Intro
I recently discovered “The Century of Self” (2002) documentary, which covers the life and career of Edward Bernays 1. Bernays was a social engineer and developed techniques to persuade groups of people. His techniques are often used in advertising, and over the last 100 years, have been used for political persuasion of the masses. The methods he used can be summerised as “appeal to emotions”. The documentary often puts his methods in a poor light, and hints at a sinister side by comparing Bernays to his contemporaries, such as the Nazi party.
Similar Films
The content covered is linked to ideas put forward by Noam Chomsky. Chomsky mostly grapples with the motives and methods that large institutions (e.g. governments, and corporations) spread information and persuade the masses by controlling the flow of information within a society. I would recommend watching Manufacting Consent (1992)2, or even reading the book of the same title.3
A similar movie to Century of the Self, but a different genre, was “Brexit: The Uncivil War” (2019). Brexit (2019) is a biopic of “Dominic Cummings, the campaign director for the Brexit-supporting group”4 In this film, Cummings uses appeal to emotion to influence British voters to support the Leave vote. On top of this, Cummings also used technological methods in order to reach groups of people who were not often voters, and he harnessed online advertising to send information to a targeted audience. So the film stands as a reminder of the techniques being used to influence the public, and also how those techniques are becoming amplified via technological means (e.g. the Internet).
The opposition campaign in the film was portrayed as using out-dated methods such as using focus groups, and using facts and figures to persuade the public. Ultimately, the film is a tragedy and we see find that the Leave vote wins out (as it does in real life)5.
The Legacy of Edward Bernays
There is a lot more going on in human decision making, … more importantly for groups, than this idea that information drives behaviour. And so Eddy began to formulate this idea, … that would play to people’s irrational emotions. And so you see that moved Eddy immediately into a different category from other people in his field, and most government officials and managers of the day, who thought that if you just hit people with all this factual information they would look at that and say “Oh, of course!” And Eddy knew that was not the way the world worked.
- Pat Jackson
Many of the events show some of the tactics used to advertise to large groups of people. In one case Bernays was able to develop a campaign for persuading women to smoke in public. He tied the idea of smoking to freedom, and the women’s movement at the time. By labelling cigarettes as “Torches of Freedom”, he was able to harness a soundbite phrase which could be spread in the media.
Much of advertising around the 1920s and 30s was to show functionality of consumer goods. Bernays supported the practice of linking products to feelings, and to appeal to emotion around products. This was important because it drove a consumer market of desire, rather than the historic market of need. This helped in driving economic growth at the time.
In the late 1930s, under the President Roosevelt, there was a stronger communication between the US public and government. This is refered to as the New Deal. Under this New Deal, businesses from various sectors were more regulated. Roosevelt used public polling methods developed by Gallup in order to better understand the desires of the public. Roosevelt assumed the public was rational (at least in part) and that it could be worked with in order to develop a stable society. However, many businesses fought back against regulation by contracting Bernays, and instilling the idea that laissez-faire was desirable.
By the 1950s, psychoanalysis was being used for corporate goals. Ernest Dichter invented the idea of the focus group, interviewing a group of individuals regarding a specific idea or product. The method was usually open conversations which would allow a broad range of feedback from the group.
The documentary goes on to trace the how the practices used by Bernays eventually lead to how political parties influence swing voters, and hold power. In the case of President Clinton staying in power, it was claimed that he focused on swing voter opinion and desires, rather than the tradtional values that his party clung on to. I can understand why political parties would resort to such tactics in order to remain in power. I think it is unfortunate that a side effect of such political pandering leads to some short sighted policies.
Conclusion
While the documentary is 20 years old, it presents a historically relevent view of social engineering. I believe the rise of social engineering and its effects are integral to understand modern business and political systems. How these systems harness technological advancements is not discussed at length. However, it is clear that it has amplified and accelerated the reach of social engineers that assist business and political structures. It may be time for another documentary that provides an overview while including modern social engineering techiques.