Home / Series / The Century of the Self / Aired Order / Season 1 / Episode 4
Home / Series / The Century of the Self / Absolute Order / Season 1 / Episode 4

Eight People Sipping Wine in Kettering

This episode explains how politicians on the left, in both Britain and America, turned to the techniques developed by business to read and fulfil the inner desires of the self. Both New Labour, under Tony Blair, and the Democrats, led by Bill Clinton, used the focus group, which had been invented by psychoanalysts, in order to regain power. They set out to mould their policies to people's inner desires and feelings, just as capitalism had learnt to do with products. Out of this grew a new culture of public relations and marketing in politics, business and journalism. One of its stars in Britain was Matthew Freud who followed in the footsteps of his relation, Edward Bernays, the inventor of public relations in the 1920s. The politicians believed they were creating a new and better form of democracy, one that truly responded to the inner feelings of individual. But what they didn't realise was that the aim of those who had originally created these techniques had not been to liberate the people but to develop a new way of controlling them.

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  • Originally Aired April 7, 2002
  • Runtime 60 minutes
  • Content Rating United States of America TV-MA
  • Network BBC Two
  • Notes Is the series finale
  • Created December 17, 2017 by
    Administrator admin
  • Modified December 17, 2017 by
    Administrator admin
Name Type Role
Adam Curtis Writer
Adam Curtis Director