The multiple award-winning BBC documentary "The Century of the Self," clearly explains how those in power, including corporations and governments, were able to develop a highly sophisticated multi-generational propaganda campaign, using methods derived from the works of Sigmund Freud in psychology and psychoanalysis.
These methods were further honed in (and perfected) by Freud's nephew, Edward Bernays, who is credited with the invention of "Public Relations," which, one learns, was coined by Bernays as a euphemism for "propaganda." Bernays understood that, by the 1920s, the term "propaganda" had taken a negative connotation, so he re-branded it as "Public Relations.
His methods were eventually embraced by both big business and governments.
The documentary describes the impact of Freud’s theories on the perception of the human mind, and the ways public relations agencies and politicians have used this during the last 100 years for their engineering of consent. Among the main characters are Freud himself and his nephew Edward Bernays, who was the first to use psychological techniques in advertising. He is often seen as the father of the public relations industry.
- Top Documentary Films
I think this documentary clearly explains the methods that helped set the stage for the generalized almost-total mind control the contemporary ruling elite has over the vast majority of the American population.
I touched on this topic in a previous diary, where I quote a master's degree thesis by Frank McCoy:
The more [concentrated*] the media landscape becomes the greater risk of harm there is to the public interest. As powerful corporations grow increasingly wealthier, powerful, influential, and politically affiliated the greater risk there is to the political economy on a global scale. The risk inherent with affluential transcultural media corporations is the mass homogenization of content and, thus, propagandist reinforcement of corporate and political interests serving only the dominant elites and, in turn, harming and marginalizing non-elites. One would be grossly remiss of the tangible danger and malign effects to the public to simply abridge the issue examined in this study as a case of the rich getting richer while the poor get poorer.
I clearly understand that some people would take exception to the use of the term "brainwashing" if it is used to describe the effects of over a hundred years of study in psychology, and psychoanalysis, with the specific purpose of controlling the populace, coupled with the unprecedented level of media conglomeration. But I argue that the term is indeed appropriate:
Without an awareness of the grave consequences involved with and increasingly concentrated media environment, the public (i.e. non-elites) will continue to be systematically brainwashed by the propagandist arm of the government that is the mass media and will unknowingly acquiesce to the interests of the dominant elites.
- Frank McCoy
An interesting historical footnote when it comes to this issue is that, prior to the Wall Street crash that lead to the Great Depression, Bernays was riding high, influencing business and government alike.
The crash and the ensuing Great Depression put a temporary halt to his agenda, as Franklin D. Roosevelt sought to lead the country and the citizens in another direction. Roosevelt believed that humans were rational and capable of making the right decisions in a democracy.
This idea was anathema to the Corporatist Propaganda, or "Public Relations," world view developed by Bernays and his followers.
In their view, mobs, the public, if left to their own devices, were dangerous, irrational, brutal, and sadistic, and those tendencies needed to be controlled through consumerism.
They viewed themselves as benevolent in what they were doing, because they believed that their world view and philosophy would ensure peace among the masses, and prosperity for the business elites who were ultimately controlling (and extracting) wealth from them.
So when Roosevelt rightly understood that one of the best ways to deal with the aftermath of the Great Depression was to put people to work in massive projects around the country, the corporatists declared war against him and re-started a relentless "propaganda/public relations" campaign to try to undermine Roosevelt, along with the concept about the possibility that the population at large could be rational and take a leading role in a government based in democracy.
Obviously, it is easy to understand where Bernays and his followers came from. His philosophy set the stage for the controlling, manipulation and exploitation of the masses for the benefit of what they saw as a "benevolent" ruling elite. Roosevelt's attempt at empowering the masses through democracy would result in a more equitable distribution of income, and in a more informed populace, none of which were beneficial to the ruling elite.
And so it is within this historical context that we find ourselves today. The reason the entire American population is such an incredibly Orwellian-like mind-controlled populace is not because people are incapable of governing themselves, but because corporate business interests were able to take control of the entire mass-media machinery, and, utilizing very advanced and sophisticated psychology and psychoanalysis, they have used that control to subject the American populace to a relentless amount of propaganda.
By now, these business interests have also taken over much (almost all) of the government, by having bought off the politicians, and so they are acting in concert.
It is within this context that people who come to understand these realities can become extremely disturbed (offended), by realizing the dichotomy between the perceived reality by the majority of the population, and the "real reality" which is truly evil, sadistic, oppressive, exploitative, and criminal.
For many, this realization becomes so shocking and disturbing that they become unhinged, which could lead them to seemingly irrational reactions, including violence.
They become so alarmed at seeing the almost-total mind control of the majority of the population by what they see as evil, hidden, and nefarious forces, that they may resort to extreme (sometimes) violent means to try to shock the population into paying attention.
Depending on the actual condition of things, sometimes these acts lead to results, such as armed revolutions against tyrants, but more than likely they are self-defeating because the powers that be are quickly able to neutralize the "madmen" who raise up in apparently mindless violence.
That is why the most dangerous individuals and philosophies for the brutal and sadistic ruling class now running the United States, would be those who were able to write manifestos capable of not only informing very large numbers of citizens about the actual state of affairs, but to enlist them in mass, by the millions, to (peacefully) take on the few creepy, greedy, sadistic bastards who have thus far been able to get away with high treasonous crimes against the citizenry.
Money needs to be removed from politics. The criminal financial cartelwho now have Washington in their pockets needs to be broken up, completely. Media conglomeration needs to be broken up completely. All our constitutional rights need to be re-instated. The total-information-awareness police state needs to be totally reformed. And there needs to be a very high wall, a total separation, between Corporation and State, not too dissimilar from Church and State.
In fact, these solutions are self-evident, and it would not take too much effort to accomplish if millions and millions of people who know what is going on had the time and ability to protest against it.
I encourage people to write their manifestos along these lines, and I guarantee you that those activists and leaders who somehow are able to find a way to awaken the population in mass would become the most dangerous instruments against the system. Eventually the system would find a way to go after them, but not against millions of people.
I'm just one guy, with no influence whatsoever (thank God for that), and I know that some would consider a lone individual that thinks that the world can be changed in such a way, is deranged. But I don't mind. So be it. I will always, always, believe that we can indeed help bring about a better world, a more perfect union, and I will do my part to advocate for that until my last breath.
So it is my appeal to those reading this words, who have influence, to take on the banner of true freedom and democracy, and do the right thing. I will be right there with you--peacefully.
---------------------
---------------------
---------------------