Full transcript
0:03he hated it said he wanted this um
0:08stuff 100 years ago a new theory about
0:11human nature was put forward by Sigman
0:14Freud he had discovered he said
0:16primitive sexual and aggressive forces
0:18hidden deep inside the minds of all
0:20human
0:21beings forces which if not controlled
0:24LED individuals and societies to chaos
0:26and destruction
0:30this series is about how those in power
0:33have used Freud's theories to try and
0:35control the dangerous crowd in an age of
0:37mass
0:41democracy at the heart of the story is
0:44not just Sigman Freud but other members
0:46of the Freud
0:47[Music]
0:50family when will call this episode is
0:54about Freud's American nephew Edward
0:57bernes bernes is almost completely known
1:00today but his influence on the 20th
1:02century was nearly as great as his
1:05uncle's because bernes was the first
1:08person to take Freud's ideas about human
1:10beings and use them to manipulate the
1:18masses he showed American corporations
1:20for the first time how they could make
1:23people want things they didn't need by
1:25linking mass-produced Goods to their
1:27unconscious desires
1:30out of this would come a new political
1:32idea of how to control the
1:36masses by satisfying people's inner
1:38selfish desires when made them happy and
1:41thus
1:42docile it was the start of the allc
1:45consuming self which has come to
1:47dominate our world today
1:51[Music]
2:07Fry's ideas about how the human mind
2:09works have now become an accepted part
2:11of society as have
2:14psychoanalysts every year the
2:16psychotherapist ball is held in a grand
2:18palace in
2:21Vienna this is the Psychotherapy Ball
2:24psychotherapists come some Advanced
2:27patients come or former ations come and
2:32many other people friends but also um um
2:37uh people from the vienes society who
2:40like to go to a nice elegant comfortable
2:46Ball but it was not always
2:51so a 100 years ago Freud's ideas were
2:54hated by vienes Society at that time
2:57Vienna was the center of a vast Empire
2:59ruling Central
3:00[Music]
3:01Europe and to the powerful nobility of
3:04the hapsburg Court Freud's ideas were
3:06not only embarrassing but the very idea
3:09of examining and analyzing one's inner
3:11feelings was a threat to their absolute
3:16control you see at that time these
3:18people had the power and of course you
3:21just were not allowed to show your
3:23bloody feelings I mean you just couldn't
3:25you know I mean you couldn't if you were
3:27unhappy can you imagine you for instance
3:30you sit somewhere on the country in a
3:31castle you are deeply unhappy you are a
3:33woman you couldn't go to your maid and
3:35cry on on her shoulders or you couldn't
3:37go into the village and and complain you
3:39know about your feelings I mean you
3:41couldn't it was like selling yourself to
3:43somebody you just
3:45couldn't you
3:47know because they had to respect you now
3:51of course frud you see put that thought
3:54very much into question because you you
3:58see to examine yourself you would have
4:00to to put a lot of other things into
4:02question your
4:04Society everything what surrounds you
4:07and that wasn't a good thing at that
4:09time why not because
4:12your self-created Empire to a certain
4:15extent would have fallen into bits much
4:17earlier already but what frightened the
4:20rulers of the Empire even more was
4:22Freud's idea that hidden inside all
4:24human beings with dangerous instinctual
4:27drives Freud had devised a meth method
4:29he called
4:31psychoanalysis by analyzing dreams and
4:33free association he had Unearthed he
4:36said powerful sexual and aggressive
4:38forces which were the remnants of our
4:40animal
4:41past feelings we repressed because they
4:43were too
4:45dangerous Freud devised a method for
4:48exploring a hidden part of the mind
4:50which we nowadays call the
4:53unconscious which a part that is totally
4:55unknown to our Consciousness that there
4:58exists a area in all our minds which
5:03prevents these hidden and unwelcome
5:06impulses of the unconscious from
5:09emerging good
5:15night in 1914 the austr Hungarian Empire
5:18led Europe into
5:20war as the horror mounted Freud saw it
5:23as terrible evidence of the truth of his
5:26findings the saddest thing he wrote is
5:28that this is exactly the way we should
5:30have expected people to behave from our
5:32knowledge of
5:35psychoanalysis governments had unleashed
5:37the Primitive forces in human beings and
5:39no one seemed to know how to stop
5:46them at that time Freud's young nephew
5:49Edward bernes was working as a press
5:51agent in
5:53America his main client was the world
5:55famous opera singer Caruso who was
5:57touring the United States
6:05Bern's parents had immigrated to America
6:0720 years before but he kept in touch
6:10with his uncle and joined him for
6:11holidays in the
6:13Alps but bernes was now about to return
6:16to Europe for a very different reason on
6:19the night that Caruso opened in Toledo
6:22Ohio America announced it was entering
6:24the war against Germany and Austria
6:30as a part of the war effort the US
6:32government set up a Committee on Public
6:34Information and bernes was employed to
6:37promote America's War AIMS in the
6:40press the President woodro Wilson had
6:42announced that the United States would
6:45fight not to restore the old Empires but
6:47to bring democracy to all of
6:49Europe bernes proved extremely skillful
6:52in promoting this idea both at home and
6:55abroad and at the end of the war he was
6:58asked to accompany the president to the
7:00Paris peace
7:03conference then to my
7:06surprise they asked me to go over with
7:09with woodro Wilson to the preest
7:12conference and at the age of
7:171926 I was in Paris for the entire time
7:22of the peace
7:23conference that was held in the suburb
7:26of Paris and we worked to make the world
7:31safe for democracy that was a big
7:37slogan Wilson's reception in Paris
