Many of you may have heard of the recent BBC production, The Power of Nightmares, written and produced by Adam Curtis. The documentary was aired in late October. The entire three hour program is now posted online.
Curtis proposes that international terrorism is a myth, one that is promulgated by a camarilla of neoconservatives, surreptitiously bending the mind of our impressionable president. He posits that neoconservative politicians plot to build a national ideology based around an irrational fear of terrorism, appealing to a nightmare vision. In so doing, Curtis purports that neoconservatives mirror the very ideologues they seek to destroy: Islamic fundamentalists like bin Laden who want to build an Islamic caliphate.
Curtis' BBC documentary is stylistic and masterfully edited; it's compelling to watch even as a poor-quality Real Media video. My initial take was that in an effort to debunk Reagan's simplistic 'evil empire' view of the Soviet Union as mere myth, the communist empire is portrayed somewhat benignly, to say the least. I was also struck how Sayyid Qutb and his protégé Ayman al Zawahiri are apparently the moral equivalents of Paul Wolfowitz and Irving Kristol, portraying each as potent progenitors of antithetical mirror-image mythological ideologies---conveniently grouping together both sides of the current war into a single threat. We are all the hapless victims of a malevolent game akin to Mad Magazine's Spy versus Spy, it seems. Arab Islamic pathological Jew hatred, for example, hardly figures into the equation.
Clive Davis has a good rebuttal to Curtis' masterpiece, for a fuller analysis.
The documentary is worth watching because terrorism that is portrayed as mere myth is a rising meme within liberal circles. I have encountered the phrase 'terror myth' several times over the past few weeks. Curtis' slick BBC production might have popularized the phrase. I would hate to see the terrorism myth-myth fully infect the Democrats, lest they become completely irrelevant. They've become inconsequential enough as it is.
So by all means, watch the documentary if you have the time, and garner your own opinions. What are the grains-of-truth? That we are all susceptible to suave, persuasive ideologues? If so, is Curtis exposing the truth or just promoting his own? Curtis has his salient points---I'm wary of the Republican's proclivities for old time religion and single-mindedness too---but I don't really know if I want to fully believe any of these people---Curtis, the BBC, the neoconservatives, the Christian fundamentalists, or the kiffiyeh-donning effigies formerly known as Democrats. This era is hallmarked by powerful groups assuming that people's minds are for rent, and that they really can't think, but instead just follow. Slick production values and an air of superiority are all you need to get votes. The condescension that we are subjected to from all sides these days is stunning.
Disassembling myths is an equal opportunity profession. Perhaps the BBC might consider spending some of the British public's monies on a few more myth-busting documentaries, in time for airing on the eve of the next American election, for maximal influence:
- How about a program debunking the myth of Lenin as a well-meaning, misunderstood warrior for the tired, oppressed working masses?
- Or the myth that, for the sake of humanitarianism, we were right to pull out of Vietnam, if belated, only to leave thousands of South Vietnamese to their deaths at the hands of the communists?
- What about the myth of Che? Or Fidel? Arafat? Ortega? Mumia?
- How about the myth of an all good, all powerful UN, unprejudiced by corruption, greed and an unworkable utopian vision of global socialism?
- Or how about a documentary about the myth of the European Union's manufactured 'European Man' identity, supposedly trumping established, ageless national identities like being German, French or Spanish?
- What about exposing the myth of a contained Saddam, safely defanged in his huge sandbox, plotting only the architectural design of his next presidential palace? Or blood-for-oil---myth or fact?
- Is it a myth that soft power trumps all?
- What about the myth that those darned Jews are at the root of all international and sociological problems, controlling the media and Bush's reptilian pea-sized brain? You know---Jews like Wolfowitz, Pearle and Kristol.
- Or how about a documentary exposing the myth that Palestinians really, truly actually do want to live side-by-side with Israel--cross their hearts and hope to die? Or how about a quick educational show about the myth that an Arab 'Palestine' ever was or ever should be a nation to begin with?
- Or the myth that all cultures are equally valid?
- How about the myth that the Democratic party---more and more under the influence of elite plutocrats like George Soros and certain well-quaffed husbands of billionaire ketchup titans---represents the interests of the common man, the worker, and the suburban middle class?
