Thursday, March 16, 2017 Spring 2017 Critical Thinking Mrs. Martin Century of the Self Here are several questions to keep in mind while watching this portion of the documentary. You should answer these questions prior to coming to class on Tuesday, March 21, 2017 and Be prepared to discuss. For this Thursday assignment please answer two of the questions, with a one-page response. You have until Tuesday March 21, to suBmit your response via Canvas. Century of the Self: Part 2 (Part Two: The Engineering of Consent) 1. How do the ideas from this film tie into the previous segment of the film? (i.e what themes do you find running through all the films?) 2. WhiCh of the areas of life, domestiC politiCs, advertising, etC., depiCted in the film is the most significant regarding the Freudian analysts’ interventions? Why? 3. What are the ethiCal impliCations of the work of Anna Freud and Edward Bernays? Are they morally neutral or would you say that what they were doing was right or wrong? Why? 4. Explore the ways advertisers are still using Freudian teChniques to manipulate us into buying things. (Give speCifiC examples and provide analysis.) 5. Do you think these kinds of teChniques are being used politiCally regarding Current foreign poliCy situations? (Explore specific case examples.) 6. Given the reCent national eleCtion, do you see evidence that the ideas from the film were being used by Candidates, or interest groups, trying to gain politiCal power? Give specific examples for analysis. What follows is a summary of the ideas of the film. There are no questions to respond to below this point: it’s just a reminder of the details since the film is quite dense with ideas. • Freud thought that the dream was the royal road to the unConsCious. Freud’s ideas were used by people in power to Control the masses. Freud thought that inside us are dangerous, irrational desires and fears. The unleashing of these instinCts lead to the barbarism of Nazi Germany. We need ways to Control the hidden enemy in the human mind. • The film shows how the ideas of Sigmund and Anna Freud applied by Edward Bernays, and others, were used by the government, big business and the C.I.A. to try to manage and Control the minds of the AmeriCan people. They felt that the only way to make DemoCraCy work is to suppress the barbarism lurking just under the surfaCe of ordinary life. • U.S. Army faCed the mental breakdowns of its troops in World War II; 49% of troops evacuated from Combat suffered from mental problems. The army turned to psyChoanalysis. They filmed the troops for a reCord. (Martin Bergmann, and other psyChiatrists from Eastern Europe, helped AmeriCan psyChiatrists with the soldiers. They saw the “inner soul of America.”) The breakdowns were not due to the stress of Combat; but combat triggered old Childhood memories: violent memories that had been repressed because they were too horrible to remember. They thought Freud is right; we are driven by primitive irrational forCes. WWII was shattering; it showed the enormous role of the irrational in the lives of most people. They thought that the ratio between the rational and irrational is heavily in favor of the irrational in AmeriCans. They saw much greater unhappiness and suffering than you would think on the surfaCe. “It’s a sadder country than you would gather from the advertisements.” • ViCtory in World War II was a triumph of demoCraCy. But below the surface are violent, irrational drives. What happened in Germany, the mass killings by Germans, showed how easily these forCes Could break through and overwhelm DemocraCy. • Planners and poliCy makers thought people Could aCt irrationally, that Chaos lived at the base of human personality. These drives Could infeCt society and social institutions to such a degree that society itself would get sick, like it happened in Germany – where the anti-democratiC went wild. Human nature is inCredibly destruCtive. What if AmeriCans behave that way? What is needed are human beings who Can internalize demoCratiC values so that they are not shaken. Psychoanalysis offered the ability that this can be done by Changing the human being into one who feely supports democraCy. • PsyChoanalysts felt they not only knew of the dangerous forCes but knew how to Control them. They would use their teChniques to Create demoCratiC individuals beCause democraCy, left to itself, failed to do this. • Sigmund and Anna Freud were the sourCes of these ideas. Anna was the leader and wanted her father Sigumnd’s ideas to be aCCepted in the world. Anna Freud worked to make this happen. Her life revolved around spreading psyChoanalysis. Freud saw psyChoanalysis as allowing people to understand their unConsCious drives. But Anna thought you Could teaCh people to Control these drives. Her work with Children led her to this ConClusion. Dorothy Burlingham had her Children psyChoanalyzed. Anna believed she could Change their violent behavior by Changing the