Seminar 1 - Psychoanalysis - Richard Miles

Links between consumerism and psychoanalysis.

Psychoanalysis is an attempt to understand the unconscious mind,

The Century of the Self:


Sigmund Freud was considered the founder of Psychoanalysis. He changed the perception of the human mind and its workings. His influence on the twentieth century is generally considered profound. The series describes the propaganda that Western governments and corporations have utilized stemming from Freud's theories.

Edward Bernay was the first person to use psychological techniques in public relations and pretty much coined the term PR.

Freud's daughter Anna Freud, a pioneer of child psychology, is mentioned in the second part, as is one of the main opponents of Freud's theories, Wilhelm Reich, in the third part.

The Century of the Self talks about and questions where the roots of modern consumerism came from and its link, a farce to 'democracy' A good example it uses is the banana trade in Guatemala. By 1950, a handful of U.S. corporations controlled Guatemala's primary electrical utilities, the nation's only railroad, and the banana industry, which was Guatemala's chief agricultural export industry. By the mid-1940s, Guatemalan banana plantations accounted for more than one quarter of all of United Fruit Company's production in Latin America. Land reform was the centerpiece of Árbenz's (Guatemala's president) election campaign and the United Fruit company basically bribed US officials as they didn't like the idea of this as it would equate to less profits and control. The Central Intelligence Agency deposed the elected Government (1950–54) of President Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán and installed the pro-business government of Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas (1954–57). From this came the term 'Banana Republic'

Edward Bernays was a key figure in this as he orchestrated the run up to the coup. He used media to create hysteria with communism being the main accusation of the Guatemalan government biased, false press releases. He stirred the US public up using psychoanalysis techniques which allowed the outing of the current government of the time.

The Century of The Self also questions the modern way we see ourselves, the attitudes to fashion and superficiality. Bernays paid celebrity's and stars of the time to endorse products and create the idea that you could express your self by purchasing products.

'The business and political world uses psychological techniques to read, create 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.'

Paul Mazur, a Wall Street banker working for Lehman Brothers in the 1930s, is cited as declaring "We must shift America from a needs to a desires-culture. People must be trained to desire, to want new things, even before the old have been entirely consumed. Man's desires must overshadow his needs".' - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self

10 Most important Points Raised 

1. The shift from consumer needs to desire based consumerism and the conscious effort to implement this.
2. The psychoanalysis theory's adopted by government as a social experiment. ECT and trying to erase the memory's of people.
3. How much profound influence Bernays had on the world and how much admiration he got at one point.
4. The idea of control in the form of capitalism. Humans are evil beings that needs controlling and managing as they can not make rational decisions for themselves.
5. The fact that psychoanalysis techniques work to sell products. 'Focus Group' - The example of the cake mixture used in the documentary. By instructing the intended consumer which at the time was the house wife, to add an egg to the cake mixture it removed her underlying guilt. The guilt being that she had somehow cheated her family by using the instant mixture. Adding the egg countered this guilt and the sale of the cake mixture increased after the egg instruction was added to the packaging.
6. Eventually bernays was asked by Calvin Coolidge himself to help him remake his image. it worked and another pr industry was born.
7. In 1933 the national socialists took over Germany. They took control of the businesses because they thought the free market was too unstable. Goebbels, as it turns out, was a big fan of the ideas of bernays. these ideas came in handy whilst motivating the german people throughout the 30s.
8. People’s ‘happiness’ became very important and the slightest ‘unhappiness’ became a cause for concern, addressing and eventually, medication. This attitude is even more prevalent today.
9. CIA experiments with brainwashing - The ‘mk ultra’ program is covered but not singled out, and the work of dr cameron ewen is gone over. Apparently around this time there was the idea that perhaps instead of manipulating people daily that they could just be wiped clean and told how things worked. These experiments all failed.
10. Herbert Marcuse began to speak out. he called out ‘planned obsolescence’ and decried the ‘empty prosperity’ that psychoanalytic theories had propagated once they had been applied to business, politics and society.

He didn’t just say that psychoanalysis had been corrupted – he was a pure humanist. Rather, he said that the very idea that people ‘needed’ controlling was wrong. he agreed that people had inner drives, but he didn’t agree that these inner drives were necessarily evil or dangerous. his theory was that society made them dangerous by trying to control and repress them. he said people like Anna Freud increased this repression by trying to get people to conform and it was this which made people more dangerous.

http://www.hopelessbleakdespair.com/?p=2774

 

'Blow in her face and she'll follow you anywhere' Can you imagine if this advert was published today. Its clear here the women is made to be the subservient, easily manipulated character. The tag line suggests that this; by simply blowing smoke in her face this women will follow.

The cigar could be said to be an extension of the penis?

This advert plays on the desire of the man. By portraying this scene the publisher is trying to promise the male consumer this lifestyle. In reality this is pretty much a joke.