The Trap: What Happened to Our Dreams of Freedom, Part 1

Dr.Docs' Take

The Trap asks how a cold, paranoid model of human nature, born in Cold War game theory, quietly redefined the very idea of freedom. Curtis argues we got handed a version of liberty that treats everyone as a selfish, calculating machine. I do not buy the whole chain, but the questions are genuinely destabilizing. Freedom is the word everyone uses and almost nobody defines, and this pokes hard at the gap.

In the first part of The Trap, Adam Curtis explores how a cold, suspicious model of human nature, born in game theory and Cold War thinking, came to dominate politics and economics. He argues that this narrow idea of people as self-interested calculators quietly redefined the very meaning of freedom. Drawing on archive and interviews, the film links psychiatry, markets, and government in unexpected ways. Provocative and richly argued, it is classic Curtis. Free to watch in HD on Dr Documentary.

Courtesy of Adam Curtis / BBC on YouTube. Watch on YouTube ↗

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