Individual freedom is the dream of our age. It's what our leaders promise to give us, it defines how we think of ourselves and, repeatedly, we have gone to war to impose freedom around the ...
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"Only two groups in society actually behave in a rational self-interested way in all experimental situations: one is economist themselves, the other is psychopaths."
Isaiah Berlin made distinctions between a 'positive' and revolutionary idea of freedom, which he believed was dangerous and violent, and the 'negative' freedom that allows people to live their lives ...
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The ultimate political goal at the heart of our age is the idea of individual freedom. In the first episode of the trap miniseries, an answer to the question of what personal freedom means and how ...
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Title: The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom (2007)
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Individual freedom is the dream of our age. It's what our leaders promise to give us, it defines how we think of ourselves and, repeatedly, we have gone to war to impose freedom around the world. But if you step back and look at what freedom actually means for us today, it's a strange and limited kind of freedom.
Politicians promised to liberate us from the old dead hand of bureaucracy, but they have created an evermore controlling system of social management, driven by targets and numbers. Governments committed to freedom of choice have presided over a rise in inequality and a dramatic collapse in social mobility. And abroad, in Iraq and Afghanistan, the attempt to enforce freedom has led to bloody mayhem and the rise of an authoritarian anti-democratic Islamism. This, in turn, has helped inspire terrorist attacks in Britain. In response, the Government has dismantled long-standing laws designed to protect our freedom.
The Trap is a series of three films by Bafta-winning producer Adam ...
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tv mini series | political crime | evil politician | public relations | international relations |Taglines:
Human beings will always betray you. You can only trust the numbers.Genres:
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Narrator: When the government then tried to set a target to reduce the number of patients waiting on trolleys, the managers took the wheels off the trolleys and reclassified them as beds. And they redefined the corridors as wards and yet again the patients were off the lists. The Police were also under pressure to meet their targets. One of the main ones was to reduce the rate of recorded crime. Again, inventive strategies were found. Lothian Police announced the most successful crime figures in 25 years...See more »
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Much like his previous work, THE POWER OF NIGHTMARES, Adam Curtis' THE TRAP takes an intriguing and complex idea, the idea of freedom used by western governments, and expands it to three superb and detailed episodes, that looks how this idea has been developed, through cold war strategy, American psychiatry, political ideology and eventually to the Blair government and its use of free market ideas and target strategy's in public services. There is a lot to talk about, but all i would say is that, you need to watch it. If you want to watch a series that questions the state of things in the world and allows an intelligent and sensible argument as to how we have fallen into this false sense of freedom, that has led to the rise of social inequality and the disastrous attempt to establish democracy in Iraq, which has led to a rise in violent factions in the country itself and the rise of the threat of terror attacks in Britain, Europe and America, this series will draw you in as it is both revealing and eye opening, and the sort of intelligent documentary film making that we need more of. Naturally what sounds like a subject that may seem boring to some on paper, is perfectly handled by Curtis, who inter cuts talking head interviews along with a mountain of archive footage that is funny, revealing and disturbing. This is essential viewing.