Sociological aspects of the documentary “The Century of the Self”



Sociological aspects of the documentary “The Century of the Self”

Introduction

Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, changed the perception of the human mind and its workings profoundly. The documentary describes the impact of Freud's theories on the perception of the human mind, and the ways public relations agencies and politicians have used this during the last 100 years for their engineering of consent(Aldridge, 2012).

The last thing that fish would ever notice in its habitat is the water. Likewise the most obvious and powerful realities of our human culture seemed also be the most unrecognized.

And it is only when we take pause, often at the risk of social alienation, to question the foundational principles and ideas to which our lives are oriented, a dark truth about our supposed “normality” becomes more clear.

Today we live in an ocean with enormous waves of status obsession, materialism, vanity, ego and consumerism(Lunt, 2011). Our very lives had become defined not by our productive thoughts, social contributions and good will, but by superficial, delusional set of associations with the very fabric of our society that now radiates cheap romanticism, connected to vain competition, conspicuous consumption and neurotic addictions often related to physical beauty, status and superficial wealth.

In effect it is social conformity masquerading as individualism, with the virtues of balance, intelligence, peace, public health and true creativity left to rot on the sidelines. The cultural water we inhabit today runs deep with heavy pollution. It starts in our formative years when to be smart and achieving is to be a nerd or a geek.

Thesis Statement

This documentary is about how those in power have used Freud's theories to try and control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy.

Critical Analysis

Shifting societal norms regarding food, housing, and transportation can affect great change. To promote degrowth, governments can help normalize living in smaller homes, leading walkable lifestyles, and eating less food as well as food that is less processed and lower on the food chain(Featherstone, 2012). Communities can also facilitate degrowth and increase their resilience by cultivating opportunities for localized formal and informal economic activities, such as small-scale farming, child and elder care, midwifery, and helping to develop essential skills like repair and carpentry.

If everyone lived like the average American, according to the Global Footprint Network, the Earth could sustain only 1.7 billion people—a quarter of today's population—without undermining the planet's physical and biological systems. Overconsumption in industrialized societies and among developing world elites causes lasting environmental and human impacts.

In essence, Century of Self effectively encapsulates the evolution of how for-profit interests evolved in this area over the 20th century, and how politicians adopted these standards of marketing. Obama's 2008 campaign serves as a perfect example of this, and his campaign won Advertising Age's 2008 Marketer of the Year Award, beating out Apple(Douglas, 2011).

The other major notion of so-called "common wisdom" that Century of Self effectively disembowels is the notion of "individuality". I put that in quotations because it ...