The Century Of The Self
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| Anything outside of love is apt to hijack your mind (and heart). God is love... and any idea of man outside of love (God) is bound to cause confusion, distraction, and trouble... |
The following is a 'short' review of a four-hour long BBC documentary series on psychology, propaganda, and people.
A friend suggested I find and watch the BBC Documentary The Century of the Self.
What a ride.
As with any piece, objectivity is always in question and bias is a given.
A snow flake can be described in a dangerous and sinister way, but some things in life can usually be self evident (but not for all people) without a need to vilify it further.
The word “control” was used several times in the first few minutes alone (already establishing a negatively biased description of ruling class and their perceived influence on all of humanity).
This may be true.
Has any ruling class ever been collectively different when managing, steering, or controlling the masses?
Sigmund Freud's work, opinions, and ideas are the starting focal point.
Freud's opinion is that people are somehow disabled from sharing their inner thoughts and feelings openly.
His contention is that people can easily be overcome by their sexual and other banal desires.
His remedy is suggesting people share their innermost feelings with others, to vent such darkness as an effort to deal with them.
Sounds reasonable enough and similar to confession for the believer.
This is the start of what would become an industry: psychoanalysis, and an influential effort in the world today.
The documentary interprets his suggestions as an affront to the ruling party of his time and place (his social class).
The hegemony are portrayed as stoic and never revealing their true feelings.
For people in Freud's circles, to be humble or vulnerable is viewed as a sign of weakness.
I wonder: does the manners (and perspectives) of any particular hegemony truly define the conversations the common people have at their dinner tables, or in their rooms, or on their beds, or in confidence otherwise?
The assumption is that all lower classes reflect the sentiments, manners, opinions, ideas, attributes, or patterns of the upper class.
I can't help but psychoanalyze the discussion on psychoanalysis (and its inventor).
Had the Gospel teachings of honesty, openness, trust, confession, etc. been eradicated from late 19th century to early 20th century Austria where Mr. Freud resided?
Or had certain circles of people convinced themselves (or had been somehow convinced by others) that God was not real?
Mr. Freud's concept of God seems to have been muddied by man's religious strife (and you can read more about his opinions at the link with his name)... and there may be found a spark to pursue thoughts to define a world without God.
The documentary depicts Freud's growing pessimism towards mankind and the close circles of his respective upper class viewing the regular people as a 'mob'; irrational and compulsive.
The popular view from the top is that those below are unable to think on their own... and if not steered properly, may become destructive.
Hearing this struck me directly in my heart, for I can sometimes be swept away by much pontification and find myself subject to such an assessment... pushing an arrogance stance and forgetting humility.
However, considering there are followers and leaders and the fact that class distinctions naturally development among people, can the natural order of mankind since ancient times be wrong?
Considering the approach, I think it is a perception of others which brands the message given to those others.
If you perceive people in a certain manner, you are going to approach them according to that perception... but looks can be deceiving.
Instead of simply loving others, or conveying a message of love, peace, doing unto others... and first getting to know someone, the approach is reserved and already making great assumptions.
The assumptions that some people cannot be left to their own devices, or that they need constant direction throughout their lives.
Or the approach is suspiciously overshadowed with pessimism or disdain, as in the case from Freud.
To view humanity outside of love (and God is defined as 'love'), the approach can actually be faithless and unloving and may open doors to much wickedness justified as necessary to corral others.
“Social Control” is mentioned.
The very purpose of God's judgment is to warn people of a day of reckoning regardless of they escape man's justice on earth during their lifetime.
Some view this (as Freud may have argued) as why the idea of God or religion was 'invented'.
This is an accusation laid at the feet of all religious groups and movements, and also governments of men.
However, the vast evidence of God interacting with mankind directly and clearly (not an invention, but through revelation attested to by many witnesses throughout the ages) exists to clarify the opinions from the facts, the order from the suggestions to alter the order's methodology.
The evidence has been codified by the ancestral group from which Freud is from, and was clarified in the revealing of Messiah... and Messiah's cultural influence has grown throughout all cultures of the world.
The documentary continues with portrayals to trick and beguile the masses, now focusing on Freud's American nephew Edward Bernays who largely influenced what is today known as public relations. (propaganda by another name)
Mr. Bernays' worked behind political and corporate scenes, using some of his uncle's ideas and views of human beings, to placate the masses and enamor them to the design of consumerism.
What appalled me (besides many other appalling things seen / heard in the documentary like overt manipulation of people) was when Bernays spearheaded a propaganda campaign to bring turmoil and regime change in Guatemala.
The citizenry of Guatemala, following democratic ideas promoted by the U.S., had voted in a government which desired to remove heavy American business influence and Bernays wrote a false campaign whose model would be repeatedly used until today: covert operations.
By the time the documentary gets to discussing the mental health of soldiers after WWII, it seems when civilized people are put into savage circumstances the horrors of war can break them.
I wonder: does/had such fallout from war also happen(ed) to people who are/were more accustomed to savagery, where such 'horrors' are/were part of constant instability?
