The Century of the Self - Part 3 "There is a Policeman Inside All Our Heads: He Must Be Destroyed"

Learn the history of propaganda in America.
This four part series puts focus on propaganda and consumerism in Western society. An in-depth look into the minds of certain figures like Edward Bernays the self proclaimed "Wizard of Propaganda". Known today in the academic and political world as the "Father of Public Relations" which really is just a form of open propaganda. Bernays also just so happens to be the nephew of psycho analyst Sigmund Freud. Find how deep our history goes and how many lies have been piled on top of lies to keep the "Big Lie" alive.

Adam Curtis' acclaimed series examines the rise of the all-consuming self against the backdrop of the Freud dynasty.

To many in both politics and business, the triumph of the self is the ultimate expression of democracy, where power has finally moved to the people. Certainly the people may feel they are in charge, but are they really? The Century of the Self tells the untold and sometimes controversial story of the growth of the mass-consumer society in Britain and the United States. How was the all-consuming self created, by whom, and in whose interests?

Episode Three: There is a Policeman Inside All Our Heads: He Must Be Destroyed

In the 1960s, a radical group of psychotherapists challenged the influence of Freudian ideas in America. They were inspired by the ideas of Wilhelm Reich, a pupil of Freud's, who had turned against him and was hated by the Freud family. He believed that the inner self did not need to be repressed and controlled. It should be encouraged to express itself.

Out of this came a political movement that sought to create new beings free of the psychological conformity that had been implanted in people's minds by business and politics.

This programme shows how this rapidly developed in America through self-help movements like Werber Erhard's Erhard Seminar Training - into the irresistible rise of the expressive self: the Me Generation.

But the American corporations soon realised that this new self was not a threat but their greatest opportunity. It was in their interest to encourage people to feel they were unique individuals and then sell them ways to express that individuality. To do this they turned to techniques developed by Freudian psychoanalysts to read the inner desires of the new self.

Episodes:

1. Happiness Machines
2. The Engineering of Consent
3. There is a Policeman Inside All Our Heads: He Must Be Destroyed
4. Eight People Sipping Wine in Kettering

https://cosmolearning.org/documentaries/the-century-of-self-2002/3/