(excerpts)
This series is how those in power have used Freud’s theories to try to control the “dangerous crowd” in an age of mass democracy. At the heart of the story is not Sigmund Freud, but other members of his family.
This episode is about Freud’s American nephew, Edward Bernays. Bernays is almost completely unknown today, but his influence is nearly as great as his uncle’s- because Bernays was the first person to use Freud’s ideas to manipulate the masses.
Freud’s idea that hidden inside all human beings were dangerous instinctual drives. Freud devised a method he called psychoanalysis; By analysing dreams and free association he had unearthed, he said, powerful forces which were remnants of our animal past. Feelings that were repressed because they were too dangerous.
During World War One, Freud’s nephew Barnays was working as a press agent in America. His main client was the famous Caruso, who was touring the USA. Bernays parents moved to America twenty years ago. But he kept contact with his uncle and joined him on holidays in the Alps.
As a part of the war effort the USA gov set up a committee on public information. Bernays was employed to promote American war efforts in the press. At the end of the war, he was asked to join the Paris Peace Conference. Wilson’s reception in Paris astounded Bernays and the other American propagandists. Their propaganda had portrayed Wilson as a liberator of the people. A man who had created a new world in which the individual would be free. They have made him a hero of the masses. As the crowd surged around Wilson, Bernays wondered if it would be possible to create the same type of mass persuasion, but in peacetime.
BARNAYS SPEAKING >>When I came back to the US, I decided that if you could use propaganda for war, you could certainly use it for peace. And propaganda got to be a bad word, because the Germans used it. So what I did was to try to find some other word, so we found council of “public relations”
Bernays when returned settled as a public relations council in a small office in New York. It was the first time the term had ever been used. Since the end of the 19th century, America had become a mass industrialised society, with millions of people plastered together in the cities. Bernays was determined to find a way to manage and later the way these new crowds talked and acted. To do this, he turned to the writings of his uncle. Once in Paris, he has given him a package of Havana cigars. Freud, in return, has given him a copy of his general introduction to psychoanalysis. Bernays read it and the picture of the inner “irrational” forces fascinated him. He wondered if he might make money, by manipulating “the unconscious.”
>>>If we ever gotanything from Freud, it was that there was a lot more going on in decision making than what appears on the surface, consciously. Not only in the individual, but also among the groups. In contrast, the government officials thought, if you could just hit the people with the correct information, they would understand and change their ways. But it was not the way the world worked!
Barnays started to experiment with the attitudes of the “popular classes.” His most dramatic experiment was to persuade women to smoke. At that time, there was a taboo against smoking of women in public, and one of his early clients, George hill, the president of the American Tobacco Corporation, asked Barnays to find a way of breaking it.
BARNAYS SPEAKING: He asked, can you do something? I said, I’ll think about that. And then I said, with your permission I will go to a psychoanalyst, to find out what cigarettes mean to women. He said, well, of course. So I called up Dr Brill, who was a leading psychoanalyst in new York at that time,
Why didn’t you call your uncle?
BARNAYS: Because he was in Vienna.
A.A. Brill was one of the first psychoanalysts in America, and for a large fee, he told Barnays those cigarettes were a symbol of the penis. And of male sexual power. He told Barnays, if he could find a way to connect cigarettes to the idea of challenging male power, then women would smoke.
Every year, New York held a parade, to which thousands came. Barnays decided to stage an event there. He persuaded a group of provincial debutantes to hide cigarettes under their clothes Then they should join the parade, and at a given signal from him, they would light up the cigarettes dramatically. Barnays then informed the press that he heard that a group of women’s rights activists suffragettes were preparing to protest by lighting up what they called “torches of freedom”.
>>He knew this would be an outcry outrage, and he knew that all of the photographers would be there to capture this moment. And so, he was ready. So here you had a symbol – women, young women debutantes – smoking a cigarette in public. Meaning that anybody who agrees with them in this fight for equality has to support them in the debate about this. Because of “torches of freedom” I mean, what’s all this point of America? It’s “Liberty”. She’s holding up the Torch. So you see, there is emotion, there is memory, …and so, the next day, (this was not just all of the New York, it was reported in the papers all across the United States. And around the world. And from that point forward, the sale of cigarettes to women began to rise. He made them socially acceptable, almost completely with a single symbolic act.
