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Comment by jowday | Hacker News Reader

I think his work is a great jumping off point. After watching Century of the Self, I started reading pretty heavily into Walter Lippman, Edward Bernays, and the general development of neoliberal thought. Most all of what I read backed up his thesis with much more concrete details.

I think it would be great if he released a reading list alongside each of his documentaries - let the films serve as a compelling aesthetic work and the reading as essentially a citation. Alternatively, maybe I should try to compile some for each of his films.

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Some of his Eastern Bloc stuff in Hypernormalization echoes to this day. It's fair to say he orchestrates feelings, it's semi-fair to object that he's not outlining a detailed plan for how to fix and run everything (to which I would reply that's not his job), but I don't like seeing his work written off as meaningless. It seems to be to be journalism of a very high level, in that he outlines things clearly and understandably that are newsworthy and that matter.

I guess the take-away there is that news is not enough. You can document the human condition all you like, and then if we do nothing to evolve it away from its darkest aspects it's just depressing. Knowing that I still like that he's doing that reporting, the way he's doing it. He's making abstractions concrete for people.

This is usually what's missing from people criticizing Curtis. It's a form of superficiality where people feel that they don't need to look further into the subjects before drawing fundamental conclusions. I've spoken to so many people that loudly proclaim that Curtis' work is just conspiracy theory, totally oblivious of the instagram level of depth such a conclusion requires.

It would be great with a solid text to go along his films. For now I would urge everyone who get that uncanny feeling after watching Curtis' work to read up on the subjects covered. I promise you that feeling will go away!

I would absolutely love that and use it.

Curtis is the reason I got into Max Weber and Jacques Ellul. I cannot remember which of his series led me into that rabbit hole though.

What from Weber? Connection between religion and capitalism?

About rationalization. That the world has not always been as bureaucratic as it is now. And then Jacques Ellul who says that this bureaucracy, which he calls technique, is a self-reinforcing entity on its own outside of the people that make it happen.

That would be a useful website. Reading lists for documentaries and movies

> let the films serve as a compelling aesthetic work and the reading as essentially a citation. Alternatively, maybe I should try to compile some for each of his films.

Yes, that would be awesome, and would add much more weight to the arguments he makes in his documentaries.

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