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DJOldskool t1_jc9xo1q wrote

Great documentary, really opened my eyes back in the day.

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Beat-the-heat t1_jca84fy wrote

This one is okay but pretty inaccurate when it comes to "Islamists", the use of such an orientalist term should be a giveaway anyhow.

−29

Sugarplague t1_jca857p wrote

To this day this is still one of my favorite documentaries of all time. Everyone in the US should watch this.

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Damascinos OP t1_jcaaxpq wrote

Replying to Beat-the-heat (#2,234,571)

I disagree, as someone who grew up in both a Muslim and western culture.

Islamist, as defined, are individuals advocating Islamic fundamentalism in society and laws. Islamic fundamentalists describe themselves as such, as this documentary shows. However, you can still be a Muslim and not prescribe to Islamist beliefs in my opinion, and as history has proven within Muslim countries throughout the Levant and North Africa and even more recently during the Algerian civil war in the 90s and Afghanistan between 1990 and 2001. This documentary explores this and the failings of, during both.

There’s nothing orientalist about using their own words. They only received the extra push and spotlight by the boogeyman the neoconservatives created post 2001.

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Relevant_Monstrosity t1_jcafi7z wrote

> Upon this a question arises: whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? … because it is difficult to unite them in one person, it is much safer to be feared than loved …

— The Prince, Machiavelli

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HoggyDarn t1_jcag2jb wrote

One of his more engaging documentaries. Cant help being reminded of the parody doc with the phrase "but that was a fantasy" repeated for fun.

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mab2t t1_jcagqpu wrote

This is an awesome documentary. Adam Curtis does some spectacular work. My favourite of his works is "The century of the self"

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Beat-the-heat t1_jcahkt9 wrote

Replying to Damascinos (#2,234,735)

"Islamists" largely don't call themselves that and this documentary kind of just hashes out the familiar tropes that inflate the relevance of Arab conservatives to the Islamic resurgence when it is largely just an ethno-religious response to foreign intervention more than anything else, after all many of the conflicts that the US got involved in after 2001 were far older than the Muslim brotherhood, some in fact were older than America itself.

This simply just presents the same oversimplified orientalist view of conflicts without really delving deeper into the roots of them; the single highest predictor of Islamic militancy has always been moral outrage and not philosophical or religious disposition (you can see research by Scott Atran to confirm this).

Now i myself am agnostic but raised Muslim, if you ask me who i would rather see in power; a secular government allied with the west or a conservative Islamic government that advocates indigenous interests then i would definitely say the latter, this is essentially why there is a growth of "Islamism" across the world, as Bin Laden himself said even his "pagan ancestors" would have fought against the West.

−9

PermissiveActionLnk t1_jcai9gn wrote

I remember it as a very nicely assembled story but it really does not have staying power. Even in the US, neocons are confused and on the run, as they try to figure out how to deal with the "know nothings" like Trump and Co.

−9

civver3 t1_jcangv0 wrote

This is the reason the song "Baby, It's Cold Outside" has been indelibly associated in my head with the concept of Islamic fundamentalism.

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Relevant_Monstrosity t1_jcanm94 wrote

Replying to KofOaks (#2,235,341)

Every person is capable of self-realization and change. This is the learning experience that defines subjective humanity. If we never choose the path of fear in our naiveté, we will never understand the transformative power of love.

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obiwan_canoli t1_jcaq2eo wrote

The only thing we have to fear is... EVERYTHING!

Just be glad there are many wonderful products available to protect ourselves.

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Damascinos OP t1_jcas31c wrote

Replying to Beat-the-heat (#2,235,075)

No, of course they don’t call themselves Islamists, the word doesn’t exist. However they do call themselves adherents of certain schools of Islamic thought led by certain sheiks’ interpretations of the Koran. And that, when you look into their interpretations, is Islamist in nature.

One shouldn’t dismiss the Arab conservatives influence on Islamic resurgence otherwise you wouldn’t be able to explain away the Saudi and Qatari influence throughout the Muslim world post 1990, ie Balkans, Levant and Central Asia (to be fair Iran’s influence has been just as damaging).

As for moral outrage, it’s subjective and not universal. And because of that, manipulation is a lot easier, as has been proven. And that is the real reason why Muslims become militant.

As for your last paragraph, those aren’t the only two options available and your view of either black or white is not fair to those that don’t live in a homogeneous Muslim country, ie Syrians, Palestinians Lebanese, Egyptians, Indians, Chinese etc etc. A secular led government can still have the indigenous interests in mind while still being a productive and independent member on the world stage; Indonesia or Malaysia comes to mind.

