Sunday sermon: mind manipulation

There's a 4 hour long BBC documentary called "Century of the Self" about Edward Bernays on YouTube. This work has totally changed my perspective on the media and advertising. Both scary and enraging at the same time.

The intro of the fourth part starts:

 "This is the story of the rise of an idea that has come to dominate our society. It is the belief that the satisfaction of individual feelings and desires is our highest priority. Politicians on the left in America and Brittain turned to these discovered techniques to regain power. They believed that they were creating a better form of democracy. But, what the politicians didn't realize was that the aim of those who had created these techniques had not been to liberate the people, but to develop a new way of controlling them in an age of mass democracy."

The detailed examination of the history of Edward Bernays is quite fascinating. If you find this interesting I encourage you to watch from part 1.

Cheers, -sam