7:40astounded bernes and the other American
7:43propagandists their propaganda had
7:45portray Wilson as a liberator of the
7:47people a man who would create a new
7:50world in which the individual would be
7:52free they had made him a hero of the
7:55masses and as he watched the crowd surge
7:58around Wilson bernes began to wonder
8:01whether it would be possible to do the
8:02same type of mass persuasion but in
8:05peace
8:06time when I came back to the United
8:10States I
8:12decided that if you could use propaganda
8:16for war you could certainly use it for
8:20peace and propaganda got to be a bad
8:24word because of the Germans using it so
8:28what I did
8:30did was to try to find some other
8:34words so we found the word Council on
8:37public
8:40relations bernes returned to New York
8:43and set up as a public relations Council
8:45in a small office off Broadway it was
8:48the first time the term had ever been
8:51used since the end of the 19th century
8:54America had become a mass industrial
8:56society with Millions clustered together
8:59in the
9:00cities bernes was determined to find a
9:03way to manage and alter the way these
9:05new crowds thought and
9:07felt to do this he turned to the
9:10writings of his uncle
9:11Sigmund while in Paris bernes had sent
9:14his uncle a gift of some Havana
9:17cigars in return Freud has sent him a
9:20copy of his General introduction to
9:23psychoanalysis Bern's readit and the
9:25picture of hidden irrational forces
9:27inside human beings f ated him he
9:31wondered whether he might make money by
9:33manipulating the
9:35unconscious what Eddie got from Freud
9:38was indeed this idea that there is a lot
9:41more going on in human decision making
9:44not only among individuals but even more
9:46importantly among groups than this idea
9:50that information drives behavior and so
9:54Eddie began to formulate this idea that
9:57you had to look at things that would
9:58play to people's ears irrational
10:00emotions and you see that moved Eddie
10:03immediately into a different category
10:05from other people in his field and most
10:07government officials and managers of the
10:09day who thought if you just hit people
10:11with all this factual information they
10:14would look at that and say oh of course
10:16and Eddie knew that was not the way the
10:19world
10:20worked Bern set out to experiment with
10:23the minds of the popular classes his
10:26most dramatic experiment was to persuade
10:28women to smoke
10:30at that time there was a taboo against
10:32women smoking and one of his early
10:34clients George Hill the president of the
10:36American Tobacco Corporation asked Beres
10:39to find a way of breaking it he said
10:42we're losing half of our Market
10:45because men have invoked a taboo against
10:50women smoking in
10:53public can you do anything about that I
10:56said let me think about it
10:59and then I said have I your permission
11:01to see a
11:02psychoanalyst to find out what
11:05cigarettes mean to women he said what'll
11:09it
11:09cost so I called up Dr
11:13Brill AA Brill who was a leading
11:17psychoanalyst in New York at that time
11:20how come you didn't call your uncle why
11:22didn't you call your uncle cuz he was in
11:26Vienna a a Bru was one of the first Psy
11:29analysts in America and for a large fee
11:32he told bernes that cigarettes were a
11:34symbol of the penis and of male sexual
11:37power he told bernes that if he could
11:40find a way to connect cigarettes with
11:43the idea of challenging male power then
11:45women would smoke because then they
11:47would have their own
11:50[Music]
11:53penises every year New York held an
11:55Easter Day Parade to which thousands
11:57came and burn decided to Stage an event
12:01there he persuaded a group of Rich
12:03debutants to hide cigarettes under their
12:06clothes then they should join the parade
12:09and at a given signal from him they were
12:11to light up the cigarettes
12:13dramatically bernes then informed the
12:16press that he had heard that a group of
12:17suffragettes were preparing to protest
12:20by lighting up what they called torches
12:22of Freedom he knew this would be an
12:24outcry and he knew that all of the
12:26photographers would be there to capture
12:29the this moment and so he was ready with
12:32a
12:33phrase which was torches of freedom and
12:36so here you have a symbol women young
12:39women debutants smoking a cigarette in
12:42public with a phrase that means anybody
12:45who believes in this kind of equality
12:47pretty much has to support them in the
12:49ensuing debate about this because
12:52torches a
12:54freedom I mean what's on All American
12:57coins it's liberty she holding up the
13:00torch you see and so all of this is
13:03there together there's emotion there's
13:05memory there's a rational phrase even
13:08though it's using a lot of emotional
13:10elements it's a it's a phrase that works
13:11in a rational sense all of this is
13:15together and so the next day this was
13:18not just in all of the New York papers
13:21it was across the United States and
13:22around the world and from that point
13:25forward uh the sale of cigarettes to
13:27women began to to rise he had made them
13:30socially acceptable with a single
13:32symbolic
13:34act what bernes had created was the idea
13:37that if a woman smoked it made her more
13:40powerful and
13:41independent an idea that still persists
13:45today embrace
13:48me my sweet embrace it made him realized
13:53that it was possible to persuade people
13:55to behave irrationally if you link
13:57products to their emotional desires and
14:00feelings the idea that smoking actually
14:03made women Freer was completely
14:05irrational but it made them feel more
14:09independent it meant that irrelevant
14:11objects could become powerful emotional
14:14symbols of how you wanted to be seen by
14:18others Eddie bernes saw the way to sell
14:22product was not to sell it to your
14:25intellect that you ought to buy an
