The Century of the Self - 02 - The Engineering of Consent

This episode explores how Sigmund Freud's ideas about the unconscious mind were used by those in power in post-war America to control the masses. It focuses on the efforts of Freud's daughter Anna and his nephew Edward Bernays, who invented the profession of public relations. Their techniques were adopted by the US government, big business, and the CIA to manage and control the minds of the American people, aiming to create a stable society by repressing the irrational forces within humans.