User Reviews

Here Adam Curtis weaves together a historical and cognitive tapestry of intrigue and humanity. Typical of his documentaries, he takes a influential school of thought and uses archival news and television clips combined with contemporary interviews to unpack and explain the theory (here its ecological stability and computer systems), he then shows the profound impact of the idea throughout history in many aspects of political and cultural changes inspired by the idea. Personally, his take on the misuse of the idea of the balance of nature to be spot on. The misconception being that if humans can mimic the natural order by removing all authoritarian power all people interacting as inter-regulating nodes exchanging ideas and services then this can create a better society. Unfortunately this idea takes into no account of human selfishness and fails to appreciate that the ecosystem this is modeled upon is actually chaotic and involves unfairness and destruction. My only qualm is that he failed to mention that there are aspects of the "balance of nature" model which have stood the test of time, namely that predators do regulate the abundance of prey, yet still this is not a system suitable to model a fair society on.