The Century of the Self: 4 of 4

8 People Sipping Wine in Kettering

Episode 4 – the final episode of this brilliant series – looks at how those in political power have used Freud’s theories as a means of controlling the masses. Earlier episodes looked at how big business used Freud’s theories to sell. Paradoxically, by appealing to a sense of individualism, businesses were able to sell larger volumes of their products to more and more people. Through the use of quasi-psychological techniques such as the focus group, marketers learned more about consumers’ irrational needs and desires, and how to target them in their messages.

In the late 20th Century, politicians began employing the same techniques to appeal to the desires of the individual. By using focus groups composed of small gatherings of swing voters, John Major in the UK and then Bill Clinton in the US both used focus groups to inform their main electoral messages, and ultimately get elected. In this manner, politics became less like ideology, and more like a la carte consumerism, with politicians first learning what the voters want, and then setting their policies accordingly. Obviously, this begs the question, shouldn’t politics be more than that? Awesome stuff.