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Documentary, The Century of The Self Part 1-Happiness Machines
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00:00A hundred years ago, a new theory about human nature was put forward by Sigmund Freud.
00:16He had discovered, he said, primitive sexual and aggressive forces hidden deep inside the
00:20minds of all human beings. Forces which, if not controlled, led individuals and societies
00:27to chaos and destruction.
00:30This series is about how those in power have used Freud's theories to try and control
00:36the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy.
00:43At the heart of the story is not just Sigmund Freud, but other members of the Freud family.
00:54This episode is about Freud's American nephew, Edward Bernays.
00:58Bernays is almost completely unknown today, but his influence on the 20th century was
01:04nearly as great as his uncle's.
01:07Because Bernays was the first person to take Freud's ideas about human beings and use them
01:12to manipulate the masses.
01:19He showed American corporations for the first time how they could make people want things
01:24they didn't need by linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires.
01:29Out of this would come a new political idea of how to control the masses.
01:38By satisfying people's inner selfish desires, one made them happy and thus docile.
01:44It was the start of the all-consuming self, which has come to dominate our world today.
01:49Freud's ideas about how the human mind works have now become an accepted part of society.
02:12Let's have psychoanalysts.
02:14Every year, the psychotherapist board is held in a grand palace in Vienna.
02:22This is the psychotherapy board.
02:24Psychotherapists come, some advanced patients come, former patients come,
02:30and many other people, friends, but also people from the Viennese society,
02:40who like to go to a nice, elegant, comfortable boy.
02:48But it was not always so.
02:52A hundred years ago, Freud's ideas were hated by Viennese society.
02:56At that time, Vienna was the center of a vast empire, ruling Central Europe.
03:04And to the powerful nobility of the Habsburg court, Freud's ideas were not only embarrassing,
03:09but the very idea of examining and analyzing one's inner feelings
03:13was a threat to their absolute control.
03:18You see, at that time, these people had the power.
03:21And, of course, you just were not allowed to show your bloody feelings.
03:25I mean, you just couldn't, you know?
03:27I mean, you couldn't, if you were unhappy, can you imagine?
03:29You, for instance, you sit somewhere in the country in a castle,
03:32you are deeply unhappy, you are a woman.
03:34And you couldn't go to your maid and cry on her shoulders,
03:37or you couldn't go into the village and complain, you know, about your feelings.
03:41I mean, you couldn't.
03:42It was like selling yourself to somebody.
03:45You just couldn't.
03:47You know?
03:49Because they had to respect you.
03:51Now, of course, Freud, you see, put that thought very much into question.
03:57Because you, you see, to examine yourself,
04:00you would have to put a lot of other things into question.
04:03Your society, everything that surrounds you.
04:07And that wasn't a good thing at that time.
04:09Why not?
04:11Because your self-created empire to a certain extent would have fallen into bits much earlier already.
04:19But what frightened the rulers of the empire even more
04:22was Freud's idea that hidden inside all human beings were dangerous instinctual drives.
04:27Freud had devised a method he called psychoanalysis.
04:31By analysing dreams and free association, he had unearthed, he said,
04:37powerful sexual and aggressive forces which were the remnants of our animal past.
04:42Feelings we repressed because they were too dangerous.
04:46Freud devised a method for exploring a hidden part of the mind,
04:51which we nowadays call the unconscious,
04:53which is a part that is totally unknown to our consciousness.
04:58That there exists a barrier in all our minds,
05:03which prevents these hidden and unwelcome impulses of the unconscious from emerging.
05:10Good night.
05:12In 1914, the Austro-Hungarian Empire led Europe into war.
05:22As the horror mounted, Freud saw it as terrible evidence of the truth of his findings.
05:28The saddest thing, he wrote, is that this is exactly the way we should have expected people to behave,
05:33from our knowledge of psychoanalysis.
05:37Governments had unleashed the primitive forces in human beings,
05:40and no-one seemed to know how to stop them.
05:48At that time, Freud's young nephew, Edward Bernays,
05:51was working as a press agent in America.
05:54His main client was the world-famous opera singer Caruso,
05:58who was touring the United States.
06:06Bernays' parents had emigrated to America 20 years before,
06:09but he kept in touch with his uncle and joined him for holidays in the Alps.
06:15But Bernays was now about to return to Europe for a very different reason.
06:19On the night that Caruso opened in Toledo, Ohio,
06:23America announced it was entering the war against Germany and Austria.
06:27As a part of the war effort,
06:33the US government set up a committee on public information.
06:36And Bernays was employed to promote America's war aims in the press.
06:42The president, Woodrow Wilson, had announced that the United States
06:45would fight not to restore the old empires,
06:48but to bring democracy to all of Europe.
06:50And Bernays proved extremely skillful
06:53in promoting this idea, both at home and abroad.
06:57And at the end of the war,
06:58he was asked to accompany the president
07:00to the Paris Peace Conference.
07:02Then, to my surprise,
07:07they asked me to go with Woodrow Wilson to the Peace Conference.
07:12And at the age of 1926,
07:17I was in Paris for the entire time of the Peace Conference
07:24that was held in the suburb of Paris,
07:27and we worked to make the world safe for democracy.
07:33That was a big slogan.
07:38Wilson's reception in Paris
07:40astounded Bernays and the other American propagandists.
07:43Their propaganda had portrayed Wilson
07:46as a liberator of the people,
07:48a man who would create a new world
07:50in which the individual would be free.
07:52They had made him a hero of the masses.
07:55And as he watched the crowd surge around Wilson,
07:59Bernays began to wonder
08:01whether it would be possible
08:02to do the same type of mass persuasion,
08:04but in peacetime.
08:06When I came back to the United States,
08:10I decided that if you could use propaganda for war,
08:17you could certainly use it for peace.
08:20And propaganda got to be a bad word
08:25because of the Germans using it.
08:29So what I did was to try to find some other words.
08:35So we found the word council on public relations.
