Forum Post: "Information" ; Documentary Maker & 'Video Essayist', Adam Curtis - some recommended works.

I append the following 4 Documentary Series, all by UK Documentary Maker and 'Video Essayist', Adam Curtis - who is simply without parallel or peer in this field (imho).

These documentaries series comprise 13 hours of viewing in total and I do recommend that they are watched with lengthy breaks to assimilate and absorb the information therein without too much 'psychic shock'.

Anybody engaging with these will essentially have done a course of study into 'critical thinking' into issues that are 'behind the propaganda veil'. I'd be pleasantly surprised if such a course was even available in many of our centres of (so called) learning !! Thus :

• 1) "The Century of the Self" : http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-century-of-the-self/ , (2002). The four films are about how those in power have used Freud’s theories to try and control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy. Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, changed the perception of the human mind and its workings profoundly.

• 2) "The Power of Nightmares" : http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-power-of-nightmares/ , (2004). The three films compare the rise of the American Neo-Conservative movement and the radical Islamist movement, making comparisons on their origins and noting strong similarities between the two.

• 3) "The Trap" : http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-trap/ , (2007). The Trap is a series of three films 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 behavior of the Soviet enemy.

• 4) "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace" : http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/all-watched-over-by-machines-of-loving-grace/ , (2011). Another three film series, about how humans have been colonized by the machines they have built. Although we don’t realize it, the way we see everything in the world today is through the eyes of the computers. It claims that computers have failed to liberate us and instead have distorted and simplified our view of the world around us.

I have found the above personally liberating and recommend them with humility and sincerity and I provide the above links in the spirit of "Fair Use" and of sharing 'a good thing' ;-)

Re. Adam Curtis, please see : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Curtis .

respice ; adspice ; prospice ...