What I was trying to do with The Century of the Self was to look at how people in positions of power, not just politics, managed the rise of the individual self,” Curtis tells i.
“We’re very simple, irrational robots and we can be managed by the machines and by behavioural psychology.”
In order to adapt, “politics shifted and switched to a sort of consumerist model”, the BAFTA-winning filmmaker adds.
Curtis believes that this shift turned politicians from leaders into mere managers. In the documentary, this is highlighted by Bill Clinton’s election and Tony Blair’s reliance on focus groups.
“They became diminished creatures and in a way you can trace a lot of the – not just distrust – but dislike of politicians back to that switch to them becoming managers, because they had no vision to offer us.”
“You’ve moved away from the idea that you can manage people through things like focus groups. What’s replaced them is this idea that somehow network systems or computers can assemble you in groups and deliver you in different ways, both as consumers and as voters. I think that’s running out of steam now as well.”
“A lot of Obama’s politicking was based around that – micro-targeting. Trump and Brexit are the reaction to the limitations of that.
Curtis continues: “If you manage the world by assembling people into these groups online, then you isolate them from other parts of the world and that’s why we didn’t see Trump and Brexit coming. It’s a world outside that.”
“As far as I know, Trump didn’t do any focus groups or any of the micro-targeting that Obama did through social networks. What Trump did was pre-Bernays. He created a powerful nationalist narrative for people who felt marginalised,” Curtis says.
“That is an old idea of how you deal with irrationality, you whip it up into a force which gives your nation an identity.
“Despite the fact that he’s a business-person, it’s not a consumer model of politics. It’s a grand narrative and we’re frightened of grand narratives, we have been ever since the Second World War.
“I see Trump as part of the past rather than the future – I hope.”
What have we learned from Trump and Brexit?
Curtis believes the liberal response to the recent political earthquakes is telling.
“The people who voted for Trump and Brexit, in their terms, were completely rational,” he says. “They were marginalised and really fed up – they were given a very big button that said ‘fuck off’ and they pressed it… they believed in something.
“We have been cosseted in this managed system of politics so much that when someone comes along and makes a rational decision from their point of view, we just don’t understand it.”
https://inews.co.uk/culture/film/adam-curtis-politics-99953