Question: Man doesn’t want to be civilized. It’s necessary for his survival so he must be forever discontented. Freud didn’t believe in the equality of man. Hitler saw this and used it.

Watch a documentary film-- The Century of the Self, Part I (58 minutes long). link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnPmg0R1M04&ab_channel=JustAdamCurtis

Once you watch the video, please answer THREE(3) questions of your choice from the list below.

List of questions:

1. Freud believed that we were driven by our unconscious desires. We repress our animal feelings, which are powerful, sexual, and aggressive forces because they are too dangerous. There is a hidden part of the mind of which the conscious is unaware. The First World War convinced Freud that governments unleashed our primitive forces and could not control them. But it’s what we should have expected. Once released, no one knew how to control them. Do you agree with Freud’s fundamental assessment of humans? Why or why not?

2. Freud’s ideas of hidden irrational forces intrigued Bernays. Perhaps he could make money by manipulating groups through their unconscious desires rather than through rational information. He looked at commodities and how they related to people’s irrational emotions. He experimented with controlling mass consciousness. He was hired to sell smoking to women. He found that smoking, from a psychoanalytic perspective, was related to power since the cigarette represented the penis. Thus smoking led women to believe they had power and independence. It also meant that you could control how others see you. Cigarettes became “Torches of Freedom.” How are other Freudian interpretations used in modern advertising? Give examples.

3. A new way to sell products emerged: it is not through rational approaches but because the “consumer” will feel better by owning the product. The end result is that people bind themselves emotionally or personally to a product or service. This was done because the corporations were worried that they would overproduce after ramping up production during the war. They feared that people would stop buying. They needed to get people to buy more. Bernays had a tool to get people to buy more by appealing to their unconscious desires. He worked to change how people think about buying. Paul Maser of Lehmann Brothers was clear. We must shift America from “a needs - to a desires” culture. People need to be trained to desire, to want new things even before the old have been entirely consumed. He thought that we must shape a new mentality in America. Man’s desires must overshadow his needs. At this time there were no “Consumers” there were “Workers.” The rich bought luxury items but the workers did not. Maser saw he could convince people to buy not what they needed, but what they wanted. Do you think this was, overall, a good thing or a bad thing for America? Why?

4. Bernays brings psychological theory to merchandising and sales to sell products to the masses. The banks, who were his clients, funded chains of department stores. These became outlets for mass-produced goods. Bernays’ job was to produce a new type of customer. He created techniques of mass-consumer persuasion. His women’s magazine clients linked famous movie stars to products of his other clients. He created product placement in movies, and also got car companies to associate automobiles with male power. He hired psychologists to issue reports concluding that products were good for us and then pretended the reports were independently generated. He hired celebrities to hype products. They would say things like “You buy products to express your inner sense of self.” How convincing is that type of advertising to you today? Do you think that you are in a position to adequately answer that question to begin with?

5. In Europe, the economic crisis led to armed confrontations between members of different political parties. Freud wrote Civilization and its Discontents which is an argument against the idea of civilization as an expression of human progress. Freud believed that civilization was constructed to control the wild unconscious urges people have. The idea of individual freedom at the heart of Democracy was impossible according to Freud. Ultimately, humans can’t be allowed to fully express themselves because it’s too dangerous. They must always be controlled and thus always discontent. Do you agree with this assessment of civilization? Why?

6. Man doesn’t want to be civilized. It’s necessary for his survival so he must be forever discontented. Freud didn’t believe in the equality of man. Hitler saw this and used it. Too many political parties in Germany would lead to destruction. But one person would fix things. Hitler emerged and thought democracy unleashed a dangerous selfish-ism