14:27automobile but that you will feel better
14:30about it if you have this automobile I
14:33think he originated that idea that they
14:35weren't just purchasing something but
14:37they were engaging themselves
14:40emotionally or personally in in the
14:42product or service there it's not you
14:45you think you need a new piece of
14:48clothing but you'll feel better with the
14:50piece of clothing that was his
14:52contribution in a very real sense we see
14:54it all over the place today but I think
14:56he originated the idea of the emotional
14:58connect to a product or
15:00[Music]
15:03service what bernes was doing fascinated
15:05America's
15:07corporations they had come out of the
15:09war rich and Powerful but they had a
15:11growing worry the system of mass
15:14production had flourished during the war
15:16and now millions of goods were pouring
15:18off production
15:19lines what they were frightened of was
15:22the danger of
15:23overproduction that there would come a
15:25point when people had enough goods and
15:27would simply stop by
15:31up until that point the majority of
15:33products were still sold to the masses
15:35on the basis of
15:37need while the rich had long been used
15:39to luxury goods for the millions of
15:42workingclass Americans most products
15:44were still advertised as
15:46Necessities Goods like shoes stockings
15:50even cars were promoted in functional
15:52terms for their
15:55durability the aim of the advertisements
15:58was simply to show people the products
16:00practical virtues nothing
16:02[Music]
16:09more what the corporations realized they
16:12had to do was transform the way the
16:14majority of Americans thought about
16:17products one leading Wall Street Banker
16:19Paul merer of layman Brothers was clear
16:22about what was
16:24necessary we must shift America he wrote
16:27from a needs to a desires culture people
16:30must be trained to desire to want new
16:33things even before the old have been
16:34entirely
16:36consumed we must shape a new mentality
16:38in America man's desires must overshadow
16:42his
16:45needs prior to that time there was no
16:47American Consumer there was the American
16:49worker and there was the American owner
16:51and they manufactured and they saved and
16:53they ate what they had to and the people
16:56shopped for what they needed and while
16:58the very rich may have bought things
17:01they didn't need most people did not and
17:03merer envisioned a break with that where
17:06you would have things that you didn't
17:09actually need but you
17:11wanted as opposed to needed and the man
17:14who would be at the center of changing
17:16that mentality for the corporations was
17:18Edward bernes bernes really is the guy
17:21within the United States more than
17:23anybody else who sort of brings to the
17:26table psychological theory
17:29as something that is an essential part
17:32of how from the corporate side of how we
17:36are going to appeal to the masses
17:39effectively and the whole sort of
17:41merchandising establishment and stes and
17:43sales establishment is ready for Sigman
17:46Freud I mean they are ready for
17:49understanding what motivates the human
17:52mind and so that there's this real
17:55openness to Bern's techniques being used
17:58to theel products to the
18:00masses beginning in the early 20s the
18:03New York Banks funded the creation of
18:05chains of department stores Across
18:07America they were to be the outlets for
18:09the mass-produced goods and Bern's job
18:12was to produce the new type of
18:15customer bernes began to create many of
18:17the techniques of mass consumer
18:19persuasion that we now live with he was
18:22employed by William Randolph Hurst to
18:24promote his new women's magazines and
18:26bernes glamorized them by placing
18:28articles and advertisements that link
18:30products made by others of his clients
18:33to famous film stars like claraa B who
18:36was also his
18:37client bernes also began the practice of
18:40product placement in the
18:42movies and he dressed the Stars at the
18:44film's premieres with clothes and
18:46jewelry from other firms he
18:49represented he was he claimed the first
18:51person to tell car companies they could
18:53sell cars as symbols of male
18:56sexuality he employed psychologist to
18:59issue reports that said products were
19:01good for you and then pretended they
19:03were independent
19:05studies he organized fashion shows in
19:07the department stores and paid
19:09celebrities to repeat the new and
19:11essential message you bought things not
19:13just for need but to express your inner
19:16sense of yourself to
19:18[Music]
19:20others there's a psychology of dress
19:23have you ever thought about it how it
19:25can express your
19:27character you all have interesting
19:29characters but some of them are all
19:31hidden I wonder why you all want a dress
19:34always the same with the same hats and
19:37the same coats I'm sure all of you are
19:40interesting and have wonderful things
19:42about you but looking at you in the
19:45street you all look so much the same and
19:49that's why I'm talking to you about the
19:51psychology of dress try and express
19:54yourselves better in your dress
19:59bring out certain things that you think
20:02are hidden I wonder if you thought of
20:04this angle of your
20:07personality I'd like to ask you some
20:10questions why do you like short goates
20:13oh because there's more to see what to
20:16see what what good does that do
20:20you my
20:22hands it makes you more attractive does
20:29in 1927 an American journalist wrote A
20:32change has come over our democracy it is
20:35called consumptionism the American
20:38Citizen's first importance to his
20:40country is now no longer that of citizen
20:43but that of
20:45consumer the growing wave of consumerism
20:48helped in turn to create a stock market
20:51boom and yet again Edward bernes became
20:54involved promoting the novel idea that
