Can't Get You Out of My Head (TV series)  

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Can't Get You Out of My Head: An Emotional History of the Modern World (2021) is a six-part BBC documentary television series created by Adam Curtis.

It "tells the story of how we got to the strange days we are now experiencing. And why both those in power – and we – find it so difficult to move on". It "explores whether modern culture, despite its radicalism, is really just part of the new system of power".

Premise

Like many of Curtis's previous documentaries, it explores and links together various topics such as individualism, self-actualization, collectivism, conspiracy theories, national myths, American imperialism, the history of China, artificial intelligence, and the failure of technology to liberate society in the way that technological utopians once hoped it might.

Background

Originally titled What Is It That Is Coming?, the series was inspired by the rise of populism in 2016. Curtis wanted to investigate why the critics of Donald Trump and Brexit were unable to offer an alternative vision for the future, and why these sociopolitical circumstances were being continued beyond ethical breaking points.

Episodes

1) Bloodshed on Wolf Mountain

Adam Curtis explores the beginnings of revolution in America, Britain and China: how people had grown wary of the corruption that power brings and yet found it difficult to move on.

See Jiang Qing, John Birch Society, The Paranoid Style in American Politics (Richard Hofstadter), Mau Mau, Kerry Wendell Thornley, Discordianism Lee Harvey Oswald, Sandra Howard, Robin Douglas-Home, Michael X, Englishism, Peter Rachman, Ethel Voynich, Maya Plisetskaya, The Laws of Thought, propinquity, Jim Garrison, MK Ultra, Operation Mindfuck

2) Shooting and F**king are the Same Thing

The continued exploration of the revolutions of the 1960s from the points of view of Michael X, Jiang Qing and Afeni Shakur and the ways in which they failed in their revolutionary mission.

See also Edgar Mittelholzer, Claude Channes "La Chinoise" - Mao Mao (1967), Red Guards, Horst Mahler, H. Rap Brown, Afeni Shakur, Stokely Carmichael, Eckhard Hess, Roxan Witke, Bloodshed on Wolf Mountain, Li Lili, Negro Politics by James Wilson, Daniel Kahneman on rationality seems to reference Hume’s dictum that reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions , dream world, Horst Herold, Gale Benson, Battle of Algiers, Afeni Shakur trial.

The title of this episode refers to an incident during the visit of the Red Army Faction to the precursors of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

3) Money Changes Everything

How money had been used as a way of allowing people to live their desired life, yet money brought new problems, among which is climate change.

Arthur M. Sackler, Valium, the loneliness of suburbia, Komarov, Eduard Limonov, Harry M. Caudill, Camp Century, Willi Dansgaard, Nixon visits Mao, Watergate, Nixon's paranoia, The Gulag Archipelago, vor v zakone, Arkady Severny, Potato Bag Gang, Deng Xiaoping, It's Me Eddie by Limonov, Oxycontin, anxiety

4) But What If the People are Stupid

the people are stupid

The emerging idea in the 1970s of a world without borders; non-governmental organisations (NGOs) feel compelled to change the world because, says Curtis, "politicians left and right had become corrupted by power and petty nationalism"; the unintended consequences of sending humanitarian aid to Ethiopia in 1984; the Chinese Communist Party resists calls within China for transparency; Russian democracy in turmoil after the fall of the Soviet Union; and how in the West a declining faith in politics among voters may have led to politicians becoming representatives of big business.

See also Bernard Kouchner, boat people, Joan Baez, Hold Your Hand Out, Naughty Boy, Julia Grant (transgender activist), Democracy Wall, Maslow, 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, Chai Ling interviewed by Phil Cunningham, Shock therapy (economics), bankers, Algerian Civil War, Fareed Zakaria, Kahneman, oligarchs, Tony Martin (farmer), elites, Giandomenico Majone, non-majoritarianism, Limonov visits Radovan Karadžić

5) The Lordly Ones

The changing face of Britain: how Britain reinvented itself to avoid its past of the British slave trading and opium wars and how the British people started to believe the reinvention.

The Opium War (1997), Made in China, Chinese capitalism, yellow peril, Fu Manchu, Rodney King, Birmingham Six, American exceptionalism, Birth of a Nation, fundamental dishonesty, Cecil Sharp, Tulsa massacre, Gertrude Bell, putting faces on history, Sheikhs, MI5, Anthony Blunt, MI6, dual state, Hans Morgenthau, Miles Copeland Jr., The Quiet American, American foreign policy, Patrice Lumumba, copper, computers, biefstukkensocialisme, Percy Cradock, Handover of Hong Kong, Hussein, Terence Young (director), The Longest Day, Brexit.

6) Are We Pigeon? Or Are We Dancer?

Human (The Killers song)

Tying the series together. How we have arrived where we are, a populace fearful of the future and how we might change that future.

Family of Man vs fascism, limits of individualism, Tupac on fairy tales, gang violence, CIA involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking, Abu Zubaydah, Robert May, Baron May of Oxford, chaos theory, USSR, Murray Gell-Mann, thug life, left hand right hand Vicki: split-brain, Michael Gazzaniga, early days of Google in 1998, Patriot Act , Russian submarine: Kursk submarine disaster, multiple self, believe in nothing, Dominic Cummings, Gu Kailai, Neil Heywood, Assassination of Anna Politkovskaya, Pokemon Go, Jeffrey Hinton, vector world, Chinese corruption, Pussy Riot, Alexei Navalny, Night Wolves, government by algorithm, B. F. Skinner, Uyghurs, high arousal emotions, priming (psychology), Cambridge Analytica, The Dead Mall Series by Dan Bell,

Music

Curtis's style is typified by the use of frequent and often incongruous cuts of film and music, often lasting only a few seconds, in a technique similar to sampling. Music used in the series includes (in order of appearance):

• "Who Killed Bambi?"
• The Lady in Red
• Natalie Beridze – When Dreams Become Responsibility
• The Specials – Do Nothing
• Nine Inch Nails – Your Touch
• Phosphorescent – Song for Zula
• Tristram Cary – The Ladykillers (main theme)
• Zhou Xuan – Age of Bloom (Hua Yang De Nianhua)
• Source Direct – Stonekiller
• Pye Corner Audio – Pulse Threshold
• John Carpenter – Theme from The Fog
• Olivier Messiaen – “Jardin du sommeil d’amour” from the Turangalîla-Symphonie
• Benjamin Britten – “Dawn” from Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes
• Nine Inch Nails – The Worriment Waltz
• The Incredible String Band – Air
• Bill Ryder-Jones – The Reader (Malbork)
• Nine Inch Nails – Letting Go While Holding On
• Aphex Twin – #4
• In the Nursery – Haunted Dancehall
• Thomas Ragsdale – Warning Mass
• Stars of the Lid – Humectez la Mouture
• Burial – Beachfires
• Aphex Twin – Avril 14th
• Brian McBride – Girl Nap
• Brian McBride – When the Detail Lost its Freedom
• Clint Mansell & Kronos Quartet – Ghosts of Things to Come
• Natalie Beridze – Silently
• Natalie Beridze – Blue in Grey
• Loreta Kovacic – Tortured Tendon Time
• Marlene Dietrich – Sag Mir Wo Die Blumen Sind
• Nine Inch Nails – Run Like Hell
• Chromatics – Broken Mirrors
• Aphex Twin – #23
• Henry Mancini – Experiment in Terror
• The Raveonettes – Recharge & Revolt
• Sex Pistols – Who Killed Bambi?
• Claude Channes – La Chinoise (Mao Mao)
• Arne Weinberg & Shawn Rudiman – The Lost Arts
• The Mekons – Where Were You?
• Atticus Ross & Leopold Ross - Eleven Fifty Eight
• Brian McBride – A Gathering to Lead Me When You're Gone
• Godspeed You! Black Emperor - The Dead Flag Blues
• Stars of the Lid – Don't Bother They're Here
• Geneva Skeen – A Parallel Array of Horses
• Natalie Beridze – Barely Barely
• John Barry – God Save Us
• Richie Hawtin – No Way Back
• 2Pac – Violent
• Cocteau Twins – Lorelei
• John Barry – Yes, Who is That?
• Bonnie Guitar – Dark Moon
• Roger Eno – Quixote
• Natalie Beridze – Lavandar Lips
• Ennio Morricone – La Casa Delle Streghe
• Lawrence Welk – Calcutta
• Harold Budd – Jane 16 (For Pale Saints)
• Pye Corner Audio – Vorsicht
• Demen – Korridorer
• The Secret Sisters – House of Gold
• Thomas Ragsdale – Teeth Upon Teeth and Limbs Dangling Beneath
• Thomas Ragsdale – Self Zero
• Thomas Ragsdale – It Froze Me
• William Basinski - The Disintegration Loops
• Pye Corner Audio – It May Not be Real
• Thomas Ragsdale – Take a Look at God's Face
• Stars of the Lid – A Meaningful Moment Through
• Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Static
• This Mortal Coil – The Lacemaker
• Aphex Twin – #3
• Nine Inch Nails – A Warm Place
• Cigarettes After Sex – Starry Eyes
• Headless Heroes – True Love Will Find You in the End
• Stars of the Lid – The Evil That Never Arrived
• Schneider TM & Kptmichigan – The Light 3000
• Burial – Forgive
• Grazhdanskaya Oborona – Вечная весна (Eternal Spring)
• Stars of the Lid – Articulate Silences Part 2
• Johnny Boy – You are the Generation That Bought More Shoes and You Get What You Deserve
• This Mortal Coil – With Tomorrow
• Arsenic1987 – Pac-Man Theme (Remix)
• Stereo Total – A L'amour Comme A La Guerre
• Andrzej Panufnik – "Kołysanka" from Polonia
• Roger Williams – What Lies over the Hill
• Kenneth McKellar – Faery Song
• Richard Strauss – Morgen, Op. 27, no. 4
• Bright Eyes – Lua
• Death in Vegas – Lever Street
• Aphex Twin – #13
• The Paris Sisters - I Love How You Love Me
• This Mortal Coil - 'Til I Gain Control Again
• Gang of Four - Natural's Not In It

Pages linking in as of May 2021

• The Raveonettes
• Eduard Limonov
• The Power of Nightmares
• Can't Get You Out of My Head
• Lua (song)
• Michael X
• The Living Dead (TV series)
• The Mayfair Set
• It Felt Like a Kiss
• £830,000,000 – Nick Leeson and the Fall of the House of Barings
• All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (TV series)
• It's Me, Eddie
• An Ocean Apart

Subtitles (published here for research purposes)

Word count:

• Hidden: 42
• Complex, complicated 39
• individ- and its variants 84
• Conspiracy 43
• Corrupt 62
• Power 262
• Suspicion/suspicious 25

