Century of the Self and Simulacrum

In my last entry I discussed how Adam Curtis' observations in his insightful documentary series Century of the Self could be used to interpret political situations throughout the 2010's in America, and how a world was created where the average person's priorities were misdirected based on irrational, unconscious emotions centred around consumerism.  This world is promoted and reiterated by Big Media to maintain a passive population.  As it turns out, the basis of these theories are based on classic theory of social analysis, deep thinker and sociologist turned philosopher Jean Baudrillard.  Writing on the relationship between people and objects in the late 60's, consumerism in 1970 and politics and culture throughout the rest of his career, Baudrillard's most famous work was a book in 1981, Simulations and Simulacra, writings that served as inspiration for the Matrix movies.

Humans relationships to objects have changed as the roles and functions of objects have evolved alongside us, serving as limbs, sensory objects, or changing how we in turn interact with a third object.  Objects originally bought for a primary function begin to serve a secondary function, and suddenly the secondary qualities becomes the object's primary purpose.  Baudrillard uses the example of a refrigerator, where all old fridges used to be white, once they introduced fridges in different colors, suddenly you must select a fridge based on the color scheme of the rest of the kitchen.  The fridge becomes an accessory to the kitchen's ensemble, and by proximity becomes a statement made by the people who live there.  A person can express themselves by the arrangement and relative colors mixing about the kitchen. 

This analysis continues in The Consumer Society and Simulations, where personal expression is solely done through the purchasing of items in the full spectrum of imagination, and this is but one component of the Simulacrum, where we live in a "hyperreality" where mass production and consumption has created a fakeness or series of reproducible clones.  This ubiquity of copies of objects changes the way we think about objects, believing in the reproducibility of everything and so attributing a disposability and temporariness of everything around us.  A striking example he uses is Disneyland, a hyperreal fantasy that we (as a society) not only use to escape the "reality" that normally surrounds us for a while, but also reaffirms in our minds that the reality we normally inhabit is not a simulation.  This conviction that we are living in a more "real" reality is what allows us to continue living in it, and not questioning why the things around us have to be the way they are.

Century of the Self examines Bernays marketing techniques, but otherwise paints a similar picture where social order is based around consumerism, and where objects are given relationships to powerful emotional symbols based on self-expression.  And if you keep stimulating that irrational self you can maintain the relations of power and control the animalistic forces by keeping them engaged.  Bernays pioneered the technique of marketing research, meeting with volunteers and encouraging them to pretend they are consumer products and act out their relationships with the products.   Similarly, political marketers encouraged people to talk about policies and how they felt about them, encouraging them to act out these relationships as well.  This was the creation of the simulacrum that surrounds us presently. 

Not only are people engaged in this hyperreality, they are completely immersed in a reality created by the forces of media, big business and government.  Advertisement campaigns create emotional attachment by conveying unspoken ideas, encouraging self expression and activity through the purchase of products.  Curtis uses the example of the World's Fair, creating a Disneyland-esque atmosphere, while surrounding the visitor with the icons of consumption and self-expression. 

Freud and Mass Media

Recently I've been watching documentaries by loyal BBC employee and all around adept documenter Adam Curtis.  His voice soothes like every story he tells were a bedtime story, and he has the patience of 8000 Terracotta soldiers.  I am amazed at his ability to provide quality factual programming while somehow avoiding censorship. 

His best known work is Century of the Self, a 4 part journey following the effect of psychoanalysis on consumer culture and world politics.  In my next few posts I'm hoping to tie some of the ideas of his documentary with other pieces of things I've found.  What I've been focused on mostly on the role of the media, what it is and what it actually is doing.  Curtis points out very early in the first few minutes Freud's (love him or hate him, this is important) deduction that information was driving human behavior in indirect ways, at an emotional and almost animalistic level.  His nephew Ed Bernays used this information to create market consulting and eventually focus groups, finding out what people's unconscious ideas were relating to objects, and then giving people what they wanted but didn't realize it was what they wanted, in the form of consumer products like cigarettes and cake mix.  The idea is that you play to people's irrational emotions, because they knew what the people they were targeting wanted and presented the product as a means to get what it is they really wanted.  This is important for understanding advertising, to begin with, but related and also important is that the news media plays to irrational emotions, too, and there is no reason they wouldn't use similar tactics. 

But what would be the media's end goal?  To sell more papers?  Print barely exists any more, and although many institutional news sources have complained about steep drop in newspaper revenue, somehow they manage to scrape by and carry on their messages.  I'm used to the media never ever telling me anything critical about the media, because maybe that does not sell as many papers, and so I was surprised when I found this article written by Neil Macdonald on CBC news (June 6, 2013).  As the CBC correspondent in Washington, he wrote an article here discussing his confusion around media coverage in the United States, the fact that the American army sexual assault scandal received little or no coverage, while the IRS scandal is getting constant priority coverage by all the major American media outlets.

Even though the media does enjoy referring to news (as referring to news coverage of the news or the media talking about the media) and sporadically commentating on the effect the media has, in a general way, it is rare that someone talks about what it means in the broader context, let alone as problematic.  In the end, Neil asserts the media does not cover it because American's aren't interested in the story.  He surmises the reason American's are not interested is because it is somehow communicated to their society as a whole not to be interested, not to care, it is embarrassing.  The IRS story is only embarrassing for some people, problems in the military is embarrassing for all Americans.  But is anyone outside of America concerned either?  The American army is huge and has exerted a massive influence as long as the country existed.   Nobody seems to indicate that they care about the news story, nationally or internationally, and I suppose it will be gone rather quickly.

In Century of the Self, Curtis states that the position of democracy in America became one where they want to maintain the current relations of power, and they could do it by stimulating the psychological lives of the public (ie war on communism), that is, stimulating particular emotions, the same "irrational self" that was being used to convince the advertisement-viewing public to buy products they don't need.  Only by this application, the emotions invoked can sell people on the decisions of the president so it can do what it wants to do.

 A faction of Americans want to believe Obama ordered the IRS to destroy his enemies.  I have not been able to see any of the news footage on the military rape charges or the IRS scandal, but if we apply the ideas in Century of the Self, then we can clear Neil Macdonald's confusion through the explanation that the emotions invoked by the media are perhaps apathy while covering the military court coverage, and invoking strong bipartisan emotions like anger for the anti-Obama camp and maybe even some other emotions for people that still like Obama.

Neil ends his articles drawing some poignant conclusions, all the while having no idea why this is being done.  Maybe he is savvy enough to know the answers but not be the one to break kafabe.   "Even the media doesn't believe what they are saying... they don't believe their own claims... Those of us who try to do our job properly are just dupes."  I can't tell if the last statement is a cynical joke or if he honestly believes the existence of pure journalism in mainstream media.  My guess would be he likes his job and wants to keep it.