Try an experiment sometime. Go to your friendly local library and read a random week of newspapers from, say, the 1960s. Any paper will do, but I recommend a major daily from a second-tier American city, such as the SF Chronicle. Then, if your mind is not made up, try the same with the ’20s.

What you’ll see is that these “idealistic” ideas to which you refer were held by a very small, though socially and intellectually prominent, group of people. Whereas the ideas of the average reader of the paper you choose would, if magically teleported into 2007, cluster generally around a point which can only be described as the right-wing wacko fringe.

There’s a policeman in your head all right. But it’s not a Wal-Mart commercial or a conspiracy between ExxonMobil, Dick Cheney and the John Birch Society. Um, gee, when was the last time you heard of the JBS? What do you think, it became so powerful that it no longer exists?

On the other hand, our societies are full of incredibly influential institutions that seem perfectly designed to tell us what to think. They are called schools. And universities, and journalists, and NGOs, and foundations, and the like. All of which have considerably more motive, propensity and opportunity to install a “policeman in your head” than anyone at ExxonMobil.

Adam Curtis is simply projecting. What annoys him is not that the electorate is being reprogrammed, but that they have not been reprogrammed as much as he would like them to have been reprogrammed, nor in the direction he favors.

One can only imagine what the West would look like if its Tom Haydens and Eldridge Cleavers had not met some resistance, in the form of the now-defunct silent-majority types you will find all over the place in that 1967 newspaper. Sheesh. Probably a cross between Burning Man, Algeria, and “Escape from New York.”

And the worst thing is that, since the squares really have met their Waterloo (when was the last time you heard an American politician even mention the racial spoils system, ie, “affirmative action”), it might still happen. Polls show that young people around the world are overwhelmingly to the left of their seniors. Sarkozy, I believe, got 2/3 of the over-60 vote and lost 2/3 of the under-30s. If you’re wondering where his Karcher went, seek no further.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled “capitalism.” More government-guaranteed loans for everyone! Especially, of course, the underprivileged.

I’m not differing with you on a basic point, that is, the unhealthiness of the current cultural preoccupation with consumption, spending, and the whole shopping culture. Nor am I differing with you that there are large corporate forces driving this stuff in a very unhelpful way. I’m really differing in evaluation of Curtis, and in thinking there’s any sort of causal link to depth psychology. I think Freud and the Human Potential Movement always were pretty much of a sham, always were the same basic phenomenon as the consumer goods push. Similarly with the PoN: yes, the US assisted in the building up of the Taliban. But, there was something there to build on, and something that doesn’t and never has since 600 or so liked us or wished us well.

Its cause and effect, versus accompaniment from the same causes. That’s my feeling anyway.

But your reproach is probably valid, I maybe do need to rewatch them, and watch the last episode either for the first time or more carefully.

Thank you for a great blog by the way, while I am posting. Enjoy it, both when I agree and disagree.

Will environmental constraints rein in our mindless consumption before it is too late? It is hard to be optimistic.

For further festive cheer I will be hunkering down to watch “The Power of Nightmares” and “The Trap”, both also by Adam Curtis.

Have you actually seen the series, or are you merely reacting to the synopsis? The third segment, which is about how the human potential movement posed a huge problem to advertisers and politicians, but was successfully co-opted, goes far beyond a simple critique of consumer culture. And the fourth segment discusses how the left has been forced to the right, and suggests it will never be what it once was.

No, it is not correct to blame it on successful application of the discredited theories of psychoanalysis or on the Freud family.

Curtis makes movies which foment an hysterical approach to current affairs. There are far better guides to advertising and its role in society. But the key question is, once we see the effects of the whole junk shopping culture, what is to be done?

This is the thing to think about. Curtis is very light on that indeed, and for a reason. Its a very hard problem.