08:39Bernays returned to New York and set up as a public relations council
08:43in a small office off Broadway.
08:46It was the first time the term had ever been used.
08:51Since the end of the 19th century,
08:53America had become a mass industrial society
08:56with millions clustered together in the cities.
09:00Bernays was determined to find a way
09:02to manage and alter the way these new crowds thought and felt.
09:09To do this, he turned to the writings of his uncle Sigmund.
09:13While in Paris, Bernays had sent his uncle
09:15a gift of some Havana cigars.
09:18In return, Freud had sent him
09:20a copy of his general introduction to psychoanalysis.
09:24Bernays read it, and the picture of hidden irrational forces
09:27inside human beings fascinated him.
09:31He wondered whether he might make money
09:33by manipulating the unconscious.
09:37What Eddie got from Freud was indeed this idea
09:41that there is a lot more going on in human decision making.
09:45Not only among individuals, but even more importantly among groups
09:49than this idea that information drives behavior.
09:54And so, Eddie began to formulate this idea
09:57that you had to look at things that would play to people's irrational emotions.
10:01And you see, that moved Eddie immediately into a different category
10:05from other people in his field
10:07and most government officials and managers of the day
10:10who thought, if you just hit people with all this factual information,
10:14they would look at that and say, oh, of course.
10:16And Eddie knew that was not the way the world worked.
10:21Bernays set out to experiment with the minds of the popular classes.
10:26His most dramatic experiment was to persuade women to smoke.
10:30At that time, there was a taboo against women smoking
10:33and one of his early clients, George Hill,
10:36the president of the American Tobacco Corporation,
10:39asked Bernays to find a way of breaking it.
10:42He said, we're losing half of our market
10:46because men have invoked a taboo against women smoking in public.
10:53Can you know anything about that?
10:57I said, let me think about it.
10:59And then I said, have I your permission to see a psychoanalyst
11:04to find out what cigarettes mean to women?
11:08He said, what'll it cost?
11:11So I called up Dr. Brill, AA Brill,
11:16who was a leading psychoanalyst in New York at that time.
11:20How come you didn't call your uncle?
11:22Why didn't you call your uncle?
11:24Because he was in Vienna.
11:26AA Brill was one of the first psychoanalysts in America.
11:31And for a large fee, he told Bernays
11:34that cigarettes were a symbol of the penis
11:37and of male sexual power.
11:39He told Bernays that if he could find a way
11:42to connect cigarettes with the idea of challenging male power,
11:46then women would smoke
11:48because then they would have their own penises.
11:55Every year, New York held an Easter Day parade
11:57to which thousands came.
11:59And Bernays decided to stage an event there.
12:02He persuaded a group of rich debutantes
12:04to hide cigarettes under their clothes.
12:07Then they should join the parade
12:09and at a given signal from him,
12:11they were to light up the cigarettes dramatically.
12:14Bernays then informed the press
12:16that he had heard that a group of suffragettes
12:18were preparing to protest
12:20by lighting up what they called torches of freedom.
12:23He knew this would be an outcry
12:26and he knew that all of the photographers
12:28would be there to capture this moment.
12:31And so he was ready with a phrase
12:35which was torches of freedom.
12:37And so here you have a symbol,
12:39women, young women, debutantes,
12:42smoking a cigarette in public
12:44with a phrase that means
12:46anybody who believes in this kind of equality
12:48pretty much has to support them
12:50in the ensuing debate about this.
12:53Because torches of freedom.
12:57I mean, what's on all American coins?
12:58It's liberty.
13:00She's holding up the torch.
13:02You see?
13:03And so all of this is there together.
13:05There's emotion.
13:06There's memory.
13:07There's a rational phrase.
13:09Even though it's using a lot of emotional elements,
13:11it's a phrase that works in a rational sense.
13:14All of this is together.
13:16And so the next day,
13:18this was not just in all of the New York papers,
13:21it was across the United States and around the world.
13:24And from that point forward,
13:26the sale of cigarettes to women began to rise.
13:30He had made them socially acceptable
13:32with a single symbolic act.
13:36What Bernays had created was the idea
13:38that if a woman smoked,
13:40it made her more powerful and independent.
13:43An idea that still persists today.
13:53It made him realise that it was possible
13:55to persuade people to behave irrationally
13:58if you link products
13:59to their emotional desires and feelings.
14:02The idea that smoking actually made women freer
14:05was completely irrational.
14:06But it made them feel more independent.
14:11It meant that irrelevant objects
14:13could become powerful emotional symbols
14:15of how you wanted to be seen by others.
14:20Eddie Bernays saw the way to sell product
14:23was not to sell it to your intellect,
14:26that you ought to buy an automobile,
14:29but that you will feel better about it
14:32if you have this automobile.
14:34I think he originated that idea
14:36that they weren't just purchasing something,
14:38but they were engaging themselves,
14:41emotionally or personally,
14:43in the product or service.
14:45That it's not,
14:46you think you need a new piece of clothing,
14:49but you'll feel better with the piece of clothing.
14:52That was his contribution in a very real sense.
14:55We see it all over the place today,
14:57but I think he originated
14:58the idea of the emotional connect
15:00to a product or service.
15:05What Bernays was doing
15:06fascinated America's corporations.
15:09They had come out of the war rich and powerful,
15:11but they had a growing worry.
15:13The system of mass production had flourished during the war
15:16and now millions of goods
15:17were pouring off production lines.
15:19What they were frightened of
15:21was the danger of overproduction,
15:23that there would come a point
15:25when people had enough goods
15:26and would simply stop buying.
15:30Up until that point,
15:32the majority of products
15:33were still sold to the masses
15:35on the basis of need.
15:36While the rich had long been used to luxury goods,
15:40for the millions of working-class Americans,
15:44most products were still advertised as necessities.
15:48Goods like shoes, stockings, even cars
15:51were promoted in functional terms
15:53for their durability.
15:57The aim of the advertisements
15:58was simply to show people
15:59the product's practical virtues, nothing more.
