The Century of Manipulation

I recently watched the documentary The Century of the Self by Adam Curtis. The documentary shows how those have used Freud's work and adapted it in an attempt to control the masses of people in our society.
While watching this highly interesting and in-depth documentary one portion really stood out to me which I would like to give a little more focus on. In the first part of the film Freud's nephew Edward Bernays, also known as the creator of public relations, is shown to be the first to use Freud's work to influence the art of manipulation. Bernays came to the idea of public relations while in Europe looking at how propaganda had glorified an individual during war and wanted to achieve this in time of peace.
Bernays' early experiments included creating a want for women to smoke which at the time was very taboo. He went to the aid of A. A. Brill, a psychoanalyst, told him that if he could turn smoking into a way of challenging male power concerning cigarettes. He coined it the torches of freedom which showed women smoking in public. This exciting peace of work done by Bernays using the help of psychoanalysis made it socially acceptable for women to smoke.
The first part of the film brings more of a focus to the change that took place and the few beginnings while the latter parts support the purpose of the documentary. Bernays truly helped changed America from a needs society to a desire driven society.
This was only within the first twenty minutes of the film and it continues to get better and better throughout the film. If you would like to check out the film the first link will bring you to a website to watch the documentary for free. We truly live in a century of manipulation and it is a fascinating subject.