Adam Curtis is spoken of in hushed tones as some kind of prophet or seer dispensing truth to a few wise acolytes from a windswept, er, studio in the BBC . He makes documentaries and this one in particular, The Trap, has been recommended to me by several people. The uploader on YouTube feels that its contents are so dangerous that it is bound to be taken down soon by Google, the CIA, the US Government and possibly David Icke's lizard beings who run the universe. It is an "analysis" of Isaiah Berlin's essay "Two Concepts of Liberty" and explains how Berlin's idea of "negative freedom" now shapes the modern world.
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Its certainly a visually arresting TV show but my God it is shallow undergraduate stuff and it is quite amazing to me that anyone can regard this as somehow "news". You study Isaiah Berlin's Two Concepts of Liberty in your very first week in a contemporary political philosophy course and then you spend the next year or so reading all the detailed criticisms of Berlin's view. Berlin was wrong Curtis says in the dramatic big reveal at the end of his show. Oh yeah, which way wrong? The way Ronald Dworkin says he was wrong or the way Robert Nozick says he was wrong or the way Alasdair MacIntyre says he was wrong or the way Charles Taylor says he was wrong? Berlin is merely a starting point for the whole communitarian/liberal debate that has been raging in philosophy since the late 60's. It's staggering that Curtis seems to be unaware of all of this. It gets him into embarrassing trouble: for Curtis to say that the idea of "positive liberty" has been "hidden and forgotten" (or perhaps, duh, duh, duh, suppressed) is absolute rubbish. Has he had read any philosophy book or paper written in the last 40 years? Now that Marxism is toast this is all that political philosophy departments ever argue about. Entire conferences, books, etc. etc. have raged on the idea of positive versus negative liberty. The very first philosophy tutorial I ever had was on Michael Sandel's criticisms of John Rawls's book length treatment of Berlin.
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Ironically Curtis is part of the problem that he claims to be worried about in his other documentaries - i.e. the dumbing down of TV. He's clearly spent a lot of time in the BBC archives finding footage and music for his programmes, but that time might more profitably have been spent in a library. The Trap is very thin gruel indeed, containing big exaggerated theses, no counter examples and no nuance; it proves what Neil Postman said two decades ago: TV is a medium for communicating images not ideas.
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If you are interested in the whole concept of positive and negative liberty and the role of freedom in a democracy (from the left and right and from all places in between) check out these books as a starting point:
Friedrich Hayek - The Road To Serfdom
Karl Popper - The Open Society and its Enemies
Two Concepts of Liberty - Isaiah Berlin
A Theory of Justice - John Rawls
Taking Rights Seriously - Ronald Dworkin
Anarchy, State and Utopia - Robert Nozick
Sources of the Self - Charles Taylor
After Virtue - Alasdair MacIntyre
Incidentally I'm going to pitch an idea to the BBC for a TV show called Charles Darwin The Hidden Prophet which will be an analysis of this unknown nineteenth century biologist and the conspiracy of silence about him and his controversial ideas.
Monday, May 31, 2010
The Hermeneutics of Suspicion - The Adam Curtis Edition
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13 comments:
That documentary is pretty funny. It seems very dated in its style. Loved the people waterskiing down the canal, self-absorbed negative liberty types that they obviously are.
As to the substance of the thing, I'll leave better educated types to argue or agree with you. What I will say is that I don't know how it goes in the British school system, but I think you'd be hard pressed in a random poll on the street here to find many who'd even heard of Isaiah Berlin. I'm more in the category of people who have heard of him and maybe read a random article or two on him, maybe some short thing by him. So I don't think it's actually television that's responsible for our dumbing down. I think it's a lack of coherence in undergraduate education, at least in the U.S. I don't know how true it is across the country, but I think in general, philosophy is an elective and only one among many to choose between in fulfilling the humanities side of a degree. I did take a very good class from a Cambridge professor who was visiting, but it was on Augustine, Hobbes, and Machiavelli, not any 20th century stuff. And there were only eight people in that class, so there you go.
