By Restless [Originally on goofyblog 11.20.07]
months ago, the best aggregator of full-length video, jonhs.net – see my article of March 5th — changed urls, now moviesfoundonline.com. Youtube and other sites are great for short vidclips; this site is the best repository for the longer stuff.
Want standup — Pablo Francisco, Dane Cook, Carlos Mencia, Bill Hicks, Dave Chappell, Andy Kaufman, George Carlin? Click the Entertainment link.
What about movies? There’s “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “The Lost World,” “Joan the Woman.”
New, old; more are added weekly.
Docs on Iraq or 9-11? The site is the most comprehensive I’ve seen.
But, what’s best about this fantastic site are the Documentaries links. In the past 4 months, I’ve watched 4 remarkable works, three of which can be found there, that have fundamentally altered my understanding of the how we got to where we are today. That knowledge is power is true; the power to see where we can and must go now.
This is the first in a series of articles on these films. Don’t miss them!
Perhaps the best documentary I’ve ever seen. A history of the 20th century — in just 4 hours.
The century’s beginning marked also the beginning of the triumph of democracy. In its first 2 decades, most monarchies in the West were destroyed or saw their powers reduced to impotent ornamentation. By mid-century, most Asian ones had disappeared as well.
In 1900, most lived in rural communities under an aristocracy. By 2000, most lived in urban communities under some form of democracy.
But, as they say: the more things change, the more things remain the same. The dream of representative democracy, government of the people, by the people still eludes us.
This documentary shows clearly how elites still rule — not by aristocratic custom, but by ideas first developed at the turn of the century in Vienna by the father of psychoanalysis. It is about the most influential family of the 20th century.
Freud – WWI — the end of the aristocracy — birth of mass culture
After unsuccessfully promoting cocaine as a new wonder drug, Sigmund Freud invented new techniques for analyzing the individual. From his analyses, Freud theorized there were powerful, hidden primitive sexual and aggressive forces deep in humans, forces that if not controlled would lead societies and human beings into chaos and destruction. It was only decades later, that many of his conclusive theories were proved misguided at best or false at worse, such as the concept that his women patients who complained of incest were hysterical, imagining things or that all sexual urges or feelings were dangerous and needed to be repressed.
When WWI broke out, followed by the Russian Revolution, Freud felt he was on the right track — his new theories about human nature were proved.
At the time, his nephew Edward Bernays was a US press agent for opera singer Enrico Caruso, but when America entered the War, President Wilson appointed Bernays to promote the necessity of our entry, which was counter to the campaign promises he had made in his recent re-election. Wilson declared he was entering the war not to restore the empires, but to spread democracy throughout Europe, and Bernays proved extremely adept at spreading this concept both in the US and Europe.
When the War ended, he was asked to accompany Wilson to Paris, where he realized just how successful he had actually been as masses of people jubilantly greeted Wilson as a Savior. Bernays decided that what he could do in times of war, he might be able to in times of peace.
But how? He turned to the writings of his Uncle Sigmund. From Paris, he had sent his Uncle a box of Havana cigars and in return had received a copy of Freud’s Theory of Psychoanalysis. Freud’s depiction of the hidden forces in humans fascinated Bernays. Could he make money from people’s irrational hidden desires? He returned to New York and opened the first public relations firm.
Freud’s Nephew & the Roaring 20s
Bernays first effort was to see if he could get women to smoke, which was a strong societal taboo at the time. He called in the American psychoanalyst, A. A. Brill. Using Freud’s theory of penis envy, Brill told Bernays that women would feel more powerful if they smoked for then they would have their own penises, challenging men. Bernays devised a stunt that changed society and became known the world over.
Persuading a group of wealthy debutantes to do a “group smoke” at New York’s Easter Day parade, he touted their rebellious act as lighting “torches of freedom.” He propagated the idea that when women smoked they became more powerful, more independent, more free.
Corporations suddenly became extremely interested. Up until then, goods and products were promoted solely for their practical value. Because of the great successes of assembly-line mass production, businessmen were now worried they would soon saturate the marketplace and then see their profits decline.
