The Creation of Dissatisfaction and the All-Consuming Self

     A BBC documentary authored by Adam Clark which aired in March and April of 2002, describes how Edward Bernays, Sigmund Freud’s nephew invented the public relations industry and in the 1920’s started manipulating the American people to buy things they did not need in order to keep American industry rolling after the end of WWI. It was the beginning of the American enterprise of the creation of dissatisfaction.

   After WWII, Bernays was called on to manipulate public opinion in the face of the Cold War and the threat of nuclear destruction. Through his work, the American people have been manipulated into no longer being free people, but have become merely consumers. Consumers of whatever those who manipulate them want them to consume - drugs,sex, and all sorts of stupid world views.

    Anna Freud, Sigmund’s youngest daughter led the psychoanalytic movement. She considered people to be dangerously irrational but could be analyzed and taught to control their irrational emotions. Thus began a period where the cultural elite in the arts, education and government came under the sway of the psychoanalytic movement.

   The idea was to help create a stable democratic character, self.

   The psycho-therapeutic process, based on Freud’s rejection of the idea of God, sought to establish the self nature on purely rational processes. In doing so the leaders of this movement thought they were being rational. We are now a living with a societal breakdown that is the direct result of their thinking.

   See the whole 4-hour documentary here: http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-century-of-the-self/
  
   At the same time, Alcoholics Anonymous was teaching that in order to stay quit from drinking, the alcoholic had to get rid of self.  AA’s experience was that insight into self did not lead to permanent sobriety. What was needed was the destruction of self-centeredness.  People were not to be analyzed, but in working with a mentor (sponsor) they would tell the truth about their fears, shame, failures and harm done to others and thereby humble the self nature. This process could be deepened over time and lead to a deeply God-centered (spiritual) life free of the cultures of consumption and self-analysis.

   You can join us in Creating a Sober World by reading the book Absolutely Sober and contacting us at soberworld@soberworld.comsoberworld@soberworld.com  also see Creating a Sober World.