20:57Ordinary People should buy share
20:59borrowing money from Banks he also
21:02represented and yet again Millions
21:04followed his
21:06advice he was uniquely knowledgeable
21:10about how people in large numbers are
21:12going to react to products and ideas and
21:15so
21:16on but in term in political terms if he
21:19were to go out so I can't imagine that
21:21he could get three people stand and
21:23listen wasn't particularly articulate
21:26was a kind of funny looking and didn't
21:30have any sense of reaching out for
21:32people one-on-one none at all he didn't
21:35talk about didn't think about people in
21:37groups of one thought about people in
21:40groups of
21:44thousands so I would have nothing to do
21:46with
21:48them hello ber soon became famous as the
21:53man who understood the mind of the crowd
21:55and in 1924 the president contacted
22:00president kulage was a quiet taciturn
22:02man and had become a national joke the
22:05Press portrayed him as a d humorous
22:07figure Bern's solution was to do exactly
22:10the same as he had done with products he
22:13persuaded 34 famous film stars to visit
22:15the White
22:17House and for the first time politics
22:19became involved with public
22:23relations and I lined up these 34 people
22:28and and I'd say what's your name he'd
22:31say Al Jose I'd say Mr President Al Jos
22:37next day every newspaper in the United
22:41States had a front page
22:44story president kulage
22:48entertains actors at White House and the
22:53times had a headline which said
22:57president nearly
23:03left and everybody was
23:06[Applause]
23:09happy but while bernes became rich and
23:11Powerful in America in Vienna his uncle
23:14was facing
23:15disaster like much of Europe Vienna was
23:18suffering an economic crisis and massive
23:20inflation which wiped out all of Freud's
23:23savings facing bankruptcy he wrote to
23:25his nephew for
23:27help Bur responded by arranging for
23:30Freud's Works to be published for the
23:32first time in America and began to send
23:34his uncle precious dollars which Freud
23:37kept secretly in a foreign bank
23:41account he was Freud's agent if you will
23:44to get his books published well of
23:46course once the books were being
23:47published Eddie couldn't help himself
23:49but uh promote these books see that
23:53everybody read them make them
23:56controversial emphasize the fact that do
23:58you know what Freud says about sex and
24:00what he says cigarettes are a symbol of
24:02and so on and so forth how do you
24:03suppose all those stories got out
24:05certainly the academics weren't
24:07spreading these around the country Eddie
24:08bernes was then when Freud became
24:12accepted well then of course to go to to
24:15a client and say well Uncle sigy see
24:17then that had some cache but notice
24:19there first Eddie created uncle sigy in
24:22the
24:23US made him acceptable secondly and
24:26thirdly then capitalized
24:28on Uncle sigy typical Bern's performance
24:32Bernay also suggested that Freud promote
24:34himself in the United States he proposed
24:37his uncle write an article for
24:39cosmopolitan a magazine that Bern has
24:41represented entitled a woman's mental
24:43place in the home Freud was Furious such
24:47an idea he said was Unthinkable it was
24:49vulgar and anyway he hated
24:53America Freud was now becoming
24:55increasingly pessimistic about human
24:57beings
24:58in the mid-20s he retreated in the
25:00Summers to the Alps sometimes staying in
25:03an old hotel the p meritz in beus Garden
25:07it is now a
25:09ruin Freud began to write about group
25:12Behavior about how easily the
25:14unconscious aggressive forces in human
25:16beings could be triggered when they were
25:18in
25:20crowds Freud believed he had
25:22underestimated the aggressive instincts
25:24in human beings they were far more
25:26dangerous than he had orig Al
25:29thought after World War I for was
25:34basically a
25:36pessimist he felt that man is an
25:40Impossible
25:41Creature a very very sadistic and
25:46and uh
25:48bad
25:50species and did not believe that man can
25:54be improved man is fous animal
25:58the most ferocious animal that
26:03exist they enjoy torturing and and
26:07killing and he didn't like
26:10[Music]
26:12men the publication of Freud's Works in
26:15America had an extraordinary effect on
26:17journalists and intellectuals in the
26:191920s what fascinated and frightened
26:22them was the picture Freud painted of
26:24submerged dangerous forces luring just
26:27under the surface of modern
26:29society forces that could erupt easily
26:32to produce the frenzied mob which had
26:34the power to destroy even governments it
26:36was this they believed had happened in
26:40Russia to many this meant that one of
26:42the guiding principles of mass democracy
26:44was wrong the belief that human beings
26:47could be trusted to make decisions on a
26:49rational
26:50basis the leading political writer
26:53Walter Lipman argued that if human
26:55beings were in reality driven by
26:57unconscious IR rational forces then it
26:59was necessary to rethink
27:02democracy what was needed was a new
27:04Elite who could manage what he called
27:07the bewildered
27:08herd this would be done through
27:10psychological techniques that would
27:12control the unconscious feelings of the
27:16masses so here you have Walter Litman
27:19probably the most influential political
27:21thinker in the United States who is
27:24essentially saying that the basic
27:26mechanism of the mass mind is unreason
27:29is irrationality is animality he
27:32believes that the mob in the street
27:34which is how he sees Ordinary People Are
27:37People who are driven not by their minds
27:39but by their spinal cords the notion of
27:41kind of animal
27:43drives unconscious instinctual drives
27:46lurking beneath the surface of
27:48civilization and so they started looking
27:50towards psychological science as a way
27:54of understanding the mechanisms by which
