Adam Curtis does not shy away from controversial subject matters in his documentaries, nor does he hold back from taking a particular point of view, eschewing the idea of a neutral narrator. In his 2002, 4 part documentary series ‘Explores the influence of public relations techniques developed by Edward Bernay’s (which, in turn were influenced by his uncle Sigmund Freud) – in particular, their relationship to the evolving conception of the individual self. This changing notion of self is juxtaposed continuously with the nature of the democratic political system in western capitalist societies and expresses the essential thesis that Bernay’s techniques led to the evolution of a concept of individual self which has exposed modern democracies to the irrational forces driving the modern individual person – and hence has endangered modern democracy itself.