1

We are living through strange days., Across Britain, Europe and America,, societies have become split and polarised,, not just in politics, but across the whole culture., There is anger at the inequality and the ever-growing corruption, and a widespread distrust of the elites., Yet, at the same time, there is a paralysis,, a sense that no-one knows how to escape from this., Even in America, where there is now hope with the new president,, there are also fears that, despite the growing crisis,, the system will just return to normal., This paralysis is also fuelled by a technology, driven by the aim, of giving you today another version of what you had yesterday..., ..and never a different tomorrow., These films are a history of how we got to this place, and why both those in power, and we, find it so difficult to move on., They will trace different forces, across the world that have led to now,, not just in the West, but in China and Russia as well., And they are told in a different way., They are an emotional history of what went on inside the heads, of all kinds of people., Because in the age of the individual,, what you felt and what you wanted and what you dreamed of, were going to become the driving force across the world., And to understand the present, you have to go back and see, what happened when those hopes and dreams and uncertainties, inside people's minds met the much older forces of power., Often power that was decaying, and desperate to keep its ascendancy., These strange days did not just happen -, we, and those in power, created them together., YELLING, # Each day I walk along this lonely street, # Trying to find, # Find a future, # New pair of shoes are on my feet, # Cos fashion is my only culture, # Nothing ever change, # Oh, no, # Nothing ever change, # I'm just living in a life without meaning, # I walk and walk, # Do nothing, # I'm just living in a life without feeling, # I talk and talk, # Say nothing, # Nothing ever change, # Oh, no, # Nothing ever change. #, SONG FADES OUT, In the late 1950s, as the British Empire was falling apart,, there was a growing sense that something was badly wrong, under the surface., It was a feeling of unease, that despite all the reforms, after the Second World War and the welfare state,, the old forms of power had not gone away., And neither had the violence and the corruption, that had always been a part of that power., The court opens with the traditional reading of names, and the wide experience available to the bank as apparent., Mr Cobbold, Mr Minors,, Sir Charles Hambro..., Senior director..., The bankers in the City of London, had been at the very heart of the Empire., In 1958, two of the most powerful of them,, Lord Kindersley and William Keswick,, were accused of using insider information, to make millions for themselves., ..Lord Kindersley..., Chairman of Rolls-Royce, merchant banker., ..Mr Keswick..., Hudson's Bay Company and Far Eastern merchant., The evidence against them was very strong., But when Keswick was shown the evidence, he dismissed it, with a phrase that became notorious., "It is difficult," he said,, "to remember conversations one has whilst shooting on a grouse moor.", A government inquiry said the two men were obviously innocent., At the same time, reports had started to come back, from one of the last parts of the Empire - Kenya -, that seemed to show that those in charge had gone out of control., They had been fighting a liberation movement called the Mau Mau., The report said that hundreds of thousands of Kenyans had been put, into special camps, where they were going to be, psychologically adjusted., The British were trying to manipulate, what their chief psychologist called the "African mind"., But what then happened in the camps turned into a frenzied madness., The British used mass torture and killing, as they desperately tried to hold on to power., The government in London denied all the accusations,, but the rumours of violence and horror continued., ORGAN MUSIC PLAYS, But what had also not gone away was the fear and hatred, inside the minds of many of the British of the "others",, the people the British had ruled over, who were now coming to what they had been told was the homeland., Now, listen carefully to this Indian's conversation, with a white barber when he entered a saloon with a BBC radio microphone, in his pocket., BARBER: No! INDIAN MAN: What's the matter?, No!, Is there anything wrong?, Yes! What is it? I said no., But I'd like to know what is the matter. I'm closed., There's another half an hour... Well, I'm closed now., But you didn't put the closed sign outside on the window, did you?, Will you clear off?, Look, if you give me any reason why, what is the matter,, then I shall go if you tell me..., I've told you - I'm closed!, You're not closed., You're not... You're not closed yet., Well, I am - to you., Those who came from the Empire to Britain, were shocked by the strange country they found., Michael de Freitas had come from Trinidad., He had grown up with a picture of a strong and confident homeland, at the centre of the Empire., Instead, what he found was, what seemed to him,, a sad and frightened country., You must remember that, that when we came to this country,, we were not travelling to a foreign country., We were taught, I was taught when I was a young man,, that my country, Trinidad, was an extension of this one., We were weaned on the concept of the Empire., When I was a young boy, I stood in 90 degrees of sun, day after day and sang all kinds of silly things, like God Save The Queen, Land of Hope and Glory,, "Britannia rule the waves",, with the greatest of fervour and believed every word of it., To come here and discover that not only wasn't I not travelling, to the capital of the whole thing, which we were led to believe was so,, but in actual fact, we weren't wanted, has been a very shattering blow., Many people in this country who think that we are very hateful, are so wrong., You see, this is the great mystery., When you came here, you say you found you weren't wanted., Why, then, did you stay?, Why did you choose to stay here?, This was the heartland of the whole thing, and one hoped against hope that what one saw was not right., MUSIC: Song for Zula by Phosphorescent, # Some say love is a burning thing, # That it makes a fiery ring, # Oh, but I know love as a fading thing, # Just as fickle as a feather in a stream, # See, honey, I saw love, # You see it came to me, # It puts its face up to my face so I could see, # Yeah, then I saw love disfigure me, # Into something I am not recognising, # See the cage, it called, # I said, "Come on in", # I will not open myself up this way... #, Mao Zedong's wife was going mad., She was called Jiang Qing., She lived alone, surrounded by pet monkeys, and nurses, who she was convinced were conspiring against her., Those in charge of the revolution in China, had completely marginalised her., She was too dangerous, they thought, to be allowed anywhere, near her husband or power., They had even sent her to Moscow to be locked in a sanatorium, with real and imagined illnesses., But now Jiang Qing's husband was facing disaster., The revolution had led to horror., 30 million people had died from starvation, in the past three years., The other leaders wanted to get rid of him., And suddenly, he called for her., CALMING MUSIC PLAYS, Jiang Qing was an extraordinary person., She believed in nothing except the power of her will to shape reality., SHE SINGS, She had begun as an actor in films in Shanghai in the 1930s., The other actors looked down at her for her driving ambition., SHE GROANS, She liked to be on the top, always., She's a very ambitious woman and she liked to be top, and she plays with the, you know,, with all the directors, cameramen,, make them...make them, you know, pay attention, you see,, and the interest in her, so she can have a better part of the film., THEY SPEAK CHINESE, She married a quite famous writer called Tang Na, and after married, she doesn't feel, very satisfied by her husband, because her husband is not the very, very strong man., And she left him and he jumped to the river,, and then the water was very cold, so he jump up again, you see?, So... You mean he tried to commit suicide?, Yes, he's trying to commit...commit suicide., After the suicide attempt,, Jiang Qing wrote a long letter to her husband., It said she was leaving him, and also explained why with an extraordinary openness., There were powerful forces inside her, she said,, that kept driving her towards fame and power, and it was only those forces that held her together psychologically., "Nothing must hold them back.", It ended, "What matters is that you remember me, "as a woman who never caves in before anyone, "and who will never bear to be treated as inferior to men.", But Jiang Qing failed to become a star., The men who ran the studios scorned her ambition., Her most famous part was as a supporting actor in a film, called Bloodshed on Wolf Mountain., HOWLING, The star of the film was called Li Lili., THEY SCREAM, Jiang Qing was convinced that Li, was trying to upstage her all the time, and she became the focus of all Jiang Qing's anger, over her treatment by the Shanghai establishment., MUSIC: Hua Yang De Nian Hua by Zhou Xuan, Bitter and disillusioned, Jiang Qing left Shanghai, and travelled to join the communist resistance, on a remote mountain in Yan'an., The camp was an intense, exciting place, and many of the young revolutionaries had affairs., Sex was called "undisciplined guerrilla warfare"., But when Jiang Qing started an affair with the leader, Mao Zedong,, that was different., She was scorned by the other revolutionaries, as a social-climbing upstart., Then it got worse., Mao announced that he was going to divorce his wife, and marry Jiang Qing., The other communist leaders were horrified., They saw Jiang Qing as a dangerous, destructive force, because she was driven by a fierce radical individualism, that threatened their collective dream., In the communist structure, everyone was part of a unit., She insisted, "I am a unit of one.", No-one could work out what to do., They even went and asked Stalin in Moscow for his advice., He said, "Let them marry., "But Jiang Qing must sign a document promising to refrain, "from political activity for 30 years.", BELL TOLLS, She signed, but she was furious with the men who now controlled her., They even tracked down and destroyed prints of her old films, because they didn't fit with the image of Mao's wife., Her fury grew., Jiang Wing wanted power on her own behalf,, as an individual., And she wanted revenge., Now, 20 years later, in 1959, Mao was facing disaster, and he was calling for her., GUNSHOT, GIRL SCREAMS, GUNSHOT, GUNSHOT, BOY: You're dead, you're dead!, In America, the idea of individualism, had become central to the politics of the Cold War..., MAN: What are you, bulletproof?, Get out from behind that tree., ..because it was what defined the United States, against the collective ideology of Russia., At the heart of it was the picture of a strong, confident individual, living an independent life in the new giant suburbs, outside the old cities., My gun won't shoot that far., GUNSHOT, But there was a weakness,, because the people in the suburbs were alone., And in their isolation, away from the old communities,, they started to become fearful and lost., Out of these fears came a paranoia, that was fuelled by groups on the extreme right,, like the John Birch Society., ALL: ..and to the republic, for which it stands,, one nation under God, indivisible..., They said that the American government had been taken over, by hidden groups, controlled by the communists., And at the end of the 1950s, a theory spread like wildfire, through the suburbs that President Eisenhower himself, had really been put into power by the communists., "He is a dedicated, conscious agent of the Russians,", the head of the John Birch Society said., "That conclusion is based on detailed evidence so extensive, "that it is beyond any reasonable doubt.", But this paranoia was not a new thing., An influential political scientist called Richard Hofstadter, published an article that caused a sensation., He said that there had always been a dark paranoia, built into America from the very start., The first settlers had come from Europe to America, to flee from the corruption of power in the Old World., But although they had got away from the old power,, they hadn't got away from their suspicious minds,, and alone, out in the vast wilderness of the new America,, that led them to imagining dark, hidden conspiracies, in their own government, far away in Washington., One of the first of these, in the early 19th century,, said that a secret group from Europe,, called the Bavarian Illuminati,, were running a giant conspiracy in America, to destroy the new democracy., In reality, the Illuminati had been a utopian movement, who wanted to replace religion with reason., But instead, they now became the first of a series, of frightening suspicions that fed off the isolation, of the settlers in the New World., "The paranoia in the suburbs," Hofstadter said,, "is just part of a much larger darkness, "built into the very structure of America itself, "that was feeding, yet again,, "on people's separateness and isolation.", But in the same suburbs, there was a new movement rising up, that was going to confront and challenge these fears., It was driven by a radical individualism that said, that you as an individual can shape the world the way you want it to be,, not accept what the dark fears tell you it is., It would be one of the main foundations, of the counterculture movement, that was going to spread throughout the West., But now, it was just beginning,, born out of odd moments across the suburbs of California., One night, Kerry Thornley went with his friend Greg Hill, to a bowling alley., They started to discuss reality., Thornley insisted that there was a fixed order to the universe,, but Greg said that the universe was chaos and it was human thought, that projected an order onto the chaos., Sitting around in a bowling alley in 1958, to be exact,, somewhere in the vicinity of Whittier, California,, and we were discussing philosophy, and we were talking about order and chaos., Greg's theory was that order was projected on the universe,, that it didn't exist at all,, that it was a creation of the human mind,, that order was entirely in perception and had nothing to do, with what was going on out there in a completely chaotic universe., Thornley was inspired by this, and together he and Greg Hill decided, to set up a movement dedicated to the idea of chaos., They called it Discordianism., Underlying it was the belief that individuals had the power, inside themselves to bring order and meaning to the chaos,, not the old systems of power that created the fear and suspicion., But then an extraordinary coincidence happened, that was going to lead Thornley back towards that darkness in America., Thornley was sent to do service with the Marines,, and at the camp, he met another recruit, who seemed to embody the figure of the free, independent individual, he so admired because he refused to bow to the power of the officers., He was called Lee Harvey Oswald..., ..and they became close friends., Thornley had read the novels of Ayn Rand, and he decided he was going to write a novel, with Oswald as the central figure, a hero of this new age., But then, suddenly, Oswald defected to the Soviet Union, and things became very strange., It seemed that the reality outside, was even more chaotic than he had imagined., It was really a weird experience for me, because I was writing this novel based on Oswald., When Oswald defected to the Soviet Union, I decided to write a novel, about a Marine who becomes disenchanted with the US, and goes to the Soviet Union,, and so it was like the hero... And I didn't like Kennedy., I was extremely anti-Kennedy myself because I was so much into Ayn Rand,, laissez faire capitalism, objectivism,, and Kennedy was the arch villain of our..., ..of our movement at that time., And it was like the hero of my novel jumped up off the pages of my book, and shot the President, and it was...it was..., It was very weird., MUSIC: Air by The Incredible String Band, # Breathing, # All creatures are, # Brighter than that brightest star, # You are by far, # You come right inside of me, # Close as you can be, # You kiss my blood, # And my blood kiss me... #, Although the British Empire was now finally collapsing, and the last colonies being given their independence,, in the homeland, England, the old structure of power remained intact., And not only in the institutions,, but inside people's heads as well., The old attitudes of power were still deeply embedded, in the minds of the establishment who dominated the country., Those in charge demanded obedience,, not just from those they governed or employed,, but also from their wives., They expected them to submit too., And again. Fine. CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS, Sandra Paul had grown up in Africa and the Far East., Her father had been a doctor in the Royal Air Force., She came back to England and became a successful model., Just take that knee a little wider here., Good., Then she met Robin Douglas-Home., He was at the heart of the ruling class., His uncle had been Prime Minister., She was incredibly beautiful., She had a tremendous quality of innocence., And, erm..., She was, I thought, a vulnerable creature, in a highly suspect world,, the world of models and fashion,, which I despised then,, and I despise even more now., Erm... And so, in a sense, maybe I was trying to rescue her, from what I thought was going to be a decline, in her character due to her career., Can you take that leg, that knee a little wider out that way?, Sort of, really... That's right., But she was earning considerably more than you were, and, presumably, this money was useful in setting up your home,, so I suppose you could hardly be resentful about it., I was earning considerably less, yes., They married, and Robin Douglas-Home insisted, that they went to live in the country., Sandra Paul agreed..., ..but she found that he also insisted, that she should stop her modelling career, and remain in the country while he went to their house in London., Then eventually, Robin wanted to be in London more., And..., He didn't really want the routine so much., He wanted to be going out to parties on his own,, and when he realised that if he was in London, and I would be in London too..., ..erm..., ..this meant that he had to share his life,, and he was beginning to want to be..., ..just a little independent., Do you mean he was getting bored with you?, Yes, probably,, because I used to want to know what he'd been doing or where he'd been, and he didn't want to say, and so we'd have a row., But just because I was wanting to know about his life, and he thought that I shouldn't have to know everything about his life., I felt that when you were married that you should share things, and you should have a right, really, to know what your husband was doing., Even if he was to make it up,, he should take the trouble to make something up to tell you, so you could put it out of your mind., Michael de Freitas was now working for a notorious landlord, in Notting Hill called Peter Rachman., Rachman owned hundreds of flats and decaying houses in Notting Hill,, which he rented out to prostitutes and immigrants., De Freitas's job was to be Rachman's enforcer,, often using threats and violence,, including breaking in and wrecking the flats., When we came back in the night, we see everything outside., All the floor mashed up., All the wardrobe, all the chair, all the table,, all the clothes on the floor, dirty., He took my brother's tools and mashed up all the floor., Pulled up all the lights., No water., I say, "Well, well, well, well.", Michael de Freitas was fascinated by his new employer, because Peter Rachman was far more than just the brutal gangster, that he was portrayed as., He had lived an extraordinary life., He had been born in Lvov, on the border of Ukraine and Poland., Then the Nazis invaded, and Rachman was arrested and forcibly sterilised, because he was Jewish., But he managed to escape., He fled into Russia, but was captured again,, this time by the Russians,, who sent him to the labour camps in Siberia,, where he watched people survive by killing each other, and then eating the human flesh., But then the Nazis invaded Russia, and suddenly, Rachman became Russia's ally., He was sent off to fight with the Free Polish Army., And he ended up, after the war, in London,, stateless and a complete outsider., That horror meant that Rachman judged nobody., For him, the differences between right and wrong, were luxuries for the privileged., In the face of horror, everyone was the same,, focused entirely on survival., But the English judged him., He was hated with an overwhelming disgust as the face of evil., De Freitas believed that this revealed something, that was hidden in English society., We start with the story of a man,, let me say straight away a sordid story, that some of you may well not want the younger children to hear., This is Peter Rachman,, one of Britain's big-time 20th-century racketeers., On the surface, there was the overt racism against the immigrants, that Rachman was bringing into Notting Hill., A large number of people in Notting Hill, are trying to mix the two races, are trying to bring about, a coffee-coloured mulatto population in Britain,, and I regard it as no disgrace for the White Defence League, to come on the scene and stand up for white interests., But de Freitas saw something deeper., Rachman's property empire was a brutal and violent one,, but it was doing something that polite English society, completely refused to do., He was giving people on the very margins of society -, prostitutes and black immigrants - somewhere to live., His empire shone a harsh light on the hypocrisy of the nice people, at the top of English society,, who would never think of themselves as racist, but wanted nothing to do with the people he was moving, into Notting Hill., And they hated him for it., This was captured in an interview that the BBC did, with the local upmarket journalists in Notting Hill, about the day Rachman visited their offices., What struck me about him, was his extraordinary sense of being so evil., This was a really evil man., We'd heard a lot about Rachman -, and finally, here he was, sitting in this room., But I don't think any of us were prepared to see, such a grotesque individual., Kind of gravelly type of voice,, a sort of...almost a diseased voice, if you like,, the kind of thing which went..., SPEAKS IN HIGH-PITCH: "Oh, what do you want to see me for?, "I mean, I've done nothing.", De Freitas decided that there was a fear in England that went far deeper, than just the working-class racism..., ..that behind the polite veneer of the middle classes,, there was a hard ruthlessness and a suspicion of others., De Freitas gave it a name., He called it Englishism., It came, he said, from both an anger and a melancholy, at the loss of their empire., Then Peter Rachman died of a heart attack,, and Michael de Freitas suddenly found, that he was the new face of evil., Mr de Freitas?, Why will you not take the rent from this man here?, I don't own the property., But your name's on the rent book. Is it?, Well, you know it is. We can probably show it to you., Come here, Mr de Freitas, cos I need to know the facts about this., Why will you not take his rent from him?, INAUDIBLE, Jiang Qing came in secret to Mount Lushan to meet Mao Zedong,, where he was confronting the other revolutionaries., She was determined to stop them from overthrowing Mao., Many of them were the men who had forced her, into her strange, isolated life, and she hated them., Jiang Qing was also convinced that these men, weren't really revolutionaries., They were actually ghosts from the past who, without realising it,, were destroying the revolution, because their minds were still possessed by the patterns of thought, of the old, decaying and corrupt empire, that had