16:10What the corporations realised they had to do
16:13was transform the way
16:14the majority of Americans thought about products.
16:18One leading Wall Street banker,
16:20Paul Mazur of Lehman Brothers,
16:22was clear about what was necessary.
16:25We must shift America, he wrote,
16:27from a needs to a desires culture.
16:30People must be trained to desire,
16:32to want new things,
16:33even before the old have been entirely consumed.
16:36We must shape a new mentality in America.
16:40Man's desires must overshadow his needs.
16:46Prior to that time,
16:47there was no American consumer.
16:49There was the American worker
16:50and there was the American owner
16:51and they manufactured and they saved
16:53and they ate what they had to
16:55and the people shopped for what they needed.
16:57And while the very rich may have bought
17:00things they didn't need,
17:02most people did not.
17:03And Mazur envisioned a break with that
17:07where you would have things
17:09that you didn't actually need,
17:11but you wanted as opposed to needed.
17:14And the man who would be at the centre
17:16of changing that mentality for the corporations
17:18was Edward Bernays.
17:20Bernays really is the guy
17:22within the United States more than anybody else
17:25who sort of brings to the table
17:27psychological theory
17:29as something that is an essential part
17:33of how, from the corporate side,
17:36of how we are going to appeal
17:38to the masses effectively
17:40and the whole sort of merchandising establishment
17:43and sales establishment
17:45is ready for Sigmund Freud.
17:47I mean, they are ready for understanding
17:50what motivates the human mind.
17:52And so that there's this real openness
17:56to Bernays' techniques being used
17:58to sell products to the masses.
18:00Beginning in the early 20s,
18:03the New York banks funded the creation
18:05of chains of department stores across America.
18:07They were to be the outlets
18:09for the mass-produced goods
18:10and Bernays' job was to produce
18:12the new type of customer.
18:14Bernays began to create many of the techniques
18:17of mass-consumer persuasion that we now live with.
18:22He was employed by William Randolph Hearst
18:24to promote his new women's magazines
18:26and Bernays glamorised them
18:28by placing articles and advertisements
18:30that linked products made by others of his clients
18:33to famous film stars like Clara Bow,
18:35who was also his client.
18:37Bernays also began the practice
18:40of product placement in the movies
18:42and he dressed the stars at the film's premieres
18:45with clothes and jewellery
18:47from other firms he represented.
18:50He was, he claimed,
18:51the first person to tell car companies
18:53they could sell cars
18:54as symbols of male sexuality.
18:57He employed psychologists
18:59to issue reports
19:00that said products were good for you
19:02and then pretended
19:03they were independent studies.
19:05He organised fashion shows
19:07in department stores
19:08and paid celebrities
19:10to repeat the new and essential message.
19:12You bought things not just for need,
19:14but to express your inner sense of yourself to others.
19:22There's a psychology of dress.
19:24Have you ever thought about it?
19:25How it can express your character?
19:28You all have interesting characters
19:31but some of them are all hidden.
19:33I wonder why you all want a dress
19:35always the same,
19:36with the same hats and the same coats.
19:39I'm sure all of you are interesting
19:41and have wonderful things about you
19:44but looking at you in the street
19:46you all look so much the same
19:49and that's why I'm talking to you
19:51about the psychology of dress.
19:53Try and express yourselves better
19:56in your dress.
19:57Bring out certain things
20:01that you think
20:02are hidden.
20:03I wonder if you've thought of this
20:05angle of your personality.
20:06I'd like to ask you some questions.
20:10Why do you like short skates?
20:12Oh, because there's more to see.
20:14More to see, eh?
20:17What good does that do you?
20:20It makes you more attractive.
20:24Does?
20:29In 1927,
20:30an American journalist wrote
20:32a change has come over our democracy.
20:35It is called consumptionism.
20:37The American citizen's first importance
20:40to his country
20:41is now no longer that of citizen
20:43but that of consumer.
20:47The growing wave of consumerism
20:49helped in turn
20:50to create a stock market boom
20:52and yet again
20:53Edward Bernays became involved
20:55promoting the novel idea
20:57that ordinary people
20:58should buy shares
20:59borrowing money from banks
21:01he also represented
21:03and yet again
21:04millions followed his advice.
21:06He was uniquely knowledgeable
21:10about how people
21:12in large numbers
21:13are going to react
21:14to products and ideas
21:15and so on.
21:18But in terms
21:19in political terms
21:20if he were to go outside
21:21I can't imagine
21:22that he could get three people
21:23to stand and listen.
21:25Wasn't particularly articulate
21:27was a kind of funny looking
21:29and didn't have
21:31any sense of reaching out for people
21:33one-on-one.
21:34None at all.
21:35He didn't talk about
21:37didn't think about people
21:38in groups of one
21:39thought about people
21:41in groups of thousands.
21:46I would have nothing to do with you.
21:51Hello?
21:52Bernays soon became famous
21:53as the man who understood
21:54the mind of the crowd
21:55and in 1924
21:57the president contacted him.
21:59President Coolidge was a quiet
22:01taciturn man
22:02and had become a national joke.
22:05The press portrayed him
22:06as a dull humorless figure.
22:09Bernays' solution
22:10was to do exactly the same
22:11as he had done with products.
22:12He persuaded 34 famous film stars
22:15to visit the White House
22:18and for the first time
22:19politics became involved
22:20with public relations.
22:21And I lined up
22:25these 34 people
22:28and I'd say
22:30what's your name?
22:31He'd say
22:32Al Jolson
22:33I'd say
22:34Mr. President
22:35Al Jolson
22:36next day
22:38every newspaper
22:40in the United States
22:42had a front page story
22:45President Coolidge
22:48entertains
22:50actors at White House
22:52and the Times
22:54had a headline
22:56which said
22:57President
22:59Nearly
23:00Laughed
23:04and everybody was happy.