27:57the popular mind
27:59works specifically with the goal of
28:03figuring out how to understand how to
28:05apply those mechanism to strategies for
28:08uh social
28:09control Edward bernes was fascinated by
28:12litman's arguments and also saw a way to
28:15promote himself by using
28:18them in the 1920s he began to write a
28:21series of books which argued that he had
28:24developed the very techniques Litman was
28:26calling
28:27for by stimulating people's inner
28:29desires and then sating them with
28:31consumer products he was creating a new
28:34way to manage the irrational force of
28:36the
28:37masses he called it the engineering of
28:41consent democracy to my father was a
28:45wonderful concept but I don't think he
28:47felt that all those publics out there
28:50would had reliable
28:52judgment uh and that that that they
28:55could that they very easily might vote
28:57for the wrong man or want the wrong
29:00thing so that they had to be guided from
29:03above uh it's enlightened despotism in a
29:09sense you appeal to their desires and
29:12their
29:13unrecognized longings that sort of
29:17thing that you can tap into their
29:21deepest desires or their deepest fears
29:24and use that to your own purposes
29:28and then in 1928 a president came to
29:31power who agreed with
29:33bernes President Hoover was the first
29:35politici to articulate the idea that
29:38consumerism had become the central motor
29:40of American
29:41life after his election he told a group
29:44of advertisers and public relations men
29:48you have taken over the job of creating
29:50desire and have transformed people into
29:53constantly moving happiness
29:56machines machines which have become the
29:58key to economic
30:02progress what was beginning to emerge in
30:05the 1920s was a new idea of how to run
30:08Mass
30:09democracy at its heart was the consuming
30:13self which not only made the economy
30:15work but was happy and docile and so
30:19created a stable
30:21Society both ber and litman's concept of
30:25managing the masses takes the idea of
30:29democracy and it turns it into a
30:32paliative it turns it into uh giving
30:36people some kind of feel-good Med
30:38medication that will respond to an
30:40immediate pain or an immediate yearning
30:43but will not alter the objective
30:45circumstances one iota I mean democracy
30:49really the idea of democracy at its
30:52heart was about changing the relations
30:54of power that had governed the world for
30:56so long and Bern's concept of democracy
31:00was one of maintaining the relations of
31:02power even if it meant that one needed
31:04to sort of stimulate the psychological
31:07lives of the public and in fact in his
31:10mind that was what was
31:13necessary that if you can keep
31:15stimulating the irrational self then
31:18leadership can basically go on doing
31:21what it wants to
31:23do bernes now became one of the central
31:25figures in a business Elite that
31:27dominated American society and politics
31:30in the
31:311920s he also became extremely rich and
31:34lived in a suite of rooms in one of New
31:36York's most expensive hotels where he
31:38gave frequent parties oh my goodness he
31:41had a home in the corner Suite of the
31:44Sher Netherland hotel and here's this
31:46wonderful Suite with all these windows
31:48looking out on Central Park and across
31:50at the plaza and on the Square and he
31:53would use this place to hold a Suare the
31:57mayor would come all the media leaders
31:59would come the political Leaders The
32:01Business Leaders the people in the Arts
32:03I mean it was a who's who people wanted
32:06to know Eddie bernes because you know he
32:09himself became a a sort of a famous man
32:12a sort of a magician who could make
32:14these things happen he knows everybody
32:16he knows the mayor and he knows the
32:18senator and he calls politicians on the
32:22telephone as if he did get a literally a
32:26high or a bang out
32:28of doing what he did and that's fine but
32:32it it can be a little hard on the people
32:34around you especially when you make
32:37other people feel stupid people who
32:40worked for him were stupid and children
32:42were stupid and if people did things in
32:45a way that he didn't that he wouldn't
32:48have done them they were stupid that was
32:51it was a word that he used over and over
32:53and over dope and
32:55stupid and the masses they were
33:03stupid but Bern's power was about to be
33:06destroyed dramatically and by a type of
33:09human irrationality he could do nothing
33:11to
33:12control at the end of October 1929
33:15bernes organized a huge National event
33:18to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the
33:20invention of the light bulb President
33:22Hoover the leaders of major corporations
33:25and bankers like John D Rockefeller were
33:27all summoned by bernes to celebrate the
33:29power of American
33:32business but even as they gathered news
33:34came through that shares on the New York
33:36Stock Exchange were beginning to fall
33:39[Music]
33:43catastrophically throughout the 1920s
33:45speculators had borrowed billions of
33:47dollars the banks had promoted the idea
33:50that this was a new era where Market
33:52crashes were a thing of the
33:54past but they were wrong what was about
33:57to happen was the biggest stock market
33:59crash in
34:00history investors had panicked and begun
34:02to sell in a blind Relentless Fury that
34:05no reassurance by Bankers or politicians
34:08could
34:11Halt and on the 29th of October
34:141929 the market
34:21[Music]
34:24collapsed the effect of the crash on the
34:26American economy was was disastrous
34:29faced with recession and unemployment
34:31millions of American workers stopped
34:33buying goods they didn't need the
34:35consuma boom that bernes had done so
34:37much to engineer disappeared and he and
34:40the profession of public relations fell
34:42from favor Bern's brief moment of power
34:45seemed to be
