THE CENTURY OF THE SELF

The Century of the Self

[Course Code]

The Century of the Self

INTRODUCTION

The Century of the Self is the award winning documentary series and the master piece work directed and produced by great Adam Curtis. This astounding creation was released in 2002 and distributed by BBC Four. The entire documentary has been divided into four episodes of around sixty minutes. Various techniques are used by leaders in managing the requirements of the people going through issues; some of these techniques are against the laws of sociology and ethical reasoning. Every individual should be given an opportunity to speak up for his or her right and privileges, but there are people who do not care about others and only concentrate on how to fulfill their own motives or objectives. This documentary has depicted how the politicians employed tactics related to psychoanalysis to motivate, appeal and gain the attention of the consumer population. Their main motive is to make their own position stronger in the political field (Davidson, 2012). The followers of the leader are similar to consumers who visit a shop to purchase a product or avail a service in order to fulfill their needs likewise followers are also the consumers who want their rights and privileges to be accomplished.

According to Edward Bernays consumerism highly required to avoid under consumption. If we want to bring improvement in the economy we should go for producing such products that can help us in managing the economic requirements of the country. An intelligent and conscious manipulation of well organized opinions and habits of populations is an essential factor that is required to develop a demographic society. The dynasty of Freud is focused on compelling sociology and he was the inventor of public relations (Taylor, 2002).

DISCUSSION

The documentary intends to investigate the theories of Sigmund Freud and these theories have been used by his nephew Edward Bernays with the aim to control people and manipulate the masses. Edward Bernays used the psychological techniques in public relations. He did this by relating mass produced goods with the unconscious desires of the public, according to which he analyzed that people can be induced to desire for the things that they actually do not need. He basically applied the techniques of mass consumer persuasion and used any means to attain his objectives. Bernays was the first one who primarily came in front and associated the product to ideal where he attempted to correlate the idea of cigarette consumption with the freedom and independence and where the females got freed from the taboo of female smoking in public. He also convinced that the theory would be useful if it is applied over the politics in order to control the masses as this is because with satisfactions, people can attain irrational inner desires which would make them glad and docile (Curtis, 2002).

The America used the idea of Freud's theory to control the masses at the post-war believing that all human beings have the dangerous as well ...