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The Century of the Self (2002) (Part 2)
(Part 1) (Part 3) (Part 4)
"To many in both politics and business, the triumph of the self is the ultimate expression of democracy, where power has finally moved to the people. Certainly the people may feel they are in charge, but are they really? The Century of the Self tells the untold and sometimes controversial story of the growth of the mass-consumer society in Britain and the United States. How was the all-consuming self created, by whom, and in whose interests?"
I myself fall in and out of the consumerist message. I'm pretty frugal and know what I want, what is attainable and what is pushed to me as "this is really what you want." I'm very individual that way but I will say, marketing "individualism" a sense of being "different from the rest of the pack" spark more than just mass consumerism at the expense of the working consumer.
"model consumer", "planned obsolescence". This film is full of these phrases. Are you worried that you are being manipulated?I like to think that I am less easily manipulated than the "mindless mob" but I know that I am to an extent. But what bothers me is that most people don't even question how they are being railroaded into decisions that they consider "free choice". We are constantly bombarded with info about what we should buy, do, eat and who we should marry and be friends with, where we should work and how we should measure our happiness, and we don't even recognise that most of these choices are not ours but belong to PR people. These politically ( and monetarily) biased people are corrupt and are pawns in the big business of commerce, and are ultimately ruling the world as they destroy it.
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