What Bernays created was the idea that if a woman smoked it made her more powerful and independent. An idea that still persists today.
You could make people behave irrationally if you could link products to their emotional inner desires and feelings.
This meant that the relevant objects industrial products, could become powerful emotional symbols of how you wanted to be seen by others.
>> Eddie Bernays saw that the way to sell a product was not to sell it to the intellect, that you “ought” to buy an automobile, but that “you would feel better” if you had this automobile. I think he originated that idea – that you weren’t just purchasing something, but you were engaging yourself emotionally and personally. It’s not that you think you need a new piece of clothing, but you’ll “feel better” with that piece of clothing. That was his contribution in a very real sense. We see it all over the place today, but I think he originated it – the idea of the emotional connect to a product or service.
What Barnays was doing fascinated America’s corporations. They came out of the war rich and powerful. But they had a growing worry. The system of mass production had flourished during the war, and now millions of goods were pouring off production lines. What they were frightened of, was the danger of overproduction. That there would come a point when people had enough goods and would simply stop buying.
Up until that point, the majority of products was still sold to the masses on the basis of Need. Although the rich had been used to luxury goods, for the millions of working class Americans most products were still advertised as necessities. Goods like shoes, stockings, even cars, were promoted in functional terms, for their durability for example. The aim of the advertisements was simply to show people the products practical virtues. Nothing more.
One Wall-Street banker was clear about what was necessary: “We must shift America from a Needs-culture to a Desires-culture. People must be trained to desire, to want new things even before the old could be entirely consumed. We must shape a new-mentality America. Men’s desires must overshadow his needs.”
>>Prior to that time, there was no American consumerism, and the man who became the centre of that changing of mentality, was Edward Bernays.
>>Bernays really was the god within the US, more than anybody else… of how we are going to appeal to the masses.
Bernays created many of the techniques of mass consumer persuasion that we now live with. He was employed by William Randolph Herst to promote his new women’s magazines. Barnays glamourised them by placing articles in advertisements that link the products of his clients to famous film stars, Barnays also started to practice a product placement in the movies. With products of other groups he represented, he dressed the film stars for public occasions. He claimed he was the first person to tell car companies they could sell cars as symbols of male sexuality. He employed psychologists to issue reports that said: “this product is good for you”, and then pretended they were “independent studies”. He organised fashion shows in department stores, and paid celebrities to repeat messages: like, - We bought things not just for need, but to express our inner sense of our self to others.
A WOMAN AVIATOR speaking: “There is a psychology of dress, have you thought about it? How can you express your character, You all have interesting characters, but some of them are all hidden. I wonder why you all dress all the same, with the same hats, and the same coats, I’m sure you all of you are interesting and have wonderful things about you, but looking at you on the street, you all look so much the same. And that’s why I am talking to you about the psychology of dress. Try and express your selves, better, in your dress!” (music starts)
-I’d like to ask you a question: Why do you like your skirts?
-Oh, because there is more to see!
-What good does it do to you?
-It makes me more attractive!
In 1927 an American journalist wrote: “A change ahs come over our democracy. It is called consumptionism. The American’s most important role in his country now, is not that of citizen, but that of consumer. “
He great wave of consumerism, in turn, helped create a stock-market boom. And Barnays again became involved, promoting the idea that ordinary people should buy shares – borrowing money from banks he also represented.
And yet again, millions followed his advice.
He was uniquely knowledgeable about how people in large numbers are gonna react. But in political terms, if he would come out on a street he couldn’t gather three people. He wasn’t particularly articulate, was a kind of funny looking, and didn’t have any sense of reaching out to people. None at all. He didn’t think about people in terms of one, only in thousands and millions.
