The Century of the Self: Happiness Machines

JUN 20 2016

The first part of Adam Curtis's BBC series, on Edward Bernays applying his uncle Sigmund Freud's ideas to selling goods and managing opinion in 1920s America. It documents the shift from arguing that a product is useful to attaching it to a desire or an identity, the move that created public relations as a profession. Curtis's own thesis is strongly argued and should be watched as an interpretation, not a neutral chronicle.