The Trap: What Happened to Our Dreams of Freedom? (1 of 6)

The Trap: What Happened To Our Dream Of Freedom? (Episode 1 of 6)

Individual freedom is the dream of our age. It's what our leaders promise to give us, it defines how we think of ourselves and, repeatedly, we have gone to war to impose freedom around the world. But if you step back and look at what freedom actually means for us today, it's a strange and limited kind of freedom.

Politicians promised to liberate us from the old dead hand of bureaucracy, but they have created an evermore controlling system of social management, driven by targets and numbers. Governments committed to freedom of choice have presided over a rise in inequality and a dramatic collapse in social mobility. And abroad, in Iraq and Afghanistan, the attempt to enforce freedom has led to bloody mayhem and the rise of an authoritarian anti-democratic Islamism. This, in turn, has helped inspire terrorist attacks in Britain. In response, the Government has dismantled long-standing laws designed to protect our freedom.

The Trap is a series of three films by Bafta-winning producer Adam Curtis that explains the origins of our contemporary, narrow idea of freedom.

It shows 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 to control the behaviour of the Soviet enemy.

Mathematicians such as John Nash developed paranoid game theories whose equations required people to be seen as selfish and isolated creatures, constantly monitoring each other suspiciously -- always intent on their own advantage.

This model was then developed by genetic biologists, anthropologists, radical psychiatrists and free market economists, and has come to dominate both political thinking since the Seventies and the way people think about themselves as human beings.

However, within this simplistic idea lay the seeds of new forms of control. And what people have forgotten is that there are other ideas of freedom. We are, says Curtis, in a trap of our own making that controls us, deprives us of meaning and causes death and chaos abroad. more vids @ http://www.soulcravings.net

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[flyingsuperpetis]

People who choose to live in societies forfeit some of their freedom to do so. The more you take from society, the more you give up. Nothing is free, you get what you pay for, and you pay for what you get. Want to be truly free? Better learn to be self-sufficient and live a nomadic life wandering the Northwest Territory as your ancestors did. Then you will only be a slave to your Hunger. Otherwise, it's all shades of gray.

[flyingsuperpetis]

And then you will have people like myself, who will not be managed. We will occasionally cross paths with "authority", sometime walk side-by-side perhaps even in similar direction, but we have zero interest in living under your management, and will under no circumstance submit to it. We are very, very dangerous people, who will prevent your notion of progress from taking hold. And many of us would otherwise be considered socialists.

[beeferetown]

Don't get me started on this one! I'm very anti government simply because the government is our worst enemy if you think about it. They take our money, freedom and you end up struggling in life. I piss on them all the way and will do as I please. I started my own business 15 years ago to control 100% of my money. Since then I have not paid taxes nor will I ever. I live a better life this way as I should since I live in the home of the free.

[batalion666]

why no british movie about very very rich JEWS ?

[2001Horatio]

Hayek... isn't he one of the High Priests of Republicanism/Libertarianism?  "Greed is Good"... LOL - haven't we just seen the outcome of this philosophy? CRASH

[sheffieldsteelersfan]

@flyingsuperpetis Sounds a little contractarian - is it reasonably possible to live 'outside society'? Even Thoreau was arrested for attempting to do exactly that. Hobbes would certainly agree with you, and if Rousseau saw sense, he would too. Hell, I agree with you. I just think it's the structure of society that COULD be fundamentally altered to avoid this process.

[psweep]

@flyingsuperpetis Remove it's all shades of grey and insert....we don't really exist, we are all a set of electrodes and molecules who travel through space and time creating nothing but more molecules. A balance if you want. lol No. Fine tuning of freedom detailed there. :D

[unclegus]

I like the bit about Friedrich Hayek - that's about it - he screwed up by saying there would be no place for altruism in a true, unregulated free-market. No doubt there would still be private charities in a true free market. People would still give, share, care and love. Everyman for himself in a global sense - but in a community sense i would tend to think that things would work out automatically and tribal laws and family vendetta's would govern justice.

[Jitpring]

I've just watched the first minute. I sense that this is collectivist propaganda. Am I correct?

[alexeykh]

Striving for selfish personal gain brings about the greater good. Oh, I get it; clear as mud!

Doublespeak.

[killerbee2k]

@hardstyle905 Yes which is why power needs to seperated, competing against each other like its supposed too. But without the force of arms the Judicial branches of the worlds republics and democracies have no power. Like President Andrew Jackson said when the supreme court tried to stop him "They have made their ruling, now let them enforce it". They have also been infiltrated by legislative branch puppets, mostly socialists who justify anything under the vague concept of common good.

[hardstyle905]

@killerbee2k problem is, the american gov doesnt give 2 shits about the constitution