Are ideologies really that important?

MarxDagger

Like other reviewers I feel that Curtis failed to tie all the events described in All Watched Over by Machines into a coherent hole.

The documentary argues that ideological beliefs have a significant impact on historical and political outcomes, but looks like money has had a greater impact on historical events described than any set of ideological beliefs political influence and influential scientists may have ever had.

Money and the movement of capital, in my opinion, had a greater impact on the Congolese civil wars and the Belgian occupation of Rwanda than any set of ideological beliefs. The documentary, in particular, highlights the ideological belief in Western science that humans are just biological automata whose behavior is entirely dictated and controlled by selfish genes that supply their minds with software-like instructions.

I doubt that western ideologies such as Objectivism and the balance of nature theory - the idea that ecosystems are in a state of perpetual equilibrium - had as much of an impact on the 21st century than global capitalism. I also doubt that the tendency for western powers to impose their ideological beliefs and values upon other cultures can explain any of the things that happened at the start of the 21st century.

And lastly, I think Adam Curtis fails to realize that the belief in the balance of nature theory, the gene-centered genetic determinism espoused by George Price, and the belief that both nature's and humanity's behavior is as easily predictable and quantifiable as the behavior of a human-built computer system are all attempts to avoid uncertainty.

There are some historical that would have really helped support some of Curtis' themes if they were mentioned. For example, George Price's religious belief in gene-centered genetic determinism parallels a religious belief commonly found on wall street that financial markets are as predictable as computer simulations of the movement of sub-atomic particles. You can find a description of this belief in the following book: When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management.

This documentary made me realize that humans hate uncertainty and that they will distort their perception of reality in order to avoid having to come to grips with the reality of the chaos and mayhem that regularly plagues human politics and the natural world.

score 7/10

MarxDagger 26 November 2019

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw5282268/