Century of the Self

I've been a fan of Adam Curtis for a while now, ever since I saw the video he did for Newswipe on what he called 'Oh Dearism'. Criminally, I've not seen Century of the Self before, so this was a great screening to go to this week.

It seemed a lot of what he talked about in the episode was almost exactly what was said in last weeks lecture, but it's good as that helped to solidify my knowledge. It was interesting to watch what he talked about as I really wasn't sure what perspective I agreed with the most. I'm still somewhat in that stage where I can't abide the government, so I liked the attitudes of Reagan where small government was the order of business. On the other hand, I recognise that people have a wonderful ability to cock everything up and need someone to guide them.

To me it all seemed a bit too absolute. Hippies saying that their way was correct and that the only way to live was to release your inner you and with pent up Freudians saying that inside people are monsters that need to be contained. Add to that capitalism saying that everything's up to YOU, the individual it made it all a bit too...clean.

To me, it seems that the purpose of these beliefs and philosophies is to try and strike a balance. With such extremes on either side, they should in theory ending up with most people finding a middle ground. Having too much regulation (or repression if you prefer) will lead to rebellion and with too much freedom people will take advantage, as we've found out with the banking crisis of late.

I'll certainly be watchiung the rest of The Century of the Self on YouTube. It's certainly illuminating.