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DuhLibrarian t1_jcaszw0 wrote

Watched in community college poly sci, amazing series indeed.

4

Damascinos OP t1_jcaty3i wrote

Replying to PermissiveActionLnk (#2,235,113)

I’m sorry I disagree. The fear aspect of the neoconservative movement is prevalent throughout American society. One needs to only turn on the news, irrespective of the channel, national or local.

If you knew how the US was between 1990 and 2001 you would realize how much the neoconservative movement influence has had since 2001 and still has on American society.

And if fear isn’t as prevalent as you want to admit, the American exceptionalism as touted by the neoconservatives is very much prevalent in all manners of society.

These two are proof of the staying power of the neoconservative movement.

As for Trump et al, they are the next step in the neoconservative evolution. They haven’t become popular in a vacuum.

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Commie_EntSniper t1_jcb2yns wrote

All someone needs to do is paint a rosy picture of America and people will line up at the polls. Worked for Raegan. Worked for Obama. Worked for Trump.

​

If only Democrats really wanted to win, but I honestly feel at the top they're like the Washington Generals - staged opposition; both sides play for the oligarchs who make money from the exhibition

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vigtel t1_jcb2zcl wrote

Adam Curtis is the best! It always saddens me that not everyone has seen everything he has done.

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33hamsters t1_jcb3a2u wrote

Adam Curtis is such a talented documentarian, and the didacticism of his projects is well served by his tangible concern with topical issues, but if you watch a lot of his work its clear that he doesn't handle Asia or Africa in the same way he handles Europe or North America. Just something to watch for. A lot of this is simply the fact that he is working with BBC archive access, if someone wanted to be the next Adam Curtis they could really expand on his methods by collaborating internationally with other networks.

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33hamsters t1_jcb506f wrote

Replying to Damascinos (#2,235,669)

I don't think u/beat-the-heat is dismissing the influence of conservative Islam, I think he's pointing out that there's a lot of ethnographic and cultural factors that get brushed over in Adam Curtis' work. I think that's a mild and valid criticism, one that is understandable in light of the limitations of the BBC archives Curtis is working with.

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1ndomitablespirit t1_jcbekul wrote

Ah, yes, using fear to get people afraid of other people who’s fears are also exploited.

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Knjaz136 t1_jcbhe81 wrote

"2004"

"rise of the radical islamist movement"

...I wonder if events of 2003 had something to do with it.

1

McGauth925 t1_jcbj51c wrote

I've been reading a Jane Goodall book - you know, the chimpanzee lady. She talks about PSEUDOSPECIATION, which she prefers to call Cultural Speciation.

So, this chimpanzee group split up, with a smaller group kind of taking over a smaller part of the territory the whole group had previously inhabited. After a while, the larger group pretty much declared war on the smaller group and killed almost all of them.

The idea of pseudospeciation is, once a group of humans (and chimpanzees) becomes different enough culturally - by which is intended the things that individuals learn and pass down to offspring, such that, after a while, the whole group is different enough from another group of humans, the groups can stop seeing each other as some kind of kindred, and can kill and harm each other with no inhibitions.

Thus with people. Along almost any line of cultural division, humans can come to see the other side as different enough, and hateful enough that it becomes ok to kill them and war on them. That bodes very poorly for the divisiveness that's become so prevalent in the US, in the past 10 years, or so.

It's almost like a cultural evolution/survival of the fittest group.

It looks to explain racism, war, and all kinds of other group enmities and hatreds. And, we may not be as evil as we think, because it looks like something humans and chimpanzees fall into it fairly readily. And, it's part of why we're always battling it out between morality - the care of other humans, and war.

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mrchaddy t1_jcbner9 wrote

How bizarre, i watched these last night on the Iplayer after going through my old reddit saves. Adams HyperNormalisation answers many questions about todays politics.

5

KofOaks t1_jcbnn9w wrote

Replying to Spideris (#2,236,196)

Thanks.

Well thanks to him being a shitty dad I decided not to have kids to not take the chance of one day mimicking his behaviour.

I'll never tell my child that "You know, I didn't want kids your mom made me do it". I'll never scare them with my fits of rage nor insult them when I'm not-so-secretly drunk. I'll never tell them that the problem in society are artists, intellectuals and insert different races and religions. I won't teach them to hate, rage and smash when they are annoyed or mad.

It's hard to emancipate yourself from a shitty narcissistic parent and I won't risk putting anyone through this.

