The Power Of Nightmares/Adam Curtis

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The Trap: What Happened to Our Dreams...
BBC2, Sun 11 March, 9pm, 60mins

Part 1: F**k You Buddy. A series of films by BAFTA-winning producer Adam Curtis that tells the story of the rise of today's narrow idea of freedom. It will show how a simplistic model of human beings as self-seeking, almost robotic, creatures led to today's idea of freedom. This model was derived from ideas and techniques developed by nuclear strategists during the Cold War. It was then taken up by genetic biologists, anthropologists, radical psychiatrists and free market economists, until it became a new system of invisible control.

― Tracer Hand, Sunday, 11 March 2007 13:35 (nineteen years ago)

Well, Curtis makes beautiful, gripping programmes, but there was lots to disagree with in the first episode. Perhaps he'll develop a fuller argument over the course of the series, but I thought some of the ideas tonight were weak or, simple pessimist that I am, dishonest.

― Noodle Vague, Sunday, 11 March 2007 22:14 (nineteen years ago)

The programme is worth watching for the wonderful editing and composition alone. Yo La Tengo was a bit jarring, though.

I have quibbles and questions as well, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and even if I don't wind up agreeing with a lot of it in the end, I'm glad he's made it.

― Gukbe, Sunday, 11 March 2007 22:44 (nineteen years ago)

Agreed. He's a great stylist, and he makes you want to engage with what he's saying.

― Noodle Vague, Sunday, 11 March 2007 22:48 (nineteen years ago)

It very much had the feeling of an opening slavo, I'm sure he'll elucidate more in later episodes.

― chap, Sunday, 11 March 2007 22:51 (nineteen years ago)

He didn't really do anything to counteract or disprove this idea of the bleak and paranoid human psyche - I think I came away more convinced by the game theorists!

Interesting version of the prisoners' dilemma too, where mutual betrayal is rewarded - I've only ever seen the one where mutual betrayal leads to the worst outcome for both parties.

― ledge, Sunday, 11 March 2007 23:08 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, I'm still seeing the alternative of total trust and collectivism as dangerous, although I'm sure he's not pushing some kind of communism. At least I hope that isn't where this is going.

Not to say he should be coming up with an alternative. The important thing is to put the argument of the current situation out there.

Then again, I assume the worst in people, and would generally try to betray everyone for my own gains. Or even just for fun.

Game theory was successfully dealt with in Wargames already.

― Gukbe, Sunday, 11 March 2007 23:14 (nineteen years ago)

Well I suspect I'm with Adam Curtis in that I do think that the idea that everyone is only acting out of self-interest is one of the most pernicious and dangerously wrong-headed ideas of all time! But he didn't do a very good job of explaining why it's so wrong.

― ledge, Sunday, 11 March 2007 23:20 (nineteen years ago)

There's a distinction to be made between actually thinking that human beings are selfish and paranoid, and using that idea as an axiom to explore certain aspects of economic or social behaviour. If he was looking for examples of pessimism in psychology or economics he could've gone a good way further back than Nash or Buchanan - like to B.F. Skinner, or Adam Smith or David Ricardo.

― Noodle Vague, Sunday, 11 March 2007 23:23 (nineteen years ago)

I like how he framed the game theory application into areas such as psychiatry as once idealistic, revolutionary ideas battling an entrenched aristocracy, and then spinning it around to make the results worse.

― Gukbe, Sunday, 11 March 2007 23:36 (nineteen years ago)

That part was so bizarre I could barely credit it. "Our amazing and infallible new system shows us that over half of the population is psychologically dysfunctional!" - the logical response to which would be to suspect that maybe the amazing new system isn't that infallible. Yet according to this show that didn't even occur to them.

― ledge, Sunday, 11 March 2007 23:41 (nineteen years ago)

The more psychology connects with the people, the more credibility it gains. People like explanations for their problems, and they're willing to pay for their cures. It seems like a win-win to me. Johns Hopkins guy seemed to understand how ludicrous it all was, though.

I'm sure there was some level of "hey, this system might be a bit shit", but for the purposes of the programme and the argument, it is irrelevant. The tests created some kind of definition of "normal", when such a thing doesn't really exist, but the people liked the idea(l) of it.

― Gukbe, Sunday, 11 March 2007 23:49 (nineteen years ago)

But the tests showed that the majority of people were abnormal - that's a flat-out contradiction in terms!

― ledge, Sunday, 11 March 2007 23:51 (nineteen years ago)

ok there's obv a diff between statistical normality and perceived normality of behaviour.

― ledge, Sunday, 11 March 2007 23:53 (nineteen years ago)

Also, you only need to be abnormal/pathological on one measure (say, depression) to be part of the 50% who displayed signs of mental illness. It's not really a contradiction at all.