34:47[Music]
34:55over the effect of the Wall Street crash
34:57on Europe was also catastrophic it
35:00intensified the growing economic and
35:02political crisis in the new
35:04democracies in both Germany and Austria
35:07there were violent Street battles
35:08between the armed wings of different
35:10political
35:12[Music]
35:15parties against this backdrop Freud who
35:18was suffering from cancer at the jaw
35:20retreated yet again to the
35:23Alps he wrote a book called civilization
35:26and its discontents
35:28it was a powerful attack on the idea
35:30that civilization was an expression of
35:32human
35:34progress instead Freud argued
35:37civilization had actually been
35:39constructed to control the dangerous
35:41animal forces inside human
35:44beings what was implicit in Freud's
35:47argument was that the ideal of
35:48individual Freedom which was at the
35:50heart of democracy was
35:52impossible human beings could never be
35:55allowed to truly Express themselves
35:57because it was too dangerous they must
36:00always be controlled and would thus
36:03always be
36:08discontent man doesn't want to be
36:11civilized and he is civilization brings
36:16discontent but is necessary to survival
36:20otherwise he couldn't survive so he must
36:23be discontent because this would be the
36:25only way to keep him within
36:28limits but what did Freud think about
36:31the idea of the equality of
36:33man he didn't believe in
36:37it we had 32 parties and Hitler it
36:42before those parties don't vanish there
36:45is no Germany that's true you can't have
36:4832 parties and so they felt this one
36:52person will put an end to
36:55this comedy
36:58Freud was not alone in his pessimism
37:00politicians like Adolf Hitler emerged
37:02from a growing despair in the 1920s
37:04about
37:05democracy the Nazis were convinced that
37:08democracy was dangerous because it
37:09Unleashed a selfish individualism but
37:12didn't have the means to control
37:14it Hitler's party the national
37:16socialists stood in elections promising
37:19in their propaganda that they would
37:21abandon democracy because of the chaos
37:23and unemployment it led to
37:30[Music]
37:44in March 1933 the national socialists
37:47were elected to power in Germany and
37:49they set out to create a society that
37:52would control human beings in a
37:53different
37:55way one of their first Acts was to take
37:57control of business the planning of
38:00production would in future be done by
38:01the state the free market was too
38:04unstable as the crash in America had
38:07proved workers Leisure Time was also
38:10planned by the state through a new
38:11organization called strength through Joy
38:15one of its Motts was service not
38:23self but the Nazis did not see this as a
38:25return to an old form of autog
38:28control it was a new alternative to
38:30democracy in which the feelings and the
38:32desires of the masses would still be
38:35Central but they would be channeled in
38:37such a way as to bind the nation
38:40together the chief exponent of this was
38:42Joseph gerb the minister of propaganda
39:02Geral organized huge rallies whose
39:05function he said was to forge the mind
39:06of the nation into a Unity of thinking
39:09feeling and
39:11desire one of his Inspirations he told
39:13an American journalist was the writings
39:15of Freud's nephew Edward
39:17[Music]
39:19bernes in his work on crowd psychology
39:22Freud had described how the frightening
39:24irrationality inside human beings could
39:26emerge in tou groups the Deep what he
39:29called libidinal forces of Desire are
39:32given up to the leader while the
39:34aggressive instincts are Unleashed on
39:36those outside the group Freud wrote this
39:39as a warning but the Nazis were
39:41deliberately encouraging these forces
39:43because they believed they could master
39:45and control
39:52them
39:53well was saying that nasses
39:57are bound by by liid
40:01forces they love each other and
40:06delegate ideas and things to the chap on
40:12topit what AIT no forces well forces of
40:18love
40:20not ha ha is delicated to the others
40:24outside
40:31[Music]
40:38the
40:43[Music]
40:48up I could see from afar looking up
40:52Willam towards un Lindon how there was
40:56100,000 of people when they passed
41:00Hitler they just became completely
41:03Delirious they began to shout pleas Tes
41:08I will never get out of my ears H
41:12zek
41:14demented and here I got confirmation how
41:19those irrational forces uncontrollable
41:23forces in Germany in the Germans had
41:26erupted
41:27had broken out we're running Riot we're
41:31depart marching marching
41:42[Music]
41:51[Music]
41:52on and in America too democracy was
41:55under threat from the force of the angry
41:59mob the effect of the stock market crash
42:01had been disastrous there was growing
42:04violence as an angry population took out
42:06their frustration on the corporations
42:08who were seen to have caused this
42:11disaster then in 1932 a new president
42:15was elected who was also going to use
42:17the power of the state to control the
42:19free
42:20market but his aim was not to destroy
42:23democracy but to strengthen it and to do
42:26this he was going to develop a new way
42:28of dealing with the
42:30masses I am prepared under my
42:33constitutional duty to recommend the
42:36measures that a stricken nation in the
42:38midst of a stricken world may require
42:41but in the event that the National
42:43Emergency is still critical I shall not
42:47evade the clear course of Duty that will
42:50then confront me I shall ask the
42:53Congress for the one remaining
42:55instrument to meet the crisis
42:58broad executive
43:03[Music]
43:05power it was the start of what would
43:07become known as the New Deal Roosevelt
43:10assembled a group of young technocrats
43:12and planners in
43:14Washington he told them that their job
43:16was to plan and run giant new industrial
43:18projects for the good of the