- Is global warming caused exclusively by human industrial activity another myth, I wonder?
- What about the myth that virtually no war is worth fighting, because all causes are besmirched and corrupted by one-sided opportunism and misinformed bias, having no legitimate claim to self defense---except for the noble savages, the Palestinian terrorists?
- Or how about the myth about the decline of the dumb, religiously zealous middle Americans in flyover country dominating politics, the same folks that voted for an unintelligent know-nothing from Crawford, Texas?
The most poignant documentary the BBC could make would be one exposing the myth that documentarians and the news media seek only to illuminate the ignorant masses with the unbiased truth, and are above manipulating their audiences to their leftward political agenda. Do any of the Beeb's famously impartial documentarians have the stomach to expose the leftist rot passing for news at the New York Times, the BBC or Reuters? There's a cabal, if there ever was one.
By all means, let's fully undress all the sacred cows out there. Let's strip them bare, down to the bone, to the very marrow. Every single last one.
Enjoy the documentary.
yes, the idea that climate change is more or less completely due to anthropogenic factors is a myth. climate science is still fraught with uncertainty, as more and more research is done we are finding more and more factors that interact in more and more complex ways. we don't know how much greenhouse gas emissions will cause temperatures to rise (if at all), we don't know the extent of their interactions with climate in other aspects, and, perhaps most importantly, we have absolutely no idea how much we would have to reduce our emissions, and how fast we would have to reduce them, in order to usefully address the problem. a sudden reduction in emissions might provoke unforseeable climate effects as well.
this is why climate change is one of the most potent myths for the post-Marxist crowd to promulgate - it is a nebulous but (supposedly) potentially civilizational threat that any extreme climate event can be tendentiously linked to (and there are always extreme climate events), the culprit is essentially modern life in all its manifestations, and the proposed solutions generally involve unprecedented centralized control over the economies of the world (or at least the developed world). it is a powerful myth because it can neither be proven nor disproven, the science as well as the policy options are too uncertain yet and will be for years.
'now more than ever' we really do need to parse the news carefully and try to cling to some semblance of rationality in a confusing and uncertain world.
I have also seen documentaries on TV...
One claimed that the moon landings were fake.
Another that Atlantis had been found.
Another claimed UFOs abduct people.
Still another documentary claimed John Kerry is a war hero.
You shouldn't believe everything the TV tells you.
-A.R.Yngve
http://yngve.bravehost.com
#1 John---I was reading somewhere that there's evidence of global warming on Mars, and believe one of the other planets, which is profound if true. It isn't to say that global warming isn't serious business, but that it shouldn't be a tool for world socialism. I would fault the Bushies just as much for their denial of the problem, in relative terms. Once again, we're the rope in their tug of war for forming opinions.
Your list of myth's to burst are all about foreign policy. I think a good discussion about the myth of conservative goodness at home is due as well. Both sides always talk at each other when these subjects come up as though one position justifies or absolves the other. Is that what you mean by undressing cows? A willingness to examine the total timeline of events?
As for terror it should be understood that terror is a tactic not a myth. The purpose of undermining an opponents will to fight, sense of security, et al has been with us for time immemorial. It isn't going anywhere.
yo MC - let's call it 'climate change', to be more neutral - 'global warming' is the more politically loaded term. the climate is changing, as it always has - as the example of mars's climate history shows, you don't need humans (maybe martians). I am no climate scientist but I have read enough news stories about the 'discovery' of 'new' climate effects with the potential to radically challenge the so-called 'consensus' on anthropogenic change (to paraphrase a recent lecture by michael crichton, you are no longer talking about science when you invoke 'consensus', you are talking about politics), along with numerous stories on the gaping holes in our extremely low-resolution models, to confidently say that we do not know enough to address the problem in any useful way - especially when you consider the scale of the proposed solutions (e.g. the world economy). not only that, but working at an environmental nonprofit for almost a year now has given me the confidence to say that at least some of the most vocal voices in this debate have little understanding of the science and perhaps even less understanding of our policy options here, to say nothing of reality and history in general. IMHO.
