Hi Risky, Platt,Wim
Sooooo many questions, I'm not an expert , so I can only relate those things
I learned... BUT it does all seem to fit, and fit best, the experience of
mass culture in the 20th C
OK, I knew you wouldn't let me get away with saying those things without
back up, so here goes.....
Firstly the programme " A Century of Self", is an examination of Sigmund
Freuds influence on the 20th century, made by the BBC ( whom I regard as
being fairly objective when making factual series ie Horizon etc )
Century Of The Self
Happiness Machines: Sigmund Freud's American nephew, Edward Bernays,
invented the profession of Public Relations using Freudian ideas. He also
intended to control the masses.
The programme touched on the work of Edward Bernays ( sigi's nephew ) and a
man called Walter Lippman, who both concluded after Freud, that public
opinion could be swayed by appealing to our non-rational emotional selves.
This is what all modern advertising and PR has done ever since Bernays,
political spin is a product of Bernays thoughts.
on 17/3/02 10:24 pm, RISKYBIZ9@aol.com at RISKYBIZ9@aol.com wrote:
> Rod,
>
> How did they manipulate us? Are you sure we didn't manipulate them? What
> evidence is there to support that this conspiracy exists (or existed) and
> more importantly, that it was successful in influencing behavior (more than
> it would have existed absent said manipulation)?
They manipulated us by making us happy!...of course we the masses did not
manipulate them, when has this ever happened? It wasn't a conspiracy, it
was genuinely seen as an attempt to provide a better society in which to
live, but it had the bonus of being used to influence our behavuiour and
ultimately democracy.
> Other questions that pop to mind:
> 1) Are other nations that are similarly productive substantially more or less
> consumer focused? Does that make them better or worse? Why?
>
It's nothing to do with being productive per se, I reckon we are all pretty
consumer based. And no it's not about better or worse.
> 2) Who is Bernays, and how was he able to implement his theories?
Nephew of Sigmund Freud
> From his Obituary
By the 1990's, his niche in cultural history seemed assured. In 1995, Ann
Douglas, a professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia
University, wrote in "Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920's"
(Farrar, Straus & Giroux) that in that era, "Freud was the chosen mentor of
Madison Avenue," and "Edward Bernays, often called the 'father of public
relations,' who orchestrated the commercialization of a culture, was Freud's
nephew and a self-conscious popularizer of his thought."
>From the New York Times
He concurred with Walter Lippmann's "Public Opinion," which he cited as a
profound influence on his own work "Crystallizing Public Opinion" (1923),
that man was conformist and malleable and that specialists --
philosopher-kings of sorts -- should guide his decision making. Bernays's
own candidate for the task, unsurprisingly, was the public relations
counselor who was trained, after all, to understand the public mind just as
Uncle Sigmund understood the individual mind. Indeed, in Bernays's opinion,
these P.R. men were the "true ruling power of our country."
Here Bernays may very well have been right. Before Bernays and fellow P.R.
consultants like Ivy Lee and Ben Sonnenberg came on the scene, a reader
might have assumed that what he read in the daily newspaper was harvested by
reporters steeped in the faith of objectivity. After Bernays, whether the
reader realized it or not, information had been commodified. The historian
Daniel Boorstin later coined the term "pseudo-events" to describe the sorts
of subterfuges the P.R. fraternity devised -- events like the Green Ball,
which seemed authentic but were staged for some ulterior purpose.
It was an apt word, but it perhaps failed to convey how thoroughly public
relations had transfigured the relationship between reality and its
commercial facsimile. By the time the P.R. men were done, it was often
impossible to tell the real from the bogus, information from misinformation,
an actual event from a sponsored one. In short, Bernays helped erect a hall
of mirrors that changed the nature of reality itself.
> 3) Why is this one aspect of Freud's mumbo-jumbo more successful than the
> vast majority of his other ideas?
Because it works!!
>
> 4) Why does a "stimulated non-rational inner self" make us "docile"?
Come on... from the Romans on, who realised that if you can entertain the
mob in the colosseums, you can control the mob... this is just a 20th
century version.
Celebrity is a product of this, so is TV.. and just how good is most Tv at
keeping you docile...
>
> 5) Why does consumerism make us "relatively content"? If it makes us
> content, why would we need to be manipulated to fall for it? Furthermore, if
> it makes people content, are you sure you are against it?
before the first world war, people generally bought what they needed, and
saved their money. Now thinkback to the US in the early twenties, the boom
on Wall st., this could not have happened without an accompanying change in
the values of the time, that of being modern,..... you cannot be modern
without buying modern things. This led to an increase in productivity, and
once started it must carry on, getting bigger and bigger. We don't know
we're being manipluated, we don't need shopping channels, but they exist.
> 6) Finally, are you sure that it is wise dismissing people's abilities to
> choose freely? Once you go there, you tend to get trapped in a loop where
> they need to be treated like sheep and you become the shepherd. Certainly
> not a promising solution to the problem of manipulation, is it?
Which planet do you live on.... ( joking) where to start, any government
election in any country relies on the fact that people will not think, and
not choose freely.
I think we all know we are being manipulated, and we accept it, we just have
differing limits to which we will accept it, being manipulated into buying
toothpaste or Gap jeans is OK for most of us, isn't it?
> 7) Wouldn't it actually be easier to manipulate a few people watching a show
> on TV into believing they were manipulated when they weren't than it would
> be to actually manipulate hundreds of millions of people?
Hmmm.. what would be the point. Anyway you all know you are not completely
free thinking, life would be too complicated, it's easier for us all to go
along with it, most of the time, we just like to think we know that we are
aware of it, when patently we are not!!
Hope this answers a few
Rod
> Just asking.
> Risky
>
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