OUGD501. CONTEXT OF PRACTICE.

10 points raised in 'Century of the Self'

-   How people in power have used psychoanalysis to control masses of people.
-   The findings of Freud were not supposed to be used to manipulate the masses.
-   That humans have repressed feelings, that can be exploited.
-   Politicians started to be promoted in the same way products had been/would be.
-   Public Relations is a re-marketed propaganda.
-   Edward Bernay's is the first person to use Freud's finding to control the thoughts of the masses
-   Human's cannot make completely rational decisions, primal urges are too strong to subdue entirely.
-   Feminisms beginning/development is not entirely honest (Torches of Freedom).
-   Bernay's linked power to females puffing on the old tobacco stick. This linked products to desires and feelings, thus beginning the practice of advertising a lifestyle, not just a single product.
-   Paul Mazer wrote that an active decision for getting people to desire new products, for the desires of people to overshadow the needs. This was a big turning point in changing the function of the average American citizen from worker to consumer.
-   Linking celebrities to products further deepened the link to lifestyle. Using people's idols to sell product has been common since.
-   'Frenzied mobs' scared the government
-   Human beings cannot be trusted to make decisions on a rational basis.
-   Democracy changed from providing information to providing feelings to subdue peoples basic animal drives.
-   Freud's findings started to be use for social control.
-   The engineering of consent, the way to control the masses 'mass herd'.
-   President Hoover was the first president to think that consumerism could be an ideal for the American lifestyle and ensure economic progress.
-   The consuming self makes the economy work and maintains a status quo.
-   By the government stimulates the irrational needs of the masses then the government can make the changes they feel are appropriate without risk of an uprising.