world around them. She Could influenCe their world and help them. • Due to her work with these Children Anna developed a theory of Controlling the inner drives. It was simple. You teaCh Children to Conform to the rules of society. This was more than moral guidanCe. She thought that if Children followed the rules of aCCepted social conduct, when they grew up, the ConsCious part, the ego, would be strengthened to Control the unConsCious. But if they didn’t, they would have weak egos and be prey to the unConsCious. (The boy was feared to be a homosexual. Homosexuality was thought to be abnormal. Without ConsCious Control, he would be subject to forCes, unConsCious forces of whiCh he was unaware.) • The analysis seemed to be successful. The children had happy married lives in the suburbs. They were seen as the vanguard of a huge social experiment to control the inner mental lives of all Americans. • In 1946 the National Mental Health Act emerged out of the experience of the soldiers who were disCovered to have hidden anxieties and fears. The aim of the aCt was to deal with this hidden threat to soCiety. Mental illness was seen as a national problem. Robert Felix was director of the act. Karl and Will Menninger were arChitects of the act. Will ran the war time psyChotherapy experiment, and afterwards he and his brother trained hundreds of new psyChotherapists. This way they Could apply Anna Freud’s ideas on a wide sCale – not only to Children but also adults: teaChing AmeriCans to Control their unconsCious drives. PsyChoanalysis Could be used to make a better soCiety – they thought that you Could really Change people in almost unlimited ways. • A huge experiment ensued. PsyChoanalysts worked with people, marriage counselors and social workers guided family life. Behind this was the idea of conforming to society to strengthen the ego to allow Control the unConsCious forces. When emotions Control actions, it affeCts people. If emotions rule, it can lead to a permanently warped personality. By Controlling your emotions your personality beComes more pleasant. Such a proCess makes people more insightful and better regulated. A rational and appropriately emotional person results; suCh a person is not overwhelmed by his darker impulses. One is master or mistress of the passions. Thus the road to happiness is adapting to the external world. People Can be uncrippled from their own neurotiC impulses and won’t engage in destruCtive behavior; instead they Can adapt to the reality about themselves. The psyChoianalysts never questioned that reality might be evil or something to which you cannot adapt without compromise or suffering or without exploiting yourself. It fit the politiCs of the day. • PsyChoanalysis moved into big business. Edward Bernays, Freud’s nephew, was the first to sell business on the model that they Can sell produCts using knowledge of the customers’ unconsCious feelings. Now psyChoanalysts were going to get inside people’s minds and sell produCts. Ernest DiChter, who founded the Institute for Motivational ResearCh, was the first to use foCus groups; he asked “Why do people behave and buy as they do?” To understand he needed to understand the total personality, the self- image of the customer. He used psyChologiCal teChniques to understand why people buy new products. He thought that AmeriCan Citizens are fundamentally irrational and Can’t be trusted. Their real reasons for buying are tied up in unconsCious desires and feelings. He wanted to find the “seCret self” of the AmeriCan Consumer. Learning the unconsCious reasons people buy stuff is key. UnConsCious motivations for why people buy – sexual, psyChologiCal, sociologiCal, a demand for status, or reCognition, are things people couldn’t realize or verbalize. • He would interview people, like in psyChoanalysis, and have group therapy for produCts. People Can act out their wants and needs. He would observe the people interaCting, being shown advertising, thus mining the hidden psyChological wants about produCts. Betty Crocker foods and instant cake mix example. He did a foCus group about the Cake mix. The women felt unComfortable about the ease of making the Cake. He deCided that the barrier to buying the Cake mix was the housewives feeling guilty about making the cake. So Crocker ought to remove the guilt barrier – give them a greater sense of partiCipation – by adding an egg. It would be an unConsCious symbol of the housewife adding in something of their own to the Cake as a gift to her husband. Sales soared. The consumer has unconsCious needs that the Companies need to know about in order to sell effectively – to effeCtively exploit the Consumer. “Is it wrong to give people what they want by taking away their defenses?” • Car ad – “It seems so much longer than last year!” (A woman coos at the car – Sex.) The ‘depth boys’ promised that their teChniques would help businesses sell more by tying the produCts to unConsCious desires.