Dr Strangelove’s Vision Of Utopia From 1966 Looks A Whole Lot Like The UK & USA 2014

By Stacy Herbert: I’ve read this recent blog post by Adam Curtis which has left me feeling quite nauseous! The creepiest bit is the part highlighting Herman Kahn’s vision from 1966 of how to create utopia without violence. Before the clip, here is the info you should read about Herman Kahn who was the founder of the Hudson Institute, an employee of the RAND Corporation and one of the inspirations for the character Dr. Strangelove.

Watch the clip here (hopefully non-UK can also watch?) in which he (along with his assistant) sets out how to create a Utopia without violence:



Obviously, this ‘Utopia’ has been enacted as populations have willingly given up their privacy in exchange for this ‘Utopia.’
Adam Curtis then goes on to highlight a clip with BF Skinner, also from the same 1966 film on Utopia.

The film records an experiment in a mental hospital in San Bernadino – California. The patients are given rewards in the form of plastic fake money if they do what the doctors consider the right social behaviour. They can then use that money at meal-times to buy their way onto a “nice” table – with tablecloth and flowers.
Those without the rewards have to eat – as one of the nurses puts it, “in less elegant conditions”.
What emerges in the hospital is a new, ordered hierarchy created by a system of reward – but one where the patients don’t feel controlled – instead they feel “empowered” because it was through their actions that they received the reward. Skinner makes clear in the film that he sees this as a model for how to run a future kind of society.

Watch the clip at the BBC link.
Adam Curtis sums the two clips as such:

Watching these sections of the film does make you think that what is being described is spookily close to the system we live in today. And that maybe we have misunderstood what really has emerged to run society since the 1980s.
The accepted version is that the neo-liberal right and the free market triumphed. But maybe the truth is that what we have today is far closer to a system managed by a technocratic elite who have no real interest in politics – but rather in creating a system of rewards that both keeps us passive and happy – and also makes that elite a lot of money.

Your thoughts?

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