a new post from adam curtis

Many people on my facebook have at some stage been on the receiving end of an Adam Curtis documentary link. I found Adam Curtis through a very short segment he did for Charlie Brooker’s Newswipe. In it, he used the example of Roy Jenkins, the Labour Home Secretary who legalised homosexuality, to show how politics in the past could be a force to lead change, rather than simply reflect the public opinion polls. Curtis suggests that we have become so inherently suspicious of ‘elitism’ that we have in fact led to a stagnant and less progressive society. Since then, I have been an avid follower of Adam Curtis various documentary’s and also his blog. The common theme that I would establoish across them is that Curtis feels the balance between “positive liberty” and “negative liberty” has been pulled too far towards the latter.

Curtis argues strongly against market advocates and figures such as Hayek, but does borrow from some of their analyses. The suspicion that Curtis feels holds progress back, he explains is in the fear of the language of “positive liberty” which is left over from it’s use by the Soviet Union. In the Road to Serfdom, Hayek’s fears of ‘positive liberty’ he explains derive from what he observed as the consequential rise of Fascism and Totalitarianism. The difference emerges between Curtis who considers it an over reaction, and Hayek who considers it a wise reaction.

I’d recomend any of Adam Curtis’ documentaries to anyone, agree or disagree with him, he can certainly link together a fascinating bundle of stories in a way that will make them seem so interrelated that it’s easy to underestimate the depth of perception Curtis displays to find them in the first place.