So, although the premise of that show is hardly a startling revelation to you, it might actually be an entry point for a whole segment of the public who were never exposed to any of this before. I have to say from that brief clip that I don't like positive liberty or negative liberty very much, and their names seem like they should be reversed.
Thanks for the list.
seana
thats the whole problem. I think no information is better than disinformation. Berlin's essay is actually very sensible and well written. Negative liberty makes complete sense as a concept and there's nothing sinister about it.
Curtis is either ignorant or intellectually dishonest with his silly claims.
Oh, I see what you're saying--a bad entry point. I haven't gone on to watch more--is he saying positive liberty should be brought back? And am wrong in thinking that the efforts of Islamic fundamentalism is a case of 'positive' liberty that is very much alive?
I have to say that as a catch phrase for the better path, 'negative liberty' is never going to catch on. Not here in America, anyway. It's not, well, positive enough.
I expect there will be more voices weighing in, but it's Memorial Day weekend here, and I expect people are out barbequeing or camping or whatever it is they do when they don't work in retail. Me, I'm lying low in preparation for another work day tomorrow. Gotta be ready. A new article in Slate says that the Rich are back, exercising their negative liberty all over the place.
Seana
He says that the ideas of positive liberty have been suppressed by a conspiracy of neo cons, Thatcherites etc. It's total nonsense. Its actually a complex and interesting philosophical debate about how neutral the government should in letting people choose their own version of the good life, reduced in Curtis's doc to a silly conspiracy theory.
Got it. Guess I'll have to check out that reading list...uh, soon.
I haven't had a chance to watch the video, like Seana said, it's a holiday in my neck of the woods so we are doing what we do on holidays. Once things settle back in tomorrow, I'll try to watch it and learn something since I am one of those here that has never heard of Isaiah Berlin....sadly.
Seana
If you can only read make it the Charles Taylor, its a sort of philosophical historical survey of the idea of the "self". Its very interesting. Not obviously as readable as a Jacques Barzun. But who is, eh?
Miss Snob
Here's a good Isaiah Berlin story. He was an intelligence agent based in Washington during the war and sent back very lucid, brilliant reports on the American scene. Churchill loved reading them because of their eloquence, so he asked if he could meet him.
The request went along the chain of command and the meeting took place. Except that no one could quite believe that Churchill hadnt meant Irving Berlin, so Churchill met the song writer instead.
That's a great story and I wonder if Irving Berlin got pegged as a spy because of it.
Okay, Charles Taylor it is. Well, after I finish the Barzun, which is still going to be a ways away. And yes, I do highly recommend From Dawn to Decadence--don't be put off by the size, anyone, because you don't have to read it in a day, do you?
You do realize that you're actually kind of abetting Curtis here, don't you?
AM:
I've watched it and one can only imagine the scene when Curtis pitched this idea to the BBC.
'I've been looking into the Cold War and I've had this, like, feeling.'
'Feeling, Adam?'
'Yeah. It's like, well, there's this bloke Berlin.'
'City, Adam. Germany. You sniff a lot, know that? Not a wonderful look.'
'Fuck off. Anyway, he came up with this negative freedom shit. People don't even know about it and it's, like, run the world ever since.'
SILENCE IN ROOM
'Run the world?'
'Oh, yeah. Dominant ideology. Hegemonic. Total. Yeah.'
'And, what, doco? Is that like a whatsisname, Moore?'
'Bigger. He's a fucking dwarf. This is huge. Global.'
Carlos
The clincher was when he said: "You're all part of it too if you dont let me make it. . .and funnily enough if you do."
Is that a true story?? That's kinda funny!!
As for the video and the theory, I think it's an interesting one. I had never heard of Isaiah Berlin, but my understand from the video of the concept of what he calls negative liberty is somewhat how I think it should be. There have to be rules to prevent chaos..what side of the street to drive on, work...earn money...eat, no stealing, no killing, etc, but is it the governments right to tell us we have to wear seat belts, how to raise our kids or that we have to pay for others medical bills, food? The government is involved in almost every aspect of our lives, (here in America anyway). "Positive liberty" however is rampant and growing.
Am I somewhere in the ball park?
Miss Snob
Yup thats about it!
Irving must have got asked a lot of strange questions.
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