I'm not really convinced by the connections he is drawing yet, but I think perhaps he is pacing himself better than in The Power Of Nightmares. I am very interested in pessimisic-paranoid or otherwise views of human nature as a basis for political leaning, though. It does seem to cut to the heart of things, so I'm hooked.

So far, perhaps more interesting than the ambitious connections are the times when he gets someone to baldly state that a certain ideology informed their actions. Antony Jay on Yes Minister was an eye-opener. It kind of explains why the show stands up so well - it's rooted in an idea, not in a narrow parody of the political mores of the time.

I am a little suspicious of the way Curtis always seems to focus on individuals and their influence in his histories of ideas. It makes for a good "this is the story of how" but I guess it just doesn't ring true sometimes. Still, I suppose this time he's more often saying "game theory had profound impact on so and so" than just pinning it all on John Nash or whatever. I thought maybe he overdid the Leo Strauss thing last time.

― Alba, Monday, 12 March 2007 00:47 (nineteen years ago)

Interesting version of the prisoners' dilemma too, where mutual betrayal is rewarded - I've only ever seen the one where mutual betrayal leads to the worst outcome for both parties.

Hmm ... I'm not sure I've ever seen a version like that. The classic version has mutual betrayal causing a bad outcome for both parties, but not as bad as it would be for a betrayed truster.

A version in which mutual betrayal produced the worst possible outcome for both parties wouldn't make it much of a dilemma at all, would it? Actually, perhaps by "worst outcome for both parties" you mean aggregated worst outcome, which would be fair enough.

Anyway, looking at the [Removed Illegal Link], it's true that the version he presented is unusual, in that it's a zero-sum game, which apparently it shouldn't be. In the diamond robbery exchange, the figures in the first matrix would swap from 5 to 6.

― Alba, Monday, 12 March 2007 01:30 (nineteen years ago)

I don't know what I did wrong with that link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma

― Alba, Monday, 12 March 2007 01:31 (nineteen years ago)

perhaps by "worst outcome for both parties" you mean aggregated worst outcome

YES. Thankyou for giving me a plausible get-out from my faux pas.

― ledge, Monday, 12 March 2007 08:55 (nineteen years ago)

Like most other posters I found this fascinating and thought-provoking without actually agreeing with much of it. There is a distinction, surely, between saying that game theory may be a useful predictor of human nature within a large population, and imagining that the motivations of individuals can be reduced to that kind of strategising. That some people have used game theory in a pernicious way does not make it pernicious per se.

I also thought that Curtis failed to distinguish between situations where game theory may have been the cause of behaviour, situations where it may have been part of the causal mix, and situations where it was kind of added flavour to something that would have happened in a very similar way without it. Thatcher's hostility to entrenched, paternalist institutions, for example, did not originate with game theory, although it may have been a useful extra stick to beat them with. "Yes Minister" may have been original in using game theory as a conscious underpinning: but it was comfortably within a very long satirical tradition exposing the behaviour of governmental ministers and bureaucrats as motivated by obsessive self-interest masquerading under a thin veneer of hypocrisy.

― frankiemachine, Monday, 12 March 2007 11:12 (nineteen years ago)

The question is, does Curtis use game theory in his seldom-acknowledged role as co-editor of Popbitch?

― Marcello Carlin, Monday, 12 March 2007 11:19 (nineteen years ago)

He's kind of the James Burke of political paranoia, isn't he? I can see how it makes watchable tv, but I'm not sure he's ultimately saying much more than that people in advanced capitalist economies become increasingly selfish.

― Stevie T, Monday, 12 March 2007 11:24 (nineteen years ago)

That explains why Popbitch are always going on about teh power of teh nightmares.

One thing always strikes me about game theory - it always leads to rubbish games. Can you imagine inviting some friends over for a game of Prisoners' Dilemma?

― The Real Dirty Vicar, Monday, 12 March 2007 11:27 (nineteen years ago)

It might be fun if the stakes were high enough. No good with matchsticks.

― Alba, Monday, 12 March 2007 12:04 (nineteen years ago)

Somehow despite setting the timer for this my previously unassilable recording machine decided not to record it. :(

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 12 March 2007 12:08 (nineteen years ago)

Now the machine has betrayed you once, I think they best policy would be to not set it next week.

― Alba, Monday, 12 March 2007 12:11 (nineteen years ago)

Times interview on Saturday revealed the usual craven copout:
"What are your politics?"
"Well, you know, left and right are such antiquated..."
TORY!!!!

