This is the blog's first venture into video - a clip from Adam Curtis's 2002 documentary, The Century of the Self. I'm presently reading Edward Bernays' classic book Propaganda.
Edward Bernays was Sigmund Freud's nephew, "the father of public relations", the man who invented "bacon and eggs", toppled the democratically elected government of Guatemala on behalf of a banana corporation and, as this clip shows, persuaded women to smoke.
He did so with the advice of a Freudian analyst who said that ... well, I won't spoil it for you.
In five minutes this clip lays bare the truth about what Bernays calls "the new propaganda ... the executive arm of the invisible government".
To view, just click on the video. You might need to click pause and wait a couple of minutes for the download if your connection is slowish like mine.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Torches of Freedom
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8 comments:
Kevin
I accept that it is useful to have an awareness of these things to the degree that it prevents us from being controlled by them. But I'm surprised you wanted to read the whole book? Wikipedia tells you enough. I wouldn't want to let the mind dwell with Bernay's thoughts for too long really. His legacy is apparent enough.
Kapila,
Well, I'm studying it for a lecture/book chapter.
I think what you raise is interesting though. Traditionally in the School we warn people to guard their antahakarana against malign influence, "bad company", etc. I'm pretty certain that this has been overstated due to fear of the unknown. Someone once warned me not to read Descartes because it was "the reverse of the Truth". Having read some, I must say that I find it tremendously helpful in understanding modern man. Similarly with another bete noire, Aristotle.
I recall an interview with a historian who remarked that none of his colleagues in the 1930s saw through Hitler. He said, "But I did - I'd actually read Mein Kampf you see."
How is the School to be at all scholarly or well-informed if we shield our eyes like Victorian schoolgirls whenever anything unseemly hoves into view? Or if we get our facts from second-hand accounts and Wikipedia (excellent though it is).
Thanks for the concern, but I think I'll live!
Yes, well I suppose I speak not as someone who has been 'sheltered' from these things but someone who has done some quite thorough digging in some shady places. I appreciate what you say about understanding modern man. I also appreciate the effect of letting the mind dwell in shady places for too long and I don't think this is necessarily overstated. Hence the suggestion of executive summary as a measured approach.
I would accept what you were saying if I was contemplating a study of great pornography of the 20th century, or a biography of the Kray twins. There are a list of films I never want to see, eg Se7en or anything involving zombies except Shaun of the Dead.
I do take the point that there are some things that are inherently bad company; but I don't include in that many things that have been anathemized in the School, such as the music of Beethoven, the philosophy of Aristotle, or the works of Sigmund Freud (or his nephew).
I recall once a chap in the School pointing out a building which, although it was no more than a horrible, spineless, pandering, cheap pastiche of classical architecture, he thought "the most hopeful building in London".
Better brilliance, though misguided, than cheesy mediocrity. At the very least, it is honestly attempting to be itself and not to imitate something else.
I might add that what is "bad company" to me or you would not be bad company to the wise, who can alchemically transform rubbish into gold.
Of course, being arrogant about one's own level of wisdom is a sure way to fall prey to bad company.
I suppose I was considering that the thinking can become more and more paranoid and conspiracy-theorist. It doesn't seem to be such a big jump from Bernays to a whole gamut of conspiracies. Also not such a small step to Goebbels:
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
I think the danger is in believing that this attitude is universal & hence become completely paranoid. Do we need to become more politically astute ("Wise as serpents") or, without naivete, ignore it and act with simplicity and good will in the midst of it all ("Harmless as doves")? Or somehow hold both? I find the latter difficult. They seem to be very different states of mind?
Great quotation!
OK, if you're worried about me going all conspiracy-nuts then that is a different matter, but my days of being taken in by that kind of thing are long gone.
Or maybe that's just what THEY want me to think ... hmm
"The complete lack of evidence is the surest sign the conspiracy is working!"
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