, and what a failure the program was (in terms of molding). This episode culminates with mention of some failures of psychoanalysis, psychotherapy (in particular Anna Freuds treatment of two children) and criticism by Herbert Marcuse of the Freudian view and its mass application in business and politics.
The third episode looks historically at the 60s-80s and in particular the "human potential movement", and some of it's psychological sources (namely Maslow and Reich), it's relation to the "new left", how the "new left" eventually filtered into and emphasized that self seeking individualistic strain of thought of human potential and how psychologists and marketeers ultimately capitalized on and succeeded in apply reductive techniques to characterzing the trends of "inward directed self-actualizing people". The consequences of this for corporations and business are looked at and in short it seems as though those type of people, while they started in the radicalism of the new left. ultimately ended up being a boon for what they once opposed, as they had turned the opposition against the external power structures inward toward liberating "the self". Also mentioned is how the reductive characterizations of individualistic "inward directives" allowed researchers to predict which political candidates one would vote for based on "lifestyles and values" being identified . In Britain and the UK respectively conservatives (Reagan and Thatcher) touting individualism and personal freedom, "free markets" and a hands off with repect to government in individual lives won elections around the same time as "the self actualizing" human potential movement had thoroughly been flirtered through culture and was being capitalized on and understood by/for business interests.
Briefly put, the fourth segment looks at the development of PR and marketing techniques as well as increasing consumer individualism in the UK and their filtering into political practice. Clinton's administration and the Labor Party of UK are concurrently looked at as particular examples of the marketing approach being used sucessfully in swaying swing voters, and setting future party policy.
The century of the self: how politicians and business learned to create and manipulate mass-consumer society
(I posted this in the anarchists group, but I'm posting it here too because I think it is interesting as well as important for people to have at least an awareness of.)
Here is an interesting documentary, being hosted on information clearinghouse in four parts on the history of the propaganda/public relations industry; about the strength that it lended to corporate, state, and business power, the notions that it has engendered in the minds of citizenry - or "consumers", if you will - about their own roles as citizens.
All four parts are available for download or viewing from the webpage-- I've watched the first as of now.
The first part deals primarily with "Eddy" Bernays, Freud's nephew, who applied Freud's theories (as well as popularized his works) of unconsious desires and psychoanalysis to manipulating crowds. One could regard him as a psychotherapist of the modern private corporation; he improved their health through improving their bottom line, by increasing sales through engineered campaigns designed to convince people that they desired what the manufacturers were manufacturing.
Interesting stuff -- I had long been familiar with the ideas of Walter Lippman, Ed Bernays and the effects they've had on the political climate of democracy and corporate capitalism, but this documentary gives alot of intimate and personal insights from people who actually interacted with these guys as well as from historians.
EDIT:
Alright I've watched parts 2,3 and 4. Lippmann is only mentioned once in that Bernay's claimed to have devised practical techniques which implimented his ideas-- Lippmann thought the public was irrational, couldn't be trusted to know its own interests, and was needing of a educated source to direct them adequetly. His term for the public was "The Bewildered Herd".
The second part looks at Anna Freud her ideas about conformity and socialization and the influence, again, of those ideas on public policy, and business practice as well as the rise of the "mental health" profession in the United States. It's not as interesting as the first but some fun facts are mentioned such as Bernays role in the campaign for United Fruit in Guatamala, which orchestrated a coup that dismissed with the populist nationalist leader making the nation safe again favorable for American business interests and dictators, under the rubric of Soviet containment and anti-communism. The second mentioned is the memory wiping programs of the CIA and their quest to create fresh and moldable slates out of human beings, and what a failure the program was (in terms of molding). This episode culminates with mention of some failures of psychoanalysis, psychotherapy (in particular Anna Freuds treatment of two children) and criticism by Herbert Marcuse of the Freudian view and its mass application in business and politics.
The third episode looks historically at the 60s-80s and in particular the "human potential movement", and some of it's psychological sources (namely Maslow and Reich), it's relation to the "new left", how the "new left" eventually filtered into and emphasized that self seeking individualistic strain of thought of human potential and how psychologists and marketeers ultimately capitalized on and succeeded in apply reductive techniques to characterzing the trends of "inward directed self-actualizing people". The consequences of this for corporations and business are looked at and in short it seems as though those type of people, while they started in the radicalism of the new left. ultimately ended up being a boon for what they once opposed, as they had turned the opposition against the external power structures inward toward liberating "the self". Also mentioned is how the reductive characterizations of individualistic "inward directives" allowed researchers to predict which political candidates one would vote for based on "lifestyles and values" being identified . In Britain and the UK respectively conservatives (Reagan and Thatcher) touting individualism and personal freedom, "free markets" and a hands off with repect to government in individual lives won elections around the same time as "the self actualizing" human potential movement had thoroughly been flirtered through culture and was being capitalized on and understood by/for business interests.
Briefly put, the fourth segment looks at the development of PR and marketing techniques as well as increasing consumer individualism in the UK and their filtering into political practice. Clinton's administration and the Labor Party of UK are concurrently looked at as particular examples of the marketing approach being used sucessfully in swaying swing voters, and setting future party policy.
The century of the self: how politicians and business learned to create and manipulate mass-consumer society
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I like Early Transcendentals. I spent a lot of good times getting distracted from its sage teaachings during college.
That gets me thinking about the effects of magnetism in the universe and on human beings, the pull of the moon, the chemicals in our bloodstream... you ever look at the calendar when you notice people acting aggresively or seem asleep at the wheel to see if it's a full or new moon?