The Century of the Self (2002) Part One: Happiness Machines

(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0432232)
Part one of the series introduces us to Edward Bernuys, ...(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0432232)
Part one of the series introduces us to Edward Bernuys, Sigmund Freud's American nephew, and his groundbreaking ideas on population control.
The Century of the Self is a United Kingdom documentary film by Adam Curtis first screened on television in 2002 in four parts. "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." The Century of the Self asks deeper questions about the roots and methods of modern consumerism, representative democracy and its implications. It also questions the modern way we see ourselves, the attitude to fashion and superficiality.
The business and, increasingly, the political world uses psychological techniques to read and fulfill our desires, to make their products or speeches as pleasing as possible to us. Curtis raises the question of the intentions and roots of this fact. Where once the political process was about engaging people's rational, conscious minds, as well as facilitating their
needs as a society, the documentary shows how by employing the tactics of psychoanalysis, politicians appeal to irrational,
primitive impulses that have little apparent bearing on issues outside of the narrow self-interest of a consumer population...

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