{"version":"1.0","type":"rich","provider_name":"Acast","provider_url":"https://acast.com","height":250,"width":700,"html":"<iframe src=\"https://embed.acast.com/$/9a03fe9e-1ff0-4dcc-b3f6-50bd1f016ea4/5928e8a3-ab60-43e7-8419-60f0af3c5c03?\" frameBorder=\"0\" width=\"700\" height=\"250\"></iframe>","title":"Adam Curtis","thumbnail_width":200,"thumbnail_height":200,"thumbnail_url":"https://open-images.acast.com/shows/6195701f2eacc3a36070252a/619570bccb3c660012e3cdfe.jpg?height=200","description":"<p>This week David talks to the celebrated film-maker Adam Curtis about his new series Can't Get You Out of My Head, which tells the history of the rise and fall of individualism.&nbsp;Why do so many people feel so powerless in the age of the empowered individual?&nbsp;How has digital technology turbo-charged our feelings of alienation?&nbsp;And what has all this got to do with behavioural psychology?&nbsp;Plus much more: Nixon, China, Dominic Cummings, complex systems, Max Weber and conspiracy theories.&nbsp;<a href=\"https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p093wp6h/cant-get-you-out-of-my-head\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p093wp6h/cant-get-you-out-of-my-head</a></p><p><br></p><p>Talking Points:</p><p><br></p><p>In his newest series, Adam identifies the 1970s as the wellspring of a global system that feels irrational and beyond political control.&nbsp;</p><ul><li>The Nixon shock—when the dollar became detached from the gold standard—was something that Nixon, at the time, saw as temporary.</li><li>But as the Watergate scandal carried on, banks realized they could start trading currencies against each other. Out of this came the global financial system.</li><li>The opening to China was seen as a great stroke of statesmanship.</li><li>But what was happening at that time in China was the collapse of the certainty of Mao’s revolution. What emerged was a system run by Deng Xiaoping who essentially substituted money for ideology.</li><li>Deng turned China into a giant production house of cheap goods.&nbsp;</li><li>The generation that came out of WWII was terrified of big ideologies. What replaced ideology? Money.</li></ul><p><br></p><p>In an age of mass democracy, where individualism reigns, states become extremely difficult to govern.</p><ul><li>By the late 70s/early 80s, politicians started to realize that you couldn’t assemble stable groups behind you. Instead of representing the people, they tried to become managers.&nbsp;</li><li>Adam thinks that to call this neoliberalism is to oversimplify things.</li><li>Under Thatcher and Reagan, industrial policy essentially failed. The politicians gave up before we realized they had given up.</li></ul><p><br></p><p>On the surface, behaviouralism seemed like a challenge to the notion of the rational, self-interested individual.</p><ul><li>But actually, behaviouralists concluded that if people are irrational, we need to find ways to nudge them to behave in rational ways so that the system will work better.&nbsp;</li></ul><p><br></p><p>The Internet, as it is currently constructed, is like a modern ghost story. It’s always looking at patterns in the past.</p><ul><li>The Internet as a feedback system can’t imagine something that hasn’t already happened.&nbsp;</li><li>It’s a form of management that renders the world static and repeatable.&nbsp;</li></ul><p><br></p><p>Fake stability has led to a kind of blindness: think about the collapse of the Soviet Union, or the financial crisis, or Trump.</p><ul><li>Again and again the people in charge fail to anticipate what’s coming.</li><li>Has the ability of Big Data to predict been oversold?&nbsp;</li></ul><p><br></p><p>Mentioned in this Episode:&nbsp;</p><ul><li><a href=\"https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p093wp6h\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Adam’s newest series, <em>Can’t Get You Out of my Head</em></a></li><li><a href=\"https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/weber/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Max Weber’s ‘iron cage’</a></li><li><a href=\"https://hbr.org/2013/03/did-ebay-just-prove-that-paid\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">DId eBay just prove that paid search ads don’t work?&nbsp;</a></li></ul><p><br></p><p>Further Learning:&nbsp;</p><ul><li><a href=\"https://www.talkingpoliticspodcast.com/blog/2018/105-talking-politics-guide-to-the-1970s\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">The Talking Politics Guide to... 1970s (with Helen)</a></li><li><a href=\"https://play.acast.com/s/history-of-ideas/hayekonthemarket\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"...","author_name":"David Runciman and Catherine Carr"}