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mrchaddy t1_jcbo4fk wrote

Replying to 33hamsters (#2,236,278)

You will enjoy this article on Adam by Jon Ronson. It contains one of the most profound statements i ever read “ I found a man in the archives who spends his time recording the bits in between the programs. He believes television is really one long construction of a giant story out of fragments of recorded reality from all over the world that is constantly added to every day, and has been going on for 70 years.”

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Dripdry42 t1_jcbo9a7 wrote

Replying to Damascinos (#2,235,777)

1990-2001 FELT so... Reasonable. Things got done. Not perfectly but they were. The obvious rush to destroy democracy starting in 2000 was horrifying. Like, why ruin a reasonably good thing we had going? Oh right! Money.

3

millennialmonster755 t1_jcbted7 wrote

This is a good doc. There is also a great podcast with Ira Glass that digs into the movement when Trump was in office and specifically looks at Bannon and his connections to groups in Europe.

2

TheNewestHaven t1_jcc7w3v wrote

Replying to fouoifjefoijvnioviow (#2,238,098)

As far as I know he was not officially involved in the KGB after 1990, so when he was brought in, he was indeed a random bureaucrat. I also don't see how this omission as you see it creates a pro-putin narrative. The narrative was the oligarch's needed someone they could trust who would 'play ball' and he was the stooge they picked. He could have mentioned Putin worked at FSB (like the russian FBI post Soviet Union).

8

Orngog t1_jccncn2 wrote

Replying to fouoifjefoijvnioviow (#2,238,098)

IIRC he gets three sentences at most, or at least his life before the Kremlin does. Is that the last part of this? It's been years.

Also, I'm no expert but I seem to recall the KGB connection didn't come into play during his very rapid ascent to power? I thought it was more "being close to Yeltsin at the right time".

Edit: forgot to say, Putin is an utter waste of life. I hope he is soon removed from this earth, Slava Ukraïni!

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Gamera971 t1_jccva5r wrote

I have never heard Trump say one good thing about America. He obviously despises it. Prove me wrong.

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enigmaticalso t1_jccvxxm wrote

Well I did not watch the documentary yet but I can tell you already it is not fear they are tapping in to. It's ignorance and hate and a need to put other people down. These people are not scared they are just hateful.

0

DeadPoster t1_jcd42ab wrote

You have to watch Adam Curtis. No one else documents the encroaching Darkness upon human civilization in his documentaries. Like David Cronenberg, Adam Curtis examines the deterioration of the Human Being in real world settings.

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BeeBee_ThatsMe t1_jcd7ehv wrote

This is great. I know a lot of Israeliphobes who would benefit from learning.

−1

Beat-the-heat t1_jcdc0xb wrote

Replying to Damascinos (#2,235,669)

>One shouldn’t dismiss the Arab conservatives influence on Islamic resurgence otherwise you wouldn’t be able to explain away the Saudi and Qatari influence

Arabs simply provided money, ideologically they aren't behind the Islamic resurgence; Most Muslims are Asians and have their own distinct ideological movements e.g. despite what most westerners claim the Taliban are neither Wahhabi nor Salafi, they are Deobandi and the influence of Salafism is highly overstated. This misunderstanding is also why the West heavily funded Sufi movements post 9/11 in countries like Pakistan and they are now even more problematic (with most of the recent attacks on minorities being initiated by Sufi groups like Barelvis)

>As for moral outrage, it’s subjective and not universal.

Maybe not to you because you live in the west and think like they do, most of us really hate these people though for what they have done to our countries and the region at large; As Malcom X would say, there are two types of Negroes.

​

>As for your last paragraph, those aren’t the only two options available

Largely does seem to be the case presently

​

>A secular led government can still have the indigenous interests in mind while still being a productive and independent member on the world stage; Indonesia or Malaysia comes to mind.

So what exactly is the distinction between an "Islamist" government in your mind and a supposedly secular government like Indonesia which imposes conservative laws (e.g. banning sex outside of marriage, blasphemy provisions etc) ; Indonesia is one of the countries leading the Islamic resurgence but it is never outright called an "Islamist" country by Westerners.

1

mandingosixsix t1_jcey28j wrote

Replying to HoggyDarn (#2,237,908)

As a massive Curtis's fan for many many years, this is HILARIOUS. It got him down absolutely spot on without being too offensive to Adam Curtis and his work..
"...and thanks to Adam Curtis, Brian Eno never had to work another day in his life" 🤣

2

Commie_EntSniper t1_jcfa5jh wrote

Replying to gw2master (#2,239,103)

who's to blame for the death of the queen? - the assassin that pours the poison or the accomplice who opens the door for the assassin?

Is one "worse?" for the part they play?

In the end the queen (Liberty) is dead.

0