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“All They Do Is Hate”

March 24, 2013 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

In a customarily cogent and paranoid post, the BBC’s Adam Curtis blogs about what he calls the “fake objectivity” that obscures where the real power in society rests. An excerpt about H.L. Hunt, a wing-nut Texas oilman whose view of journalism presaged Fox News by many decades:

“The first is an odd story – with a very strange character at its heart. It is about how in the 1950s the richest man in the world, an oil billionaire in Texas, invented a new form of television journalism. It pretended to be objective and balanced but in fact it was hard core right-wing propaganda. It was way ahead of its time because, in its fake neutrality, it prefigured the rise of the ultraconservative right-wing media of the 1990s – like Fox News, with its copyrighted slogan, ‘Fair and Balanced.’

The billionaire was called H. L. Hunt – Haroldson Lafayette Hunt. He made his fortune in the early 1930s by getting hold of one of the biggest oil fields in America – in the pine forests of East Texas. He was a ruthless, driven man and from early on he became absolutely convinced that he had superhuman qualities that made him different from other humans.

From the 1920s onwards Hunt was a bigamist. He married two women and raised two families that were oblivious of each other. He told his second wife, Frania, that he was called Major Franklyn Hunt. There was a rocky moment when his picture was on the front page of all the Texas papers because of his spectacular oil deal. Frania asked Hunt if that was him – he told her no, that it was his uncle who had been so clever.

Hunt was part of a group of extreme right-wing oil men in Texas who had enormous influence because of their wealth. There is a brilliant book written about this group – The Big Rich by Bryan Burrough. Burrough describes how they had first risen up in the 1930s because they loathed President Roosevelt – ‘a nigger-loving communist,’ as one oil man called him. They were convinced that Roosevelt’s New Deal was really run by Jews and communists – or ‘social vermin’ as they politely put it.

A Texas congressman called Sam Rayburn summed up this group of right-wing oil men. ‘All they do is hate’ – he said.

After the Second World War H L Hunt did two things. He added another, third, family to his bigamist’s collection. And he also turned to the new medium of television to promote his ultraconservative views.”

Tags: Adam Curtis, H.L. Hunt

“He Was A London Taxi Driver Who Back In 1956 Had A Strange Experience”

August 14, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

From a recent post on Adam Curtis’ BBC blog, a recollection of a British man who convinced many in the 1950s that he had a special connection to the good people of Mars:

“To celebrate today’s successful landing on Mars I thought I would show a film of a man who claimed to have got to Mars a long time ago. He did this back in the late 1950s by communicating telepathically with the beings who inhabited the Red Planet. He also claimed that his mother went there on a UFO. And what’s more the BBC took him very seriously.

He was called George King. He was a London taxi driver who back in 1956 had a strange experience.

He was washing the dishes when he heard a voice which said

“Prepare yourself. You are about to become the voice of Interplanetary Parliament.“

At the 10:50 mark. King “contacts” our planetary neighbors:

Tags: Adam Curtis, George King

“We Know That They Are On The Edge Of A Vast Change That Will Transform Their World And Lead Them Out Of Stifling Technocratic Order”

May 29, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

A brief analysis of the romantic appeal of Mad Men by the resolutely astute Adam Curtis at the BBC:

“The widespread fascination with the Mad Men series is far more than just simple nostalgia. It is about how we feel about ourselves and our society today.

In Mad Men we watch a group of people who live in a prosperous society that offers happiness and order like never before in history and yet are full of anxiety and unease. They feel there is something more, something beyond. And they feel stuck.

I think we are fascinated because we have a lurking feeling that we are living in a very similar time. A time that, despite all the great forces of history whirling around in the world outside, somehow feels stuck. And above all has no real vision of the future.

And as we watch the group of characters from 50 years ago, we get reassurance because we know that they are on the edge of a vast change that will transform their world and lead them out of their stifling technocratic order and back into the giant onrush of history.

The question is whether we might be at a similar point, waiting for something to happen. But we have no idea what it is going to be.”

