Film evenings begin with an optional social hour and potluck supper at  6:30 pm followed by the film at

7:30 pm,  followed by a discussion after the film.

The Trap

by Adam Curtis

The ultimate political goal at the heart of our age is the idea of individual freedom.  But what has resulted in our struggle for freedom?  It is a very strange kind of freedom.  The attempt to liberate people from the dead hand of bureaucracy has lead to the rise of a new and increasingly controlling system of management driven by targets and numbers.  Governments committed to creating freedom of choice in all areas have actually presided over a rise of inequalities and a dramatic collapse of social mobility.  The consequence has been a return of the power of class and privilege.

This is a three-part film about how this strange paradoxical world came to be created.  It begins in the dark and frightening days of the Cold War and it shows how what we have today is a very narrow and peculiar idea of freedom that was born out of a paranoia of that time.  It’s based on an image of human beings as selfish, isolated, and suspicious creatures who constantly monitor and stratagize against one another.  The three episodes of the film show how politicians and scientists came to believe that this idea of human nature could be the basis of a new type of free society.  But what none of them realize is that within this dark and distrustful vision, lay the seeds of a new system of social control.  It would use the language of freedom but in reality it would entrap us and our leaders in a narrow and empty world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trap_(television_documentary_series)

Culture, EVENTS, film, Philosophy, politics, PROGRAMS