The Power of Nightmares, Weds 20th, BBC2, 9pm
Posted by: Paul Gravett on 19 October 2004
Amidst all the crap that is fed to us on television such as games shows, celebrity gossip, soaps and reality tv, there does occasionally appear something that is worth watching.
A couple of years ago one such programme was called 'The Century of Self' and showed how corporations and governments used the ideas of psychoanalysis to control people in the 20th century.
Now the same writer has produced 'The Power of Nightmares' and it promises to be every bit as much of a revelation as its predecessor.
Here is what the BBC online listings has to say about it:
In the past our politicians offered us dreams of a better world. Now they promise to protect us from nightmares. The most frightening of these is the threat of an international terror network. But just as the dreams weren't true, neither are these nightmares.
This series shows dramatically how the idea that we are threatened by a hidden and organised terrorist network is an illusion. It is a myth that has spread unquestioned through politics, the security services and the international media.
At the heart of the story are two groups: the American neoconservatives and the radical Islamists. Both were idealists who were born out of the failure of the liberal dream to build a better world. These two groups have changed the world but not in the way either intended.
Together they created today's nightmare vision of an organised terror network. A fantasy that politicians then found restored their power and authority in a disillusioned age. Those with the darkest fears became the most powerful.
The rise of the Politics of Fear begins in 1949 with two men whose radical ideas would inspire the attack of 9/11 and influence the Neoconservative movement that dominates Washington. Both these men believed that modern liberal freedoms were eroding the bonds that held society together.
The two movements they inspired set out, in their different ways, to rescue their societies from this decay. But in an age of growing disillusion with politics, the neoconservatives turned to fear in order to pursue their vision. They would create a hidden network of evil run by the Soviet Union that only they could see. The Islamists were faced by the refusal of the masses to follow their dream and began to turn to terror to force the people to 'see the truth'.
The series is in three parts and the first is on this Wednesday at 9pm on BBC2.
Paul
A couple of years ago one such programme was called 'The Century of Self' and showed how corporations and governments used the ideas of psychoanalysis to control people in the 20th century.
Now the same writer has produced 'The Power of Nightmares' and it promises to be every bit as much of a revelation as its predecessor.
Here is what the BBC online listings has to say about it:
In the past our politicians offered us dreams of a better world. Now they promise to protect us from nightmares. The most frightening of these is the threat of an international terror network. But just as the dreams weren't true, neither are these nightmares.
This series shows dramatically how the idea that we are threatened by a hidden and organised terrorist network is an illusion. It is a myth that has spread unquestioned through politics, the security services and the international media.
At the heart of the story are two groups: the American neoconservatives and the radical Islamists. Both were idealists who were born out of the failure of the liberal dream to build a better world. These two groups have changed the world but not in the way either intended.
Together they created today's nightmare vision of an organised terror network. A fantasy that politicians then found restored their power and authority in a disillusioned age. Those with the darkest fears became the most powerful.
The rise of the Politics of Fear begins in 1949 with two men whose radical ideas would inspire the attack of 9/11 and influence the Neoconservative movement that dominates Washington. Both these men believed that modern liberal freedoms were eroding the bonds that held society together.
The two movements they inspired set out, in their different ways, to rescue their societies from this decay. But in an age of growing disillusion with politics, the neoconservatives turned to fear in order to pursue their vision. They would create a hidden network of evil run by the Soviet Union that only they could see. The Islamists were faced by the refusal of the masses to follow their dream and began to turn to terror to force the people to 'see the truth'.
The series is in three parts and the first is on this Wednesday at 9pm on BBC2.
Paul