In 1924 the President called him. President Coolidge was a quiet taciturn man, and he had become a national joke. The press portrayed him as a dull figure…Barnays persuaded 34 famous film stars to come over to visit the White House. And for the first time, politics became involved with public relations.
>>They say, every newspaper in the United States had a front-page story President Coolidge had attained actors at the White House. And The Times had a headline which said, “President Nearly Laughed”. And everybody was happy.
Journalist Marvin Olaski - not from this documentary film but in an article from last year:
<<...22 years ago I interviewed a remarkable fellow, Edward Bernays (1891-1995), nephew of Sigmund Freud and founder as a young man of modern public relations. Bernays was 93 when we talked and full of memories of famous clients ranging from tobacco industry poobahs (he convinced women to embrace smoking as an expression of their liberation) to Eleanor Roosevelt. Their photos decorated the walls of his house near Harvard.
Bernays said he had no belief in God but a strong faith in what he had declared openly six decades before: "The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country."
He proudly considered himself one of "the relatively small number of persons ... who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses." He was proud to "pull the wires which control the public mind" so that "vast numbers of human beings ... live together as a smoothly functioning society." The politically-liberal Bernays considered himself, even as he tried to make millions of people his puppets, a defender of democracy: If he didn't act as he did, the dark night of fascism would descend on America. >
While Barnays was becoming rich and powerful in America, in Vienna his uncle was facing a disaster. Massive inflation wiped out all of Freud’s savings. Facing bankruptcy, he wrote to his nephew for help. Bernays responded by arranging for Freud’s works to be published for the first time in America, and began to send dollars which Freud kept secretly in a foreign bank account.
>> He was Freud’s agent, if you will, in getting his books published. Of course, once they got published, Barnays couldn’t help but - promote these books! See that everybody’s around them! Make them – “controversial”! Certainly academics weren’t spreading Freud’s things. … Then, when Freud became accepted, it was easy. But first, Eddie Barnays 1) created “Uncle Sigmund” in the US 2) Made him acceptable, and then, 3) capitalised financially on it. Typical Barnays…
Barnays also suggested that Freud promote himself in the US. He proposed his uncle to write an article for “The Cosmopolitan”, a magazine that Barnays happened to represent, entitled “A Woman’s Mental Place in the Home”.
Freud was furious. Such an idea, he said, was unthinkable; it was vulgar. And, anyway, he hated America.
Barnays later became one of the essential figures in the business circle that dominated American society and politics in the 1920’s. He also became extremely rich and lived in one of the most expensive hotels, where he would arrange frequent parties. The mayor would come, the political leaders, the business leaders, the people from arts, people who wanted to know Eddie Barnays. Because he himself became a sort of a famous man, a sort of a magician, who could make these things “happen.”
BARNAYS’ DAUGHTER: He knows everybody, he knows the mayor, he knows the senator, he calls politicians on telephone, as if he got literally a “high” on them. And that’s fine. But it can be a little hard on the people who are around you. Especially if you make other people feel stupid. People who worked for him were stupid, children were stupid. If people did things in a way he wouldn’t have chosen, they were stupid; It was a word he used over and over and over.
Interviewer: And the masses?
Barnay’s daughter: They were stupid!
EPISODE 2
(EXCERPT)
In Germany the rational went wild [...] The elites were terrified that Americans were capable of behaving that way. So, what is needed is a human being that can internalise democratic values so that they are not shaking…
Psychoanalysis promised it can be done; opened new vistas as to how man’s inner structure can be changed so that he becomes more vital free supporter and maintainer of democracy.
In the 1950’s politicians were about to turn to Ed Barnays for help in a “time of crisis” He was going to manipulate the inner feelings and fears of the masses. To help America’s politicians fight the cold war.
Barnays argued that instead of reducing people’s fear of communism, one should actually encourage and manipulate it, in such a way that it would become a weapon in the cold war. Rational argument was fruitless.
>>What my father understood about groups is that they are manipulable malleable, and that you can tap into their deepest desires and their deepest fears and use that to your won purposes. I don’t think he thought that all those out there had a reliable judgement. He thought they might easily vote for the wrong man, or want the wrong thing, so they had to be guided from above.
