Calendar of Events

The Manufactured Mind: Freud, Bernays, Propaganda and Post-Truthism

Why do people believe what they believe, and who benefits? This three-part forum will examine the relationship between psychoanalytic theory, the practice of propaganda and the contemporary epistemological condition known as post-truthism. Heins-Johnson Professor of Biology Michael Leonardo will guide audiences through a century of historical, cultural and psychological events that have shaped what we believe and what we want others to believe. The series begins by introducing late 19th/early 20th century thinkers like Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Charcot, who turned Vienna, Austria, into the crucible of anxiety and creativity that allowed Freud to emerge. We will explore Freud’s ideas about the unconscious mind, unconscious motivation, group identification and the mechanisms of ideological belief. He developed key questions and theories about why individuals behave differently in groups, how group dynamics push people to suspend critical thinking and judgement, how false narratives emerge and how civilization was becoming more emotional than rational. In week two, we will see how Freud’s American nephew Edward Bernays extended and applied such ideas to establish the framework for modern public relations and political communication. The final session brings the discussion to the present day, examining Cold War psychological operations, 24-hour news cycles, neuromarketing and other technological advances that have made it easier to capture our attention and circulate misinformation. Beyond identifying the issues, we will discuss how individuals and society can recognize and challenge engineered content and manipulation. Taken together, the series will invite us to ask how much of what we believe, desire and fear has been, in some measure, manufactured.

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