If people could be persuaded to believe that smoking cigarettes would make them more free and powerful, they might be made to believe buying other products were good for them regardless of their actual need.
Bernays showed business how they could make people want things they didn’t need, by linking their desires to mass produced items. Out of this, would come a new political idea about how to control the masses. By satisfying people’s inner selfish desires, one made
them happy and thus docile, which was the start of the all-consuming self, which has come to dominate our world today.
Bernays used his uncle’s theories as the foundation for the creation of the mass consumer. He used movie stars & sports figures in the first testimonials and began the first product placements in movies, cleverly promoting cars as symbols of male power and energy.
Then, starting with Coolidge, Bernays was called upon to promote political figures. Public relations had entered into politics
By 1927, the US had become not a nation of citizens but a nation of consumers. Bernays propagated the idea consumers should also participate in the stock market, buying shares on credit.
Freud Darkens — Infects Politics — Intellectuals Embellish
Meanwhile in Vienna, by the mid 20s Uncle Sigmund was nearly broke in a war-ravaged and depressed Europe and appealed to his nephew for help. Bernays responded by getting Freud published for the first time in the US, becoming his agent, getting him accepted there, fundamentally affecting journalists and writers – the American intelligentsia.
By then Freud’s ideas on human nature had become more pessimistic. In the aftermath of the war, he saw groups of people as animals driven irrationally by deep forces of sadism. The guiding principle of democracy – citizens were rational and could be trusted to make decisions based on the facts – was wrong.
The influential American journalist, Walter Lippman, theorized that if this was so, then it was necessary to rethink democracy, which was now too dangerous; what was called for instead was a new elite that could manage the “bewildered herd.”
Bernays had found it easy to manipulate the masses and thought people were stupid; said so many times. He took Lippman’s theory as his own. People needed to be socially controlled, their hidden desires needed to be stimulated, then guided to the acceptable solution. Democracy could be run this way; the masses could be managed, docile, happy, through the creation of a consumerist society. When Hoover was elected in ‘28, what Bernays called “enlightened despotism” became the new model for running democracy.
By the end of the 20s, he had become one of the rich, influential elite in this new world.
Then in the fall of ’29, his success at promoting stock market speculation by the masses –shoeshine boys had stocks by then – backfired and the simple world of the docile consumer ended.
[Continued mañana]
Want standup — Pablo Francisco, Dane Cook, Carlos Mencia, Bill Hicks, Dave Chappell, Andy Kaufman, George Carlin? Click the Entertainment link.
What about movies? There’s “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “The Lost World,” “Joan the Woman.”
New, old; more are added weekly.
Docs on Iraq or 9-11? The site is the most comprehensive I’ve seen.
But, what’s best about this fantastic site are the Documentaries links. In the past 4 months, I’ve watched 4 remarkable works, three of which can be found there, that have fundamentally altered my understanding of the how we got to where we are today. That knowledge is power is true; the power to see where we can and must go now.
This is the first in a series of articles on these films. Don’t miss them!
1. The Century of the Self (2002)
The century’s beginning marked also the beginning of the triumph of democracy. In its first 2 decades, most monarchies in the West were destroyed or saw their powers reduced to impotent ornamentation. By mid-century, most Asian ones had disappeared as well.
In 1900, most lived in rural communities under an aristocracy. By 2000, most lived in urban communities under some form of democracy.
But, as they say: the more things change, the more things remain the same. The dream of representative democracy, government of the people, by the people still eludes us.
This documentary shows clearly how elites still rule — not by aristocratic custom, but by ideas first developed at the turn of the century in Vienna by the father of psychoanalysis. It is about the most influential family of the 20th century.
