Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Freud Sells Beer


I heard a great story on NPR the other day about how a man named Edward Bernays, a nephew of Freud, used Freud's ideas to pioneer the public relations/advertising industry. Essentially, he learned from his uncle that people aren't motivated by reason and rational argument, but rather by unconsious, primitive desires and repressed sexual urges. Thus, the way to successfully market a product involved bypassing the rational and appealing to the unconscious, irrational and emotional. Sound anything like today's TV commercials?

2 Comments:

Blogger Jill Pole said...

Interesting - I'm off to read the story...

12:47 PM  
Blogger Ryan said...

Very interesting, however Aristotle said (some years before Freud) that people don't believe things because they are true. They believe them because they are a) pragmatically useful or b) aesthetically beautiful. Both of these are totally subjective. Subjectivity is as old as the hills.

12:26 PM  

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