The notion that because something can be quantified, it is somehow better managed is so preposterous that I can barely restrain my anger. Freeing the medical establishment from doctors…what rubbish. This is a sure-fire recipe for disaster. Not only are human beings extremely different in their physiology and response to medication, but there is not adequate science behind many medicines. ARRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHH

HAYEK was full of crap and he knew it. He was pushing a theory that was to his benefit and, much like Wall Street, he did not give a rat’s ass about what it did to the system. Nazism pretended to be socialism, but it wasn’t. IT was a society for the benefit of a few people just like the USA is becoming. Self-interest is not a particularly good mechanism for regulating society. Ethics, morals and laws based upon those were created because mankind is not good at self-control absent such controls.

It really doesn’t matter who is doing the controlling, right, left, dictator, king……., the results are always the same, freedom becomes just a sometimes granted privilege subject to change by the next ‘powers that be’ stepping into power….

Curtis expresses how the “new guard” (my term), in an attempt to create a better “free” society, hanged itself on a whole new set of oppressive institutions that would not have existed if not for their aspirations to “freedom.” I think some people are interpreting this to imply that Curtis is presenting/romanticizing the past ways of structuring society as somehow better and more beneficial to people, both individually and collectively. What I’m getting from the doc so far (only watched the first part), is that Curtis more or less refrains from either celebrating or criticizing the “old ways” (my term) in favor of staying on topic and pointing out the harm done by the “new ways” (my term). Pointing out the flaws of the new is not the same as favoring the old. Dichotomy – silly notion.

Sorry, I meant liberty in a real sense.

It seems to me you’re making some outlandish assumptions on the intent of Adam Curtis. Now I could be wrong but I really don’t see anything resembling an argument for the ‘return of the king’ as you claim. Could you give some examples or point me to a part in the film? I’ve watched this documentary a few times now and all I take from it is that there are a lot of influences and ideologies at play in shaping our lives and attitudes that we are not aware of, and therefore, controlled by them in a sense.

“This program attacks the very roots of the information revolution that is bringing openness to the Mid-East. ”

How so? I see this program as part of that very revolution.

“those who pine for the glorious past of the dark ages.”

Curtis did a documentary on that very sort of idea where politicians tried to create the spirit of past glories… The Living Dead I think it was called. Good doc.

It had always been thought that you needed a king to rule a country. The idea was, and this went from the philosophers and intellectuals on down, was that if you did not have a divinely ordained king to administer laws everyone would wage war against everyone else and break the divine law of the Ten Commandments and murder their neighbors.

Philosophers had supposed that it was laws which kept us from killing each other, that the reason I don’t murder people as I walk down the street is the law only. If this were true, and you were to go to a place where there was no law you would do what each of us secretly wish to do all day long and that is slit each others throats. When Locke saw that pirate colonies were flourishing he realized (and wrote some very influential books one of which is quoted in the Declaration of Independence) that they must have some other reason not to kill each other.

Perhaps Mr. Curtis and the BBC should Google Wikipedia and find out a little more about their American cousins and the aforementioned declaration.

“Understanding these influences and how they affect your life will give more liberty than…”

It will give you more of an illusion?

It sounds like liberty is an illusion for everyone but you and Adam Curtis. This is just another British academic intellectual arguing for the return of the king, the beneficent ruler, planning our lives for, instead of the “divine right of kings”, the “divine right of the people”.

This program attacks the very roots of the information revolution that is bringing openness to the Mid-East.

No amount of wealth generation, lives saved and made better, and liberty for all ages, sexes, and races made possible by the internet will assuage those who pine for the glorious past of the dark ages.

He, and the BBC, have obviously missed the American Revolution section of
their public school classes. That is when people realized that it is
individuals that validate and give meaning to the government, not the other
way around.

The fact that Curtis, and educated man and pretty good documentary maker,
still can not attain this understanding 235 later helps me understand what a
monumental intellectual achievement it was.