Tags: Adam Curtis

“Fears Of Nuclear Annihilation Had Begun To Produce A New Kind Of Young Alienated Being In America”

May 3, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Urban Studies | Permalink

At the BBC, Adam Curtis has posted “White Negro for Mayor,” which examines the subtext of Norman Mailer’s failed 1969 mayoral campaign in New York. Included in Curtis’ post is a really good documentary about Mailer as politician. An excerpt:

“But Mailer was a complicated man – and as well as embodying many of the hipster values he was also a perceptive and vocal critic of the new sensibility. Back in 1957 he had written an essay for Dissent magazine called ‘The White Negro.’ In it he had described how fears of nuclear annihilation had begun to produce a new kind of young alienated being in America. These hyper-individualists trusted only their own feelings and desires and refused to be part of any group or organisation. And in black culture, Mailer said, they found their identity – the culture of the dangerous outsider.

This outsider culture had originally been created, Mailer wrote, by blacks in response to racial oppression and violence. But for the ‘white negroes’ that culture was then co-opted in order to give a meaning and grandeur to their psychopathic narcissism.“

Tags: Adam Curtis, Norman Mailer

“The Gutter Press Finished Him”

April 27, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Urban Studies | Permalink

Adam Curtis has just republished a post on his BBC blog about that class act Rupert Murdoch. One segment concerns the late talk show host Russell Harty, who played a sort of jackass interviewer on TV, but certainly did not deserve to be hounded by Murdoch reporters as he lay dying in a hospital bed from an AIDS-related illness. An excerpt:

“In 1989 – on the 20th anniversary of buying the Sun – Murdoch helped write an editorial that trumpeted his vision of himself as a revolutionary:

‘The Establishment does not like the Sun. Never has

There is a growing band of people in positions of influence and privilege who want OUR newspaper to suit THEIR private convenience. They wish to conceal from readers’ eyes anything that they find annoying or embarrassing.

LIVING LIES AND HYPOCRISY ON HIGH CAN HAVE NO PLACE IN OUR SOCIETY

IT IS THE STRUGGLE OF ALL THOSE CONCERNED FOR FREEDOM IN BRITAIN.’

But the liberal elite were already fighting a counterattack. It had begun with the chat-show host Russell Harty the year before as he lay dying in a hospital bed from hepatitis.

Harty was a homosexual who had been hounded by the News of the World. With his illness this had turned into a media frenzy – with reporters from all the tabloids pursuing him in a hospital, posing as junior doctors demanding to see Harty’s medical notes, and photographers renting a flat opposite his hotel room.

At Harty’s funeral in 1988 the playwright Alan Bennett publicly accused the tabloid press of accelerating his friend’s death. ‘The gutter press finished him.’

The Sun chose to reply:

‘Stress did not kill Russell Harty. The truth is that he died from a sexually transmitted disease.

The press didn’t give it to him. He caught it from his own choice. And by paying young rent boys he broke the law.

Some – like ageing bachelor Mr Bennett – can see no harm in that. He has no family.

But what if it had been YOUR son Harty had bedded?'”

Tags: Adam Curtis, Rupert Murdoch

“In The Late 1890s He Invented Something He Called ‘Body-Building'”

April 2, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

From a typically eccentric Adam Curtis essay, “Bodybuilding and Nation-Building,” a look at how developing muscles was begun as a riposte to industrialization:

“At the end of the nineteenth century a fanatical craze for physical fitness swept through Britain. Millions of men and women took up gymnastics, body building and other physical exercises.

Such a thing had never happened before – and it was given a name – Physical Culture.

The craze had an almost religious intensity because those who promoted it said that it was the only way to prevent the British nation – and its Empire – from collapsing. Behind this was a powerful belief that the modern world of the 1890s – the teeming cities with their slums and giant factories – was leading to a ‘physical degeneracy’ in millions of people.

It was a fear that had started with the elite who ran Britain’s public schools. Matthew Arnold warned of ‘the strange disease of modern life’ with its ‘sick hurry’ and ‘divided aims.’ Out of that came a movement called ‘Muscular Christianity’ which wanted to recreate the kind of heroic human being that existed before industry and the modern world came along and corroded everything.

It was a vision of a restored physical and moral perfection in the young men who were going to run the empire. And it involved doing lots of exercises in new things called Gymnasiums. Then liberal reformers got worried about the working classes – convinced that the slums were leading to a ‘physical degeneracy.’ So they persuaded lots more people to do exercises.

Then a figure rose up who united all of this dramatically into a mass movement. He was called Eugen Sandow.