23:06But while Bernays
23:11became rich and powerful
23:12in America
23:13in Vienna
23:14his uncle
23:15was facing disaster.
23:16Like much of Europe
23:17Vienna
23:18was suffering
23:19an economic crisis
23:20and massive inflation
23:21which wiped out
23:22all of Freud's savings.
23:23Facing bankruptcy
23:25he wrote
23:26to his nephew
23:27for help.
23:28Bernays responded
23:29by arranging
23:30for Freud's works
23:31to be published
23:32for the first time
23:33in America
23:34and began to send
23:35his uncle
23:36precious dollars
23:37which Freud
23:38kept secretly
23:39in a foreign bank account.
23:43He was Freud's agent
23:44if you will
23:45to get his books published.
23:46Well of course
23:47once the books
23:48were being published
23:49and he couldn't help himself
23:50but promote these books
23:53see that everybody read them
23:55make them controversial
23:57emphasize the fact that
23:59do you know what Freud says
24:00about sex
24:01and what he says
24:01cigarettes are a symbol of
24:03and so on and so forth.
24:04how do you suppose
24:04all those stories got out?
24:06Certainly the academics
24:07weren't spreading these
24:08around the country
24:09Eddie Bernays was.
24:10Then
24:11when Freud became accepted
24:13well then
24:14of course to go to
24:15to a client and say
24:16well Uncle Siggy
24:17see then that had
24:18some cache
24:19but notice there
24:20first Eddie created
24:21Uncle Siggy
24:22in the US
24:23made him acceptable
24:25secondly
24:26and thirdly
24:27and thirdly then
24:28capitalized
24:29on Uncle Siggy
24:30typical Bernays performance.
24:32Bernays also suggested
24:34that Freud promote himself
24:35in the United States.
24:36He proposed
24:37his uncle write an article
24:38for Cosmopolitan
24:40a magazine that Bernays
24:41represented
24:42entitled
24:43A Woman's Mental Place
24:44in the Home.
24:45Freud was furious.
24:47Such an idea he said
24:48was unthinkable.
24:49It was vulgar
24:50and anyway
24:51he hated America.
24:52Freud was now becoming
24:56increasingly pessimistic
24:57about human beings.
24:58In the mid-twenties
25:00he retreated in the summers
25:01to the Alps
25:02sometimes staying
25:04in an old hotel
25:05the Pension Moritz
25:06in Berchtesgaden.
25:07It is now a ruin.
25:09Freud began to write
25:12about group behavior
25:13about how easily
25:15the unconscious
25:16aggressive forces
25:17in human beings
25:18could be triggered
25:19when they were in crowds.
25:20Freud believed
25:22he had underestimated
25:24the aggressive instincts
25:25in human beings.
25:26They were far more dangerous
25:28than he had originally thought.
25:30After World War One
25:33Freud was basically
25:36a pessimist.
25:38He felt that man
25:40is an impossible creature
25:42a very, very sadistic
25:45and bad species
25:51and did not believe
25:54that man can be improved.
25:56Man is a ferocious animal.
25:59The most ferocious
26:01animal that exists.
26:03They enjoy torturing
26:07and killing
26:09and he didn't like man.
26:11men.
26:14The publication of Freud's
26:15works in America
26:16had an extraordinary
26:17effect on journalists
26:18and intellectuals
26:19in the 1920s.
26:21What fascinated
26:22and frightened them
26:23was the picture
26:24Freud painted
26:25of submerged,
26:26dangerous forces
26:27lurking just under
26:28the surface
26:29of modern society.
26:31Forces that could
26:32erupt easily
26:33a frenzied mob
26:34which had the power
26:35to destroy even governments.
26:37It was this
26:38they believed
26:38had happened in Russia.
26:41To many,
26:42this meant
26:43that one of the guiding
26:43principles of mass
26:44democracy was wrong.
26:46The belief
26:47that human beings
26:48could be trusted
26:48to make decisions
26:50on a rational basis.
26:52The leading political
26:53writer,
26:53Walter Lippmann,
26:55argued that if human beings
26:56were in reality
26:57driven by unconscious,
26:58irrational forces,
27:00then it was necessary
27:01to rethink democracy.
27:03What was needed
27:05was a new elite
27:06who could manage
27:07what he called
27:07the bewildered herd.
27:10This would be done
27:11through psychological
27:12techniques that would
27:13control the unconscious
27:14feelings of the masses.
27:18So here you have
27:19Walter Lippmann,
27:20probably the most
27:21influential political
27:22thinker in the United
27:24States,
27:24who is essentially saying
27:26that the basic mechanism
27:27of the mass mind
27:29is unreason,
27:30is irrationality,
27:31is animality.
27:33He believes that the mob
27:34in the street,
27:35which is how he sees
27:36ordinary people,
27:38are people who are driven
27:39not by their minds,
27:40but by their spinal cords.
27:42The notion of kind of
27:43animal drives,
27:45unconscious,
27:45instinctual drives lurking
27:47beneath the surface
27:48of civilization.
27:50And so they started
27:51looking towards
27:51psychological science
27:54as a way of understanding
27:56the mechanisms by which
27:58the popular mind works,
28:01specifically with the goal
28:03of figuring out
28:04how to understand,
28:06how to apply those mechanisms
28:07to strategies
28:08for social control.
28:11Edward Bernays
28:12was fascinated
28:13by Lippmann's arguments
28:15and also saw a way
28:16to promote himself
28:17by using them.
28:20In the 1920s,
28:21he began to write
28:22a series of books
28:23which argued
28:24that he had developed
28:25the very techniques
28:26Lippmann was calling for.
28:29By stimulating
28:29people's inner desires
28:31and then sating them
28:32with consumer products,
28:34he was creating a new way
28:35to manage the irrational
28:36force of the masses.
28:39He called it
28:40the engineering of consent.
28:43Democracy, to my father,
28:45was a wonderful concept.
28:47But I don't think
28:48he felt that all those
28:49publics out there
28:51had reliable judgment
28:54and that they very easily
28:57might vote for the wrong man
29:00or want the wrong thing
29:02so that they had to be guided
29:04from above.
29:06It's enlightened despotism
29:08in a sense.
29:10You appeal to their desires
29:13and their unrecognized
29:15longings, that sort of thing.
29:19That you can tap into
29:21their deepest desires
29:23or their deepest fears
29:25and use that
29:26to your own purposes.
29:29And then, in 1928,
29:31a president came to power
29:32who agreed with Bernays.
29:35President Hoover
29:36was the first politician
29:37to articulate the idea
29:38that consumerism
29:40would become the central motor
29:41of American life.
29:43After his election,
29:45he told a group of advertisers
29:46and public relations men,
29:49you have taken over the job
29:50of creating desire
29:52and have transformed people
29:54into constantly moving
29:55happiness machines.
29:58Machines which have become
29:59the key to economic progress.
30:04What was beginning to emerge
30:06in the 1920s
30:07was a new idea
30:08of how to run mass democracy.
30:11At its heart
30:12was the consuming self
30:14which not only made
30:15the economy work
30:17but was happy and docile
30:19and so created a stable society.
30:23Both Bernays and Littman's concept
30:26of managing the masses
30:28takes the idea of democracy
30:31and it turns it into a palliative.
30:34It turns it into giving people
30:37some kind of feel-good
30:38medication
30:39that will respond
30:40to an immediate pain
30:41or immediate yearning
30:43but will not alter
30:45the objective circumstances
30:46one iota.
30:47I mean, democracy really,
30:49the idea of democracy
30:51at its heart
30:52was about changing
30:54the relations of power
30:55that had governed the world
30:56for so long.
30:57And Bernays' concept of democracy
31:00was one of maintaining
31:01the relations of power
31:03even if it meant
31:04that one needed
31:05to sort of stimulate
31:06the psychological lives
31:07of the public.
31:09And in fact,
31:10in his mind
31:11that was what was necessary.
31:13That if you can keep
31:15stimulating
31:16the irrational self
31:18then leadership
31:19can basically
31:20go on doing
31:21what it wants to do.
31:23Bernays now became
31:25one of the central figures
31:26in a business elite
31:27that dominated
31:28American society
31:29and politics
31:30in the 1920s.
31:32He also became
31:33extremely rich
31:34and lived in a suite
31:35of rooms
31:36in one of New York's
31:37most expensive hotels
31:38where he gave
31:39frequent parties.
31:40Oh my goodness!
31:41He had a home
31:42in the corner suite
31:44of the Sherry Netherland Hotel
31:46and here's this
31:46wonderful suite
31:47with all these windows
31:48looking out
31:49on Central Park
31:50and across at the plaza
31:51and on the square
31:52and he would use
31:54this place
31:55to hold a soiree
31:57the mayor would come
31:59all the media leaders
32:00would come
32:01the political leaders
32:02the business leaders
32:03the people in the arts
32:04I mean
32:04it was a who's who
32:06people wanted
32:07to know Eddie Bernays
32:08because you know
32:09he himself
32:10became a
32:11sort of a famous man
32:13a sort of a magician
32:14who could make
32:15these things happen.
32:16He knows everybody
32:17he knows the mayor
32:18and he knows the
32:19senator
32:20and he calls politicians
32:22on the telephone
32:23as if he did get
32:24literally
32:25a high
32:26or a bang
32:27out of
32:28doing what he did
32:31and that's fine
32:32but it can be
32:33a little hard
32:34on the people
32:34around you
32:35especially
32:36when you
32:37make other people
32:38feel stupid
32:39people who worked
32:40for him were stupid
32:41and children
32:42were stupid
32:43and if people
32:45did things in a way
32:46that he didn't
32:47that he wouldn't
32:49have done them
32:50they were stupid
32:51it was a word
32:52that he used
32:53over and over
32:54and over
32:54dope and stupid
32:55and the masses?
32:58they were stupid
33:05but Bernays' power
33:06was about to be
33:07destroyed dramatically
33:08and by a type
33:09of human irrationality
33:11he could do nothing
33:12to control
33:14at the end of October
33:151929
33:16Bernays organized
33:17a huge national event
33:18to celebrate
33:19the 50th anniversary
33:20of the invention
33:21of the light bulb
33:22President Hoover
33:24the leaders of
33:25major corporations
33:26and bankers
33:27like John D. Rockefeller
33:28were all summoned
33:29by Bernays to celebrate
33:30the power of
33:31American business
33:32but even as they
33:34gathered
33:35news came through
33:36that shares on the
33:37New York Stock Exchange
33:38were beginning to fall
33:39catastrophically
33:40throughout the 1920s
33:43speculators had borrowed
33:47billions of dollars
33:48the banks had promoted
33:49the idea that this
33:50was a new era
33:51where market crashes
33:52were a thing of the past
33:54but they were wrong
33:56what was about to happen
33:57was the biggest stock
33:58market crash
33:59in history
34:00investors had panicked
34:02and begun to sell
34:03in a blind
34:04relentless fury
34:05that no reassurance
34:06by bankers
34:07or politicians
34:08could halt
34:13and on the 29th of October
34:141929
34:15the market collapsed
34:17the effect of the crash
34:28on the American economy
34:29was disastrous
34:30faced with recession
34:31and unemployment
34:32millions of American workers
34:33stopped buying goods
34:34they didn't need
34:36the consumer boom
34:37that Bernays had done
34:38so much to engineer
34:39disappeared
34:40and he
34:41and the profession
34:42of public relations
34:43fell from favour
34:44Bernays' brief moment
34:46that power seemed to be over
34:57the effect of the Wall Street
34:58crash on Europe
34:59was also catastrophic
35:01it intensified
35:02the growing economic
35:03and political crisis
35:04in the new democracies
35:05in both Germany
35:07and Austria
35:08there were violent
35:09street battles
35:10between the armed wings
35:11of different political parties
35:16against this backdrop
35:18Freud
35:19who was suffering
35:20from cancer of the jaw
35:21retreated yet again
35:22to the Alps
35:25he wrote a book
35:26called Civilization
35:27and Its Discontents
35:28it was a powerful attack
35:30on the idea
35:31that civilization
35:32was an expression
35:33of human progress
35:36instead
35:37Freud argued
35:38civilization
35:39had actually been constructed
35:40to control the dangerous animal forces
35:42inside human beings
35:46what was implicit
35:47in Freud's argument
35:48was that the ideal
35:49of individual freedom
35:50which was at the heart
35:51of democracy
35:52was impossible
35:53human beings
35:54could never be allowed
35:55to truly express themselves
35:57because it was too dangerous
35:59they must always be controlled
36:01and would thus
36:03always be discontent
36:10Man
36:11doesn't want to be civilized
36:12and he is
36:14civilization
36:15brings discontent
36:17but it is necessary to survive
36:19otherwise
36:20he couldn't survive
36:22so he must be discontent
36:24because this would be
36:26the only way
36:27to keep him
36:28within limits
36:29but what did Freud think
36:31about the idea
36:32of the equality of man?