― Marcello Carlin, Monday, 12 March 2007 12:12 (nineteen years ago)

I have not had time to read all the updates, and I am off in a minute, but I thought last night's programme was not as good as the previous series, in fact it came over as quite tired. I am referring to the style rather than the content, which kind of confounded me at times, but I have "taped" it and am going to "tape" next week's epsiode too.

― PJ Miller, Monday, 12 March 2007 12:19 (nineteen years ago)

I think if you think of him as a lecturer with "this series is about", adjectival "very" and Brian Eno as his funny trademarks then the narrowness of his stylistic template becomes less bothersome.

― Alba, Monday, 12 March 2007 12:32 (nineteen years ago)

motherfucker, how did i miss this.

and wai no repeats beeb?

:(

― That one guy that quit, Monday, 12 March 2007 12:35 (nineteen years ago)

Can't you download it or something?

― Alba, Monday, 12 March 2007 12:50 (nineteen years ago)

i've never d/ld a uk show. could be interesting.

― That one guy that quit, Monday, 12 March 2007 12:56 (nineteen years ago)

I missed the first half, but the archive shots of 1960s and 1970s computers greatly annoyed me - I just kept thinking "what does this have to do with the narration, exactly?"

― Forest Pines, Monday, 12 March 2007 14:27 (nineteen years ago)

The archive material in the Power of Nightmares, especially the first part, was fantastic, and I was wondering whether or not there would be the same kind of source material for this subject matter.

the computers determined probabilities and the future of human society! no doubt they will turn on us in subsequent episodes.

Now the machine has betrayed you once, I think they best policy would be to not set it next week.

or maybe they already have.

― Gukbe, Monday, 12 March 2007 14:33 (nineteen years ago)

If you do a search for it on i s o h u nt. com there's a torrent there. Just tried it and it seemed to work at about 30kB/s.

― Alba, Monday, 12 March 2007 15:04 (nineteen years ago)

I will look have to look for torrents of this.

The question is, does Curtis use game theory in his seldom-acknowledged role as co-editor of Popbitch?

I still like his documentaries, but I lost a lot of respect for him once I found out about this a while back.

― Nicole, Monday, 12 March 2007 15:17 (nineteen years ago)

I thought the Popbitch thing was a joke. Wow.

Somehow I respect him more, but question his ability to identify the descent of Western Civilisation into self-made slavery.

― Gukbe, Monday, 12 March 2007 15:58 (nineteen years ago)

I still haven't seen this latest one, but there was a whodunit sort of feel to Power of Nightmares that really worked. Maybe that sort of approach works less well when applied to a more abstract subject?

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 12 March 2007 16:06 (nineteen years ago)

He was also responsible for bringing us a dog who could say "sausages" on That's Life.

― Michael Jones, Monday, 12 March 2007 16:06 (nineteen years ago)

i think i preferred 'century of the self' to the last one probably cos it was more generalizing or something, in a way less contentious. they're not books, they're essays, and they're more thought-provoking than almost any other non-fic tv. i bet i asked where i could see 'the mayfair set' before and i bet someone told me.

― That one guy that quit, Monday, 12 March 2007 16:09 (nineteen years ago)

I started watching and wished I had been more in the mood for it, I got that sunday night drifting feeling. I've not seen much of his stuff other than nightmares but seems stylistically almost identical.

― secondhandnews, Monday, 12 March 2007 16:59 (nineteen years ago)

The Mayfair Set is terrific. You can watch it at:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6727851691163240683&q=mayfair+set

― Alba, Monday, 12 March 2007 17:03 (nineteen years ago)

it is identifiably 'adam curtis' but that's pretty much what he does, same goes for broomfield or moore or errol morris.

― That one guy that quit, Monday, 12 March 2007 17:04 (nineteen years ago)

I thought the Popbitch thing was a joke. Wow.

Even weirder is that Neil Stevenson, of Popbitch and The Face fame, is credited as a researcher for The Power of Nightmares.

― James Mitchell, Monday, 12 March 2007 20:19 (nineteen years ago)

Neil Stevenson --> Neal Stephenson

― elmo argonaut, Monday, 12 March 2007 20:21 (nineteen years ago)

hot damn alba, thanx!

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 09:20 (nineteen years ago)

Does that google video link only last for 12secs for anyone else?!

― toby, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 07:37 (nineteen years ago)

Oh dear - looks like they pulled it. It was the full thing, all four episodes in one, the other day.

― Alba, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 07:53 (nineteen years ago)

aw :(

this is what i thought bbc4 would be about, repeats of that kind of thing.

― That one guy that quit, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 09:33 (nineteen years ago)

I don't suppose anyone happened to save it before it disappeared?!

― toby, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 19:06 (nineteen years ago)

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