ruled China for 300 years., Mao pretended to give in to the demands, of the other revolutionaries,, but he told Jiang Qing to go to Shanghai, and to prepare quietly for a new kind of revolution -, one that would sweep the opposition away., Jiang Qing returned to where she had started -, the studios of Shanghai., But now she was in control., And the new revolution was going to be driven by HER self-expression, and HER imagination that had been stifled back then., The unit of one was going to take over the revolution, and reshape the minds of the Chinese people., Because she could control the people's minds,, she could control their images, she was..., She became, er... She became the mistress of the arts, and of propaganda and culture., She does have great personal charm., It's a severe charm., It's the charm of being able to do what she wanted, and to say what she wanted to, in a society where most people say what they're expected to say,, most people express the current political line., Her daring to reflect upon the past,, to speak extensively about herself, and to make judgments of all sorts was extraordinary., And she's a woman of many parts, so, needless to say, her relationship to the Chairman, was always the trump card., Jiang Qing began by taking old Chinese operas and reworked them, so they became dramatic melodramas about the need to struggle, against the evil forces still hidden in Chinese society., CALLS IN MANDARIN, GUNSHOT, MUSIC CRESCENDOES, Hate was a key word in the script., "It must be shouted," she said,, "as if it was a grenade that you were hurling at the enemy.", "And never forget," she told the heroine,, "that beauty is less important than will and power.", SHE SINGS IN MANDARIN, But the operas were just the start., Jiang Qing's real aim was to turn the whole of China itself, into a giant melodrama,, to work millions of people up into an intense frenzy, that would have the power to smash through the old corrupt ideas, that were still lodged in people's heads, and break through to a new kind of society., But at the same time,, Jiang Qing herself was driven by old hatreds from her own past., And she was also going to turn that frenzy, into a crusade of revenge against her old enemies..., ..including Li Lili,, who had upstaged her in Bloodshed on Wolf Mountain., ORCHESTRAL CRESCENDO BUILDS, Living quietly in New York, completely forgotten,, was an Irish woman called Ethel Boole, who personified the very opposite of what Jiang Qing believed -, because Boole thought that the way to change the world, was to give yourself up to the force of revolution,, to surrender your individual self and your identity, to the dream of a better future for others., At the end of the 19th century,, Ethel Boole had gone to Russia as a young girl, and become involved with the revolutionaries in St Petersburg., And she wrote a novel called The Gadfly., It told a powerful romantic story of a young girl, who sacrificed everything for revolution., She then married a Polish revolutionary, called Wilfrid Voynich,, and in the 1920s, they went to live in New York,, where he worked as an antiquarian book-seller, and Ethel Boole forgot about revolution., But in 1959, when the Bolshoi Ballet came to New York,, the dancers were astonished to find that she was alive, and they rushed to visit her, because Ethel Boole, without her realising it,, had become a hero of the Russian Revolution., She discovered that her novel, had inspired millions of young revolutionaries in the 1920s, to rise up and fight for the revolution,, inspired by the idea of surrendering themselves, to a grand historic cause., Then, the same had happened in China., Again, millions of young revolutionaries, had carried The Gadfly in their backpacks, as they fought to create a new kind of future., Now, Boole was living alone., And she had inherited a mysterious book from her husband., It was called the Voynich manuscript,, and it was written in a language no-one has been able to decipher., But one ballerina in the Bolshoi group, didn't go to visit Ethel Boole., She was called Maya Plisetskaya., She was the most famous ballerina in the world, and she hated the communist system., Plisetskaya's father had been executed by firing squad, during the purges of the 1930s., Her mother had been sent to a prison in the wastes of Siberia., As she became famous, she was watched all the time, by agents from the KGB., She couldn't trust anyone., Everyone around her had been told to inform on her., And she hated what she called "the men with sweaty faces,", the party bosses who leered at her as she danced., In private, Maya Plisetskaya wrote out her own manifesto., "I don't know about other people," she wrote, "I'll say it for myself., "I don't want to be a slave., "I don't want people whom I don't know to decide my fate., "I don't want a leash on my neck., "I don't want a cage, even if it is a platinum one., "I don't want to be rejected or branded., "I don't want to hide what I am thinking., "I don't want to bow my head,, "and I won't do it., "That's not what I was born for.", Both Plisetskaya and Jiang Qing were part of the new individualism, that was rising up everywhere..., ..while Ethel Boole's collective vision was dying., But at the same time, a new revolution was about to begin., It would offer a dream of liberation and freedom for the new individuals., But it would end by controlling them., And in a strange twist, the person whose ideas, would guide that revolution was Ethel Boole's father., He was a mathematician from the 19th century called George Boole., Boole had been a deeply religious man., And one afternoon in the 1840s,, as he walked across a field near Doncaster,, a thought had flashed into his head, that he believed was a religious vision., Boole suddenly saw how you could use mathematics, to unlock the mysterious processes of human thought., The same symbols that were used in algebra, could be used to describe what went on inside people's heads, as they followed a train of thought,, expressing all the twists and turns in simple binary form., If this, then that., If that, then not this., And in 1854, Boole wrote a book that caused a sensation., It was called An Investigation of the Laws of Thought., Its aim - to investigate the fundamental laws, of those operations of the mind by which reasoning is performed., Boole showed how even abstract concepts like virtue and passion, could be put into equations,, and then the symbols used to follow a pattern of thought, to its conclusion., Boole was driven by an almost messianic belief, that he had been allowed a glimpse by God, into the truth of the human mind., But there were those who doubted this., The philosopher Bertrand Russell was astonished, by the brilliance of Boole's mathematics,, but he didn't believe that what Boole had discovered, was anything to do with human thought., "Human beings," Russell said, "do not think like that.", What Boole was really doing was something else., Throughout the British Empire, science had played a powerful role, which has been wiped and forgotten today., Its job had been to create abstract systems,, to catalogue and order the chaotic reality, that the British ruled over,, to turn it into something that could be managed and controlled., It ranged from making maps of what was called the dark interior, to cataloguing millions of species of animals and insects,, and studying and categorising different human types., And what Boole was doing was the next step in that process., He was taking the chaotic reality of human thought, and making a simplified, rational map, of that other dark interior,, the human mind,, so it could be managed and controlled., But in the 19th century, no-one could see any way, of using the system that Boole had created, and it languished and was quietly forgotten, when the British Empire began to collapse., One day, Sandra Paul discovered her husband having sex, in the back of a car with the Marchioness of Londonderry., It was the final straw, and she decided the marriage would have to end., She told Robin Douglas-Home that she wanted a divorce,, but he refused..., ..so she said that she would seek a petition for cruelty., It meant that many of the details of their marriage, and the struggles between them would be made public., And he couldn't bear the thought of going through a divorce,, so he refused to give me a divorce., He blamed me for..., ..dragging the whole thing out in..., Erm... Well, I don't think he blamed me coherently., He just blamed me because I divorced him, and he couldn't understand that there wasn't any other way., I... Well, I don't think I was unfair, because it was the only thing I could do,, and I did think that it was hopeless for us to stay in a separated state,, hopeless for me., I was being selfish. I wanted to be free., Erm... You had to be fairly ruthless., Yes, I had to be ruthless in order to be free., And she insisted on continuing, with this petition for cruelty., Now, when I received the petition for cruelty,, I can only describe one's feelings to you as if,, you know, a small bomb had gone off inside your head., Because, erm..., ..it chapterised the marriage almost day by day..., ..and incidentally, letter by letter, roneoed..., ..in the most unpleasant and vicious terms..., ..with me as the aggressor and the cruel one., Five years of one's life..., ..say, 70% of which were very happy,, reduced to a great wad of foolscap,, typed out by leering little clerks, in solicitors' offices., Your letters from the moment you'd met,, typed out, roneoed -, your letters to your mother,, her letters to her mother,, her mother's letters to me., It was all right, you felt, to be regarded as an adulterer,, but you couldn't bear to be regarded as cruel?, I couldn't bear her to...to..., ..put a...a..., ..a kind of tombstone on..., ..this marriage reading in the way that that petition read., For men like Robin Douglas-Home, the expectation of power, had been deeply embedded inside their minds,, but as the world had changed around them and real power ebbed away,, they were left with a terrible melancholy, that in some would turn to despair., A year after the filming, Robin Douglas-Home committed suicide., HE PLAYS PIANO, MUSIC: Sag Mir Wo Die Blumen Sind by Marlene Dietrich, # Sag mir wo die Blumen sind, # Wo sind sie geblieben?, # Sag mir wo die Blumen sind, # Was ist geschehen?, # Sag mir wo die Blumen sind, # Madchen pfluckten sie geschwind, # Wann wird man je verstehen?, # Wann wird man je verstehen?, # Sag mir wo die Madchen sind, # Wo sind sie geblieben?, # Sag mir wo die Madchen sind, # Was ist geschehen?, # Sag mir wo die Madchen sind, # Manner nahmen sie geschwind, # Wann wird man je verstehen?, # Wann wird man je verstehen?, # Sag mir wo die Manner sind, # Wo sind sie geblieben?, # Sag mir wo die Manner sind, # Was ist geschehen?, # Sag mir wo die Manner sind, # Zogen fort, der Krieg beginnt, # Wann wird man je verstehen?, # Wann wird man je verstehen? #, Kerry Thornley had left California, and gone to live in New Orleans, where he worked in a bar., The movement that he and his friend Greg Hill had started -, Discordianism - was beginning to grow,, spreading by word of mouth., Like much of the new counterculture, it was against all politics., It distrusted all the old systems of power - left and right -, because they were just trying to force you, into their version of reality., Thornley also published his novel, with Lee Harvey Oswald as the central figure., It was called The Idle Warriors., But New Orleans was also the city where Lee Harvey Oswald had lived, before the Kennedy assassination., And as a result, Thornley came to the notice of the man, who was going to be the main creator of the JFK conspiracy theory., He was the district attorney of New Orleans,, called Jim Garrison., Garrison said that Oswald had just been part of a giant conspiracy, that included the CIA, big business,, the news media and anti-Castro Cubans,, who, together, had killed the President., There's no question about that., There was a conspiracy., A number of men were involved., An apparatus which was lethal in nature..., ..of which Lee Harvey, Harvey Oswald was a part,, assigned the role, essentially, as decoy., Now, don't ask me what the organisation is because I can't say., But the implication, clearly, is the Central Intelligence Agency,, your own security organisation in the United States., It almost sounds like that, doesn't it?, I have no comment about that., Jim Garrison believed that the modern democratic system in America, was just a facade,, that behind it was another secret system of power, that really controlled the country., But you could never discover it through normal means, because it was so deeply hidden., Garrison wrote a memo to his staff,, explaining how you could uncover this secret world., He called it Time and Propinquity., "You didn't bother with meaning or with logic," he said,, "because that will always be hidden.", Instead, you look for patterns,, strange coincidences and links that may seem to have no meaning, but are actually telltale signs on the surface, of the hidden system of power underneath., This theory was going to have a very powerful effect in the future, because it would lead to a profound shift, in how many people understood the world,, because what it said was that in a dark world of hidden power,, you couldn't expect everything to make sense,, that it was pointless to try and understand the meaning, of why something happened,, because that would always be hidden from you., What you looked for were the patterns., And when Garrison read Kerry Thornley's novel,, he saw a pattern., Not only had Thornley been in the Marines with Oswald, and written a novel about him, but he had come to live in the same city, that Oswald had lived in before the assassination., And in 1967, Garrison accused Thornley, of being part of the conspiracy., Thornley was furious., He knew that Garrison was wrong..., ..but he also hated the very idea of conspiracy theories., He believed that they were one of the ways, those in power controlled you., Conspiracy theories made you believe that there were hidden forces, that really controlled the world,, and that made you as an individual feel weak and powerless., Suspicion, he believed, was just another form of control., Thornley wanted to find ways to free people, from that kind of conditioning that held them back as individuals., There are ways of deconditioning people,, and this is what I'm interested in., I'm interested in finding some technique, by which great masses of people, can be broken out of their authoritarian conditioning, all at once, to figure out exactly what that type of enlightenment is,, that type of liberation from authoritarian conditioning is,, and how to achieve it on a wholesale basis., Thornley was right that most of what Garrison alleged, was complete fantasy., Despite all the patterns,, he could produce no evidence of a hidden conspiracy., But what Thornley didn't realise was that at the same time,, there was another very real conspiracy being run, by the American government,, and its aim was to try and do the very same thing, as he wanted to do., The Central Intelligence Agency was trying to find ways, to wipe the past from people's minds,, to see if they could free them from the conditioning, that had been implanted there., Psychologists working for the CIA had come to believe, that individuals were far weaker than they had believed..., ..and they wanted to see if they could implant, new patterns of thought in their minds., The image of the human being that was being built up, at that particular time was that there was a great deal, of vulnerability in every human being, and that that vulnerability could be manipulated, to programme somebody to be something, that I wanted them to be, and they didn't want to be..., ..that you could manipulate people in such a way, that they could be automatons, if you will,, for whatever your own purposes were., This was the image that people thought was possible., The CIA set up a secret project called MKUltra., It was led by a psychiatrist called Ewen Cameron,, who worked in a hospital in Montreal called the Allan Memorial., He took patients and, without telling them, experimented, to see if he could wipe what he called "the sick memories", from their minds., To do this, he used repeated electroshocks, and massive doses of LSD., They shipped me up to what they called the Sleep Room,, and they gave me all of these electroconvulsive shock treatments, and megadoses of drugs and LSD and all of that., And I have no memory of any of that -, nothing of that time at the Allan Memorial, or any of my life previous to that., All gone. Wiped., Some members of Discordianism were working at Playboy magazine,, and Thornley decided that he was going to use Playboy magazine, to start an experiment that would make people see how absurd, all conspiracy theories really were., He called it Operation Mindfuck., In 1969, he and Greg Hill began Operation Mindfuck, by placing a false letter in the Playboy letters page., They put it between another letter, asking if gun fanatics had small penises, and one from a man asking about the physical danger, to his testicles from heavy petting., Thornley's fake letter asked whether all the political assassinations, in America were really being masterminded, by a single secret society,, and the society it named was the Illuminati., It said that the Illuminati were behind all the chaos, and the fear that was now gripping America., He and the other Discordians then proceeded to spread this idea, all across America through the counterculture,, in magazines and books and even in plays., Thornley's aim was to try and break the spell of conspiracy theories, by making people see the absurdity of believing them,, and he had chosen the Illuminati for the experiment, because no-one could possibly believe, that an 18th-century organisation from Bavaria was really,, in the second half of the 20th century,, the secret rulers of the modern world., It was clearly ridiculous., Dr Cameron's experiments were a disaster., His brutal techniques succeeded only, in wiping the minds of those he experimented on., He then found he could put nothing back., He totally failed to implant any new memories, or any new ways of seeing the world., His patients found themselves in a world, that had no meaning any longer., When I was discharged from the Allan Memorial,, I felt like a..., ..like an alien from another world visiting this world., I knew I was different, and I didn't know how to become like everybody else., And it was a very lonely, scary place to be., "This is your husband.", What? What's "husband?", What's "making love?", In the world of individualism that was about to come,, psychology was going to play a powerful role, because it said it could help to change, what was inside people's minds., But what Cameron and the CIA had done, showed, in a dramatic and extreme way, the weakness of this., They had assumed that most of what people felt came from within them,, and to make them happier,, you just had to alter what was inside their brains., What was forgotten was the other view -, that what shapes how people feel is the society around them..., ..above all, the structure of power that not only controls their lives,, but also how they feel., And if you want to change the way people feel,, you have to find a way to change that, too., Memory is wrapped in what society has decided, we should feel like., "You should cry at funerals.", I found myself not crying at a funeral, and I felt just fine., And I thought, "Gee, there's something the matter with me., "I'm not crying. I should cry., "Everybody else is crying.", But... But there wasn't that..., ..that need to., MUSIC: Recharge & Revolt by The Raveonettes, CROWD SHOUTING, MUSIC CONTINUES, # With a hole in my head, # I looked for you, # Through the trenches of war, # The whole world through, # My desire to leave with you I just can't constrain, # I regret everything I've done so far, # When the pillars of love are blown apart, # I stumble through the rubble and decay, # When I'm terrified, I close my eyes... #, My old man died for this country!, Don't you dare say that to me!, Michael de Freitas decided that he was going to become a revolutionary., He was going to challenge and expose the corrupt old structures of power, that he believed still haunted and controlled, the minds of the English people, even though their empire was gone., I can't live in this system., I don't like it, I don't want it., I want to destroy everything down to the ground, the lot, ashes., That's what I want., MUSIC: Overture (For Other Halfs) by Brian McBride, All three -, Jiang Qing, Michael de Freitas and Kerry Thornley -, knew that their struggle was with the forces, from the old power of the past, that they believed were still lodged in people's minds., But at the same time, quietly rising up was a new system, that seemed as if it would never have to face that struggle -, because it would be completely free of the past., The laws of human thought that George Boole had created, had become the central structure of all thinking machines, computers,, because it fitted perfectly with the binary switching system, inside them - either zero or one -, and it was used by the machines to create endless branching pathways, of binary logic called algorithms., Out of that was going to come the dream of artificial intelligence,, machines that could think independently,, that could then order and manage the world as a rational system,, not driven by the dangerous ideologies of the past., But back in the 1960s,, as the engineers began to build the first neural networks,, what they had forgotten was that the system of thought, they were creating inside the machines did have its own history,, that it had been born out of a time, when science had become deeply involved in questions, of power and control in the British Empire..., ..that what lay behind the computer logic, was the aim of simplifying human thought,, which would finally allow you to colonise the last free outpost -, the human mind., But unlike the old empires, where power was visible,, this power would be hidden in remote places, in the servers., But something else from the past, would also find its way into those servers., In the political and economic chaos of the early 1970s,, conspiracy theories were going to spread like wildfire, through the counterculture., As they did, the fake conspiracies, about the Illuminati and the secret rulers of the world, that Kerry Thornley thought that no-one could ever believe, began to get mixed up with the true conspiracies like MKUltra., And more and more people began to follow, Jim Garrison's theory of time and propinquity,, looking for patterns of a hidden power in America,, not for logic or meaning any longer., And when the internet was created, almost immediately,, those patterns of suspicion would move into the data, and multiply endlessly across the system., And that dark paranoia, that 200 years before, had spread across the prairies and the mountains, among isolated settlers,, now spread across the virtual world,, among isolated individuals sitting alone in front of their screens..., ..and suspicion and distrust crept back into what was going to be, the new system of power., MUSIC: Who Killed Bambi? by Sex Pistols, # Gentle pretty thing, # Who only had one spring, # You bravely faced the world, # Ready for anything, # I'm happy that you lived, # For your life is mine, # What have I except to cry?, # Spirit never die!, # Birds of the air, # Beasts of the earth, # Overjoyed at Bambi's birth, # They gambolled in the glade, # Who killed Bambi?, # Who killed Bambi?, # Who killed Bambi?, # Who killed Bambi?, # Who killed Bambi?, # Who killed Bambi?, # Who killed Bambi?, # Who killed Bambi?, # Who killed Bambi?, # Murder, murder, murder, # Someone should be angry, # The crime of the century, # Who shot little Bambi?, # Never trust a hippy, # I love punky Bambi, # I'll kill to find the killer, # In the rotten roll army, # All the spikey punkers, # Believers in the ruins, # With one big shout, they all cry out, # Who killed Bambi? #, SHOUTING, GLASS SMASHING