36:33he didn't believe in it
36:36we had 32 parties
36:41and Hitler said
36:42before those parties
36:44don't vanish
36:45there is no Germany
36:46that's true
36:47you can't have 32 parties
36:50and so they felt
36:52this one person
36:53will put an end
36:54to this
36:55comedy
36:57Freud was not alone
36:59in his pessimism
37:00politicians
37:01like Adolf Hitler
37:02emerged from a growing despair
37:04in the 1920s
37:05about democracy
37:06the Nazis were convinced
37:08that democracy was dangerous
37:09because it unleashed
37:10a selfish individualism
37:12but didn't have the means
37:13to control it
37:14Hitler's party
37:16the National Socialists
37:17stood in elections
37:18promising in their propaganda
37:20that they would abandon democracy
37:22because of the chaos
37:23and unemployment
37:24it led to
37:25the peace
37:26and unemployment
37:27it led to
37:31in March 1933
37:45the National Socialists
37:47were elected to power
37:48in Germany
37:49Germany and they set out to create a society that would control human beings
37:54in a different way. One of their first acts was to take control of business. The
38:00planning of production would in future be done by the state. The free market was
38:04too unstable as the crash in America had proved. Workers leisure time was also
38:10planned by the state through a new organization called Strength Through
38:14Joy. One of its mottos was service not self.
38:24But the Nazis did not see this as a return to an old form of autocratic control.
38:29It was a new alternative to democracy in which the feelings and the desires of
38:34the masses would still be central but they would be channeled in such a way as
38:39to bind the nation together. The chief exponent of this was Joseph
38:44Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda.
38:46It may be good to have the power to have the power that is on the ground, but it is better
38:51and the happier it is to win the heart of a people and to maintain it.
39:03Goebbels organized huge rallies whose function, he said, was to forge the mind of the nation
39:08into a unity of thinking, feeling and desire. One of his inspirations, he told an American
39:14journalist, was the writings of Freud's nephew, Edward Bernays. In his work on crowd psychology,
39:22Freud described how the frightening irrationality inside human beings could emerge in such groups.
39:28The deep, what he called libidinal forces of desire, are given up to the leader, while the
39:34aggressive instincts are unleashed on those outside the group. Freud wrote this as a warning.
39:40But the Nazis were deliberately encouraging these forces because they believed they could
39:45master and control them.
39:52Well, Freud was saying that masses are bound by libidinal forces. They love each other and delegate
40:07with their ideas and their feelings to the chap on top.
40:12What are libidinal forces?
40:14Thank you, Ben.
40:15What are libidinal forces?
40:16World forces of love.
40:20Not hate.
40:21No.
40:22Hate is delegated to the others outside.
40:37I could see from afar looking up Wilhelm additions towards unter the Linden how
40:56those hundreds of thousands of people, when they passed Hitler, they just became completely
41:03completely delirious, they began to shout these tries,
41:09I will never get out of my ear, heil, seek heil,
41:13that is, demented.
41:16And here I got confirmation how those irrational forces,
41:22uncontrollable forces in Germany, in the drones,
41:26had erupted, had broken out, were running riot,
41:31where the party, marching, marching on.
41:54And in America too, democracy was under threat,
41:57from the force of the angry mob.
41:58The effect of the stock market crash had been disastrous.
42:04There was growing violence as an angry population
42:06took out their frustration on the corporations
42:09who were seen to have caused this disaster.
42:13Then, in 1932, a new president was elected
42:16who was also going to use the power of the state
42:19to control the free market.
42:21But his aim was not to destroy democracy,
42:24but to strengthen it.
42:26And to do this, he was going to develop a new way
42:29of dealing with the masses.
42:30I am prepared, under my constitutional duty,
42:36to recommend the measures that a stricken nation
42:38in the midst of a stricken world may require.
42:42But, in the event that the national emergency
42:44is still critical,
42:47I shall not evade the clear course of duty
42:50that will then confront me.
42:52I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument
42:56to meet the crisis,
42:58broad executive power.
43:06It was the start of what would become known
43:09as the New Deal.
43:11Roosevelt assembled a group of young technocrats
43:13and planners in Washington.
43:14He told them that their job was to plan and run
43:18giant new industrial projects
43:19for the good of the nation.
43:22Roosevelt was convinced that the stock market crash
43:25had shown that laissez-faire capitalism
43:27could no longer run modern industrial economies.
43:30It had become the job of government.
43:34Big business was horrified,
43:36but the New Deal attracted the admiration of the Nazis,
43:40especially Joseph Goebbels.
43:41We take the economic development in America
43:46with the most positive interest.
43:50And we are there the most confident,
43:52that President Roosevelt and his leaders
43:54are on the right path.
43:57It is indeed about the biggest economic and social problem
44:01of all the time.
