Part OneThe question of liberty is an immediate one, yet one which we are apt to deflect with the familiar array of commercial breaks, sitcom punchlines and movie quotes that shield us from all similar questions germane to the state of our world. It is apparent that even our appetite for freedom has become mediated by the diffracting, oddly dictatorial streams of media beside which so many of us sit and drink from the waters of this strange, corrupted Lethe.
The structure of the personality, the location of the triggers in human behaviour, and the identification and subsequent generation of a series of stimuli of proven efficacy in changing the behaviour of the recipient have been among the most urgent areas of research in marketing since that copy of The Interpretation of Dreams was sent to Mr Edward Bernays. More of him later.
The Invention of the SelfI call the personality a sanctified accident, whose chief function is to insulate itself from information that may prove challenging to its present state.
Self, however, is the attempt to reflect the personality through mass media, be it towards political or commercial interests. To gift a sense of flattering uniqueness to the consumer's heavily marshalled and carefully orchestrated 'choices.' The Self is neither your property, nor your creation. It does not care for you, and its status is dependent on the decisions of executives in reflecting glass buildings with whom you will, hopefully, never meet. More demanding than your partner, more insistent than your children, it is the gorilla on your back that can never be satisfied, yet to you it wears the unblemished mask of Myself Made Perfect. You will probably work for the rest of your life to gratify it.
In its current form the Self has evolved from a trendy concept promising coolness and wish-fulfilment in the early Twentieth century, to a fictive universe of unsatisifiable desires reified and promoted throughout the mass media. The relationship between 'democracy' and sales is obvious - be it the neoliberal definition of freedom as VCRs plus the vote, or the Eisenhower initiated 'buy for your country' mythos. The reader will not that the word 'die' might equally serve in the previous clause.
The invention of the Self was the invention of a governing thought form: it gave public approval to the sanctified accident and provided ritual satisfaction of its 'desires'. As a means of extracting more wealth, and therefore more effort and compliance, from populations, it was remarkably effective. As the 'Grand Narratives' of patrician liberal states broke down amid mechanised warfare, political and social revolution, so did this cult gain ground from each diffracted shard of despair that replaced hope, cooperation and faith in the old orders. The Self is a wonderful vehicle of control. But how does it relate to the 'Personality'?