it's not that the problem is a myth, exactly, it's more that the idea that this is a problem we are currently equipped to diagnose and solve is a myth. technologies that could radically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions without dramatically undercutting global economic development simply do not exist yet, and even if they did we would have no idea how widely they would need to be deployed or how quickly in order to 'address' the problem. the EU countries, such strident advocates of Kyoto, are in all likelihood not going to meet their targets under that treaty - they certainly won't with the current technological tools available to them. moreover, CO2 emissions stay in the atmosphere for upwards of a century - so much of the 'damage' as far as emissions go has already been done, and reducing emissions right now (instead of, say, 5 or 10 years from now) will have no effect on whatever climate change is to come. it's a hugely complex and tricky problem, we don't know what we would have to do to address it, or when, and we don't have the technology to do 'it' even if we knew exactly what 'it' was.
in short, I don't fault the Bush administration for their relative denial of the problem - the efforts by the EU and environmental groups to cause a panic on this should not be given any more legitimacy, it would only be counterproductive at this stage in the game. the administration has rightly continued to fund climate science and modeling and created a well-funded and well-run hydrogen fuel cell research program that will have a much more profound effect on greenhouse gas emissions in the long term than any environmentally ineffective and economically destructive Kyoto-type solution (which, ludicrously, doesn't even include the developing countries, such as China and India, that will account for 2/3rds of the increase in greenhouse emissions over the next few decades).
it's kind of like asteroid defense - a massive but unknowable threat that we can't do anything useful about right now, we fund better research and continue to develop new technologies that will enable us to reduce our risk in the future, but it's not important or productive for the president to go around warning people about how vulnerable we might be until there's something we can actually do about it.
MEMO: CYA
uh, make that last sentence 'POTENTIALLY' 'massive but unknowable threat'
Great post, Cicero.
Who, lest we forget, invented the Gulag system and the modern political police force.
Funny you should mention climate change. I did a bit on it earlier today in response to a bit by Rooters. I call the piece Goebbels Warming. What I cover is the fact that the whole temperature rise may be accounted for by increased solar output. The data will be complete by about 2006. You think that has anything to do with the Kyoto rush?
I also mention that solar fluctuations of +/- .2% over a period of a few days is not uncommon. That .2% change in the energy the earth recieves amounts to all the energy man uses in a year.
The aurora last night reminded me of this stuff too. Absolutely beautiful.
"Who, lest we forget, invented the Gulag system and the modern political police force."
The latter charge is untrue. The Cheka was was not the first modern political police--that "honor" goes to the Third Section of the Imperial Chancery created by Count Benckendorff under Tsar Nicholas I. The Third Section later evolved into the Okhrana; after the Bolshevik takeover a number of former Okhrana personnel switched over to the Cheka quite easily.
As for the Gulag, its seed may have been sown while Lenin was still alive but it took Stalin's Collectivization of Agriculture and Five-Year Plans (the latter was particularly reliant on forced labor) to create the Gulag immortalized by Solzhenitsyn's writings....
#10 Jenk:
RE the Cheka, poor phrasing on my part. Should have said "of the century".
RE the Gulag, yes that's true.
I think Kerry was well-coiffed, not well-quaffed. The latter would be Bush before he quit drinking, I think.
OK, that was funny....
Actually Mr. Curtis is, after a fashion, correct. Al Qaeda, is not the enemy. It is an army of the real enemy or rather of one branch thereof, and an army that has been pretty badly beaten up.
The real enemies were: 1. a branch of the Sa'ud family and their allies in the Wa'hib family, 2. The Iranian Mullocracy, 3. the Pakistani ISI, 4. the Iraq Ba'ath Party. 5. the Taliban, 6. the Syrian Ba'ath Party, 7. North Korea, 8. Some Element inside the Chinese government, and 9. Libya.
They had varying roles, ambitions and capabilities.
