#1
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Adam Curtis is starting a new series of blog posts, in the style of his documentaries, about how the dominance of free market orthodoxy came out. I thought some people might be interested in it here (especially aerdil and dm) because of how popular his stuff usually is.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2011/09/the_curse_of_tina.html

Here's the intro:

The guiding idea at the heart of today's political system is freedom of choice. The belief that if you apply the ideals of the free market to all sorts of areas in society, people will be liberated from the dead hand of government. The wants and desires of individuals then become the primary motor of society.

But this has led to a very peculiar paradox. In politics today we have no choice at all. Quite simply There Is No Alternative.

That was fine when the system was working well. But since 2008 there has been a rolling economic crisis, and the system increasingly seems unable to rescue itself. You would expect that in response to such a crisis new, alternative ideas would emerge. But this hasn't happened.

Nobody - not just from the left, but from anywhere - has come forward and tried to grab the public imagination with a vision of a different way to organise and manage society.

It's a bit odd - and I thought I would tell a number of stories about why we find it impossible to imagine any alternative. Why we have become so possessed by the ideology of our age that we cannot think outside it.

The first story is called:

CARRY ON THINKING

It is about the rise of the modern Think Tank and how in a very strange way they have made thinking impossible.



And its some pretty fascinating stuff, going all over the place as Curtis's stuff tends to do -- covering "chickens, pirate radio, retired colonels, Jean Paul Sartre, Screaming Lord Sutch, and at its heart is a dramatic and brutal killing committed by one of the very men who helped bring about the resurgence of the free market in Britain." Its sorta like one of his documentaries in text form, and there's lots of obscure video clips interspersed through.

Edited by germanjoey ()

#2
tardy on these heaters
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I actually didn't like this article very much. His stuff on Afghanistan is amazing though
#3
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i read it and it was interesting b/c the development in the US was quite a bit different but the impact has been identical. in the US they aren't so much a distinct thing or phenomenon as they are a byproduct of how we do philanthropy
#4
Mike Nelson here.
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good more economics talk from non-economists
#5
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thanks for the article gjoe, it's pretty interesting. he's definitely channeling Renata Salecl/zizek in that first paragraph.

the research on think tanks is pretty fascinating, especially the historical almost-seems-like-fiction background, albeit nothing no one didn't already know, at least intuitively... but its def. important to remember that basically every institution in and out of academia is lovingly fucked by capital

the best clip is certainly hayek espousing his thinly veiled and coded metaphysics concerning the free-market. i absolutely adore the bourgeois mentality that can so effectively mask a belief system as a factual science

Edited by aerdil ()

#6
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dm posted:
i read it and it was interesting b/c the development in the US was quite a bit different but the impact has been identical. in the US they aren't so much a distinct thing or phenomenon as they are a byproduct of how we do philanthropy



What is the story there? I mean I know about the early days, with the Rand Corporation and cold war strategy and all that, and it actually seems a logical consequence of what our enormous WW2 intelligence apparatus would morph into once they had no Nazi codes to crack. But how do we get The Center for American Progress out of *that*?

#7
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i think dm was touching on the american phenomenon of "philanthropic" foundations, the supreme example being the Ford Foundation, which hand out all their grants to ideologically free-market and capitalist think tanks, tilting institutional power and reach in their favor? tell me if i'm off-track here
#8
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yes those are think tanks. how were those invented. what is the history there.
#9
tardy on these heaters
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you know joey im a think tank
#10
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babyfinland posted:
you know joey im a think tank



yeah, a think tank like one of them little shermans, whose drivers had to duct-tape a cardboard tube around the barrel outta shear embarassement

#11
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germanjoey posted:

dm posted:
i read it and it was interesting b/c the development in the US was quite a bit different but the impact has been identical. in the US they aren't so much a distinct thing or phenomenon as they are a byproduct of how we do philanthropy

What is the story there? I mean I know about the early days, with the Rand Corporation and cold war strategy and all that, and it actually seems a logical consequence of what our enormous WW2 intelligence apparatus would morph into once they had no Nazi codes to crack. But how do we get The Center for American Progress out of *that*?



RAND is kinda different because its pretty much a quasi-government agency. he did a series on it that he mentions in that covers it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZ6t5JA7OBA

it's mostly just private foundations with tax exempt status to promote whatever. they've been around since the early 20th century and grown ever since

e: yeah this

aerdil posted:
i think dm was touching on the american phenomenon of "philanthropic" foundations, the supreme example being the Ford Foundation, which hand out all their grants to ideologically free-market and capitalist think tanks, tilting institutional power and reach in their favor? tell me if i'm off-track here



i mean the choice is to pay taxes or try to spend it on things that will enhance your political power

e2: as of 2003, there were: 58,000 independent foundations, most of which are local with 9.7 percent donating over $500,000 a year and 2,362 corporate foundations which have grown rapidly since the 80's.


Edited by dm ()

#12
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okay well while i was looking up a history of the formation of think tanks in america, i stumbled upon this interesting but dry article from the American Quarterly about the first foreign affairs think tanks that operated through the 20s to the 50s that were marginalized due to fears of communist infiltration as they countered the "correct view" of the cold war: such as when they rated Communist performance in China better than the Nationalists or criticized the US for holding the USSR to a level that it couldn't hold itself in foreign policy. Both of the organizations it covers, the FPA and IPR, were eventually crippled in the 50s as they lost grants from foundations and corporations that switched to funding think tanks with a more expressly anti-communist stance (like the RAND Corporation); and after switching policy to re-attract funds, now hold a largely irrelevant status quo position.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/2712297




Edited by aerdil ()