In other words: people who are in constant violent friction with others (near or far), are they somehow psychologically damaged or have they grown accustomed to such realities?
Interviews of relatives talking about Freud and his daughter (who continued her father's work) depict them as cold and unloving.
Again, Freud developed ideas into an industry explaining a world absent a loving and gracious and just God.
I can't help notice irony and contradiction.
So much focus on the physical exteriors (changing one's surroundings) and the mechanical approach of psychology (something having to do within the mind and conscience).
The concept of the spiritual is largely absent, although previously developed in ancient Greece through philosophy that described 'gods' in manners defining human character traits.
Although the individual's responsibility is an aim, the surrender to reality and not becoming what is adverse, is pursued in a way that is work in progress for the psychological profession.
From issues of dividing human beings according to their traits, the continued labels and categorizing may further cause separation in people when they attempt formulating an identity.
An identity built upon concepts absent love (which unifies all people) actually defeats the work towards being at peace in oneself and with others.
I notice Freud's, and later Bernays' efforts, to be searching for the spiritual answer while largely ignoring the Spirit and all notions related.
That last part is what seems to begin to come about in latter part of the 20th century (according to how the documentary's narrative is told)... but through the lens of business and consumption through politics.
Martin Luther King is highlighted, mentioning popular psychology and speaking about not becoming adjusted to some of society's 'norms'.
He suggests that society is ill with certain diseases.
The diagnosis of popular psychology is that people are 'maladjusted' to society, and this is why some people suffer psychologically.
But the clarity Mr. King points out is that society has serious diseases (one being the prevalent racism / prejudice of his time)... and to be 'adjusted' to such disease would be truly insane.
To ignore such a disease (to be complacent) is to be surrendered not to justice, but to darkness.
This response deserves exploration, because Mr. King speaks from a place of faith in a God that grants men insight through love.
Not to all men who pursue insight (but instead deny God) are granted such clarifying insights... but instead are convinced by notions leading to dark outcomes.
What I notice in the narrative of the documentary (not directly mentioned but my reflecting on the content) is that as man has continued to move away from a world defined by God's Word, they have inflicted others (and themselves) with more ills.
I wonder if the introspective search for meaning and 'truth' outside of God's definitions of meaning and Truth backfired in such a way as causing for confusion rather than clarity.
For me personally, I do notice a greater degree of confusion and delusion among people who define love according to lust rather than acts of service and humility...who define a world absent a loving and just God as having an irrational and illogical perspective.
Of course, not every person who talks about God is fully rational or logical, but as government policy continues to swing away from the framework of the Word of God in the light of Messiah, and instead follows popular sentiments in redefining age-old constants... the mental instability while continue to flux.
Surrendering to reality is to peacefully walk among the ashes, not being burned by the cinders.
To surrender in heart, mind, and soul is to be sustained by one's honor: walking like Christ did among sinners, among a fallen and subdued generation, among slavery and repression, an overpowering and obliterating superpower, a corrupt and unforgiving religious cult, yet not becoming any of these (maladjusted) but circumventing them by His Way, overcoming them by His love, and bringing the Path of triumph over the 'powers' of this world.
The documentary continues in showcasing many new-age psychological groups, many of which became mind control cults with sexual perversions called 'therapy'.
Some of the rhetorical verbiage is reminiscent of insights eternally shared but very much obscured by added psychobabble.
One phrase that caught my attention was “peeling back the layers and arriving at emptiness and meaningless” regarding a method of mental deconstruction.
After a person is convinced they (or their minds) is empty, they find all things to be meaningless.
Then an effort to reprogram the mind with desired ideas is followed, now redefining one's self according to whatever the psychological guru had suggested or, as the century came to a close, whatever the individual perceived was best for them. (thus, the documentary's title)
This reflects the truth of one thing (every thing is meaningless) while criminally applying 'emptiness' as being what a human being actually is at their core.
Similar to how temptation always attempts to twist the Word of God and cause confusion and doubt, so also is truth surrounded by half-truths and contradictory garbage.
Below I'll share about 'meaningless' while clarifying 'emptiness'.
By the time the social rebellion in 1960s U.S. became a banner (and reason) for sexual promiscuity, abandonment through drug use, and a trope for political demands, the initial effort of violent revolt gave way for inner revolution.
The initial revolutionary hippies realized that force / violence would not overcome the temporal powers of the state, so the better option was to change one's self (perhaps Freud's initial intention).
I noticed that, although through immoral and depraved attempts, there arose in the U.S. and further western countries a concept depicted succinctly with this quote from the documentary: “people can be happy simply within themselves and changing society was irrelevant”.
I agree somewhat with this sentiment regarding its aim (happiness and societal change)... but the changing of society is something that is not always immediate, but eventual.
However, the individual has choice and can choose how to go about life.
From this came the concept of certain people across all groups of class, economic, ethnic, social, etc.: inner directive.
In psychoanalysis this seems to be a label that transcends all labeled groups.