1. a branch of the Sa'ud family and their allies in the Wa'hib family,
Saudi Arabia is not a nation state in the way we think of them in the modern world. It is a family possession. The current nominal ruler, King Fahd is the grandson of the founder ibn Sa'ud, who died 50 years ago. At the beginning of the 20th century ibn Sa'ud was a penniless desert bandit. His family had historic claims to the area in eastern around Riyadh and a historic alliance with the heretical and militant Wa'habbist dynasty of imams. He put together a tribal alliance, blessed by the Wa'habs, called the ikwan. After WWI, he conquer the Hijaz, the western province of Arabia containing Mecca and Medina and displaced the British clients, the Husseini sherifs who were in turn rewarded with monarchies in Jordan and Iraq.
Ibn Sa'ud as the ruler of most of Arabia became the luckiest and richest man in the world, when American engineers found oil in his eastern provinces in the 1930s. When he died in the 1950s, the royal treasury, which was a chest kept in his tent, was stuffed with gold. His descendants have run the kingdom as their private property ever since.
Here is the important fact. There is no theory of legitimate inheritance in Islam. The first born son of the first wife is not a more legitimate heir to the throne than the seventh son of the seventh concubine. Islamic regimes have developed ways of dealing with this problem. One is that many heirs were designated before the old king died. The Ottomans had the charming and effective custom of having the successor to the throne strangle all other then living male heirs to the throne with a silken bow string upon his succession. It was part of their success. Their decline began when they abandoned it.
Anyone of the thousands of male members of the Sa'ud family (the so called princes) can claim the throne. Some one [or group] of them has used (whether they believe in it or not) the ideology of the Wa'hab imams and the oil money that flows through the kingdom to raise a private army, which we call Al Qaeda. His intention was to drive the United States out of Arabia and use his private army to seize the throne. Whether he had further ambitions such as a Pan-Arab or Pan-Muslim state are his counsel.
In this view OBL, was until his incineration*, his emir (in English, admiral). One reason the US invaded Iraq was to outflank him. His counter was a series of attacks last spring in the Kingdom. When that failed, he started pumping more money into the Zarqawi operation in Iraq, hoping to win the US election and stop the emergence of a shi'a dominated republic in Iraq.
He has forced the Saudi establishment to take him seriously and to be nicer to US. But even if Bush is re-elected and the Sunnis are suppressed in Iraq. Arabia will remain a powder keg.
*The recent film was almost certainly a fake intended to addect the American election. The real OBL would not be cribbing lines from Michael Moore.
2. The Iranian Mullocracy,
Duh, Thanks Jimmy.
They will have to be taken out.
3. the Pakistani ISI,
Real bad guys. There is no evidence that they believe the islamism they sell, but sell it they do, and they have peddled atomic weapon technology and helped set up Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Pakistan is a failed state with a successful army and a rogue secret service. We will need India's help to untangle that one, but it means undoing the remnants of cold war ideology in India -- tough assignment.
4. the Iraq Ba'ath Party.
We are killing the bitter enders in Falujah.
5. the Taliban,
Where 4 will be in a year.
6. the Syrian Ba'ath Party,
On the must go list.
7. North Korea,
Crazy Kim. Clearly he is not an Islamist. He is only in it for the money. That does not make him a good guy. Actually he is vile scum. OTOH, we have to get the Chinese to see that it is in their interest to solve the problem.
8. Some Element inside the Chinese government,
Must be there. They connect Kim to Pakistan and the Muslim world. During the Cold War, India, driven by ideology and by geopolitics, which had split from Britain sucked up to the Russians and fought with China over its Himalayan border. Pakistan allied itself with the United States and with China against Russia and India. At some point they have a sufficient financial interest in US to stop this BS when they are reminded that their foreign currency reserves are book entries at New York Fed -- Wouldn't want anybody to spill a Coke on that would we?
9. Libya.
Came out waiving the white flag.
Belmont Club's From whose Bourne No Traveler Returns offers a compelling response based in personal experience. The Comments are fascinating too. Together, they offer an outstanding extension and expansion of the points in this post.
You suggested:
"The most poignant documentary the BBC could make would be one exposing the myth that documentarians and the news media seek only to illuminate the ignorant masses with the unbiased truth, and are above manipulating their audiences to their leftward political agenda."
The documentary you mention was made in 1992. It is called, "Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media."
Thanks.