#13
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hmm for some reason whenever i start researching how shitty some aspect of academia is, it always relates back in some way to american propaganda about the cultural revolution lmao
#14
tardy on these heaters
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you know aerdil, im american propaganda about the cultural revolution
#15
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aerdil posted:
hmm for some reason whenever i start researching how shitty some aspect of academia is, it always relates back in some way to american propaganda about the cultural revolution lmao



you might want to check out this book by C. Wright Mills. it was more or less a critique of a bunch of emerging trends in the social sciences back in 1959. he really clearly identifies what we now call "scientism" and related issues. another was what he called "abstracted empiricism" involving the fetishistic use of statistical techniques. this one passage really struck me and has a lot of relevance to what Curtis was talking about:

During the modern era, physical and biological science has been the major common denominator of serious reflection and popular metaphysics in Western societies. 'The technique of the laboratory' has been the accepted mode of procedure and the source of intellectual security. That is one meaning of the idea of an intellectual common denominator: men can state their strongest convictions in its terms; other terms and other styles of reflection seem mere vehicles of escape and obscurity.



the themes related to technology and the "____ of the future" that characterized popular culture at the time come to mind.

Edited by dm ()

#16
desire be, desire go
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dm posted:

aerdil posted:
hmm for some reason whenever i start researching how shitty some aspect of academia is, it always relates back in some way to american propaganda about the cultural revolution lmao

you might want to check out this book by C. Wright Mills. it was more or less a critique of a bunch of emerging trends in the social sciences back in 1959. he really clearly identifies what we now call "scientism" and related issues. another was what he called "abstracted empiricism" involving the fetishistic use of statistical techniques. this one passage really struck me and has a lot of relevance to what Curtis was talking about:

During the modern era, physical and biological science has been the major common denominator of serious reflection and popular metaphysics in Western societies. 'The technique of the laboratory' has been the accepted mode of procedure and the source of intellectual security. That is one meaning of the idea of an intellectual common denominator: men can state their strongest convictions in its terms; other terms and other styles of reflection seem mere vehicles of escape and obscurity.



the themes related to technology and the "____ of the future" that characterized popular culture at the time come to mind.



since this keeps coming up i figured i should probably go ahead and read it. already found a phrase i really like: "The very structure of opportunities has collapsed"

#17
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dm posted:
That is one meaning of the idea of an intellectual common denominator: men can state their strongest convictions in its terms; other terms and other styles of reflection seem mere vehicles of escape and obscurity.



that quote also seems pretty damn prescient about positivist or analytical critiques of continental philosophy & post-modernism

#18
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Adam Curtis is a good collater, I love the archival style. His scripts have almost become self parody though. It's like I've seen the movie/article before I even watched/read it - you can see the rhetorical feints coming a mile away.

Anybody see Tribulation 99, by Craig Baldwin? It's a coded read on imperialism in Latin America. He has a piece about the Zaire space program too. His style is a reaction against the deadening of information, which ties into this thread re: the role of the think tanks.
#19
The Future is Here
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What's the antidote to the think tank? Like how do you combat the received idea world. Youtube videos seem to be pretty effective at spreading little belieff systems that reinforce peoples suspicions, like loose change/zeitgeist/that illuminati music video stuff. Could it be as easy as making a little catchy movie and convincing everyone to be a reasonable leftist :tongue:
#20
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you combat it with aesthetics. a bunch of old farts sifting through U of Chicago articles isnt very hip
#21
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actually it would be cool to shake things up in the ol think tank world, like write a bunch of articles about how liberals dont understand freud, and how the poor are much better off with their accidental lack of power instead of just being dumb/ugly/shamed in an "egalitarian" world. it would own.
#22
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animedad posted:
actually it would be cool to shake things up in the ol think tank world, like write a bunch of articles about how liberals dont understand freud, and how the poor are much better off with their accidental lack of power instead of just being dumb/ugly/shamed in an "egalitarian" world. it would own.



zizek already wrote that book

#23
Mike Nelson here.
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zizek wrote all the books
#24
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aerdil posted:

animedad posted:
actually it would be cool to shake things up in the ol think tank world, like write a bunch of articles about how liberals dont understand freud, and how the poor are much better off with their accidental lack of power instead of just being dumb/ugly/shamed in an "egalitarian" world. it would own.

zizek already wrote that book


ya but not for the institute of REason and Freedom or w/e. thats the joke!!

#25
tardy on these heaters
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Myfanwy posted:
What's the antidote to the think tank? Like how do you combat the received idea world. Youtube videos seem to be pretty effective at spreading little belieff systems that reinforce peoples suspicions, like loose change/zeitgeist/that illuminati music video stuff. Could it be as easy as making a little catchy movie and convincing everyone to be a reasonable leftist :tongue:



www.rhizzone.net

i dont think changing peoples minds is honestly a tactic for anything. a lot of people have really strong political opinions but they dont do anything about it. the key is organizing people towards some project, and that takes community building and old fashioned hard work. if anything i think those youtube memes just reinforce social isolation and paranoia about your neighbors

#26
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"words without action are worse than nothing" - convicted pedophile mohandas gandhi
#27
desire be, desire go
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babyfinland posted:
www.rhizzone.net

i dont think changing peoples minds is honestly a tactic for anything. a lot of people have really strong political opinions but they dont do anything about it. the key is organizing people towards some project, and that takes community building and old fashioned hard work. if anything i think those youtube memes just reinforce social isolation and paranoia about your neighbors



yeah agreed on all points

#28
Mike Nelson here.
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if it helps i think a lot of americans have a skewed view of politics because you can't ever do anything much in the US anymore. like in canada things aren't great but you can do things like elect governments that put in child care programs that wouldn't even be really talked about in the US. and canada is one of the most conservative countries in europe and its offshoots really by social program measures. obviously the neoliberal period has rolled back things everywhere but you can still actually affect change in some minor ways in most democracies and such.