Eros, Thanatos, and Polarization
I want to talk to you about eros and thanatos, and the way they cause us to dance. A century ago, in the 1920s, three forces came together. One was industrialization, allowing an explosion of manufactured goods to enter the marketplace. The second was the surge in popular media, with radio and cinema expanding on print media—something manufacturing companies wanted to exploit with a flood of advertising so they could sell their products. And the third was Freudian psychology, especially the belief in the power of the libido, of desire, of eros, in driving human activity. The result? Something that came to be experienced as inevitable: a world in which people became immersed in advertising constantly seeking to stoke their desires. That could be direct: ads pictured luscious, dripping desserts, or displayed advertised clothing on beautiful, nubile bodies. Or it could be indirect: buy our pimple cream or automobile and you will be pursued by enraptured, aroused, sexy potent...