Are you:
- A marketing professional?
- Curious about why Americans are such consumers?
- Curious about how the masses bought in to democracy?
- In PR or any related field, (like marketing or communications)?
- Just curious about what I’m talking about now?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, you need to watch a documentary that I’m watching. It’s called – Century of the Self. It was a British documentary that focused on the “engineering of consent” and the influence of the masses.
The eye-opening film shows how powerful people found ways to influence and in most cases manipulate the American people.
“Bernays had manipulated the American people, but he had done so because he, like many others at the time, believed that the interest of business and the interest of America were indivisible… but Bernays was convinced that to explain this rationally to the American people was impossible because they were not rational. Instead one had to touch on their inner fears and manipulate them in the interest of a higher truth.”
The origins of this influence came from studies Sigmund Freud did in psychotherapy. There was a focus on how to work of Sigmund Freud, his nephew Edward Bernays, and his daughter Anna Freud. You can find the clips on YouTube and I’m going to do more posts about the marketing focused parts. Stay tuned!
madia