Freud – WWI — the end of the aristocracy — birth of mass culture
After unsuccessfully promoting cocaine as a new wonder drug, Sigmund Freud invented new techniques for analyzing the individual. From his analyses, Freud theorized there were powerful, hidden primitive sexual and aggressive forces deep in humans, forces that if not controlled would lead societies and human beings into chaos and destruction. It was only decades later, that many of his conclusive theories were proved misguided at best or false at worse, such as the concept that his women patients who complained of incest were hysterical, imagining things or that all sexual urges or feelings were dangerous and needed to be repressed.
When WWI broke out, followed by the Russian Revolution, Freud felt he was on the right track — his new theories about human nature were proved.
When the War ended, he was asked to accompany Wilson to Paris, where he realized just how successful he had actually been as masses of people jubilantly greeted Wilson as a Savior. Bernays decided that what he could do in times of war, he might be able to in times of peace.
But how? He turned to the writings of his Uncle Sigmund. From Paris, he had sent his Uncle a box of Havana cigars and in return had received a copy of Freud’s Theory of Psychoanalysis. Freud’s depiction of the hidden forces in humans fascinated Bernays. Could he make money from people’s irrational hidden desires? He returned to New York and opened the first public relations firm.
Freud’s Nephew & the Roaring 20s
Bernays first effort was to see if he could get women to smoke, which was a strong societal taboo at the time. He called in the American psychoanalyst, A. A. Brill. Using Freud’s theory of penis envy, Brill told Bernays that women would feel more powerful if they smoked for then they would have their own penises, challenging men. Bernays devised a stunt that changed society and became known the world over.
Persuading a group of wealthy debutantes to do a “group smoke” at New York’s Easter Day parade, he touted their rebellious act as lighting “torches of freedom.” He propagated the idea that when women smoked they became more powerful, more independent, more free.
Corporations suddenly became extremely interested. Up until then, goods and products were promoted solely for their practical value. Because of the great successes of assembly-line mass production, businessmen were now worried they would soon saturate the marketplace and then see their profits decline.
If people could be persuaded to believe that smoking cigarettes would make them more free and powerful, they might be made to believe buying other products were good for them regardless of their actual need.
Bernays showed business how they could make people want things they didn’t need, by linking their desires to mass produced items. Out of this, would come a new political idea about how to control the masses. By satisfying people’s inner selfish desires, one made
Bernays used his uncle’s theories as the foundation for the creation of the mass consumer. He used movie stars & sports figures in the first testimonials and began the first product placements in movies, cleverly promoting cars as symbols of male power and energy.
Then, starting with Coolidge, Bernays was called upon to promote political figures. Public relations had entered into politics
By 1927, the US had become not a nation of citizens but a nation of consumers. Bernays propagated the idea consumers should also participate in the stock market, buying shares on credit.
Freud Darkens — Infects Politics — Intellectuals Embellish
Meanwhile in Vienna, by the mid 20s Uncle Sigmund was nearly broke in a war-ravaged and depressed Europe and appealed to his nephew for help. Bernays responded by getting Freud published for the first time in the US, becoming his agent, getting him accepted there, fundamentally affecting journalists and writers – the American intelligentsia.
By then Freud’s ideas on human nature had become more pessimistic. In the aftermath of the war, he saw groups of people as animals driven irrationally by deep forces of sadism. The guiding principle of democracy – citizens were rational and could be trusted to make decisions based on the facts – was wrong.
The influential American journalist, Walter Lippman, theorized that if this was so, then it was necessary to rethink democracy, which was now too dangerous; what was called for instead was a new elite that could manage the “bewildered herd.”
Bernays had found it easy to manipulate the masses and thought people were stupid; said so many times. He took Lippman’s theory as his own. People needed to be socially controlled, their hidden desires needed to be stimulated, then guided to the acceptable solution. Democracy could be run this way; the masses could be managed, docile, happy, through the creation of a consumerist society. When Hoover was elected in ‘28, what Bernays called “enlightened despotism” became the new model for running democracy.
By the end of the 20s, he had become one of the rich, influential elite in this new world.
Then in the fall of ’29, his success at promoting stock market speculation by the masses –shoeshine boys had stocks by then – backfired and the simple world of the docile consumer ended.
[Continued mañana]
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