2

Have you ever been to a labour exchange? You know, the last time I went there I was paid my money by a Sikh. A Sikh, sitting there with his turban and a bangle on his hand. Now, I was three years with the Indian army in India. I was three years in India in civilian life. Erm, I got on well with Sikhs, Hindus, the whole lot of them. But to walk into a British labour exchange and find you're being paid out your money by a Sikh... These are the people, that in my small way, I helped train and educate... ..erm... To go into labour exchange is not a very edifying experience at all. You know, you change into your old clothes to go to the labour exchange, you know? But you've got to go. Edgar Mittelholzer had come to England in the s from British Guiana. But he had become a best-selling novelist. What Mittelholzer wrote about was violence... ..the violence and the racism that had been at the heart of the European empires. Mittelholzer believed that it still haunted the minds of those who had ruled the empires. One of his most famous stories, My Bones and My Flute, is about a group of colonialists who travel up a river into the jungle in Guyana. They're searching for the remains of a giant slave rebellion in the past, guided by an old manuscript. But anyone who reads the manuscript starts to hear the distant sound of a flute... ..and they change. They become possessed by something that is reaching out from the jungle and working its way into their minds. It is the anger and the fear of the slave owner who put down the rebellion. And it will not let them escape. And Mittelholzer himself became angry with England. He saw it as a decaying, corrupted country. I feel we've reached the stage, you know, when we have become so soft, you know, so effete, in other words, so effete, that we feel that, well, even criminals... ..erm, must be mollycoddled. And you feel so strongly that you are prepared to go as far as to say that... Yes. ..there are human beings who should be categorised as vermin. As vermin, exactly, quite. Anyone who is guilty of violence on the human person and property, should be considered as human vermin, and eradicated. I know it's a rather, it's a violent thing to advocate, but I can't see any other cure to the crime problem. Every evening, he sat with his wife in his house in Surrey, listening to the music of Wagner. Until one night, Mittelholzer walked up the hill by his house, poured paraffin over himself... ..and set himself alight. He burned to death. The anger and the fear had reached out to the colonised too. In , engineers monitoring Chinese television from a mountain in Hong Kong, began to realise that something unusual was happening in Beijing. China was sealed off from the rest of the world. But what they saw were hundreds of thousands of people streaming in from other cities and the countryside. By August th, . million people had assembled in Tiananmen Square. Most of them were students or schoolchildren. Then, Mao Zedong appeared on the balcony above them. Mao Zedong and his wife, Jiang Qing, had unleashed a new force in China. These were what Mao called, "The little devils of youth." He told them that they were going to save the revolution. Their job was to go and seek out the demons and the monsters who were corrupting the revolution. "No-one should be safe," he said, "They should all be torn "down and smashed to pulp." The new revolutionaries gave themselves a name, the Red Guards. Jiang Qing now had great power. She saw herself as equal to Mao. But she was convinced that the threat to the revolution also came from inside people's minds. She knew that even though China had gone through a revolution, little had changed inside the heads of millions of the people - including those in power. They still believed in a rigid hierarchy. She had been scorned as a woman by the other revolutionaries around Mao. They had done anything they could to stop her. Jiang Qing had rewritten old Chinese operas into epic melodramas about the need to challenge and destroy the old order. All the old figures of authority were banished. Instead, the ordinary people, including women, took centre stage. They were performed to millions of young Red Guards, and in talks before the performances, Jiang Qing told the audience how what they were about to watch were heroes awakening and realising that they could take control. Till today, I still vividly remember the first time I saw the revolutionary play. I was about or years old... ..and there was a rush of emotion, of identity. I was so excited. Suddenly... I saw those plays after Jiang Qing's talk that night. And suddenly what she was saying made sense to me, that there was a fundamental difference between the revolutionary art and the traditional art. There was something in the play about the working-class emotions and working-class world outlook, and just the flamboyance of the working-class figure on stage, moved me. That is my society. That's my life. That's the people I see. That's the people I live with. And they're on stage. Mao and Jiang Qing suspended all schools and universities, which released million students, who were then sent out to find and destroy the demons that were hiding among those in authority. Our teachers were often paraded through the streets, and we made them chant, "I'm a demon, I'm a devil. "I deserve to die." That's the song, and they had to sing it. And they all sang. Whoever didn't, got beaten up - some very badly. We used our belts to whip them. Some people used sticks. And the mother of this teacher was pushed over a bridge and fell to her death. Horst Mahler had been born in what was now East Germany. His father had been a fervent Nazi and an anti-Semite. In , his family fled across Germany from the approaching Red Army. Then his father committed suicide. Mahler grew up in West Berlin, and everything was buried. Bitte, alle aussteigen. In , Mahler joined a new group called the APO - the Extra-Parliamentary Opposition. They knew that many of those in charge of the country had been senior members of the Nazi Party. But no-one talked about it. They wanted to expose the Nazi crimes of those in charge... ..and challenge their control of the country. There was the memory knocking at the door, and we asked our parents and our grandfathers, "What did you do all this time? "Did you resist or had you been a little Nazi? "Or had you been an opportunist?" And... ..this discussion was blocked by the elder generation. And so it became hostile. The student movement was astonished by the violent reaction of the German government. And Horst Mahler and other radicals began to think that the problem was far deeper than just individual Nazis. That maybe the whole Nazi system had also survived... ..and was hiding behind the facade of modern capitalism. They argued that the very system of industrial rationality and bureaucratic control that had made the Nazi state so efficient, had simply mutated. It had been taken up by the victors - above all by America - and was now being used to run the new global capitalism and the multinational corporations that were ruthlessly exploiting what was called the Third World. Anything that stood in the system's way was bombed or burnt... ..with weapons created by the same rational industrial techniques that made the mass-consumer goods. But the people in the West couldn't see this, because they have been led into a dream world that used mass consumerism and sexualized imagery to entrance and distract everyone. Und zauberhaft schon. Die randlosen Strumpfhosen... In reality, it was an iron cage designed to look like an open and free welfare state - a full state of peace that was built really on horror and war. We were convinced that our situation here, the welfare state... ..is only possible - and a result - - by the exploitation of the Third World. And we said we must disturb this peace, this false peace in our country in order to show the responsibility of us, that it is our task to implement sabotage in the centres of imperialism. Hey, black power. What's the reaction to your arrest, Mr Brown? Of course, racist America has done it again. But that's not going to end the burning in Detroit, brother, because we built the country up and we'll burn it down, honkies and all. Mr Brown, did you tell them to burn down that school? Be serious, I ain't got to tell black folks what to burn. Did you tell them to shoot Lady Bird? Did I tell them to burn down Detroit? Did I tell America to bring black people here? Did you tell them to shoot at Lady Bird? I say, if they give me a gun and tell me to shoot my enemy, I might shoot you. Where have you been since the other night, Mr Brown? OK, let's go. Oh, well. Nonviolence is OK, but you get nowhere with nonviolence. I like violence. Malcolm X started but didn't finish. Malcolm X said, you know, the idea. He rooted it in the minds of many blacks. He really started the ball rolling. You feel that violence is necessary in order to get rid of... ..what you would call the oppression? It wouldn't get rid of it. But it will open, you know, some of whiteys eyes to say, "Well, you know, we're not joking. "We really mean what we say." Do you find yourself really hating white people? Hm, yes. Some people hold grudges, and I do. Look how they treat... How many floors did my great-grandmother scrub, you know? How many babies did she take care of that weren't hers? You know, stuff like that. And I'm just one of those people that holds things. Alice Faye Williams had been born in North Carolina. She had run away from home when she was young because she was frightened of her violent father, and she came to New York when she was . She managed to get a place to study at the School of Performing Arts. Then, one day, on th Street in Harlem, she listened to a speech by Bobby Seale, one of the leaders of the Black Panthers. The Black Panthers believed that the only way to stop racism in America was for black people to get power. Simply changing the law was not enough. The anger and the fear remained hidden away in millions of people's minds. The solution was Black Power, and the first person to articulate this was Stokely Carmichael on a civil rights march in Mississippi on one day when the more moderate Martin Luther King was absent. So I just made a speech building up to it, building up, building up, building up, showing that it wasn't a question of morality. It wasn't a question of being good or bad. It was simply a question of power, and the way black people had no power, and we had to have some power. Only type of power we could have is Black Power. Black Power. We want Black Power. Black Power! We want Black Power. Black Power! We want Black Power. Black Power! That's right, that's what we want, Black Power. They responded immediately, in a healthy manner. Dr King came back the next day, but it was too late then. Black Power had been established. Alice Williams decided to join the Black Panthers. She became a member of a new chapter that had been set up in Harlem, and she changed her name to Afeni Shakur. She later explained what the Panthers meant for her. "For the first time," she said, "there was now something I could do "with all this aggression and all this fear inside me. "The Panther Party at that time took my rage "and channelled it against THEM, "instead of against us. "They educated my mind and gave me direction. "And with that direction came hope." We want justice! We want justice! There's a line in there, now. Fucking get her out of here. I'm trying. Watch out behind you now. You men! He's trying to... See anybody? Oh, there were... I saw in the precinct a number of men and women being brought in. I had contact with some of the women when we were in the precinct, and they were also beaten. Some had black eyes, some had swollen lips and so forth. And from what most of them said, they were just walking along the street and most of them were pushed or hit with a club. And when they protested the fact that they were being hit for nothing, then they were beaten and arrested. We teach children that the policeman is a friend. In Harlem, however - although I know that there are policemen who are friendly and kind and decent and fair - this type of policeman is a rare thing. Eh? You don't scare me, mate. I do shows in aid of people like you. Michael de Freitas had been a gangster. He had worked as an enforcer for the notorious slum landlord Peter Rachman. But now he wanted to be a revolutionary. Then, one day, he met the American black leader Malcolm X, who was on a tour of England. They began to travel around the country together. When they arrived in Birmingham, the hotel receptionist thought that Michael de Freitas was Malcolm X's brother, and he called him Michael X. De Freitas decided that, in the future, this was going to be his revolutionary name and he was going to lead a revolution in Britain. Michael X soon became famous. I would hate to be described as a politician because they are all such liars and thieves. If I'm going to deal in the realms of that type of public relations, I'd rather think of myself in terms of being a statesman, which is an art that this country has long since forgotten, like we have no statesmen today. I'm probably the only one in the country. Unfortunately, we find that the people of pale pigmentation are people who are so barbaric - like, for instance, right now, this country, which is run by those type of people, have got more weapons of destruction to create...to destroy the entire world. And they are so savage, they are building even more. You see, the British are such a strange people. Many of Michael X's supporters were the young white radicals who had moved into Notting Hill, into the very houses that he and the gangster Peter Rachman had run ten years before. Because Michael was an outsider, the white radicals believed that he could see the system for what it really was. Like all revolutionaries before them, they had tried to appeal to the white working class and get them to rise up against the system. But no-one seemed to be interested. And what we've been talking about here today is the problem of racialism and the problem of the attack by the government and by the employers on working people's conditions. The radicals decided that this was because the ordinary people had been brainwashed by the media and by consumerism and turned into what their theory called one-dimensional creatures. Which meant that they were the wrong kind of person to start a revolution with. Their whole mind is, you know, like a cabbage. They're suppressed, they can't do exactly what they want, they haven't got any freedom, they haven't got any freedom to do exactly what they want under the system. I mean, we certainly do. What is freedom? Well, being able to express yourself in whichever way you feel is right. But I think it's not only the system that's wrong. I think it's the people that's wrong. Would you be interested in working every night for me? Um... Yes, possibly every night, yes. Fine. Well, you know, if you do us well, we'll get the band to play it. Anything in particular you'd like us to play? Anything at all. Anything at all? Would you? Yeah, if you'd like to come... ♪ When I was waiting in the bar, where were you? ♪ When I was pouring you a drink, where were you? ♪ When I was crying at home in bed, where were you? ♪ I wanna talk to you all night Do you like me? ♪ I wanna find out about your life And do you like me? ♪ Could you ever be my wife? Do you like me? ♪ But one evening, after making a speech in Reading, Michael X was arrested... ..and he was sent to prison for ten months for inciting racial hatred. The MP Enoch Powell had also made a speech at the same time, violently attacking immigrants. He wasn't charged and he carried on being an MP... ..which Michael X said rather proved his point about the racism underlying the country. I'm telling you! Don't make me come walking... Certainly no-one is going to tell you not to think what you honestly believe, but I think maybe... ..maybe you should re-examine a little bit the things that you believe, huh? Think about it. In the Cold War, the very idea of the individual and how the individual self worked had become political, because it was what defined the United States against the collective ideology of Russia. I think maybe... ..maybe you should re-examine a little bit the things that you believe, huh? What concerned many psychologists, though, was that the Second World War had revealed how frightening and deceptive human beings could be. Particularly in Nazi Germany, where ordinary people, who had apparently been good citizens, had indulged in the most terrible horrors. And psychologists started to examine what really went on inside people's minds, trying to find ways of bypassing the conscious explanations that humans gave, because those explanations could be deceptive. They wanted to find a way of getting directly at what was going on inside the brain. One of the key figures was a psychologist called Dr Eckhard Hess. He had begun his career recording and analysing animal behaviour on film. Now he did the same with human beings. Dr Hess had discovered that the pupils in the eyes of individuals reacted dramatically when they were shown different kinds of images. The changes had nothing to do with the changes in the light - they came from within the human being. And Dr Hess believed that they gave you a way of seeing the hidden emotional responses that were going on inside the mind. Feelings that the individual might not want to tell you about... ..or even be aware of. You were looking directly at the brain. Really, since the... ..the eye is very, very intimately a part of the brain, embryologically and anatomically, it is almost the same as though they were a piece of the brain sticking out, behaving, and all the world is there to be able to see it. And if that's so, what ought to be reflected or mirrored in the eye... ..is really the behaviour of the brain. Jiang Qing was now the most powerful woman in the world. She was in charge of giant cohorts of Red Guards that she'd guided and told who to attack and destroy. High-up members of the Communist Party were seized and paraded in front of tens of thousands of screaming people and forced to confess to thought crimes against the revolution. If they didn't, they were beaten and killed. But in reality, Jiang Qing had lost control. The revolution had never really changed the structure of power in China, and what she and Mao Zedong had unleashed was a vast anger and resentment against the elites that was now bursting out and overwhelming the country. In Beijing, there were mass killings, with bodies being thrown down wells or intercommunal burial pits. In Shanghai, hundreds of those targeted by the Red Guards committed suicide. But Jiang Qing had become famous in the West. A feminist writer from America, called Roxane Witke, came to Beijing to interview her. But as she talked to Jiang Qing, Witke began to realise that something else was also going on, that Jiang Qing was using her new power to avenge herself and all those who had dismissed her or patronised her in the past. Jiang Qing also had a demon inside her. One of the main themes of her life was avenging herself against men who wronged her - politically, mainly - when she was in her s. And she did not strike back against them until the time of the Cultural Revolution, some years later. They still had refused to give her access to the masses and to allow her to work. And she finally destroyed them. How? They were removed from their posts, they were humiliated before the people, placards were put over their chests, they were dragged before the masses. They were humiliated. They were destroyed. Jiang Qing also turned on everyone who, in Shanghai in the s, had held her film career back. Studio heads, directors and journalists were dismissed and beaten up. But the worst was saved for the film star Li Lili. They had starred together in Bloodshed On Wolf Mountain. Jiang Qing had always believed that Li Lili had deliberately upstaged her. Now, Li Lili and her husband were seized by Red Guards. Jiang Qing ordered them to be tortured. Li Lili survived... ..but her husband couldn't bear it, and he committed suicide. We have warned every person in the world not to visit Palestine because Palestine is not a tourist attraction. It's a battlefield, and it is our land. Anybody who'll get killed or injured in Palestine would be carrying his own responsibility. Horst Mahler and a group of other German revolutionaries secretly went to a Palestinian training camp in Jordan. They had decided to train in urban guerrilla warfare. But things didn't go well from the very start. One of the leaders of the group, Andreas Baader, insisted on having mixed sleeping quarters. Then the female members of the group started to sunbathe on the roof. The commander of the camp told them to stop. Overhead! Baader argued with him. The anti-imperialist struggle and sexual emancipation, he said, must go hand in hand. The commander refused. Baader put it more bluntly. "Fucking and shooting," he said, "are the same thing." Then Horst Mahler found that the fedayeen fighters in the camp had brought in pictures of Hitler. They pointed at them and said, "Good man," because he had killed the Jews. "That was very hard for us," Mahler later said, "because we had a feeling of guilt about the Jews. "We were very upset." In the end, the Germans went on strike because they weren't being given enough bullets each day to shoot with. So the commander stormed their house and threw them out. They came back to West Germany, helped by the East German Stasi, who saw it as a way of destabilising the West. And the revolutionaries set out to use their training to force the West German state to reveal its true fascist face. Afeni Shakur was now a full-time member of the Black Panther chapter in New York. She was certain that the only solution in America was violent uprising. She spent her time writing poems calling for revolution. But the problem was that she and many of the others in her cell didn't know what to do to make this happen. They watched enviously as other Black Panthers on the West Coast fought running battles with the police and the military. All we have to say is, all power to the people, and you can jail a revolutionary but you sure can't jail a revolution. Baby, you're gonna have some dealing to do, cos niggers ain't gonna stop until they either get freedom or destroy everything that they run across. The question of who to attack in New York got more and more complicated. Some of the Panthers argued that they should target the ruthless landlords who made them live in rotting apartments, and the bankers who refused to lend blacks money so they could never escape from the slums. These, they said, were the agents of imperialist control. But in New York, the majority of landlords and bankers were Jewish. And we are being exploited by people who are not... ..do not live in our colonies, you see, or in our communities, who come into our communities and exploit us every day, you see, and they take the money back to their communities. So this is like a colonial imperialism in all content, you see. And the people who exploit us in our immediate communities, particularly in New York City, are Zionist Jews. Afeni Shakur's group came up with a plan. They were going to plant bombs in big department stores like Macy's... ..and they would also bomb the Bronx Botanical Gardens and attack local police stations. But as they developed the plan, Afeni Shakur began to worry. She didn't want to kill civilians... ..and she felt they were being bullied into it by one of their group. He was one of the founder members of the cell, whose revolutionary name was Yedwa Sudan. And Afeni Shakur started to be suspicious. She wondered if he might really be an undercover policeman. Shakur told another member of the group about her suspicions, who then went and confronted Yedwa Sudan. Sudan immediately pulled out a gun, fired two bullets into the table in front of him and denied it. He said that Afeni Shakur was just being a typical emotional woman. And the group believed him, not her. When Michael X came out of jail, he found that the