Since this is a slow news week, I thought I’d use the opportunity to pass along some items that had an impact on how I view the world.
The first submission, which comes in four parts is a 2002 BBC documentary, The Century of the Self (to call it to the attention of more readers, we’ll feature it one part per day). I cannot stress how important it is that every informed citizen watch this series. The friends and colleagues who have seen it reacted much the way I did.
Creator Adam Curtis said,”This series is about how those in power have used Freud’s theories to try and control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy.” It focuses on how Freud’s ideas were used by business and government, far more deliberately and extensively than one might imagine, during the 20th century to achieve what Curtis calls “the engineering of consent.”
You can view the first part, “Happiness Machines,” below. However, I suggest instead you watch a few minutes here, and then go over to Google Video, since you will see it in a larger scale format there.
Go here to see it at Google Videos.
4 comments
Comments are closed.
Engineering of consent. Isn’t that borrowing from Chomsky?
Go to WIKIPEDIA and find out about other ADAM CURTIS’ documentaries.
They are all shockers.
great site!
pl
“… Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man,
the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time
handed out military command, high civil office, legions – everything, now
restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things:
bread and circuses”
Juvenal – Satire X. First century Rome.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses
He probably stole it from Og – “Fire and Mastadon meat.”
The more things change…
Paul
Adam Curtis always tends to give the viewer a very good big picture inderstanding and backs up his dialogue with great archive footage. I can also recommend the series “The Trap” shown on BBC2 earleir in the year. Superb.