At the same time [as the CIA’s mind-control experiments], an onslaught was launched on the way psychoanalysis was being used by business to control people. The first blow came with the best seller The Hidden Persuaders, written by Vance Packard. It accused psychoanalysts of reducing the American people to emotional puppets whose only function was to keep the mass-production lines running. ibid.
But the Freuds were about to be toppled from power by opponents who said they were wrong about human nature. The inner self did not need to be repressed and controlled, it should be encouraged to express itself. Out of this would come a new type of strong human being and a better society. But what in fact emerged from this revolution was the very opposite: an isolated, vulnerable and above all greedy self, far more open to manipulation by both business and politics than anything that had gone before. Adam Curtis, The Century of the Self III: There is a Policeman Inside All Our Heads
In the 1950s a small group of renegade psychoanalysts began a new form of psychotherapy. They worked in small rooms in New York City and encouraged their patients to express their feelings openly. It was a direct attack on the ideas of the Freudian psychoanalysts who had become rich and powerful teaching Americans how to control their feelings. ibid.
Freud argued that at heart human beings were still driven by primitive animal instincts. The job of society was to repress and control these dangerous forces. ibid.
By the late ’50s psychoanalysis had become deeply involved in driving consumerism in America. Most advertising companies employed psychoanalysts … They had created new ways to understand consumers’ motives above all with the focus group. ibid.
But in the early ’60s a new generation emerged who attacked this. They accused American business of using psychological techniques to manipulate people’s feelings and turn them into ideal consumers. ibid.
Consumerism was not just a way of making money, it had become the means of keeping the masses docile, which allowing the government to pursue a violent and illegal war in Vietnam. ibid.
But the American state fought back violently … a phase of ruthless oppression of the new left. ibid.
And to produce the new self they turned to the ideas and techniques of Wilhelm Reich. ibid.
By the late ’60s the idea of self-exploration was spreading radically in America. ibid.
But while the new beings felt liberated, they had become increasingly dependent for their identity on business. ibid.
This rise of the self was fostered and promoted by business. They had used the ideas of Sigmund Freud to develop techniques to read the inner desires of individuals and then fulfil them with products. Adam Curtis, The Century of the Self IV: Eight People Sipping Wine in Kettering
Politicians on the left in both America and Britain turned to these techniques to regain power. ibid.
Many of Bernays’ clients were large American corporations and he was the first person to show them how they could sell many more products if they linked them to images and symbols, to those unconscious desires Freud had identified. ibid.
By the late ’80s Mrs Thatcher and her allies in advertising and media had brought the ideas of the individual to the centre of society. ibid.
Those running Labour’s campaign believed that by modern presentation they would attract back the voters yet keep the old policies. ibid.
John Major’s victory in 1992 was a disaster for the Labour Party. A small group of reformers centred around Peter Mandelson and Philip Gould were convinced that the only way for the party to survive was to change its basic policies. But their ideas were rejected by John Smith who had become leader. ibid.
But the Democrats’ optimism was to be short-lived. In November 1992 Clinton was triumphantly elected president. But within weeks his administration discovered that the budget deficit was far greater than they had anticipated. At a meeting at the White House in January 1993 the head of the Federal Reserve told them that the deficit was nearly $300 billion. There was no way they could borrow any more without panicking the markets and causing a crisis. The only way to pay for the proposed tax cuts would be to cut government spending not just on defence but on welfare. Clinton was faced with a choice between the old politics and the new, and he chose the new. ibid.
In August 1996 Clinton signed a bill which ended the system of guaranteed help for the poor and unemployed. ibid.
In 1994 Tony Blair had become the leader of the Labour Party. And the reforming group centred around Peter Mandelson became all powerful. Almost every night Philip Gould ran focus groups with swing voters in the suburbs. ibid.
Privately, Bernays did not believe true democracy would ever work … Consumerism was a way of giving people the illusion of control while allowing a responsible elite to continue managing society. ibid.
New Labour are faced with a dilemma. The system of consumer democracy that they have embraced has trapped them into a series of short-term and often contradictory policies. ibid.
We like the politicians have become the slaves of our own desires. We have forgotten that we can be more than that. That there are other sides to human nature. ibid.
In Los Angeles I was traversing a battleground over consent. The vast and lucrative industry of adult film has been transformed by social media with a new generation of performers making fortunes of their own online, and using their new power to call out alleged predatory behaviour. And the old guard is pushing back at what they see is trial by Twitter. Louis Theroux’s Forbidden America: Porn’s Me Too, BBC 2022
The extraordinary trial captivating America … Who is the victim in the Anna Stubblefield Case? … the activist professor who sacrificed her family, career and eventually her freedom. Tell Them You Love Me, newspaper headlines & article, Sky Documentaries 2024
I don’t mind people knowing because I’m not guilty of the crime. ibid. Anna
I’m in love with the man [DMAN, disabled with facilitated communication] … He typed, I know. I love you too … He said, So now what? ibid.
I stumbled on the Frontline documentary on FC. ibid. DMan’s brother
Facilitators were doing this thinking that they were giving people the ability to communicate. ibid. critic of FC
I have seen facilitated communication absolutely work. ibid. disabled academic
The crimes being investigated are crimes of a sexual assault nature. ibid. rozzer
Dear Professor Stubblefield, I am hereby notifying you that the University has reason to believe that you may have committed a very serious criminal offense, constituting an act or acts of moral turpitude … ibid. letter