world had completely changed, but not in the way he had hoped. The middle-class radicals who, only a year before, had been his most fervent supporters, suddenly didn't want to know him any more. In Notting Hill, no-one talked of violent revolution or of bringing down the corrupt power structure. Instead, a new group had turned up. They looked like young radicals, but they had a rather different agenda. ♪ And there's no more war ♪ Cos there's no more world. ♪ Hundreds of student volunteers from all over the country had come to do a massive survey of everyone who lived in Notting Hill. It was the beginning of what was called community action. They were going to use the data to create neighbourhood centres, which they said would be a different way of empowering the local people. Parts of Notting Hill are closed off from the general mainstream of society, treated differently from society, sometimes treated as a social dustbin, sometimes treated as a ghetto. Hello. Now, I think you've got...? We've got the lighting, we pay for it ourself. And you pay for it yourself? Yes, and the heating. Cleaning. This doesn't really apply to you, this applies to other people... ..in other sorts of rented accommodations. We do that ourselves. You do that yourself? Yes. Also room service doesn't really apply either, I imagine. No. But soon, many of the local black residents who were involved with the project resigned... ..because power seemed to remain firmly with the white professionals. And we go in, in an orderly fashion and no damage to the property at all, please. Well, what made me resign is because I don't think that enough local people were being involved, is it? And by local people, I mean West Indians. Students can't do much. They're relegated to a role of just getting information. Isn't that worthwhile? Well, I suppose it's worthwhile, but it depends on how the information will be used afterwards. The aim of Black Power had been that people would organise themselves so they could stand up against those who ruled them. Michael X realised that what was happening now in Notting Hill was the opposite. People were being treated as subjects, to be counted and measured... ..and managed. He became increasingly cynical about the liberals' real intentions. These places always have fantastic space. Oh, this is a tremendous place if you've got the money. If you want to have a party or something. A party, yeah. A few years ago, you were reported to have said that whites who claim to help you are out to kill you. Do you, um, still believe that? Yes. I'm thinking, when I said that, I was referring to people who are described as white liberals. They are some of the most vicious people I find in this country, for the simple reason... Anywhere, not just in this country. Because they're the kind of people who come to black neighbourhoods, ostensibly to help black people. Michael X had come to believe that the talk of revolution had just been empty rhetoric that disguised something else. The new groups might look like radicals and dance to black music, but really they were the children of the colonialists who had run the Empire. And they had no intention of giving up their power. That old system of power was simply mutating, morphing into a new form that camouflaged itself in radicalism... ..but still would manage and control. Michael X was an ambitious man who had badly wanted political power. I don't see anything to be terrified about, about powerful black people. I'm a pretty powerful black man. I'm the most powerful black man in Europe. But now he saw that he was never going to get it. So he decided that he, too, would revert to the old forms of power that he knew well - extortion and violence. He set up a new organisation called the Black House. It deliberately excluded whites. He still talked of violent revolution, but really it was a front for taking over drug-dealing in parts of London. He also persuaded John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who had shaved off their hair, to donate it and a large amount of money to the Black House. Michael X took the money and pocketed it for himself. Michael was putting every single cent he could get in his own pocket. He didn't care about black people. What did they think of him in the end, when it failed? Well, they thought he was just a cheap con man. They... They... ..lost faith in Michael in the end, but he was just playing his games, you know. And why do you think he did that? Because Michael doesn't believe in Black Power. Michael is just on a power trip for, you know, for his own benefit. Michael doesn't like black people because Michael is half white. In a short time, I'm going to ask you to put your face up against that face piece and look in this box while I ask you to solve some multiplication problems in your head. The problems will be relatively simple. They'll give be given to you verbally, and I will ask you to give me the answer verbally back. Give me only the answer. Once you have given me the answer, dismiss the problem from your mind and we'll go on to a next one. Many psychologists had begun to take Dr Hess's experiments with the pupils of the eye further. They were fascinated by the idea that there might be other forces inside the mind that people themselves weren't aware of. One of them was a young psychologist studying in America, called Daniel Kahneman. His fascination with the complexity of the mind had come from a moment of terror when he was a child, living in Nazi-occupied France during the Second World War. One day, he had been stopped by an SS officer. Kahneman was a Jew, and the SS was in charge of sending people to the death camps. He was convinced that he was about to be sent away to be killed. But the SS man picked him up, kissed him and showed him pictures of his own son in Germany. Kahneman decided that the human mind was very strange and full of contradictory impulses. times . Now, he, along with other psychologists inspired by Dr Hess, studied the pupils in people's eyes as they gave them all kinds of problems to solve while distracting them with music and noise. They were trying to probe further into the human brain, to see how it responded to the world outside in ways that the individual wasn't aware of. But as Kahneman and the others watched the individuals in their laboratories, isolated from the society outside, they were led down a very strange path, that in the age when the individual self was going to become the central focus, from politics through to consumerism, the scientists were going to come to the conclusion that maybe the conscious self wasn't fully in control of what humans did. years later, Kahneman was going to be given the Nobel Prize for a theory that began with his work in the s. He would come to believe that what we think of as the self is really just a small part of something else hidden inside our brains - a much larger part of the brain that actually experiences the world outside. But that experience makes no sense - it is just an ongoing, chaotic rush of biochemical data that flashes up and fades away. And what humans think of as their self is actually an accessory that tries to make sense of this chaotic mass of incoming data. But, to do that, it has to simplify and turn that data into stories that are sometimes so simplified that they bear little relationship to the reality outside. It gives people the feeling that they are in control, but that is just a comforting illusion. Kahneman's theory was going to have far-reaching influence beyond psychology. Because the implication of what he was saying was that you could never change people's behaviour by appealing to them rationally. And, in a strange way, Kahneman was saying the same thing as the left-wing revolutionaries. Human beings did live in a simplified dream world. But what he was saying was that there was nothing you could do about that. And in an age of individualism, when you could no longer order people about, the only solution was to keep them in that dream world and to make sure the dream world was safe and happy. The idea of appealing to them rationally and changing the world... ..was pointless. By now, China was in a state of almost civil war. Different groups of armed Red Guards were fighting running battles with each other in all the major cities. But Jiang Qing still believed that real power was almost within her grasp. She had destroyed the one man who was seen as Mao's successor, Liu Shaoqi. Red Guards took Liu from his house, and he was beaten up and imprisoned. Everyone, including children, were told that he, too, was a demon. Then suddenly, Mao turned on Jiang Qing. At a public meeting of those in charge of the Cultural Revolution, he told her, "You are someone who has grandiose aims "but puny abilities, "great ambition, but little talent." Jiang Qing realised that she was being dropped. In her operas, Jiang Qing had gone back into China's past. Her aim had been to rework them, to express a new kind of revolution. But, in reality, she had reawakened a dark and poisonous violence that had lurked under the surface of China for hundreds of years. It was driven by a resentment of the rigid hierarchies that the revolution had not really changed. Mao had not given her or anyone else guidance about what to do with the fury that she had summoned up. And now she knew why. He had simply been using her - and the violence that she created - as a way of destroying all opposition to him. He had no other vision of how to solve the old divisions and resentments in China. His only aim had been to get rid of all his rivals in the party. Jiang Qing had been betrayed yet again. The members of the Red Army Faction were now planting bombs and robbing banks all across West Germany. They announced that they had now become Maoists, followers of Mao Zedong, and they were going to awaken the popular masses. The government were desperate to capture them, and they turned to a man who said he knew how to find them. He was called Horst Herold. He was the head of a tiny federal crime investigation unit. It had no real power, because any national police system was prohibited by law to stop Nazism from ever re-emerging. But Herold insisted that the only way to catch the terrorists hidden in the cities was to reintroduce control from the centre. His solution was to use a computer, because there was no law to stop that. Working day and night inside a protected complex, Herold created a giant computer network that monitored the movements of millions of people. He also fed into the computer vast amounts of data, not just about the terrorists themselves, but others who, in his words, represented a danger - individuals the data showed might become terrorists in the future. From all this, Herold created what he called logical sequences - patterns drawn from the data that predicted where the terrorists might be hiding in the cities. What he had invented was a new rational bureaucracy, working from the centre, in which information was control. It was the start of mass electronic surveillance. And it caught the terrorists. But Horst Herold was not just an unthinking technocrat. By studying all the data, he had, he believed, come to understand that the terrorists were just a tiny part of something much bigger that was happening all across the world - something that those in power did not yet comprehend. And, in , he made an extraordinary speech that laid out the world that he saw coming. The violence and the horror that the terrorists created, he said, did not just happen because of something evil or sick inside their heads. It was a reaction to the new system of power that was rising up across the world. It was the system that the radicals had identified in the s - the new global networks of multinational corporations and international finance that they believed were ruthlessly exploiting the world. If you want to get rid of the terrorism, Herold said, there are two alternatives. You either use political power to change and reform that global system. Or you decide to systematically control the people, and their anger and their discontent. But, to do that, you would have to create surveillance networks like the one he had built, but on a global scale. In Notting Hill, all the politics had gone. The counterculture had transformed completely into a new kind of consumerism, with self-expression at its heart. Michael X left London in disgust and he went back to Trinidad. He moved into a large house hidden away in the suburbs. He said that he was going to set up a new radical organisation called the University of the Alternative, but it was clear that he was in a manic state of mind and increasingly paranoid. Then, one night, the compound burned down, and Michael X disappeared. The police found a hidden grave in the garden. In it was the body of one of Michael X's last disciples, Gale Benson, the daughter of a conservative MP. She had discovered that Michael X's real plan was to grow marijuana and export it to the United States, so he had ordered a group of his men to kill her. He told one of them, Steve Yeates, that she was an undercover agent from the CIA. She was seized from behind and stabbed several times across the body with a knife. She was struggling very violently. And Steve Yeates, who wasn't even supposed to be part of this particular operation, became impatient. He grabbed a cutlass, which in these parts is a long knife used for cutting sugar cane, and plunged it straight into her neck. Well, that was the fatal blow. The men then piled stones on top of her and filled in the rest of the grave. Sometime later, Malik phoned the house to see what the situation was, and Steve Yeates simply told him, "The tree is planted." Michael X fled to Guyana. He then headed south, away from the towns, down a small trail, past mining camps. His aim was to get to the river and take a boat upriver into the jungle, where he would be safe. It was the same jungle that Edgar Mittelholzer had described in his story about the ghosts from the colonial past. But there was one person who was about to show that, even in the growing mood of paranoia and defeat, an individual who believed in the idea of revolution could take on the power of the state and defeat it. One morning, armed police stormed into Afeni Shakur's apartment and arrested her. All the other members of her cell were also arrested. They were charged with what the government said was a giant plan to destroy "those elements of society, "which the defendants call the power structure". It included attacking police stations and planning to bomb five large department stores and the Bronx Botanical Gardens. They became known as the Panther . Their trial was held in a state of paranoia about further attacks by the Panthers. But it also caused a sensation when it was revealed that three of the founding members of the group had been undercover police officers. What was stranger was that some of those officers seemed to have been unaware that there were other undercover agents in the cell. They were also the most active members of the group. "We had to organise everything," one of the undercover agents explained at the trial, because everyone else in the group was off doing what they called "their own shit". The prosecution claimed that the group had been inspired by violent revolutionary propaganda, and in particular by the film The Battle Of Algiers, made about the Algerian struggle against French colonialism. ♪ Hasta manana... ♪ They showed the film in the court. ♪ No te retardes ♪ Mi vida ♪ Hasta manana, Rebecca ♪ Espero que tu no vas a olvidar. ♪ Unlike all the other Panthers, Afeni Shakur chose to defend herself, and at the end of the trial, she cross-examined the leading undercover agent. He was the man she had suspected from the start, Yedwa Sudan. His real name was Ralph White. A journalist who was in the courtroom wrote a book that described what happened. She started by getting White to admit that, really, most of the inspiration for the plots came from the undercover agents. Not only had they continually pushed for the violence and suggested the targets, but they had also arranged to buy the dynamite off yet another undercover agent. They had also arranged for the cars to transport the dynamite. That, really, the plot to attack America had been created and driven by the American authorities. But then Afeni Shakur went further. She talked to White in the courtroom not as a police officer, but as a comrade that she had spent months with, and asked him about the activism that they had done together in the community. He said that he thought what they had done was "powerful, inspiring and," he said, "beautiful". She asked if he had misrepresented the Panthers to his police bosses. He said yes. She asked if he had betrayed the community. He said yes. When the jury was sent out, they talked for minutes, came back and acquitted all the defendants. It was a powerful example of how an individual could challenge those in power... ..and win. But, at the same time, the revelations at the trial of how the Panthers had been penetrated and manipulated fed the growing paranoia that was tearing the radical movement apart. Violent by Tupac ♪ They claim that I'm violent just cos I refuse to be silent ♪ These hypocrites are havin' fits cos I'm no buyin' it, defyin' it ♪ Envious because I will rebel against any oppressor ♪ And this is known as self-defence ♪ I show no mercy They claim that I'm a lunatic ♪ But when the shit gets thick, I'm the one you go and get ♪ Don't look confused The truth is so plain to see ♪ Cos I'm the nigga that you sell-outs are ashamed to be ♪ In every Jeep and every car, brothers stomp this ♪ I'm never ignorant Getting goals accomplished ♪ The Underground Railroad on an up rise ♪ This time the truth's gettin' told Heard enough lies ♪ I told 'em fight back, attack on society ♪ If this is violence, then violent's what I gotta be ♪ If you investigate ♪ You'll find out where it's comin' from ♪ Look through our history America's the violent one. ♪ All four - Jiang Qing, Afeni Shakur, Michael X and the German revolutionaries had all set out to try and confront their societies and change the structure of power. But all of them, in different ways, had unleashed violence that was lurking underneath those societies. The roots of that violence lay back in the past, in anger and resentment against those in power who had made their different countries rich and powerful, but to do that had ruthlessly exploited others... ..and had kept much of the spoils for themselves. The violence had burst out in different ways across whole societies, among groups, and inside the revolutionaries' own heads. But all of them became overwhelmed by the paranoia and suspicion and the horror that resulted. And all of them had failed in their aims. Now, those in charge of the societies wanted to get rid of that violence, to wipe it and hide it away. And, in Germany, the revolutionaries were going to help them do it. In , two of the remaining German revolutionaries helped Palestinians hijack an Air France plane. They flew it to Entebbe, in Uganda. What happened next shocked the world. The terrorists took the hostages into the departure hall. Then they began to separate the Israeli passengers from the non-Israelis. The Israelis were the ones who would be executed if the plane was stormed. To the other radicals, watching from inside prisons in Germany, who dreamed of revolution, it seemed as if those dreams had now led them to behave exactly as the Nazis had done. Was it frightening when you realised that that was happening? Yeah, of course. Awfully frightening. This... One of the main points in the development - the awareness that we are from the same... ..stuff as the fascists were. We understood something, we understood that fascism is a component in all of us. But we don't know how to handle this contradiction. We don't have any way to live with this evil part in ourselves. The Israelis mounted a rescue at Entebbe. The hostages were saved, but the terrorists were killed. But the Germans' behaviour in the hijack had an incredibly powerful effect on radicals and liberals all across the West. Three years before, the man who had been chasing the terrorists, Horst Herold, had argued that the violence did not just come from inside them... ..that they were reacting to something that was happening in the world. But now the revolutionaries and many of their supporters began to argue that maybe the violence was not in the system, it was inside them. A year later, a group of their supporters captured and killed a leading industrialist called Hanns Martin Schleyer. He had also been a leading Nazi in the war. At the same time, three of the leading revolutionaries killed themselves in prison. In an extraordinary moment, on one day in October , two funerals were held in the same city, Stuttgart. One was for the revolutionaries. Hundreds of their supporters flooded into the cemetery, watched by , armed police. The other was for Hanns Martin Schleyer. The leaders of the industrial and financial establishment came together at a church in the centre of the city. It was a moment that dramatically symbolised what had happened. The industrialists and the bankers had come not just to mourn Schleyer, but to bury any idea of radical change in Germany. And, for the radicals, it was the moment after all the violence and all the failures when pessimism finally took hold. It said this is what all radical attempts to change the world inevitably lead to. And in the growing age of the individual, it led to the conclusion that the fault is inside you, the individual, not in society. Those who had wanted to change the world now began to turn inwards. This distrust was going to be reinforced by the growing influence of the psychologists who said that human beings were really irrational and lived in a dream world. Out of that was going to come the modern system of power in which psychology would join with economics and with finance to make sure that that dream world was managed. It would be a wonderful world to live in. But its weakness will be that, at its root, was a pessimism about human beings and whether they should ever be allowed any control. While outside the dream world, the things that the revolutionaries had wanted to change so much - the inequalities, the racism and the exploitation - would all remain untouched and would continue to grow, unnoticed. But some of the revolutionaries saw what was happening and adjusted. Eldridge Cleaver, who had been one of the leading Black Panthers, set up his own fashion company. He designed what he called revolutionary trousers. They had a flap at the front, which he said would liberate the penis. While his fellow revolutionary, Bobby Seale, became a celebrity chef. Featuring the founding chairman of the Black Panther Party and griller extraordinaire, Bobby Seale! But one revolutionary was still not going to give up. Jiang Qing now joined with three others who had run the Cultural Revolution. They were determined to seize power when Mao died. They were known as the Gang of Four. And Michael X never made it to the river. He was captured and brought back to stand trial in Trinidad. He was found guilty of murder... ..and hanged. And, in the future, the violence and the anger would be played out in the artificial world of culture. It would be the images and the words of revolution. But, in reality, nothing ever really changed. And what was forgotten in this new age, including by the psychologists who were exploring the self by drilling ever deeper, was that what you are and what you feel comes not just from inside you but from where you are in the power structure, because that flows through you, too. When you see an individual white boy, you're not afraid of that individual white boy. What you are afraid of is the power that he represents, because behind him stands the local police force, the state militia, the Army, the Navy, the Air Force... When you see an African, there is no power behind him. There is no-one speaking for his interests. There is no-one to protect him. The guerrilla studies. The guerrilla studies, he doesn't rest. He studies and keeps his mouth shut. Study, children, study!

