Adam Curtis continues his series on the origins of our contemporary idea of freedom. This film tells the story of how in the 1990s politicians from both right and left tried to apply an idea of freedom modelled on the freedom of the market. Behind it was a scientific model of people as rational, calculating beings whose behaviour could be predicted by numbers. The numbers took on a power of their own, a phenomenon which began to create new forms of control.
The second episode reiterated many of the ideas of the first, but developed the theme that the drugs such as Prozac and lists of psychological symptoms which might indicate anxiety or depression were being used to normalize behavior and make humans behave more predictably, like machines.
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Ready to Watch The Trap, Season 1, Episode 2?