43:21nation Roosevelt was convinced that the
43:23stock market crash had shown that lacare
43:25capitalism could no no longer run modern
43:28industrial economies it had become the
43:30job of
43:32government big business was horrified
43:35but the New Deal attracted the
43:37admiration of the Nazis especially
43:40Joseph Geral
44:24but although Roosevelt like the Nazis
44:26was trying trying to organize Society in
44:28a different way unlike the Nazis he
44:31believed that human beings were rational
44:33and could be trusted to take an active
44:35part in
44:37government Roosevelt believed it was
44:39possible to explain his policies to
44:41ordinary Americans and take into account
44:43their
44:44opinions to do this he was helped by the
44:46new ideas of an American social
44:48scientist called George
44:51Gallop favorite reading of New Deal
44:54Washington the survey of US public
44:56opinion
44:57from officers at Princeton New Jersey a
44:59Fame statistician Dr George Gallup tells
45:01Washington from week to week what the
45:03nation is
45:06thinking and in New York Fortune
45:08Magazine's analyst Elmo roer compiles
45:10for publication a continuous record of
45:12the nation's approval or disapproval of
45:14how the country is being
45:16run gallop and rer rejected Bern's view
45:19that human beings were at the mercy of
45:21unconscious forces and so needed to be
45:24controlled their system of opinion in
45:27polling was based on the idea that
45:28people could be trusted to know what
45:30they
45:31wanted they argued that one could
45:33measure and predict the opinions and
45:35behavior of the public if one asked
45:37strictly factual questions and avoided
45:40manipulating their
45:44emotions well how about this one do you
45:47think fton D Roosevelt's New Deal has
45:49been bad for the nation in general no
45:52that question is loaded it automatically
45:54suggests an answer well how about this
45:58is your present feeling toward President
46:01Roosevelt one of General approval or
46:03general
46:05disapproval that's
46:07better prior to Scientific polling the
46:10view of of of many people was that um
46:14you couldn't trust public opinion it was
46:16irrational that uh it was Ill informed
46:19chaotic unruly and so forth and and so
46:23that opinion should be dismissed but
46:25with scientific polling
46:27um I think it established very clearly
46:29that people do are rational that they do
46:33make good decisions and this offers
46:35democracy a chance to be truly informed
46:38by the public giving everybody a voice
46:41in the way the country is run I know my
46:44father wouldn't necessarily say the
46:45voice of the public is the voice of God
46:47but he he did feel very much that the
46:49the voice of the of the people is is a
46:51rational voice and should be
46:54heard what Roosevelt was doing was
46:56forging a new connection between the
46:58masses and
47:00politicians no longer were they
47:02irrational consumers who were managed by
47:04sating their desires instead they were
47:06sensible citizens who could take part in
47:08the governing of the
47:10country in 1936 Roosevelt stood for
47:13reelection he promised further control
47:15over big business to the corporations it
47:18was the beginning of a
47:24dictatorship Roosevelt interferes with
47:27private Enterprise and he running the
47:29country into debt for generations to
47:31come the way to get recovery is to let
47:35business alone but Roosevelt was
47:37triumphantly
47:38reelected it looks my friends like a
47:42real Landslide this time so please let
47:47me let me thank you again and tell you
47:50that I hope to see you all very soon and
47:52B you an affectionate good night faced
47:56with this business now decided to fight
47:58back to regain power in
48:01America at the heart of the battle would
48:03be Edward bernes and the profession he
48:05had invented public
48:09relations following that
48:12election business people start to get
48:15together and start to carry on
48:18discussions primarily in private and
48:20they start talking to each other about
48:22the need to sort of carry on U
48:25ideological war Warfare against the New
48:27Deal and to sort of reassert the sort of
48:30connectedness between the idea of
48:33democracy on the one hand and the idea
48:35of privately owned business on the other
48:38and so Under the Umbrella of an
48:40organization which still exists which is
48:43called the National Association of
48:45Manufacturers and whose membership
48:47included all of the major corporations
48:50of the United States a campaign is
48:53launched explicitly designed to create
48:56emotion
48:57attachments between the public and big
49:00business it's Bern's techniques being
49:03used on a grand scale I mean
49:10totally the General Motors parade of
49:13progress traveling the high roads and by
49:16roads of America bringing to millions of
49:19Americans in their own Hometown the
49:21fascinating story behind modern industry
49:25showing act the campaign set up out to
49:27show dramatically that it was business
49:29not politicians who had created modern
49:31America better mode of living for all of
49:36us bernes was an adviser to General
49:39Motors but he was no longer alone the
49:42industry he had founded now flourished
49:44as hundreds of public relations advisers
49:46organized a vast
49:48campaign they not only used
49:50advertisements and billboards but
49:51managed to insinuate their message into
49:53the editorial pages of the newspapers
49:56[Music]
49:59it became a bitter fight in response to
50:01the campaign the government made films
50:03that warned of the unscrupulous
50:05manipulation of the press by big
50:07business and the central villain was the
50:10new figure of the public relations
50:14man they tried to achieve their Ends by
50:17working entirely behind the scenes
50:19corrupting and deceiving the public the
50:22aims of such groups may be either good
50:24or bad so far as the public interest is
