Regruntled.com

The BBC has a 4-part documentary that explores the relationships between psychoanalysis, consumerism and politics. Links to the individual episodes are at Daily Kos. A couple of tidbits:

•   Edward Bernays, who practically invented the profession of public relations after WWI, was Freud’s nephew.

• Focus groups in marketing use techniques from psychoanalysis to get at subconscious motivations.

The documentary shows how the changes in psychoanalytic fashion eventually led to changes in our conception of the self, and to changes in marketing. For example, Freud thought that subconscious drives were dangerous and had to be repressed, while Wilhelm Reich, the anti-Freud, thought that repression was a bigger problem than the subconscious. The Freudian view led to the conformity of the Fifties, while the Reichian view led to the rebellion of the Sixties and the self-expression of the Seventies. Throughout, the message of business has been that the way to conform or rebel is to purchase consumer products.

The documentary explains how modern political campaigns work. The candidates use polls and focus groups to determine the conscious and subconscious motivations of the swing voters, and then tailor the messages accordingly. Campaigning equals marketing and voting equals consumption of symbolic messages..