The Trap is a three segment BBC documentary by Adam Curtis exploring post-Cold War ideals of democracy, the role of government and the economy, and freedom.
The Trap consists of the three one hour-long episodes: F**k You Buddy, The Lonely Robot, and We Will Force You To Be Free. The documentary begins by introducing a perspective on humanity and society that was developed during the Cold War. Nuclear threats between the United States and the Soviet Union led to the creation of game theory, a mathematical theory involving making the best choices based upon the possible decisions of another. In the case of the Cold War, theorists decided that it would not be possible for each side to agree to eliminate nuclear weapons because there was no guarantee that the other would not break the promise. Thus, nuclear arms buildup based upon distrust and self interest was the strategy of the Cold War. This same idea of success by betrayal and suspicion was then carried over as a theory of human interaction by famous mathematician John Nash. A new idea of humanity based upon calculations of the Cold War resulted in a change in the meaning of freedom.
In this new idea of freedom, people are viewed as individual computing machines driven solely by self interest. The implications of this theory are enormous. If true, it is believed that the idea of a “greater good” is a myth and so politicians will only ever act in their own self interest. To keep people motivated in the workplace, “targets,” or workplace goals, are assigned to give the illusion of personal independence and freedom from enslavement of the ruling class. Unfortunately, it is shown that these targets often compel people to act in irrational ways just to meet them. Finally, a prevalent theory took hold that the marketplace is the arena for democracy where people voice their opinions by choosing what they want. However, little governmental regulation puts power in the hands of corporations, which in turn, can manipulate the bureaucracy. The Trap thoroughly explained each of these consequences of a new view of freedom.
The film continues by explaining that it is this kind of narrow freedom in which we live that is what democratic nations try to instil in unstable, revolutionary, and authoritarian nations. The problem with trying to spread this type of freedom is that it conflicts with older ideas of freedom as seen by violent revolutionaries. That is, the sense of freedom brought on by terrorism, and active revolutions - freedom inspired by the beliefs of philosophers like Frantz Fanon and Jean-Paul Sartre, who advocate violent rebellion. Because of the contrast in different ideas of freedom, such intervention by democratic nations often create economic and political turmoil to the point where many citizens would prefer order over freedom.
Because of the complexity and sheer quantity of ideas, people, and events explored in this documentary, I will personally discuss only one aspect of the film that I found to be particularly interesting.
In the course of understanding and experimenting with the theory of people as calculating machines run by self interest, R. D. Laing, a Scottish psychiatrist visited a mental institute. While observing how schizophrenic patients were treated in the hospital, he noticed that the nurses handling the patients rarely ever spoke with them. To experiment, Laing spent time with these patients and talked to them about themselves and their lives. Eventually, the patients were well enough to return home. However, after spending time at home, every single patient was readmitted to the hospital just as before. Predicting that there must be something going on within the households, he conducted another experiment.
Members of families in Britain were given complex surveys designed to gather data on how and why each family member treated and felt about the others at given times throughout the day. The startling results revealed that the actions of the family members seemed to be driven by hidden, self interested motivations relating to the actions of the other family members. While the movie was not explicit, it certainly seemed that the mental illness of these schizophrenic patients may have had some link to the stress and distrustful nature of human beings as magnified by the intimacy of family dynamics.
Another experiment during this time tested the credibility of psychiatry in America. David Rosenhan, an American psychiatrist, directed a group of volunteers to visit various mental institutes with the false claim that they heard voices. Other than that, they were instructed to act normally. All were admitted to the hospital. The “patients” were given powerful drugs and were not allowed to leave. They found that the only way to be permitted to leave was to admit that they were actually insane and then pretend to be getting better. When the results of the experiments were published, psychiatrists were defiant. One doctor at a mental hospital challenged Rosenhan to send any number of fake patients to the hospital and swore he would be able to tell the truly ill patients from the pretenders. Later, he claimed to have found a significant number of fakers. In actuality, Rosenhan had not sent any.
The movie went on further to describe a shift within psychiatry from diagnosis based on personal judgments by doctors to a checklist method of symptoms. There was no attempt to look into the root or cause of the problem. At this point, one cannot help but feel that there is a problem when a computer can match up symptoms with a checklist to make a broad statement about what a human being is experiencing.
What stuck out to me in this part of the movie was both the frequency of prescription drug use paired with the desire to live a so-called normal existence. Everyone at some point, when faced with a physical or psychological change, has probably visited a doctor because they fear that their experience is not normal. But what is it that we consider to be normal? Where did this personal idea of a normal body come from? Who's to say whether a feeling is normal or abnormal? Doctors have just as good a guess as any, and unfortunately, humanity's unreasonable desire to fit the illusion that they have in their minds of “normal” often leads to overdiagnosis by doctors and a lack of personal insight by patients. For instance, a person going through a natural period of depression after the death of a loved one might very well be prescribed pills to regulate their mood. Instead of thinking about and working through the deeper feelings that are causing the grief, they instead numb their minds while pushing the problems down further. That is not solving the problem nor is it creating a free society of healthy individuals.
All of these issues play into the creation of new kind of freedom in which people are viewed as emotionless machines. Such a freedom dramatically narrows the scope of life's experiences and can create a feeling of hopelessness for people in both stable and unstable countries. The Trap ended with a surprisingly brief blurb on how the era of viewing humanity as emotionless, target-fulfilling, calculating machines may possibly come to an end. It is my opinion that in order for such a thing to happen, people need to take initiative of their very own to create something greater than themselves. The passion of the old kind of freedom needs to take hold without the violence accompanied by such liberty. Once people are able to break free from the beliefs of the system in which they experience narrow freedom, they can begin to have real freedom.
As a film, The Trap was extremely well done. My only criticism would be that is was difficult to uncover the main idea behind the film, as it often seemed to jump around from topic to topic with little or no transitions. I found myself needing to take notes on all of the different topics to be able to piece together a main idea at the end. This may partially be due to the length of the episodes and the amount of material the filmmakers chose to include in the movie. However, the content of the documentary was superb. I do believe that the main idea of the film involved some opinion, but it was certainly an interesting and well developed perspective. As an American, it was also very interesting to note some of the cultural differences demonstrated by the film. For example, I was a bit surprised by how blunt the movie was about corrupt government relations and human psychology. I would guess that if a similar documentary was made in the United States, it would probably be less direct and more sensitive. I would highly recommend this program to anyone interested in politics, economics, and sociology.
