Us, Everything, and The Century of the Self

In further examination upon our quest to seek understanding of "everything" we cannot help but to delineate two ultimate truths at the very get go. The first is that there is the world "within" ourselves and the second is that which is everything "outside" of our self. The more we consider the influences of one upon the other the harder it becomes to separate the two. Where exactly does the line between inside and outside begin/end? If we evolved in response to our changing ecologies over billions of years or even within our own lifetime (as in personal consciousness), than isn't the self merely an expression of everything outside?

Perhaps another way of looking at this same problem is to try to distinguish the difference between innate or instinctual behavior and that of the rational mind. Since the conscious mind evolved within the changing ecologies of the ancestral mind than we must once again ask if one is merely an expression of the other? This is for you to think about.


Now, in concentric thought circles, we will turn our attention to our old friend Sigmund Freud. We all may know something about this man but whether or not we agree with his interpretations of the human mind, none of us can deny his grand influence upon society at large and the evolution of human conception.

Freud understood, that below our conscious mind lay unconscious animalistic motivators that he believed are inherently bad and dangerous to civilization as he knew it. His second grand realization was that an individual's rational behavior could be overridden through the manipulation of these unconscious motivators. Thus, we have the basis of psychotherapy and so much more...


So, it is with these thoughts that we lovingly leave you with our feature presentation--a 2002 four part award winning BBC documentary created by Adam Curtis and titled--The Century of the Self.

In this series we will explore the influence that Sigmund Freud, his daughter Anna Freud, and his nephew Edward Bernays had on the development of our modern time. Learn how Sigmund's thoughts on human psychology were used by politicians and big business in order to manipulate the behaviors of common people. The origins of modern advertising, political campaigning, and consumerism as we know it.

EPISODEs 1-4