The Adam Curtis ''The Trap'' series: With Academic Agent and Simon Roberts

I’ve joined Academic Agent and Simon Roberts for their marathon journey through Adam Curtis's seminal documentaries. The documentary series I shall be discussing is 2007’s The Trap. The Trap is the story of how a technocratic model of man as a self-interested individual was founded and then promulgated across the West, eventually informing an overarching logic to neoliberalism. Needless to say, the thesis of Game Theory, which dictates that humans are inherently selfish and self-serving, runs counter to my view of the world, which is one of ethnic bonds and group loyalties trumping such liberal, even libertarian assumptions. Still, given that the Game Theory model was imposed upon us and we must live with its consequences, the time has come to appraise it.

In the first of three discussions, we follow Curtis through the invention of the theory during the Cold War and its journey through the mental health industry and into economics and politics.

I will also post the next two chapters in this post, so the whole series will be available in a single post.

Part 2.

Part 3.