44:02The many million workers,
44:04who lost their places on the machines
44:06and in the offices,
44:07have lost their lives,
44:08and have been able to bring back
44:09to their old jobs.
44:10It is not only the private initiative
44:11that they have been given by private initiative.
44:14It is not only the private initiative
44:15that they have been given.
44:16It is the most important
44:18that the public hand
44:19is to engage with positive measures.
44:25But although Roosevelt,
44:26like the Nazis,
44:27was trying to organise society
44:29in a different way,
44:30unlike the Nazis,
44:32he believed that human beings
44:33were rational
44:34and could be trusted to take an active part in government.
44:39Roosevelt believed it was possible to explain his policies
44:41to ordinary Americans and take into account their opinions.
44:46To do this, he was helped by the new ideas
44:48of an American social scientist called George Gallop.
44:53Favourite reading of New Deal Washington,
44:55the Survey of US Public Opinion.
44:58From officers at Princeton, New Jersey, a famed statistician,
45:01Dr George Gallop, tells Washington from week to week
45:04what the nation is thinking.
45:07And in New York, Fortune magazine's analyst, Elmo Roper,
45:10compiles for publication a continuous record
45:13of the nation's approval or disapproval of how the country is being run.
45:18Gallop and Roper rejected Bernays' view
45:20that human beings were at the mercy of unconscious forces
45:23and so needed to be controlled.
45:26Their system of opinion polling was based on the idea
45:29that people could be trusted to know what they wanted.
45:31They argued that one could measure and predict
45:35the opinions and behaviour of the public
45:37if one asked strictly factual questions
45:39and avoided manipulating their emotions.
45:42Well, how about this one?
45:47Do you think Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal
45:50has been bad for the nation in general?
45:52No, that question's loaded.
45:54It automatically suggests an answer.
45:57Well, how about this?
45:59Is your present feeling toward President Roosevelt
46:01one of general approval or general disapproval?
46:05That's better.
46:09Prior to scientific polling, the view of many people
46:13was that you couldn't trust public opinion.
46:16It was irrational, that it was ill-informed, chaotic, unruly, and so forth.
46:22And so that opinion should be dismissed.
46:25But with scientific polling, I think it established very clearly
46:30that people do, are rational, that they do make good decisions.
46:35And this offers democracy a chance to be truly informed by the public,
46:40giving everybody a voice in the way the country is run.
46:44I know my father wouldn't necessarily say
46:46the voice of the public is the voice of God,
46:48but he did feel very much that the voice of the people
46:51is a rational voice and should be heard.
46:54What Roosevelt was doing was forging a new connection
46:58between the masses and politicians.
47:01No longer were they irrational consumers
47:03who were managed by sating their desires.
47:06Instead, they were sensible citizens
47:08who could take part in the governing of the country.
47:11In 1936, Roosevelt stood for re-election.
47:15He promised further control over big business.
47:18To the corporations, it was the beginning of a dictatorship.
47:24Roosevelt interferes with private enterprise
47:28and is running the country into debt for generations to come.
47:33The way to get recovery is to let business alone.
47:37But Roosevelt was triumphantly re-elected.
47:39It looked, my friends, like a real landslide this time.
47:45So please let me thank you again
47:50and tell you that I hope to see you all very soon
47:53and bid you an affectionate good night.
47:56Face with this, business now decided to fight back,
47:59to regain power in America.
48:02At the heart of the battle would be Edward Bernays
48:05and the profession he had invented, public relations.
48:10Following that election,
48:13business people start to get together
48:15and start to carry on discussions,
48:19primarily in private,
48:20and they start talking to each other
48:22about the need to sort of carry on
48:25ideological warfare against the New Deal
48:29and to sort of reassert the sort of connectedness
48:32between the idea of democracy on the one hand
48:35and the idea of privately owned business on the other.
48:39And so, under the umbrella of an organization
48:42which still exists,
48:43which is called the National Association of Manufacturers,
48:45and whose membership included
48:49all of the major corporations of the United States.
48:52A campaign is launched explicitly designed
48:55to create emotional attachments
48:58between the public and big business.
49:02It's Bernays' techniques being used on a grand scale.
49:06I mean, totally.
49:11The General Motors parade of progress,
49:14travelling the high roads and by-roads of America,
49:18bringing to millions of Americans
49:20in their own hometown
49:21the fascinating story behind modern industry.
49:26The campaign set out to show dramatically
49:28that it was business, not politicians,
49:30who had created modern America.
49:32...better mode of living for all of us.
49:38Bernays was an advisor to General Motors,
49:40but he was no longer alone.
49:42The industry he had founded now flourished
49:45as hundreds of public relations advisers
49:47organised a vast campaign.
49:49They not only used advertisements and billboards,
49:52but managed to insinuate their message
49:54into the editorial pages of the newspapers.
49:59It became a bitter fight.
50:01In response to the campaign,
50:03the government made films
50:04that warned of the unscrupulous manipulation
50:06of the press by big business.
50:08And the central villain
50:10was the new figure
50:11of the public relations man.
50:15They tried to achieve their ends
50:17by working entirely behind the scenes,
50:20corrupting and deceiving the public.
50:22The aims of such groups
50:24may be either good or bad,
50:25so far as the public interest is concerned,
50:28but their methods are a grave danger
50:30to democratic institutions.
50:32The films also showed
50:34how the responsible citizen
50:35could monitor the press themselves.
50:38They could create a chart
50:40that analysed the reporting
50:41for signs of hidden bias.
50:45But such earnest instruction
50:47was to be no match
50:48for the powerful imagination
50:49of Edward Bernays.
50:54He was about to help create a vision
50:57of the utopia
50:58that free market capitalism
50:59would build in America
51:01if it was unleashed.
51:12In 1939,
51:13New York hosted the World's Fair.
51:16Edward Bernays was a central advisor.
51:19He insisted that the theme
51:20be the link between democracy
51:22and American business.