One of Barnays' main clients was United Fruit Company. They had vast banana plantations in Guatemala. For decades, United Fruit controlled the country through plywood dictators. It was known as a banana republic.
But in 1950, a young officer, called Colonel Arbenz, was elected president. He promised to remove the United Fruits control over the country. And in the 1953, he announced that the government would take over much of their land. It was a massively popular move, but a disaster for the United Fruit. And they turned to Barnays to help get rid of Arbenz. What barnays knew need to be done is to change the image from a popular elected government that did some things that were good for the people there, into this being “red scare”. And barnays brilliantly transformed this into an issue of “a communist threat very close to our shores”. Taking United Fruit problem out of the picture, and making it look like a question of American democracy, and values being threatened.
In reality, Arbenz was a democratic socialist with no links to Moscow. But Barnays set out to turn him into a communist threat to America. He organised a trip to Guatemala for influential American journalists who did not know anything about the country or its politics. Barnays arranged for them to be entertained, and to meet selected Guatemalan politicians who told them that Arbenz was a communist controlled by Moscow. During the trip, there was also a violent anti-American demonstration in the capital. Many of those who worked for the United Fruit were convinced it was organised by barnays himself. He also created a fake independent news agency in America called the Middle American Information Bureau. It bombarded the American media with press releases saying Moscow was planning to use Guatemala as a beach hub to invade America.
All of this had the desired effect.
TV news from the period: “in Guatemala, the Arbenz regime became increasingly communistic after its inauguration in 1951. Communists in the congress and high government’s… oppositions formed propaganda facilities… agitated for murder… demonstrations against neighbouring countries, and the United States.”
What barnays was doing was not just trying to blacken the Arbenz government. He was part of a secret plot. President Eisenhower had agreed that America should topple the Arbenz government. The CIA were instructed to organise a coup. They found and trained a new army, and found a new leader for the country, (another colonel). The CIA agent in charge was – one of the later Watergate burglars.
As planes driven by American pilots dropped bombs on Guatemalan city, Edward barnays carried on his propaganda campaign. He was preparing the American nation to see this as a liberation of Guatemala by freedom fighters for democracy.
“He totally understood that the coup was made possible to happen when he created the conditions for that. He was totally savvy in terms of what he was helping to create there. Ultimately, he was reshaping reality, reshaping pubic opinion that was undemocratic and manipulative. “
On June 1954, Arbenz fled the country. "Operation Success" had a deadly aftermath. After a small insurgency developed in the wake of the coup, Guatemala's military leaders developed and refined, with U.S. assistance, a massive counterinsurgency campaign that left tens of thousands massacred, maimed or missing.
Within months, vice-president Nixon visited Guatemala. In an event, staged by the United Fruits PR department, he was shown piles of Marxist literature, that had been found, they said, in the presidential palace.
TV commercial: “That was for dinner, and now bananas for desert - Banana Gingerbread Shortcake - just another of the many tempting ways in which this nutritious fruit can be prepared. Now that you’ve seen where bananas come from, before they reach your table, our journey to Banana Land has ended.”
Awards
Best Documentary Series, Broadcast Awards
Historical Film Of The Year, Longman-History Today Awards
Nominated for:
Best Documentary Series, Royal Television Society
Best Documentary, Indie Awards
Best Documentary Series, Grierson Documentary Awards
-------------------
From the Wikipedia entry on Bernays:
In his autobiography, titled Biography of an Idea, Bernays recalls a dinner at his home in 1933 where
"Karl von Weigand, foreign correspondent of the Hearst newspapers, an old hand at interpreting Europe and just returned from Germany, was telling us about Goebbels and his propaganda plans to consolidate Nazi power. Goebbels had shown Weigand his propaganda library, the best Weigand had ever seen. Goebbels, said Weigand, was using my book Crystallizing Public Opinion as a basis for his destructive campaign against the Jews of Germany. This shocked me. ... Obviously the attack on the Jews of Germany was no emotional outburst of the Nazis, but a deliberate, planned campaign."
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