3

WOMAN'S VOICE: Oh, my God! Oh, my God. Please, God.; Please, God. Oh, my God!; SOBBING; Oh, my God, please, don't... Please, God, please.; SOBBING; I don't want to be in this tunnel.; Oh, my God. Oh, my God.; DISTANT SIRENS, RUMBLING; Oh, my God. Oh, my God.; Oh, my God. Oh, my God.; Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.; DISTANT EXPLOSION; Oh, my God! Please, God, please.; Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Please let me out of here.; Please, God.; Please, God, please let me out of here.; Please, God, please.; Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.; FIRE CRACKLES; Oh, my God. Oh, my God.; DISTANT EXPLOSIONS; Oh, my God. Oh, my God.; Oh, my God. What am I doing?; One of the most complex systems ever created; was the pattern of detonations inside the atomic bomb; that began the chain reaction.; The scientist who created it, a physicist called John von Neumann,; said that there was only one thing as complex...; ..it was the world's climate.; Like the bomb, it was a mass of different forces; moving around a central globe.; Von Neumann then used an early computer; to build a model that simulated the world's climate system.; His aim was to use it to predict and manipulate the weather; as a weapon with which to attack the Soviet Union.; But what he began had another consequence.; In 1961, a scientist called Edward Lorenz; made a mistake which revealed something that astonished him.; Lorenz had built his own computer model of the world's climate.; Then, one day, he ran a programme that he had run many times before,; but missed out one tiny piece of data -; a change at the fourth decimal point.; For 30 days, everything went as before,; but then, suddenly, the computer began to predict weather conditions; never seen before on the planet.; Other scientists said that his model was at fault.; But Lorenz ran it again and again, with tiny variations,; and each time, it led to different, often very strange futures.; He began to wonder whether the world's climate; was not the stable, self-correcting system; that other scientists believed...; ..that it was unstable,; and that one tiny change somewhere in the world; could tip the whole system from one state into another.; # Dark moon; # Away up high up in the sky; # Oh, tell me why, oh, tell me why you've lost your splendour; # Dark moon; # What is the cause your light withdraws; # Is it because Is it because I've lost my love?; # Mortals have dreamed; # Of love's perfect schemes; # But they don't realise; # That love will sometimes bring; # A dark moon... #; In America, in the 1960s,; there was a man who was convinced that there was something frightening; hidden under the surface of the new modern suburbs.; Behind what looked like a confident individualism; that was rising up throughout America,; there were really hidden fears eating away at people from inside.; Oh, these are gorgeous!; Look! Salt and pepper.; There were feelings of anxiety, loneliness and emptiness.; And he was convinced he could make a lot of money out of these feelings.; He was called Arthur Sackler.; Sackler had trained as a psychiatrist; but in the 1950s; had turned to advertising drugs and medicines to doctors.; And more and more of the doctors he talked with; told him about people from the suburbs; coming to them with vague feelings of anxiety and fear...; ..something the doctors didn't know how to deal with.; And in 1963, the company Hoffman LaRoche; hired Sackler to promote a new drug called Valium.; He offered it to the doctors as an extraordinary new way; to treat these inner anxieties,; and he said it wasn't dangerous or addictive.; Valium became an amazing success.; By 1971, it was the most widely prescribed medication; in the western world.; Hoffman's plant in New Jersey turned out 30 million pills in 15 hours -; enough to satisfy global consumption for just five days.; Valium had touched on something inside human beings,; but nobody knew what it was.; The new wave of feminists pointed out that far more women than men; were taking Valium.; They said the drug was being used to blot out the feeling; that millions of women were having; that there was something badly wrong with their lives.; That when they did what they were supposed to do,; it didn't bring the happiness they had been promised.; And I thought to myself, well, I...; There's got to be a better way for me,; and I went about it in the way that I wanted to.; I did what I wanted, regardless of what society was saying.; And then, it all kind of caved in on me.; And I just figured, well, you know, what's the use?; And so I ended up in the state hospital.; But now that I'm on the road back, I found if I...; I don't see there is any solution,; because if I act the way society tells me to act,; and do abide by the rules, my life is fine and everybody's happy.; But Arthur Sackler suspected; that the drug had touched on something much deeper,; that the women who spent their days alone in their new suburban homes; were in a kind of laboratory of the future.; They had discovered before anyone else; the underlying weakness with the new individualism -; that you were free, but you were alone.; Women told researchers, "I feel empty somehow,"; or, "I feel as if I don't exist."; And Sackler knew; more and more men were also beginning to take the drug.; The women had just got there first.; PLUCKS MELODY; SINGS TRADITIONAL SONG; The Dream Of The Red Chamber; is the most famous novel in China's history.; It was written 250 years before in the 18th century.; It tells the story of the rise and fall of two powerful families.; As their power declines,; the characters begin to find that the line between reality; and a dream world gets blurred.; They slip back and forth between the two.; DISCORDANT MUSIC; Jiang Qing, the wife of Mao Zedong,; had always been fascinated by The Dream Of The Red Chamber...; ..because it seemed to show that it is the power of a ruling class; that shapes the very nature of reality itself.; And it was that idea that had driven her in the Cultural Revolution.; She had wanted to create a mass force; powerful enough to change; the very way millions of Chinese people saw the world.; But suddenly, Mao Zedong had turned on her.; He brutally dismissed all her ideas; and she began to realise that maybe he had been using her.; That Mao had used the mass frenzy that she had created; simply as a way of getting rid of his enemies.; It meant that everything that she had created -; the epic operas and ballets,; that promised a new kind of reality in the future -; had just been flimsy illusions; to disguise what had really been a brutal struggle for power.; And now, Mao had sent the Red Guards,; who had been the source of her power,; off to the distant deserts and mountains.; Jiang Qing was increasingly alone, and frightened,; because Mao was turning on all those who had helped him; in the Cultural Revolution.; He tricked the head of the People's Army, Lin Biao,; into plotting a coup.; Mao sent troops to arrest Lin,; but he and his family managed to escape on a plane.; But the plane ran out of fuel; and crashed in the desolate mountains of Mongolia.; Jiang Qing was terrified that she would be next.; She mounted anti-aircraft guns; on the roof of her house in the party compound.; She ate meals at random times to avoid being poisoned.; And she suspected the nurse who gave her sleeping pills; of being an assassin.; Jiang Qing's own sense of reality was beginning to dissolve.; But she also realised that, with Lin Biao destroyed,; she now had a much greater chance of taking power when Mao died.; In 1967, the Russians launched a space flight; to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Revolution.; It was called Soyuz 1.; Everything seemed to be going normally; but the astronaut knew that something terrible; was likely to happen.; He was called Vladimir Komarov.; Komarov's best friend was the Soviet hero Yuri Gagarin,; who had made the first human flight into space.; As they prepared for the launch,; Gagarin had inspected Komarov's spacecraft.; He discovered hundreds of faults in its construction.; He told Komarov what he had found,; that the spacecraft was a deathtrap.; Gagarin tried to get the launch stopped,; but the Communist Party leaders refused.; "The launch had to go ahead," they said,; "to celebrate the anniversary of the revolution."; Komarov went, but on one condition.; If he died, his body should be displayed in an open coffin.; Things went wrong from the start.; The spacecraft lost power.; Komarov tried to manually guide it back to Earth.; But then the parachutes failed to open.; An American listening post on the Russian border; recorded Komarov's final cries of rage; as he plunged to his death on the plains of Kazakhstan.; PANICKED YELLING; BEEPING; SCREAM ECHOES; Komarov's remains were put into an open casket; at the space headquarters.; It was his revenge.; It showed in a shocking way how the power of the Soviet leaders; was crumbling,; and how deeply the communist dream had become corrupted.; UPBEAT MUSIC; Eduard Limonov grew up in Ukraine in the 1950s.; His father worked in a lowly position; in the Ministry of Internal Security.; They were in charge of watching and reporting on people,; to make sure that everyone was a good communist.; Limonov admired his father as a Soviet hero.; And often, his father would travel to Siberia by train for his work.; TRAIN WHISTLE; One evening after his father had been away,; Limonov went to the station to meet him as he returned.; But his father didn't appear.; Limonov searched,; and found another train hidden away in the sidings.; He watched dozens of men in handcuffs; being taken off the train and put into trucks.; Each one was called out by a man with a clipboard.; The man was his father.; Later that night, Limonov overheard his father tell his mother; that all the men were being sent to a prison to be shot; because they were against the system.; Limonov realised that there was another; violent hidden reality in the Soviet system; that reached everywhere, even into his own family.; And he decided he would be against the system.; He would become a dissident.; # People steal; # They cheat and lie; # For wealth and what; # It will buy; # Don't they know; # On the Judgment Day; # That their gold and silver; # Will melt away? #; TRAIN WHISTLE; This coal train is symbolic of much of the dilemma of Appalachia.; Until very recently, the companies that mine the coal; owned all the mining communities.; They owned the mines themselves,; the tipples, the company towns,; the streets, the houses, the stores,; the commissaries, the hotels, the hospitals.; They even had their own brand of money, scrip,; which circulated only in company commissaries and stores.; This created a population that was totally dependent.; And the dependency lasted for more than 40 years.; Abruptly, a few years ago,; the company no longer needed its mining men,; it needed mining machines.; So the company withdrew its paternalism; in each of the mining valleys.; Millions, hundreds of millions,; even billions of dollars' worth of coal have gone out of these valleys.; Appalachia has produced, essentially, two crops of people -; the rich, who have followed the coal,; and the poor, who have stayed here, in the Appalachian valleys.; TRAIN WHISTLE; Harry Caudill was a lawyer in the giant coal-mining area; that stretched across the Cumberland Mountains in Appalachia.; He had spent his life representing the miners -; taking on and fighting those who owned the mines.; But now he had realised that something fundamental was happening.; The power of the miners all around him; was beginning to dissolve and collapse.; He wrote a book called Night Comes To The Cumberlands.; He described how coal had not only brought wealth and power; to those who owned the mines,; but also to the miners themselves.; It gave them power because it brought thousands of them together.; And together, they could block the coal from leaving the valleys.; It gave them enormous collective power,; out of which, organised labour had come.; For 40 years, they had mounted strikes and blockades; and fought violent battles with the private armies of the mine-owners.; And out of that had come strong leaders,; who had used the collective power to change society for the better.; In 1946,; the United Mine Workers of America,; under the leadership of John L Lewis,; who is generally regarded as; the greatest labour statesman in American history,; undertook to raise the medical standards of this area.; Lewis had a very dramatic confrontation; with the American coal operators at Pittsburgh.; "You have," he said, "made dead more than half a million; "of your fellow citizens.; "The product you sell in the markets of the world; "is drenched with the blood of your workmen.; "It is salted with the tears of their widows and orphans."; And he said, "Beginning today, beginning immediately,; "and at this bargaining table,; "you will begin to redress this old injustice."; The United Mine Workers Health and Welfare Fund came into existence; the following year.; It was comparable in many respects; to the National Health Service in Great Britain.; CLOCK TICKS; But now, Caudill realised that that power had gone.; First, the machines had come; and replaced thousands of workers.; Helpless to save their jobs, they now lived in growing poverty,; supported only by welfare.; And then there was the other fossil fuel - oil.; Oil was now rising up to replace coal.; And more and more of it came from the Middle East.; In countries like Saudi Arabia, the Western oil companies; had created their own managed communities.; But these communities were for the managers,; who lived a dreamlike existence in the middle of the desert.; Their golf courses created by rolling crude oil into the sand...; ..while the workers were controlled by authoritarian governments.; They were no threat.; And across the world, the oil industry; was a scattered, diffused network,; where there was never any chance of enough workers; coming together to create a critical mass...; ..out of which would come collective action.; But at that very moment, something was revealed; in another remote part of the world; that was going to lead to a realisation that fossil fuels; could not only change the nature of power,; they could also change the whole structure of the planet.; On the top of the world, below the surface of a giant ice cap,; a city is buried.; Camp Century is buried below the surface of this ice cap.; Beneath it, the ice descends for 6,000 feet.; In this remote setting, Camp Century is a symbol; of man's unceasing struggle to conquer his environment.; Camp Century pretended to be a scientific base.; In reality, it was a disguise for Project Iceworm.; 600 nuclear missiles were going to be hidden; in hundreds of miles of tunnels under the ice,; targeted at Russia.; But as a part of the disguise,; climate scientists, working with army engineers,; began to drill hundreds of feet down into the ice; and bring up ice cores.; The ice sheet had been built up layer by layer; over hundreds of thousands of years.; That meant that it had within it a frozen record of the past.; What the scientists found in the cores astonished them.; That 11,000 years before, there had been a sudden cataclysmic shift.; The world's temperature had changed by ten degrees in just centuries.; Other ice cores then confirmed this.; That in the past, there had been repeated, sudden changes,; both heating and cooling,; of the world's climate at speeds that no-one thought possible.; This piece of ice records a spectacular cooling.; In fact, it's a quite new discovery for us; that the Earth can turn so cold so fast.; What was the reason?; We don't think that volcanic eruptions did it.; Maybe it was due to enormous breakout of Antarctic ice.; The problem is, could that happen again to us right now?; Or could we accidentally provoke such a catastrophe?; We must find the reason for this natural event long ago.; They believed that what the ice cores showed; was that the idea which dominated science,; that the world's climate was a stable,; self-correcting system, was wrong -; that it could suddenly shift into a completely different state...; ..which would have extraordinary consequences.; WIND GUSTS; WIND WHISTLES; Richard Nixon came to power; because he had harnessed a new force.; He called it the silent majority.; They were the people in the suburbs; that were rapidly growing around every city in America.; But it was a fragile power base,; because it wasn't like the old collective power; that had driven political parties in the past.; It was millions of individuals; who not only felt isolated and alone,; but also increasingly fearful of the chaos in America; as a result of the Vietnam War.; We were sitting in the living room watching the Miss Ohio pageant,; and all of a sudden, I heard a smack at the front; and I run out and heard something hit a window here in the back.; And I tore around the driveway here; and I looked all over, but I didn't see a thing.; I didn't see one guy.; You know, you can put up with this crap just so long; and then - pow! - somebody's going to get it.; ANIMATED SHOUTS; MUFFLED SPEECH; There are those who say, "How do we answer those who engage in violence?; "How do we answer those who try to shout down a speaker?"; And my answer is, don't answer in kind.; It's time for the great silent majority; just to stand up and be counted! APPLAUSE; Nixon promised to represent the silent majority.; But the truth was that he was also uncertain,; and frightened, too, just like them.; Nixon had been to see a psychiatrist about his feelings of dread.; He told the psychiatrist; that when he looked in the mirror in the morning,; it was as if there was no-one there.; He was also suspicious and paranoid.; Nixon was convinced that there was a conspiracy,; by what he called the liberal establishment, to destroy him.; In 1971, he told his aides to start what he called, the enemies list.; It included dozens of liberal journalists, academics; and even film stars.; Nixon had a tape machine running all the time in the White House.; And on it, he left a record of this paranoia.; But Nixon soon found that the chaos created by the Vietnam War; was also going to stop him delivering the new, stable America; that he had promised.; The cost of the war was huge, and America was deeply in debt.; In 1971, it forced Nixon to give up; one of the great symbols of America's global power -; the control of all the world's currencies.; Ever since the Second World War,; the value of all currencies in the world; had been fixed to the dollar.; They were backed by the gold reserves held in Fort Knox.; But then, overnight, Nixon let that go.; And suddenly, there was no fixed value for any currency; anywhere in the world.; What was that mark, John?; 8.38-8.43.; 8.38-8.43, I can deal with you in sterling mark.; And dollars? Just a second. Dollars, Chris?; 2.44.59. 2.44.59 dollar sterling.; There was immediately confusion as banks around the world; struggled to come to terms with the new reality.; They set up new, improvised dealing rooms; buying and selling currencies; as, minute by minute, they went up and down in value.; But then President Nixon did something; that seemed to show he still had power to change the world.; He went to China.; His arrival was broadcast live in America.; Journalists compared it to the moon landings; because Nixon was going to a giant, mysterious country; that had been cut off from the rest of the world for decades.; And he was going to bring it into the modern global system.; By now, Mao could hardly walk.; The Americans had sent medical equipment ahead; in case of an assassination attempt on Nixon.; But the Chinese took it and used it instead to resuscitate Mao.; The meeting lasted for only an hour.; Mao went back to bed and Nixon didn't see him again.; Instead, he went with Mao's wife, Jiang Qing,; to see one of her revolutionary operas.; On the surface, Jiang Qing seemed confident.; But underneath, she realised she could be destroyed at any minute.; It wasn't just Mao.; By now, the whole system of authority in China; was beginning to fall apart.; As many of those in power realised that the revolution had failed.; CAST SING; But while Jiang Qing was preoccupied with real enemies,; Nixon, sitting next to her, had now become obsessed; with plotting to destroy his imaginary enemies.; He had set up a conspiracy, based in the White House.; It was run by a group of ex intelligence agents,; and they were already planning to bug, burgle; and blackmail Nixon's opponents.; Behind his smile, he was preoccupied with plotting and scheming.; Jiang Qing and Richard Nixon; were two of the most powerful people in the world at that moment.; But what they shared was a sense that power; was now slipping from their grasp.; While the new force that Nixon had unleashed - money -; was eating away at the idea that there was a fixed,; predictable system that any politician could control.; Because the bankers had realised that currencies could be traded; globally, like any other asset.; And what that had created was a fluid, constantly-changing reality; that no-one was fully in control of.; Try 35.42, then!; Hello? 