50:26concerned learned but their methods are
50:28a grave danger to democratic
50:31institutions the films also showed how
50:34the responsible citizen could monitor
50:35the Press
50:37themselves they could create a chart
50:39that analyzed the reporting for signs of
50:41hidden
50:44bias but such Earnest instruction was to
50:46be no match for the powerful imagination
50:49of Edward
50:51[Music]
50:52[Applause]
50:53bernes he was about to help create a
50:56vision of the Utopia that free market
50:58capitalism would build in America if it
51:01was
51:06unleashed the
51:10rain in 1939 New York hosted the World's
51:14Fair Edward bernes was a central
51:17adviser he insisted that the theme be
51:20the link between democracy and American
51:22Business
51:25[Music]
51:30at the heart of the fair was a giant
51:32white Dome that Bern's named democrac
51:36[Music]
51:38City and the central exhibit was a vast
51:41working model of America's future
51:43constructed by the General Motors
51:45Corporation to my father the World's
51:48Fair was an
51:50opportunity to keep the status quo that
51:54is capitalism
51:56in a democracy democracy and and
51:59capitalism that
52:01marriage right linking like just like
52:05that he did that by manipulating people
52:09and getting them to think that you
52:12couldn't have real democracy in anything
52:15but a capitalist
52:17society which was capable of doing
52:20anything of creating these wonderful
52:23highways of of making
52:27you know moving pictures inside
52:28everybody's house of of telephones that
52:32didn't need cords of sleek roadsters I
52:35mean it was there were it was it was it
52:38was
52:39consumerist but at the same time you
52:42inferred that in a funny way democracy
52:44and capitalism went
52:47together the World's Fair was an
52:49extraordinary success and captured
52:52America's
52:53imagination the vision it portrayed was
52:55of a new form of democracy in which
52:58business responded to people's innermost
53:00Desires in a way politicians could never
53:04do but it was a form of democracy that
53:07depended on treating people not as
53:09active citizens as Roosevelt did but as
53:12passive
53:13consumers because this bernes believed
53:16was the key to control in a mass
53:19democracy it's not that the people are
53:22in charge but that the people's desires
53:24are in charge
53:26the people are not in charge the people
53:28exercise no decision-making power within
53:31this
53:32environment so democracy is reduced from
53:36something which assumes an active
53:38citizenry to the idea of the public as
53:41passive
53:42consumers
53:45oh driven primarily by instinctual or
53:48unconscious desires and that if you can
53:51in fact trigger those needs and desires
53:53you can get what you want from them
53:58but this struggle between the two views
54:00of human beings as to whether they were
54:02rational or irrational was about to be
54:05dramatically affected by events in
54:08Europe events that would also change the
54:10fortunes of the Freud
54:15family in March 1938 the Nazis annexed
54:18Austria it was called the
54:20anus Hitler arrived in Vienna to an
54:23extraordinary outpouring of mass
54:24agulation
54:26but even as he drove through the city
54:28behind the scenes the Nazis were
54:30systematically whipping up and
54:31unleashing the hatred of the crowd
54:34against the enemies of the new greater
54:37Germany the Angelos was a kind of
54:41explosion of terrible hatred against the
54:44enemies so-called enemies or whatever
54:46they considered enemies against the Jews
54:48in in
54:50in totally and also against a lot of
54:55very distan
54:56who had opposed the Nazis in
55:00Austria they said it's legitimate now
55:03you can do what you want so they did it
55:05stealing robbing and killing I can't say
55:07it otherwise and human depravity of
55:10course is
55:12uh always near very near to to to normal
55:16behavior it be it can change very
55:18quickly
55:19[Music]
55:28as the violence and assassinations raged
55:30in Vienna Freud decided he had to leave
55:34his aim was to go to Britain but he knew
55:36that Britain like many countries was
55:38refusing entry to most Jewish
55:42refugees but help came from the leading
55:44psychoanalyst in Britain Ernest Jones he
55:47was in the same Ice Skating Club as the
55:49Home Secretary s Samuel hore and Jones
55:52persuaded hore to issue Freud a British
55:54work permit
55:56[Music]
55:59and in May 1938 Freud his daughter Anna
56:02and other members of his family set off
56:04for
56:04[Music]
56:11London Freud arrived in London as
56:14Britain Was preparing for war and he
56:16settled with his daughter Anna in a
56:18house in
56:20Hamstead but Freud's cancer was now far
56:22Advanced and in September 1939 just 3
56:25weeks after the outbreak of War he
56:33died the second world war would utterly
56:36transform the way governments saw
56:38democracy and the people they
56:42governed next week's program will show
56:44how the American government as a result
56:46of the war became convinced the were
56:49Savage dangerous forces hidden inside
56:51all human beings forces that needed to
56:54be controlled
56:57the terrible evidence from the death
56:59camps seemed to show what happened when
57:01these forces were
57:03Unleashed and politicians and planners
57:05in postwar America would come to believe
57:07that hidden under the surface of their
57:09own population were the same dangerous
57:14forces and they would turn to the Freud
57:16family to help control this enemy
57:25Within ever adaptable Edward bernes
57:28would work not just for the American
57:29government but the
57:33CIA and Sigman Freud's daughter Anna
57:36would also become powerful in the United
57:38States because she believed that people
57:40could be taught to control the
57:42irrational forces within
57:44them out of this would come vast
57:47government programs to manage the inner
57:49psychological life of the masses
58:06[Music]