The film “The Century of The Self- A Summary, Critique, and Practical Lessons” explains the world in the way that it is today and how human nature shaped it in the past century. Sigmund Freud believed that humans are irrational and are governed by their subconscious fears and desires. From Freud’s theory and ideology his nephew, Edward Bernays expressed this technique by the story of getting American women to smoke. Which is not something they did during this time. A big realization that Bernays came across was that what people needed was very different from what they wanted. It was interesting to find out from Bernays that he helped build a system that people are not active participants, but are passive consumers. That people are not in charge, their irrational desires are.
Something else that I thought was interesting during this film was Abraham Maslow and his pyramid of needs. These needs provide others a basis for business to guide them through our society and into groups that have their own desires so that they can relate and express themselves. As the film went on the hippie movement caught my eye. The way that this movement started as a rebellion against the state and the big businesses that were aimed at self expression and self actualization. Here is where business turned into a threat into the biggest opportunity in history. This turned into the new individualistic society, which really then was no society. Rather it being all about the individual and satisfying that individuals desires.
Overall, I found that this film was very useful tool as a way that people view the world that we all live in and putting pieces together. Some of these theories I don’t necessarily agree that they played such a detrimental role in shaping our world. A few theories could be seen as techniques and other motives to an end goal.
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