Sandow came from Prussia, he started as a circus and music-hall performer. But then in the late 1890s he invented something he called ‘body-building.’ It caused a sensation throughout Europe and America – and he became a massive celebrity because he was seen as the leader of a crusade of Physical Culture that was going to stop the degeneracy that was plaguing Britain.” (The Browser.)

Tags: Adam Curtis, Eugen Sandow

“When You Bring God Into Politics Very Strange Things Happen”

March 9, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Urban Studies | Permalink

The opening of “Who Would God Vote For?” a blog post about the intersection of religion and politics in America and Iran that began in earnest in the 1970s, by the BBC’s always provocative Adam Curtis:

“When you bring God into politics very strange things happen. You can see this now in both America and Iran – in their elections and also in the growing confrontation between them. But it wasn’t always like this – in fact for most of the 20th century fundamentalist religion in both America and Iran had turned its back on the world of politics and power.

But in the 1970s everything changed. For that was the moment when religion was deliberately brought into politics in both countries with the aim of using it as a revolutionary force. And those who did this – Khomeini in Iran, and right-wing activists in America – were inspired by the revolutionary theories and organisations of the left and their ambition to transform society in a radical way.

I want to tell the forgotten story of how this happened – and how in the 1980s both the Americans and the Iranian idealists came together in a very odd way – with disastrous consequences.”

Tags: Adam Curtis, Ayatollah Khomeini

“Carnival Has Its Roots In A Small Company Set Up In The 1960s Which Had A Utopian Vision”

February 2, 2012 in Excerpts, Urban Studies | Permalink

From “We’re All in the Same Boat–Aren’t We?” an excellent Adam Curtis BBC piece outlining the hidden history of the cruise-ship industry:

“I want to tell the story of the rise of the modern cruise ship industry from its beginning in the 1960s – how it promised to make a world of aristocratic luxury available to everyone in the west, but also the hidden story of how that promise was achieved.

In many cruise ships there are hundreds of workers from some of the poorest countries on earth who are paid minute amounts of actual wages – sometimes less than two dollars a day – to attend to the passengers’ needs.

Many of the ships’ workers can only get a living wage on the whim of the thousands of passengers above them – on the tips they choose to give them. And in the strange fun-world of the superliners the waiters, the cabin staff, the cooks and everyone else who serves, live in a state of continual vulnerability – unprotected by most of the employment laws that apply on land. Meanwhile many of the companies that own the vast ships pay practically no tax at all.

But it wasn’t always supposed to be like that.

The biggest company in the cruising world is the Carnival Corporation, based in Miami (the Costa Concordia is owned by one of their subsidiaries). Carnival has its roots in a small company set up in the 1960s which had a utopian vision that cruise liners could transform the world. One of its founders believed that the giant ships were machines that could help bring about a new era of world peace.

The liners would, he was convinced, unite the rich westerners and the poor from the ‘third world’ by bringing tourists to new and remote destinations. This would foster a new enlightened understanding of each other that would bring about equality and justice throughout the world.

But it didn’t turn out like that. And this is the story of what happened – and how the very opposite resulted.” (Thanks Browser.)

Read also:

David Foster Wallace takes too many cruises.

Tags: Adam Curtis

“Everyone In Russia In The Early 1980s Knew That The Managers And Technocrats In Charge Of The Economy Were Using That Absurdity To Loot The System”

January 20, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

In a new blog post, cultural critic Adam Curtis likens the contemporary West to the 1980s Soviet Union, an idea nearing the closing credits of entropy. An excerpt:

“There are of course vast differences between our present society and the Soviet Union of thirty years ago – for one thing they had practically no consumer goods whereas we are surrounded by them, and for another western capitalism was waiting in the wings to fill the vacuum. But there are also echoes of our present mood – a grand economic system that had once promised heaven on earth had become absurd and corrupted.

Everyone in Russia in the early 1980s knew that the managers and technocrats in charge of the economy were using that absurdity to loot the system and enrich themselves. The politicians were unable to do anything because they were in the thrall of the economic theory, and thus of the corrupt technocrats. And above all no-one in the political class could imagine any alternative future.

In the face of this most Soviet people turned away from politics and any form of engagement with society and lived day by day in a world that they knew was absurd, trapped by the lack of a vision of any other way.” (Thanks Browser.)

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Curtis’ analysis of the Computer Age: