The Engineering of Consent Part 2 ( of 4 ) Adam Curtis
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7640401519667425927#docid=-678466363224520614
In the 1960s, a radical group of psychotherapists challenged the influence of Freudian ideas in America. They were inspired by the ideas of Wilhelm Reich, a pupil of Freud's, who had turned against him and was hated by the Freud family. He believed that the inner self did not need to be repressed and controlled. It should be encouraged to express itself. Out of this came a political movement that sought to create new beings free of the psychological conformity that had been implanted in people's minds by business and politics. This programme shows how this rapidly developed in America through self-help movements like Werber Erhard's Erhard Seminar Training - into the irresistible rise of the expressive self: the Me Generation. But the American corporations soon realised that this new self was not a threat but their greatest opportunity. It was in their interest to encourage people to feel they were unique individuals and then sell them ways to express that individuality. To do this they turned to techniques developed by Freudian psychoanalysts to read the inner desires of the new self.
A 'Super-Ecological' Poem by the Late lost Poet Richard Brautigan inspires the title for Adam Curtis' new series on being lost in the machine - a good blend of questioning and reason, imagination and friction !
T.V BBC iplayer Adam Curtis ( research ) and watch
the New Adam Curtis three part series begins on BBC2 on 23 May at 9pm.
SEE HERE http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/video/2011/may/06/documentary-internet-adam-curtis and another Guardian article here;
A 'Super-Ecological' Poem by the Late lost Poet Richard Brautigan inspires the title for Adam Curtis' new series on being lost in the machine - a good blend of questioning and reason, imagination and friction !
(Speak to me in Cavendish for more information and updates on the summer reading / book and Film list )
More on Brautigan here http://www.brautigan.net/machines.html
"All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace"
I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.
I like to think
(right now please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.
I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.
I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.
I like to think
(right now please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.
I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.
First Published
San Francisco: The Communication Company, 1967.
8.5" x 11" mimeographed broadside with hand-lettered title and imprint (Communication Company). All else type-written. .............................................................................................................................
