Edward Bernays - The Man Who Conquered the Normie Mind (Part One)
Reaching blue-pilled friends and family can feel impossible, yet by relying solely on logic, we neglect the far stronger emotional bonds which keep them wedded to the official narrative.
It was a scene played out innumerable times across the country: a mother clearing away the remnants of the turkey as her husband curses the football players on his TV screen. An elderly relative doses in their armchair. A couple of little ones squabble over their new toys amid a carpet of discarded wrapping paper. Perhaps some jackass uncle insists on playing his selection of Christmas hits, while the black sheep of the family – that would be you, dear reader – remains in their neglected corner, speaking only to confirm they want a drinks refill or to forlornly reiterate the absurdity of the most recent CDC guidelines.
Of course, this kind of familial friction is hardly limited to Christmas, nor even to Covid. Over the course of the last ten years, visits home for Thanksgiving or to celebrate Independence Day have all too often been accompanied by the discovery that another college-aged cousin has succumbed to leftist indoctrination, or that a once favorite aunt is trying out gender-neutral parenting, and so, hoping to steel myself for the upcoming merriment, I spent the days leading up to it re-watching The Century of the Self, a 2002 British documentary by Adam Curtis.
Now, under most circumstances, I would never watch, much less recommend, anything by the BBC. It’s not just the fact they are an establishment mouthpiece. Neither is it their abysmal journalistic practices. Hell, even if it wasn’t for their decades of institutionalized pedophilia, I’d still avoid them purely on the basis they used to employ John fucking Sweeney, however, on this occasion, I feel The Century of the Self merits an exception.
Focusing on the work of Edward Bernays, an American business consultant and nephew of Sigmund Freud, the film shows how “The Father of Public Relations” used his more famous uncle’s theories to help corporations and ultimately governments direct the will of the population by tapping into their deepest, most unconscious desires.
And let me tell you, in 2021, the implications are nothing short of seismic.
The first episode in the four episode series is entitled “Happiness Machines”, a term which comes from a 1928 address by President Hoover to a group of publicists and advertisers.
“You have taken over the job of creating desire and have transformed people into constantly moving happiness machines, machines which have become the key to economic progress…. By advertising and other promotional devices…we have a boundless field before us; that there are new wants which will make way endlessly for newer wants, as fast as they are satisfied.”
This statement is a remarkable one for Bernays, not least in that he was arguably the most influential figure in industry. Cynical about human nature and resoundingly dismissive of the capacity of the masses to rationally govern themselves, Hoover’s statement would no doubt have been music to the ears of a ruthlessly ambitious Bernays and yet, it is much earlier, back when when he was working in the comparatively modest and entirely apolitical role of a press agent, that The Century of the Self chooses to pick up his story.