35.42.; It dropped 100 points. We don't know why.; It just dropped down in points when everything else was staying still.; Right, 30 other way! 30 other way!; Change it! Change!; MUSIC PLAYS; THEY SING; CHILDREN SING; SINGING CONTINUES; Eduard Limonov had now left Ukraine and come to Moscow.; He became part of what was called the underground -; writers and painters who saw themselves; as the opponents of the regime.; Limonov became a poet.; And one night, at a party, he met a girl; who he fell passionately in love with.; She was called Yelena Shchapova.; And together, they became a glamorous couple; in the underground world.; But what Limonov began to discover; was that most of the dissidents did not have a clear idea; of what alternative they wanted.; They, too, were trapped by the Soviet ideology.; The most famous dissident was Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.; He was secretly writing a novel; that was going to expose the horror behind the communist facade.; It was called The Gulag Archipelago.; But in the novel, Solzhenitsyn also confronted the fact; that, faced by the failure of the revolutionary dream,; it was now difficult to believe in anything.; That maybe ideology itself was the problem.; The evildoers in Shakespeare, he said,; killed just a few dozen in their struggle for power.; But then came the belief that you could find a theory; that would create an ideal world.; The agents of the Inquisition, he said, invoked Christianity.; The great empires, like Britain,; justified it by the idea of civilisation.; The Nazis did it by race.; And the revolutionaries, both in France and in Russia,; justified it by equality, brotherhood; and the happiness of future generations.; But in every case, he said,; thousands, and often millions, were killed.; Solzhenitsyn's book contained a damning conclusion,; which was going to be one of the foundations; of the counter-ideology that dominates the world today.; It said that the only way to escape from that horror; was to stop trying to change the world.; Stop trying to reshape reality.; Instead, the safest thing to do in the future; was to believe in nothing.; Limonov scorned Solzhenitsyn.; He saw him as part of an older generation; trapped by their literary elitism.; Ever since his time in Ukraine,; he had been fascinated by what he saw as the real outsiders.; Those who refused in any way to be a part of the Soviet system.; Above all, the thousands of criminals; who lived most of their lives in the Russian prisons.; They were called the Vory v Zakone - thieves in law.; They had their own codes and hierarchies; that were expressed in the complex tattoos on their bodies.; The tattoos also expressed their fundamental belief; that in a society where ideology controlled the minds of everyone,; the only way to step outside the system; was through violent crime.; A singer called Arkady Severny; had secretly recorded what were called prison songs.; Songs from the Vory v Zakone inside the jails,; that attacked not just the Soviets,; but the whole Russian empire.; MAN SINGS IN RUSSIAN; MAN SPEAKS RUSSIAN; LAUGHTER; MAN SPEAKS RUSSIAN; But then, at the start of 1974,; the Soviet leaders discovered what Solzhenitsyn had been writing.; They debated whether to shoot him,; but decided instead to expel him to the West.; They also decided to take the opportunity; to get rid of some of the other dissidents, as well.; Eduard Limonov and Yelena were summoned to KGB headquarters; and told that they were being sent to New York.; While many of the leading criminals, the Vory v Zakone; were taken from the prisons and put on planes to New York, as well.; The Soviets told the Americans that they were another group of Jews; who were being allowed to emigrate.; ACTOR: I bet you can't hit me. Why don't you try?; GUNFIRE Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!; You're going to miss. You're going to miss. Yes, you are!; Most of the Russian criminals set up home in Brighton Beach,; just outside New York.; They created their own organisation, called the Potato Bag Gang.; It was the start of the modern Russian mafia in America.; Limonov and Yelena; were helped by Russian emigre writers and artists; already in Manhattan.; And they soon became a glamorous couple,; invited to parties by rich Americans; who wanted to meet Soviet dissidents.; But the New York Limonov had arrived in; was not the city of his dreams.; SIRENS WAIL; Much of it was falling apart; with gangs burning down whole buildings for insurance claims.; But a strange, unreal mood spread through the ruins.; Well, this morning, on our way into work, we had a report that; the police had located a carcass; in a street on 172nd and Bryant.; It turned out to be a, er... stripped carcass of a gorilla.; It was headless and the, er... fur was removed,; the skin was removed.; South Bronx!; There was also a mood of paranoia spreading through America.; Nixon's own paranoia had been exposed by the Watergate scandal.; But in its wake, all kinds of other revelations came out,; of dark secrets in the political world; that had been kept hidden from the people.; That for 20 years, the CIA had been planning assassinations; and overthrowing leaders of foreign governments all around the world,; using poisons and specially-made secret weapons.; Don't...don't point it at me!; LAUGHTER; Does...does this...does this pistol, er...fire the dart?; Yes, it does, Mr Chairman.; And a special one was developed which would be able to; enter the target without perception.; As a murder instrument,; that's about as efficient as you can get, isn't it?; Yes.; The uncertainty even infected those; who had previously ridiculed all conspiracy theories.; Six years before, Kerry Thornley had begun Operation Mindfuck.; He and his friend Greg Hill had planted fake conspiracy theories; in the press and in underground magazines,; alleging that the Illuminati; were the secret organisation behind all the assassinations in America.; Their aim was to make people see how absurd all such theories were.; But one day in New York,; Thornley thought that he recognised a picture; of one of the Watergate burglars on a magazine stand.; He was certain he had met him 20 years before in New Orleans.; Back then, Thornley had been friends with Lee Harvey Oswald.; They had met when they were Marines together.; Thorney had then lived in New Orleans,; the same city that Oswald had lived in before the assassination.; And he had met people there; who later became suspects in the Kennedy conspiracy.; Thornley had always seen these as coincidences,; but in the new mood, he started to doubt.; I had met Guy Banister, a figure, a suspect in the Garrison probe,; I had met Clay Shaw two weeks before the assassination; and a discussion of my book about Oswald,; The Idle Warriors was involved.; I had even worked in a restaurant where Oswald; had lived in his youth with his mother right upstairs; in the same building.; So there were meaningful coincidences; and meaningless coincidences,; but I could not explain all these weird coincidences.; But at the same time, the fake conspiracy theories that Thornley; had been spreading into American culture with Operation Mindfuck; ever since the late 1960s, started to be believed as well.; Because the real conspiracies were so extraordinary.; Stories about the Illuminati and a plot to create a new world order; began to get mixed up with revelations; about brainwashing and secret mind control programmes run by the CIA.; The line between the reality of political corruption; and a dream world of conspiracy theories; started to get blurred in America.; But the sense of uncertainty, and a feeling that systems; might be out of control, was also creeping into other areas.; A group of climate scientists had begun to argue that the world; might be on the edge of another dramatic change.; That there might be a cataclysmic crisis coming.; WIND WHISTLES; And that the reason this time was human activity.; In the 1970s, there seemed to be dramatic shifts happening; in the climate.; In regions near the equator; there were droughts and famines,; but in the Arctic regions, it was getting colder.; Something was happening, but no-one knew what.; One group said that there was going to be a dramatic cooling; because the dust and smoke spreading around the world; was blocking out the sunlight.; A man-made dust pall is spreading over the Earth.; This dust blots out the sun and causes cooling; on a worldwide scale.; Not all scientists agree with this theory.; I hope it's wrong myself, but there is no doubting; its seriousness for if this is correct,; millions of people will be destined for chronic famine.; THUNDER RUMBLES; But others said the very opposite was about to happen.; There was more and more carbon dioxide being pumped; into the atmosphere.; That would trap the heat, but the world would grow hotter.; And the key force behind that was the hydrocarbon - oil.; In the mid 1970s, oil was about to play a crucial role; that would increase the uncertain mood that today has come to dominate; Western societies -; a feeling that we are somehow surrounded; by global systems, both natural and those made by humans themselves,; that are beyond control.; Systems so complex and unpredictable that they make a mockery of the idea; that national governments can shape and control the world.; 100 years before, coal had done the same.; It had brought millions of people into the new industrial cities; where they worked for the men who owned the vast wealth; that the coal had created.; And that money was so powerful that it seemed to control everything -; not just people's lives, but politics as well.; But slowly, out of that, came a challenge to that power,; based on the workers organising together.; And from that came the idea of mass democracy.; That the role of politicians; was to represent the mass of the people against the powerful.; But now oil was about to start something; that was going to undermine that idea.; This is King Faisal of Saudi Arabia.; He's going to have a great deal to say in the next few years; about the way you live.; He rules over a desert kingdom of six million people.; In this decade of the oil shortage,; he's one of the most powerful men in the world.; Under these sands, there are proved deposits; of 160 billion barrels of oil.; Starting in 1973, the Arab countries, led by King Faisal,; decided to use oil as a weapon.; They wanted to force America to stop supporting Israel.; They did with oil just what the miners had done with coal; in the past.; The Arabs blocked supplies; and then suddenly raised the price four times.; It was a dramatic exercise of power.; And it caused chaos in the American economy.; TRANSLATION: As a friend of the United States,; we are deeply concerned; that if the United States does not change its policy in the Middle East; and continues to side with Zionism, then I'm afraid, such course; of action will affect our relations with our American friends; because it will place us in an untenable position in the Arab world; and vis a vis the countries which Zionism seeks to destroy.; For almost three decades, we have; been the richest, most powerful nation on Earth.; Now, a nation of six million warns us we must change our foreign policy; if we want full gas tanks.; It had a dramatic effect.; Money suddenly poured into the Arab world.; Within three years, Saudi Arabia had more foreign currency; than Japan, Germany and the United States put together.; But the Arab governments had no idea what to do; with this vast new wealth.; So they turned for help to the Western banks.; The banks realised that they could take these petrodollars and turn; them into a new kind of international currency,; free of all government control.; And soon, politicians from all around the world were coming; to the new headquarters of the Western banks; to elaborate signing ceremonies; where they borrowed billions of the petrodollars.; And that global financial system that President Nixon had created; by accident a few years before,; now became a giant force -; one that held the destiny of millions of people in its hands; and politicians became increasingly convinced they couldn't control.; And the money started to take charge of politics once again.; But it was only the beginning, because another component; was about to be fitted into this growing new system of power.; In China, as Mao approached death,; Jiang Qing was still determined to take his place as the leader.; But there was one person who is equally determined to stop her.; He was called Deng Xiaoping.; Deng was one of the original revolutionaries; and he had been sidelined during the Cultural Revolution.; But now, Deng believed that if Jiang Qing was allowed to take power,; it would be a disaster for China and the country; could splinter into civil war.; An anonymous poem appeared on a wall in Tiananmen Square.; It was obviously addressed to Jiang Qing.; "Lady X," it said, "you are insane.; "To be empress is your ambition.; "Instead, take this mirror and see what you are really like.; "You deceive your superiors and you delude your subordinates.; "Yet for types like you, good times won't last."; Then Mao died.; Jiang Qing came on her own, dressed in black.; She was already preparing to take power with three others; of the leadership.; They were called the Gang of Four.; But another group backed by Deng Xiaoping set out; to destroy them.; Wall posters went up all across China attacking the Gang of Four,; claiming that as well as being corrupt,; they were really working for the CIA to undermine China.; When Jiang Qing came to Tachai,; there seemed to be no end to her whims.; Now she wanted her room sprayed with perfume.; Then she wanted more carpets on the floor and for curtains,; she wanted to have special ones of a particular dark colour.; Jiang Qing and company demanded complete quietude.; No-one should laugh or talk loudly.; Planes at a nearby airport had to stop their sorties.; People had to be sent uphill to beat the woods to drive the birds away.; And four weeks after Mao's death, army units came in the middle; of the night and arrested Jiang Qing.; She was put in an underground cell,; next to the refrigeration unit that was holding Mao's body.; She later tried to commit suicide; by hitting her head against the wall.; So the soldiers covered the walls with rubber.; Within 18 months, Deng Xiaoping defeated all other rivals; and he took power in China.; The first thing he did was wipe the past everywhere.; In Shanghai, the giant sign that said, "Long live the victory; "of Chairman Mao's Revolutionary Road" was taken down.; While outside the Department of Public Tranquillity in Beijing,; which in reality was the headquarters of the secret police,; the thoughts of Chairman Mao were also removed.; Deng then set out to create a new kind of revolution.; He was going to bring capitalism into China,; but the state would control and manage the whole system.; His aim was simple.; Money would replace the old revolutionary dreams -; it was less dangerous.; But he was going to use it to restore China's power.; Deng Xiaoping knew that in the 19th century,; the British had used drugs to control the Chinese.; They had brought opium to China.; It led to what the Chinese called the century of humiliation.; Now, Deng was determined to reverse that, to reassert China's power.; You couldn't use drugs; because the Americans already had their own drugs.; Instead, he was going to use the mass mobilisation; of the Chinese people to invent; another force that would be the equivalent of opium.; A kind of mass consumerism never seen before in the world -; driven by goods so cheap that; everyone in the West would want them.; Whole cities were going to be built in China that made just one; kind of product.; They would be shipped in vast quantities to the West.; You gave up on utopian ideas about the future; and didn't believe in anything any longer,; apart from the money.; And his allies in this would be the Western banks; and their new system of global lending.; Because the banks would lend millions of people in the West; the money to buy the Chinese goods,; just like they had been lending to governments all around the world.; It was going to be the perfect system.; Eduard Limonov was now all alone in New York.; He had published an article attacking the other emigres,; so they all dropped him.; Then Yelena, the woman he loved more than anything else in the world,; met a photographer who promised to make her a model.; He seduced her and she left Limonov.; Without love or money, Limonov became destitute.; He lived in the cheapest hotel; surrounded by prostitutes and drug addicts.; And he spent his days and nights wandering the city alone...; GLASS BREAKS; The call car, yeah.; ..while all around him; the newly powerful banks were building; their headquarters among the old ruins.; UPBEAT MUSIC; Then one day in Central Park, looking at the people; all around him, Limonov decided that he was going to write a novel,; but one that would have him as the central figure.; It would be about the real experience of America,; not the fake democracy.; In the book, he described watching Americans in a cafe; where he was working as a waiter.; "It is they," he wrote, "who have introduced a plague into this world.; "The plague of money, the disease of money, the plague of buying; "and selling is their handiwork.; "I hate this system, and I am not ashamed that my hatred has sprung; "from my wife's betrayal.; "I clear away your leftovers while my wife fucks; "and you amuse yourself with her,; "for the sole reason that there is an inequality.; "She has a cunt for which there are buyers, you,; "and I don't have a cunt.; "I'm going to blow up your world."; The book, called It's Me, Eddie, gave a picture of a new reality; that Limonov saw emerging from under the surface; of America's everyday life.; People think they are free, but really they are becoming; like simplified robots, following the rules of money,; limited to satisfying only those desires that can be bought and sold.; Every publisher he sent it to refused to publish it.; But there was another person at the very top of America; in the White House itself who was also about to expose; a frightening reality underneath the surface of the society.; In 1978, the president's wife, Betty Ford, revealed; that she had become addicted to Valium.; An addiction that she said had taken her into a strange state; where even her sense of time had become dislocated.; As I look back, it was December,; about a year ago when I realised...; ..that there were some sort of; blank spots where I had; a hard time putting...; ..events in their separate slots; in time.; To me, it was marvellous; and beautiful, but to the family,; I was beginning to show signs; of overmedication.; Betty Ford's admission had a dramatic effect.; In its wake, stories began to pour out of people all across America; who were also addicted to Valium.; It seemed that there was a private, hidden world of anxiety; behind the public faces that affected millions of people.; But Arthur Sackler, who in the 1960s had promoted Valium; as beneficial and non-addictive, was unrepentant.; And the company that he and his two brothers had started; was about to develop a new drug -; a synthetic form of opium called OxyContin.; And that was going to deal with the next wave of anxiety; that would hit America.; Over the next 20 years, as more and more factories closed; because of the cheap goods coming from China,; millions of people in the communities would take OxyContin...; ..because it made them feel safe,; in a bubble,; protected from the growing uncertainties around them.; LIFT BELL DINGS; And Harry Caudill,; who had represented the miners in Appalachia,; became certain that the anger under the surface there; was going to grow.; "One day," he said, "it would break out and infect; "the whole of America."; How are you, Mrs Melchor? All right, thank you. How are you?; In 1990, he discovered he had Parkinson's, and he shot himself.; While Kerry Thornley had become convinced that the coincidences; in his past were not coincidences -; that the CIA had somehow manipulated him to set up; Operation Mindfuck, but he had no idea why, he had become lost.; 20 years before,; he and his friend Greg Hill had been early individualists.; They believed that they could shape reality; the way they wanted.; But now, faced with the revelations about how intricate and complex; power had become in the modern world, they felt powerless and lost.; Thornley had retreated into a dream world of conspiracies,; while Greg Hill had become an alcoholic and was equally lost.; He wrote a letter to Thornley about how he had come; to believe in nothing.; "It is not injustice that overwhelms me now," he wrote,; "but my sheer damn inability; "to know anything with any deep level of certainty.; "When despair is deep enough, even death seems pointless.; "Now I live without justice.; "I don't know why. I just live it.; "So be it."; And Eduard Limonov would finally get his novel, It's Me, Eddie,; published in Russia.; It would cause a sensation and its dark vision of the reality; behind the rhetoric of American democracy is going to influence; an entire generation in Russia.; It was the generation to whom the Americans would then try; and sell the idea of democracy.; All the talk of democracy, the book told them, was just a sham.; Really, it was all about the money.; MUSIC: Starry Eyes by Cigarettes After Sex; # Starry eyes; # How can I get to you, my true little?; # Starry eyes; # What can I say or do for you, my little?; # Starry eyes; # Starry eyes forever; # Shall be mine; # Starry eyes; # What can I say to make you listen?; # Starry eyes; # What can I do for your attention?; # Starry eyes; # Starry eyes forever; # Shall be mine; # When I'm alone, I hear and feel you; # Wish that I could reach right out and touch you; # But knowing you're the one to greet me; # And meet me; # Two alone in the dark... #