This peeked my interest because it is what happened to the ancient Church.
Wherever the message of the Gospel went, people from all tribes, places, and social groups believed and they were united by something within that grew to become greater than their exterior perceptions.
As the documentary closed, it focused on politic's role with reaching the individual's opinions in order to get their vote.
According to the documentary's narrative, the western world had become a consumer society holding identity through their product choices.
As individuality grew, an individual's identity was met with direct marketing geared to their expressions through consumption.
For Bill Clinton's re-election campaign, the top-down guessing game was corrected when individual swing voters were called by phone and allowed to share their opinions and ideas regarding domestic and foreign policy.
The focus group which was used in a previous generation was replaced as old method of asking questions with 'yes' or 'no' or a scale response... instead conversation and inclusion came about: personable politics.
This feedback became Clinton's talking points and helped formulate his party's policy.
Direct democracy and populism.
Noticing the results of the Clinton presidential campaign, the same approach was imitated in England.
I t also worked to (s)elect the Labor Party (equivalent to the Democratic Party - the left / liberals - in the U.S.).
What I see in conclusion is this:
The effort to manage people through suggestion in order to sell them something has engaged consumers into demanding certain policies which now government must concede to in order to stay in power.
For every action there is an equal (and usually opposite) reaction (man's definition of a physical law).
The premise that common individuals were/are irrational and ignorant of what was/is best for them has/was revealed itself to be partially true, but not because individuals are irrational or ignorant by default.
Order has always been leveraged in the favor of the powerful, and/or wealthy, and/or the influential, and/or the wise.
From order comes enforcement of law.
From law men know their bounds and the consequences of breaching those bounds.
It is when moving ancient boundary lines that harm comes.
In the case of approaching humanity through a method absent God, the outcomes of greater irrationality and instability should not be surprising when God has been, by atheist opinions turned popular, categorized as a societal specter that is to be ignored and outright denied.
But God is the Holy Ghost / Spirit, having created, enacted, and continually supporting all things.
I think, in considering God and His order, the sentiment of people being irrational beings is now partly true due to the product of generations of false propaganda / public relations aimed at trying to convince people they are simply animals.
Do animals act rationally at every moment of their existence?
Animals usually attack or bite when instigated, while certain people have learned to be at peace although instigated... and not by psychoanalysis that was invented and continues to change from one generation to another, but by recognizing and reflecting the God that became a man.
The effort to pacify, convince, sell to, confuse, mold opinion, et al, has produced individuals believing the propaganda.
As the documentary suggests: the lies have also captivated those manufacturing propaganda.
Have you noticed that liars often times end up believing their own lies.
What is that?
A definition of insanity.
This is what can happen when God is argued as untrue, and lies replace the very definition of Truth.
In other words, every subsequent generation has been subject to an onslaught of faulty opinions and suggestions from individuals who held irrational attitudes towards other human beings... and this built from denial of God.
These opinions, steeped in an echoing of that Renaissance that desired puffed up intellectuals to openly deny God and throw off any semblance of restraint, continues an attempt to place invented restraints according to depraved methods: lies, trickery, instigation.
Is the 20th century any different from any previous century where one man had leveraged his influence over another man?
Cain slew Abel out of jealousy and, when banished, Cain eventually brought people into his cities.
A pattern was thrown into repetitive motion: fallen man captivating his fellow man instead of being an honorable keeper of.
Regarding meaningless:
The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem:
“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”
What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?
Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.
The wind blows to the south and turns to the north;
round and round it goes, ever returning on its course.
All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from, there they return again.
All things are wearisome, more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing.
What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time.
No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them.
I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind! I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
What is crooked cannot be straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted.
I said to myself, “Look, I have increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge.” Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind.
For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.
- Ecclesiastes 1The aims of psychoanalysis, when absent reverence for God and done outside of His love, is utterly meaningless and renders empty results.
Regarding emptiness:
I do not accept glory from human beings, but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts. I have come in My Father’s Name, and you do not accept Me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe since you accept glory from one another but do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?
- John 5: 41-44The aims of psychoanalysis, when denying the fundamental reality that God did become a human being for a time in order to show His love for us, is rendered empty and makes for vessels empty of God's love.
Notice how people run after the likes of Freud, or of other 'great thinkers' or people who inspire ideas thought new, but eventually are revealed for the banal patterns of man.
Notice the religious who say they are something 'great' or 'praiseworthy', yet their manners are shown for further strife and continued bloodshed on earth.
It is no surprise where denial of God exists there you find the following reality:
Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.
But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.
- James 3: 13-18Notice how class and prestige, when not divinely gifted as it was to Solomon to render clarity, is a place full of strife and judgment amongst those forcing themselves into some outwardly defined reality.
Notice how those who attempt to be kings only get as far as earthly remuneration or earthly glory, but whose legacy is seen as destructive and compounding life's ills.
Notice how some claim to be so wise, yet their banter is a repeat of man's fallen state simply spelled out in new word puzzles.
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