51:23At the heart of the fair
51:32was a giant white dome
51:34that Bernays named
51:35Democracy City.
51:37And the central exhibit
51:41was a vast working model
51:42of America's future
51:44constructed by
51:45the General Motors Corporation.
51:47To my father,
51:49the World's Fair
51:50was an opportunity
51:51to keep the status quo,
51:54that is, capitalism
51:56in a democracy.
51:58Democracy and capitalism,
52:00that marriage.
52:03Linking, just like that.
52:07He did that by manipulating people
52:09and getting them to think
52:11that you couldn't have real democracy
52:14in anything but a capitalist society.
52:17which was capable
52:20of doing anything,
52:22of creating these
52:23wonderful highways,
52:25of making, you know,
52:28moving pictures
52:29inside everybody's house,
52:30of telephones
52:32that didn't need cords,
52:34of sleek roadsters.
52:36I mean, it was,
52:37it was consumerist,
52:41but at the same time,
52:42you inferred
52:43that in a funny way,
52:44democracy and capitalism
52:46weren't together.
52:49The World's Fair
52:50was an extraordinary success
52:51and captured America's imagination.
52:55The vision it portrayed
52:56was of a new form of democracy,
52:58in which business responded
53:00to people's innermost desires
53:02in a way politicians
53:03could never do.
53:06But it was a form of democracy
53:08that depended on treating people
53:09not as active citizens
53:11as Roosevelt did,
53:12but as passive consumers.
53:13because this,
53:16Bernays believed,
53:17was the key to control
53:18in a mass democracy.
53:21It's not that the people
53:22are in charge,
53:23but that the people's desires
53:24are in charge.
53:27The people are not in charge.
53:28The people exercise
53:30no decision-making power
53:31within this environment.
53:32So, democracy is reduced
53:36from something
53:37which assumes
53:38an active citizenry
53:39to the idea
53:40of the public
53:41as passive consumers.
53:44Oh!
53:44Driven primarily
53:48by instinctual
53:49or unconscious desires
53:50and that if you can,
53:52in fact,
53:52trigger those needs
53:53and desires,
53:54you can get
53:55what you want from them.
53:58But this struggle
54:00between the two views
54:01of human beings
54:02as to whether
54:03they were rational
54:03or irrational
54:04was about to be
54:06dramatically affected
54:07by events in Europe,
54:09events that would also
54:10change the fortunes
54:11of the Freud family.
54:16In March 1938,
54:18the Nazis annexed Austria.
54:20It was called
54:20the Anschluss.
54:22Hitler arrived in Vienna
54:23to an extraordinary
54:24outpouring of mass adulation.
54:26But even as he drove
54:28through the city,
54:29behind the scenes,
54:30the Nazis were systematically
54:31whipping up
54:32and unleashing
54:33the hatred of the crowd
54:34against the enemies
54:36of the new,
54:36greater Germany.
54:39The Anschluss was
54:40a kind of
54:41explosion of
54:42terrible hatred
54:43against the enemies,
54:45so-called enemies
54:46or whatever they
54:47considered enemies,
54:48against the Jews
54:49in,
54:50in,
54:50totally
54:52and also
54:54against
54:55a lot of
54:56very distant Austrians
54:57who had
54:58opposed
54:59the Nazis
55:00in Austria.
55:01They said,
55:02it's legitimate,
55:03now you can do
55:04what you want.
55:05So they did it.
55:06Stealing,
55:06robbing,
55:07and killing.
55:07I can't say it
55:08otherwise.
55:09And human depravity,
55:10of course,
55:11is always
55:14very near
55:15to normal behavior.
55:17It can change
55:18very quickly.
55:19as the violence
55:29and assassinations
55:30raged in Vienna,
55:32Freud decided
55:32he had to leave.
55:34His aim
55:35was to go to Britain,
55:36but he knew
55:36that Britain,
55:37like many countries,
55:38was refusing entry
55:39to most Jewish refugees.
55:43But help
55:44came from the leading
55:45psychoanalyst in Britain,
55:46Ernest Jones.
55:48He was in the same
55:49ice skating club
55:50as the home secretary,
55:51Sir Samuel Hoare,
55:52and Jones persuaded Hoare
55:54to issue Freud
55:55a British work permit.
55:59And in May 1938,
56:01Freud,
56:02his daughter Anna,
56:03and other members
56:03of his family
56:04set off for London.
56:05Freud arrived in London
56:14as Britain was preparing
56:15for war,
56:16and he settled
56:17with his daughter Anna
56:18in a house in Hampstead.
56:21But Freud's cancer
56:22was now far advanced,
56:24and in September 1939,
56:26just three weeks
56:27after the outbreak
56:27of war,
56:28he died.
56:29The Second World War
56:36would utterly transform
56:37the way governments
56:38saw democracy
56:39and the people
56:40they governed.
56:43Next week's programme
56:45will show how
56:45the American government,
56:46as a result of the war,
56:48became convinced
56:49there were savage,
56:50dangerous forces
56:51hidden inside
56:52all human beings,
56:54forces that needed
56:55to be controlled.
56:57The terrible evidence
56:59from the death camps
57:00seemed to show
57:01what happened
57:01when these forces
57:02were unleashed.
57:04And politicians
57:05and planners
57:05in post-war America
57:07would come to believe
57:08that hidden under the surface
57:09of their own population
57:10were the same
57:11dangerous forces.
57:15And they would turn
57:16to the Freud family
57:17to help control
57:19this enemy within.
57:26And ever adaptable,
57:28Edward Bernays
57:28would work
57:29not just
57:29for the American government
57:30but the CIA.
57:35And Sigmund Freud's
57:36daughter, Anna,
57:37would also become
57:38powerful in the United States
57:39because she believed
57:41that people could be taught
57:42to control
57:43the irrational forces
57:44within them.
57:45Out of this
57:46would come
57:47vast government programmes
57:48to manage
57:49the inner psychological life
57:51of the masses.
57:51and the other
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