4

True love will find you in the end; # You'll find out just who was your friend; # Don't be sad, I know you will; # But don't give up until; # True love finds you in the end; # This is a promise with a catch; # Only if you're looking will it find you; # Cos true love is searching too; # But how can it recognise you; # Unless you step out into the light, the light; # Don't be sad, I know you will; # But don't give up until; # True love finds you in the end. #; In 1979, a Frenchman called Bernard Kouchner,; who had founded Medecins Sans Frontieres,; chartered an old cargo ship, and he went to rescue; thousands of starving refugees trapped on a tiny island.; Refugees that no-one else seemed to care about.; They were fleeing from the new communist government; that had taken over Vietnam.; To many liberals in the West,; the communists had been heroes in their fight against America,; which meant that the refugees did not deserve to be helped.; To Kouchner, this was outrageous.; The point is people are dying in the China Sea.; I mean, the boat people are now facing piracy.; I mean, they are attacked by pirates; ten times in their trip, if they are still alive,; and nobody are taking care of them.; And that's our purpose.; It's not possible to shut up now.; Kouchner's action had a powerful effect in the West,; because it started to undermine the self-belief of a whole generation,; who saw themselves as radical and pure...; ..that possibly being good was not as easy as it seemed.; It began when the singer Joan Baez came out in support of Kouchner.; In the 1960s,; she had been deeply involved in the Civil Rights protests...; The mothers gave me five children to fully register...; You can't go in, nobody but students and parents.; ..and also one of the leaders of the anti-Vietnam War movement.; She was a symbol of the idealism at its heart.; I'd like to try, if I may. You can't get in.; But now she said that the refusal to help the refugees; showed how radicals had become not only uncaring, but corrupt.; They would allow thousands of people to die,; simply because they had the wrong ideology.; Baez went on French television; and she gave an interview that caused a sensation.; INTERVIEWER, IN FRENCH:; No, I never defended the government of Vietnam.; I spoke for the people inside of Vietnam.; I was against the violence; that this country perpetrated inside of Vietnam,; but...I was equally against an American boy; being shot out of a plane as I was the women and children; of Vietnam being bombed,; so it was never possible for my position to be clear,; particularly somewhere like France, where peace movement means left.; I'm not left.; Baez was immediately attacked by other anti-war activists,; led by Jane Fonda.; They accused Baez of being an unwitting agent; of American imperialism.; ..and leftism in a way that I'm not. I think that's as simple as...; Despite the row, Kouchner carried on,; rescuing thousands of refugees lost at sea in tiny sinking boats.; Kouchner believed that what he was doing; might also be the start of a completely new kind of radicalism,; one that really would make the world a better place.; The reaction in the West, he said,; had shown that the old political ideologies of left and right; had now lost all credibility.; Kouchner had an alternative idea; that was going to go very deep in the imagination of the West.; It said that we are all one world,; linked together simply as individuals,; not divided by political ideas or by nations.; And we, the good people in the West, had a duty to intervene; to help the victims of all evil political ideas,; wherever they were across the world.; We don't care on leftist and rightist countries,; there is no leftist and rightist suffering,; and there is no possibility to split the world in good people; and bad people, good dead and bad dead.; Because we think that this is a new kind of policy.; For us, human being is one.; To let the people speak to each other before dying.; # With the nice girl in the park; # You were strolling full of joy; # And you told me that you'd never kissed a girl before; # Hold your hand out, you naughty boy; # Hold your hand out, you naughty boy; # Hold your hand out, you naughty boy; # Last night in the pale moonlight; # I saw ya, I saw ya; # With the nice girl in the park... #; Julia Grant had grown up in the north of England, near Blackpool.; But, in the 1970s, she had moved south; and became part of the growing gay scene, and a drag artist.; She knew inside herself that she was a woman -; that was her true self.; Which made her an outsider everywhere,; including in the gay world.; When I was living on the apparently gay scene and being a drag artist...; ..nobody thought any...; ..any bad if I sort of went out, did my show,; and, when I came off stage, sort of toned down my make-up; and put on a dress, because I was accepted as a drag artist,; whereas if I try to go to a gay pub dressed as a woman...; ..most gay people resent the fact that a man wants to change his sex.; Transvestites and transsexuals are a minority; within the actual gay world.; To have a gender reassignment operation,; Julia was going to have to go through a series of interviews; with a state psychiatrist.; He would decide who she really was.; Julia was part of a new idea rising up in the 1980s -; it said that to change the world and to make it a better place,; you should fight to become; who you as an individual truly were.; That was real freedom.; But, to do it,; Julia was going to have to take on the medical establishment.; Do you have a letter from your doctor for me?; Right. Well, what is the problem?; Well, I feel, um, that I've been having a fight with myself; for a long time, and I've come to terms with the fact; that I believe I am a woman...; ..trapped within sort of a man's body.; Well, what do you mean by being a woman?; Well, my whole.... All my thoughts and everything are feminine,; there's nothing masculine.; I tend to reject my masculine body.; You know it to be masculine?; I identify it as masculine; because society identify me as masculine.; Well, it's not a matter of society. It's a matter of anatomy.; You say you feel like a woman?; Yes, I believe everything I do is feminine.; I believe I'm a woman inside.; Well, Michelle, how does it feel to be a woman?; It just feels like being me. Can't describe it as anything else.; You see? She's right.; Nobody knows how anybody else feels inside.; Well, I feel I don't...; I believe I don't actually feel the way a normal man should feel.; It may be that you identify with certain stereotypes; of the female gender role -; that is the traditions, the behaviour, the ideas,; but that doesn't make you a woman.; You know, styles do change, even if you think they don't.; Shoulders are wider, and they're higher.; See, they all had to have pads put in.; And, insofar as we could,; we've just lengthened them a little bit because they're longer.; And the thing we've learned is never really press your hem.; You know, sometimes you see people ironing a dress,; and they press along the hem until it looks like a knife edge.; And then, if you want to let it down, you can't.; Just leave the hem gently rolled, and then you'll...; Never press along the edge, then you can let them down.; The China News Agency supplied; all the news for everyone in China,; but it also ran a privileged news service; for the Communist Party elite.; And the higher you were in the party,; the more truth you were allowed to know.; There were three levels of secret newspapers published every day,; and at the top there was what was called Big Reference.; Very few copies were printed,; because they were only for the top leadership,; and it was printed in extra large type; to make it easier for the old men who ran the country to read it.; And at the very top was now Deng Xiaoping.; He was in complete control in China.; He had defeated all his rivals,; and to show his strength, in 1979, he put his main enemy on trial,; Jiang Qing.; HE SPEAKS IN MANDARIN; She was accused, along with the other members of the Gang of Four,; of killing and persecuting thousands of people; in the Cultural Revolution,; but she refused to recognise the court.; She continually attacked the judges.; SHE SHOUTS; The judges, she said, were hypocrites.; They had all followed Mao's ideas.; They were just turning on her to save themselves.; Instead, she presented herself as the one thing; that she knew Deng Xiaoping feared most -; a defiant individual.; As she was hustled out of the court, she shouted,; "I am without heaven, and a law unto myself.; "It is right to rebel."; But Deng showed her no mercy.; Deng Xiaoping decided to experiment with democracy.; He allowed people to put up posters and sell magazines; in Tiananmen Square.; It was known as Democracy Wall...; ..and it quickly became a symbol of a new openness in China.; But then it started to run out of control.; People published details of widespread corruption, greed,; incompetence, and nepotism at the very top of the Communist Party...; ..and then that force that Jiang Qing had prophesied, individualism,; re-emerged.; Wei Jingsheng worked as an electrician at Beijing Zoo.; Wei he was a charismatic figure,; and he quickly became a leading force at Democracy Wall.; He called for the overthrow of Deng Xiaoping.; He put up posters that said,; "We want no more gods or emperors or saviours of any kind.; "We want to be our own masters.; "Everything that is happening now is just a new-fangled lie.; "Deng is just a new fascist dictator."; The wall was closed down, all the posters hosed off,; and Wei was arrested.; Wei Jingsheng's trial was broadcast live on television.; He was accused of counter-revolutionary crimes; and passing secrets to foreign agents.; Why was it necessary to close down Democracy Wall?; Well, you see, on the democratic wall...; ..everyone, without putting his name...; ..can blame or charge any person...; ..without any ground. They can do it without any legal obligation.; Do you think in England, do you have this kind of freedom?; I don't think so.; Blame any person without putting on his own name in the wall paper.; Do you think that is a kind of freedom?; I don't think so.; Do you think that there's freedom of speech?; The way it looks in the West; is that, the moment the lid came off for a second in China,; and people made contact with western journalists...; I think I have to go for another...; Some work to do.; Bernard Kouchner's humanitarian vision of a world without borders; was now spreading.; Idealists from the West, inspired by his ideas,; were travelling to conflicts all around the world.; In Afghanistan, they came to help the Mujahideen,; who they saw as noble idealists; struggling against the Russian invasion.; IN FRENCH:; And, in 1984, it suddenly became a truly global movement.; It started when the BBC shocked the world; with a report about the effect of a famine in Ethiopia.; The response was Live Aid, organised by Bob Geldof.; It was driven by a vast outpouring of sympathy; for those who were starving in Ethiopia...; ..but also by an anger and a frustration; with all politicians in the West who had done nothing to help.; I find it incredible that the mass of people; probably feel that something should be done,; yet their own governments just don't do anything. They do very little.; The very fact that it has to be done by people giving their own money; is ridiculous. I mean, we've given enough money into government.; Why can't they spend some of our money giving it back?; I mean, at the moment, you've got a problem with the butter mountain,; you don't know how to dispose of it.; To sell it to the Russians is the cheapest way.; I'm sorry, but butter doesn't do very much good in Africa,; as you know. Butter oil actually does.; It's one of the major sources...; Oh, butter OIL, if you can... If you can get it...; Well, it is a by-product of butter.; Yes, but, look, a lot is going. A lot of surplus food is going.; But, Prime Minister, there are millions dying,; and that's the terrible thing. Yes indeed...; # And the lesson today is how to die... #; What Live Aid seemed to show; was that it might be possible to change the world...; ..but, to do it, you had to bypass all politics; because politicians, both left and right,; had become corrupted by power and petty nationalism.; Instead, you connected directly with others suffering; around the planet, and rescued them.; Bob Geldof travelled to Ethiopia; to visit the camps where the aid was being delivered.; But he began to realise; that something very strange was happening.; The Ethiopian regime was rounding up thousands of the starving people; who had come to the camps.; They were being taken to airstrips,; where they were loaded at gunpoint onto giant transport planes.; They were then flown to what were called resettlement camps.; Geldof was shocked by what he was seeing.; To him, it seemed to evoke an evil ghost from Europe's past.; The first pictures we saw of resettlement were these ancient; and beautiful people, starving and in rags,; under armed guard, going into these vast Russian planes.; They probably had never seen a plane.; They have nothing left, only their dignity.; And to the West, the immediate psychological reaction; is Jews being led at gunpoint into cattle trucks by the Nazis.; What Geldof had stumbled upon; was something that those who ran Ethiopia had been trying to hide -; that the food brought in by Live Aid; was being used as a weapon in a civil war.; Ethiopia's ruler was a brutal tyrant called Colonel Mengistu.; Mengistu had decided that the only way to win the war; was through a massive piece of social engineering.; He was going to literally move millions of people; out of the rebel areas in the north; and relocate them in the empty south,; where they could no longer fight,; and the food aid was being used as bait; to lure hundreds of thousands of people into the refugee camps,; where his troops then swooped in and rounded them up.; Live Aid was an extraordinary achievement.; It is estimated that it may have cut the death toll in the famine; by half.; But the group Medecins Sans Frontieres made the dramatic claim; that the aid might have also led to the same amount of deaths; as it had saved.; The mass relocations were so brutal, they said,; that over 100,000 people had died.; It showed the weakness at the heart; of the growing humanitarian movement -; that when they came face to face with a brutal ruler; like Colonel Mengistu, who was using their aid not to save people,; but to save himself and kill thousands more in the process,; they had no way of stopping him.; They couldn't challenge power.; I only wish I'd been born a woman, then I'd have the same privileges; as all the sort of women's libbers who were sort of showing off; about burning their bras and all the rest of it.; They can still marry. I can't.; So I've got to try that little bit harder by wearing make-up; and trying to look good all the time,; feminists liking it or not.; I think that if a woman's got pride in herself; and wants to look attractive and wants to wear make-up,; then, I don't know,; more people will turn and look at a fully-made-up woman.; Well, it ain't right, men dressing up as women.; They're just a bunch of queers, ain't they? BLEEP hell.; How do you know that? What? How do you know?; We've got one in our school, ain't we? Mr BLEEP.; Yeah. He's a queer. In the papers and everything.; He goes round touching all the kids' legs.; They're a disgrace, touching men's bollocks and everything.; Well, she wasn't doing that, was she?; I dunno. It's not even a she, is it?; It's a he trying be a she.; Julia Grant was now living as a woman,; while she carried on being interviewed by the NHS psychiatrist,; but she was becoming increasingly frustrated and angry; with the process, and she decided to challenge the power; the psychiatrist had over her.; She travelled to the south coast to see a surgeon at a private clinic.; She went with her partner, Amir.; He was a refugee who had fled persecution in Iraq.; The surgeon agreed to give Julia breast implants...; ..and, after the operation, Julia went to confront the psychiatrist.; I am supposed to be directing your case; because it's primarily a psychiatric matter,; and I must confess, I take exception to you doing that.; Well, I thought it was something permanent.; I needed something to establish that I was doing what I was doing.; It's a medical matter. It isn't a personal choice.; I like to be informed.; See, once again, you're overstepping the mark,; and I don't like it one bit.; I don't wish to appear to be petulant,; but, really, you're not arranging this affair; in a manner that fits our protocol.; We like to do it in our way, where we know what's going on,; and I don't like people to step out of line.; I find it, to say the very least, irritating.; Well, I'm having difficulties with the guy I'm living with...; So do many of my patients with their associates.; Why should you be different?; I don't think you have conducted yourself particularly tactfully; in all this, and there I think the interview will end.; Thank you very much.; You'd better come and see me in another few months.; Why can't I have the operation?; Why can't I pay for it?; They don't like that.; They like you to be very placid and just sit there; and just do as you're told.; And if you don't do as you're told,; then you're going against the system,; and then the system won't help.; After all, it's my mind. I know what I want.; Nobody else can get inside me.; Julia went back north to see her family,; to tell them that she was going to defy the medical establishment.; She would find a way to pay for the operation herself.; She travelled through the old industrial cities,; where many of the factories were now closing; in the wave of de-industrialisation that was sweeping through Britain.; Factories and terraced houses. That's all it is.; It's like Coronation Street, innit?; That whole view. It's amazing.; Back-to-back.; # Take me out tonight; # Where there's music and there's people who are young and alive; # Driving in your car; # I never, never wanna go home; # Because I haven't got one any more; # Take me out tonight; # Cos I wanna see people and I wanna see lights; # Driving in your car; # Oh, please don't drop me home; # Because it's not my home, it's their home,; # And I'm welcome no more... #; In the mid 1980s, a young girl called Chai Ling; had come from the provinces to study psychology at Beijing University.; She became fascinated by an American psychologist called Abraham Maslow.; He taught that the human beings of the future; would be driven by what he called self-actualisation.; They would be guided; only by what they felt inside,; not by what they were told to do.; These are the people who would resist suggestions.; They would choose what they wanted to do.; You might urge them to do something, and somebody else might,; but it was their decision, doing what they themselves decided to do.; They look within, making real the inner self,; which is independent of the century, independent of the culture, even.; Then, one night, Chai Ling was drugged; and, she believed, raped by another student,; but the authorities did nothing,; and she decided to join the growing student protests; against what they saw as a corrupt regime; that was now in charge of China.; Deng Xiaoping had got rid of both revolutionary ideas and democracy...; ..and, in that void, corruption had taken over the whole society.; Party officials everywhere were looting billions of dollars.; All that mattered now in China was money and connections.; TRANSLATION: The first thing in life is money,; and the second thing is connections.; It is very important to have connections.; When you know people,; then, wherever you go, things become so much easier.; In April 1989, the one leader that the students trusted, Hu Yaobang,; died of a heart attack at a party meeting.; Students started to come to Tiananmen Square to mourn him.; Chai Ling was among them.; And, as more and more people came to the square,; she became one of the most vocal of the protesters.; CROWD CHANTS BACK HER WORDS; CHEERING; Soon, over a million protesters filled the square...; ..but the government refused the students' demands; for more democracy, and the movement started to split.; HEATED DISCUSSION; The radical faction began a hunger strike; to try and force the government to respond.; Chai Ling had now risen to become one of the leaders; of the radical movement.; She later wrote that the experience made her an independent woman.; She herself was liberated, and became a self-actualiser.; But many of the other student leaders were frightened; that she was going to create disaster.; The government was still refusing to negotiate,; and the protest leaders held a tense meeting.; Many of them argued that they should retreat now, on such a high,; which would force the party to accept real reform.; If they didn't, there would be stalemate,; and then killing.; In the vote, Chai Ling raised her hand, which made it unanimous.; But that evening, she changed her mind,; and she helped persuade the students to stay in the square.; The next day, she called an American journalist called Phil Cunningham,; and gave an extraordinary interview.; Chai Ling had suddenly realised; that combining the new force of individualism with collective action; was never going to work.; She felt the contradiction deep within herself.; She had realised that, in the age of the individual,; it was no longer going to be possible; for people to give up their lives for a greater cause.; TRANSLATION: To be honest, from the day I called for a hunger strike,; I knew we would not get any results.; Certain people, certain causes are bound to fail.; I have been very clear about this all along...; ..but I've made an effort to present a staunch image; to show that we were striving for victory.; But, deep down, I knew it was all futile.; All along, I've kept it to myself, because, being Chinese,; I felt I shouldn't bad-mouth the Chinese.; But I can't help thinking sometimes, and I might as well say it.; You, the Chinese, you are not worth my struggle.; You are not worth my sacrifice.; The students keep asking, "What shall we do next?; "What can we accomplish?"; I feel so sad, because how can I tell them; that what we are actually hoping for is bloodshed?; For the moment when the government has no choice; but to brazenly butcher the people?; Only when the square is awash with blood; will the people of China open their eyes.; Only then will they really be united.; Are you going to stay in the square yourself?; No, I won't.; I'm not going to let myself be destroyed by this government.; I want to live.; Five days later,; Deng Xiaoping sent the troops and tanks in to clear the square.; HE SINGS; Boris Yeltsin was the president of the new Russia.; He had promised to turn the country into a mass democracy.; Yeltsin appointed a group of young technocrats,; and they set out to do this through what they called shock therapy,; advised by western bankers and economists.; They believed that they had to move fast; because the communists might try and take power again.; But behind it was a grander utopian idea; that it might start the spread of democracy all around the world.; But at this very moment,; in the West, the opposite started to happen.; The whole idea of mass democracy began to be questioned; and undermined from inside the political establishment itself.; It began almost unnoticed,; hidden behind the wave of enthusiasm after the fall of communism.; But a political scientist called Peter Mair; has argued that what happened in the 1990s; was that the old idea of democracy started to disappear in the West...; ..and it was replaced by something else; which we haven't fully comprehended yet, or even seen.; because it is outside the old categories of politics.; Western politicians, Mair said, literally changed their roles.; They gave up being representatives of the people,; and instead they became the agents of a new bureaucracy; which was rising up and promising that it could manage; the dangerous and unpredictable force of individualism; better than the politicians could.; Just as the activists in China had found with Chai Ling,; individualism and its drive to self-actualisation; can corrode and eat away at the collective power of mass democracy.; Peter Mair said the same was now happening in the West.; The first politician to confront this was Bill Clinton.; He came to power promising to represent; what he called the forgotten middle class.; But very quickly, within weeks of entering the White House,; Clinton agreed to give up on many of his promised reforms,; and to give power over to the financial world.; He did this not through any cynical motive,; but because he knew that the old power base; of mass politics had gone.; No-one joined political parties any more.; Organised labour was a vanishing force.; Clinton might be in office,; but he no longer had the collective power of the people behind him.; The power that, in the past,; had allowed politicians to challenge the elites in society.; And, in the face of that, Clinton decided to give power instead; to the new force that promised that it could create a wealthier; and happier society -; the bankers and the economists and the management experts; who were now spreading and multiplying; through the corridors of Washington.; We know big government does not have all the answers.; We know there's not a programme for every problem.; The era of big government is over.; If the new bureaucracy delivered on their promises,; it was going to be a wonderful world.; But if something went wrong,; then the politicians would have no power with which to confront them.; The shift in politics had begun.; SHOUTING; In Russia, the democracy experiment had gone out of control.; The president, Boris Yeltsin, had lost all power.; It had been seized by a small group called the oligarchs,; who were using it to loot Russia.; There was massive inflation.; Millions of people were reduced; to selling what they owned on the street.; The life expectancy of a Russian man fell from 65 in 1987; to 58 in 1993.; There was fury in the Russian parliament.; Its leader accused Yeltsin of economic genocide,; and demanded that he stop the experiment.; Nyet.; Yeltsin responded by dissolving parliament.; He cut the phone lines and sealed the building off.; SHE RESPONDS; But a group of protesters broke through.; And fighting began around the parliament,; and then spread to the television station.; SHOUTING AND GUNFIRE; SHOUTING; GUNFIRE; Yeltsin portrayed it as a stark battle of good against evil.; He was backed by President Clinton.; Clinton said it was the only way; for Russia to become part of the new global economy; and defeat its dangerous past.; But in among the fighting; was a man who believed that he knew what was really happening.; Eduard Limonov had been expelled from the Soviet Union; 20 years before.; He had lived in New York in the 1970s,; the moment when the banks who now ran the global system; were beginning their rise to power.; Limonov was convinced that what was happening now; had nothing to do with democracy.; It was what he called the geopolitics of money -; a force that had already enslaved the American people; and now wanted to bend the Russian people to its word.; And when Yeltsin ordered the tanks to attack the Russian parliament,; backed by the American president; and by the bankers and the economic experts,; Limonov decided he was going to fight this system.; Because he knew its one weakness.; It told no stories about the past...; ..and it had no vision of the future.; Its only aim was to keep the system stable.; Limonov had visited the Serbian nationalists; who were besieging the city of Sarajevo.; He was the guest of their leader, Radovan Karadzic.; Karadzic told him about the powerful nationalism; that was now reawakening after the fall of communism.; Serbs used to possess the entire ground.; We own this country. This is our country.; Turks have been here occupiers,; and the Muslims are successors of those occupiers.; So traditional imposed geopolitics.; Geopolitics. Yes, exactly.; Limonov became notorious when he was then filmed firing a machinegun -; in what seemed a random manner - into the city below.; You are very courageous people,; despite anything what is against you,; it's a great power of almost...; Almost the entire world.; Yeah, 15 countries against you and you resist.; And I repeat again - we Russians, we should take example from you.; UPBEAT MUSIC; Limonov realised that something was re-emerging from the past in Bosnia; that might have the power to confront; the new system of global money.; It was nationalism, and the national myths that came with it.; They were powerful stories that linked people together; and gave them a collective power.; Something that individualism could never do.; DANCE REMIX OF: What's Up by 4 Non Blondes; All you girls that believe men are bastards,; you should be near the front. I'll need you later on.; Ah, they're coming.; # Oh, my God, do I try; # I try all the time... #; Oh, I remember the '60s. I used to dress like that.; In the end, Julia had realised; that her psychiatrist was never going to let her have surgery.; "She was," he said, "not ladylike enough and too pushy."; She had gone to a private surgeon; and finally become what she had always known was the true person.; But, only weeks after the surgery, she had collapsed from bleeding.; She was taken into hospital unconscious,; where she was treated for a suspected miscarriage; by doctors who had no idea of her medical history.; The surgery was damaged, she could no longer have sex...; ..and Amir left her...; ..and she was alone.; If the truth be known, some of my friends have never, ever asked; how I feel, how I am, why I'm always alone.; People... Well, there are one or two people; that I actually discuss the problems with.; The first time, maybe five or six years ago,; and the person that I told...; ..only used it against me and he went off with somebody else.; And when I asked why, you know, it's thrown in my face.; "Well, you're not a real woman anyway.; "What am I supposed to do?"; And when you get knocked like that,; and you have to face up to that kind of thing,; I suppose it makes you just a little bit weary.; Most people listening to that would say,; "Oh, what a shame, how sad," but...; ..I suppose if love slapped me in the face,; I wouldn't even recognise it now.; Julia had challenged the old power in Britain.; She had stood up against her psychiatrist and won.; Her victory was a symbol of the decline of that old paternalism.; But now she had discovered how difficult individualism could be.; That, when things go wrong, you are weak and alone.; SHE MOUTHS SILENTLY; But as individuals were beginning to feel; the limitations of their power,; the new class that had grown up to manage them; was growing stronger and more confident...; ..and they began to see democracy; not just as something to be bypassed,; but as a potentially dangerous force.; By the mid-1990s,; technocrats in the political think-tanks in the West; were becoming frightened that elections all across the world; were producing what they called the wrong kind of result.; In Algeria, a party called the Islamic Salvation Front; took the majority of votes in the first round of an election.; It was a stunning victory.; But people feared that its real aim was to turn the country; into an Islamist state and get rid of democracy.; Western politicians found themselves supporting a military coup; that stopped the elections.; THEY CHANT; But, in Europe, the extreme right paraded openly.; They protested against the immigrants; coming from Africa and the Middle East.; THEY CHANT; TRANSLATION: The foreigners take away houses in Germany,; bring drugs and all kinds of filth.; They steal German workplaces and they filthy up the environment.; For me now, the most important inspiration is Adolf Hitler.; And faced by the horror in the Balkans,; President Clinton's representative, called Richard Holbrooke,; brought the question out into the open.; "Suppose elections are free and fair," he said,; "and those elected are racists, fascists, separatists.; "That is the dilemma."; An American political scientist called Fareed Zakaria,; put it more bluntly.; "The people, we are told," he said, "are the most important.; "We are driven by the phrase, 'the American people are not stupid,'; "but what if they are?"; But the political scientists were not alone in distrusting people,; for, at the same time, a group of behavioural psychologists; who were becoming increasingly influential; were insisting that individuals; also made the wrong decisions in the marketplace.; They were not behaving in the logical, self-interested ways; that economics said they should.; The most famous of them was called Daniel Kahneman.; He would win a Nobel Prize for his work.; For 30 years, Kahneman had been studying human behaviour; and he had discovered, he said,; that human beings actually had two systems inside their brains.; One of them they were aware of, which they thought was in control.; The other was an instinctive part; that really drove most of their actions.; A part that they were completely unaware of.; This new psychology was a powerful attack; on the whole idea of the confident self.; Because the picture the psychologists painted; of human society was of millions of individuals; living most of the time thinking that they were rational; and in control...; ..whilst something else inside them; was really guiding many of their actions...; ..without them knowing it.; But, Kahneman said,; there was an underlying pattern to this irrational behaviour.; It meant that if somehow you could gather enough data; on human beings' behaviour, you could see the patterns; and so predict what they would do, and manage them.; But, to do that,; you would have to bypass and ignore their conscious self,; because it was the behaviour - not the thoughts - that counted.; LOUD DANCE MUSIC; THEY TALK HEATEDLY; HE RESPONDS ANGRILY; RADIO: # Put your lovin' arms around me; # Inside your arms, I'm burning; # Put your lovin' arms around me... #; In Russia, President Yeltsin had lost all control.; He was drunk most of the time.; MURMURING; He had become the puppet of the oligarchs,; who had taken over all the media and blocked any opposition.; But there was one opponent.; It was Eduard Limonov.; ..the Queen, the fascist regime!; HE SPEAKS ON TANNOY; THEY CHEER; He had started his own tiny party.; He called it the National Bolsheviks.; It was, he said, a fusion of fascism and communism,; and the party flag was designed to show this.; THEY CHANT; But it wasn't simple nostalgia.; Limonov wanted to shock people out of accepting; the completely corrupt society around them.; He wanted to go back to the original roots of fascism and nationalism.; To the idea that if you can find a story; powerful enough to inspire people,; you can then use that collective power; both to sweep away the corrupt rulers and change reality.; It was something that had been wiped and forgotten; because of the horrors it had led to in the past.; And the individualism that had been promoted so strongly in the West; after the Second World War had been a force shield against that.; A shield of one world composed of just individuals.; Limonov was the reappearance of the frightening old dream.; MUSIC: Vechnaya Vesna by Grazhdanskaya Oborona; The third person to join the party was the musician Yegor Letov.; He had led the opposition to communism in the 1980s.; Now he sang songs about how Russia was trapped in a frozen world,; buried under a mass of meaningless broken fragments from the past.; Ghosts from the past were returning at the margins in England, too.; In August 1999, a farmer in Norfolk called Tony Martin; shot two burglars who were travellers.; He killed one of them, called Fred Barras.; Tony Martin was a recluse.; He lived in a remote, half-ruined building called Bleak House.; Tony Martin considered himself a victim.; He'd been plagued by burglars for years.; He lived in squalid conditions, paranoid about being burgled.; The stairs of the house were booby trapped.; He slept fully dressed with his boots on and a gun by his bed.; Martin was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.; His conviction touched off a wave of protest.; On the surface, it was about Martin's right to defend himself...; ..but it also expressed a much wider feeling; that was simmering under the surface.; That the very institutions that were supposed to protect the people -; the law, the police and the politicians -; were now being turned against them.; A growing sense that you couldn't trust those in power any longer -; what began to be called the elites.; The Labour government was shocked by the anger that burst out.; Tony Blair wrote in a private memo, simply, "We have lost touch."; But what Blair and the other modern politicians had forgotten; was that that suspicion of the elites did not come out of nowhere.; It had its roots back in Britain's past,; at the moment when the empire was collapsing.; And Tony Martin himself was a direct link back to that anger.; In the 1950s, Martin's uncle had been a leading member; of a group called the League of Empire Loyalists.; The League were powerful because some of their members; were at the heart of the Conservative Party.; They were convinced that there was a global conspiracy; to destroy the British Empire.; It was being run by bankers in America,; working together with communists in Russia.; But they also believed that many of those in charge in Britain; were also involved in this conspiracy,; including most politicians.; Well, my reasons for joining the Empire Loyalists are many,; but they largely stem from the fact that I believe in the thesis; of nationalism and national independence; as opposed to internationalism,; which I consider would in time devolve into a world government; which would, of necessity, by sheer weight of numbers,; become a communist-controlled world government,; with the control of the world in the hands of very few people.; This would be a tyranny, and I consider the only way; to combat this possibility of a tyranny; is to encourage a nation toward a nationality.; And that anger was about to return.; By now, politicians in the West; had given large amounts of their power away.; What had begun with Bill Clinton in the early 1990s had spread.; When Tony Blair came to power,; he had immediately given control over much of the economy; to the Bank of England.; But, in 1998, the global financial system; showed how unstable it could be.; An economic crisis that began in Russia, and then spread to Asia,; had consequences throughout the world.; In response to the crisis,; the Bank of England had insisted that interest rates be raised.; But this made many British goods too expensive to export.; And in the north of England, factories began to close.; Tony Blair insisted, though, that it was a price the country had to pay; for being part of what he called the world economy.; He can say a world economy till he's blue in the face,; but it's not just us, is it? It's other people.; "He can say"? Mr Blair can say the world economy...?; He can say, "World economy, world economy," but...; So what do you say? People in the Northeast are suffering,; but why has he given all that power to the Bank of England? Why?; Why, you know? Why is that?; Is he passing the buck? What's he doing?; So he can't be blamed for things like this that go wrong. He can say,; "Well, it's the Bank of England's interest rates, none of us did it."; I don't know.; They're just opening their mouths; and letting the wind waffle their tongues about,; as far as I'm concerned. Get up here and get things sorted.; You vote a Labour government in,; you vote for them all your life and; this is the crap you get off of them.; You think it's all wrong, what's happened, what could they have done?; Give us more support, stepped in, put a shoulder behind us,; show a bit more muscle. Just...; ..let them know that they canna do this.; And at the end of the century,; a new anger began to grow out of in the margins of England,; that in the future would get mixed up with the furies of the past.; But the politicians increasingly found; that there was little they could do to respond to this anger.; Because, over the past ten years,; all kinds of new organisations had grown up; that were deliberately designed to limit the politicians' power,; because national politics was dangerous; to the stability of the global system.; The idea had originally come from technocrats; inside the European Union.; One of the leaders was a political scientist; called Giandomenico Majone.; "Politicians," Majone said,; "were always driven by short-term, self-interested motives."; Which meant that they, too, were irrational.; The solution, he said, was to bypass the politicians completely.; HE SPEAKS FRENCH; Pardon?; ..later in the afternoon...; And in the 1990s, behind the scenes; of the political debate in the European Union,; Majone and a group of technocrats created a range of new institutions; that were deliberately designed to avoid political interference,; and instead run large areas of society in a rational way.; Majone gave them a boring bureaucratic name.; He called them non-majoritarian institutions.; But, in reality, they were a completely radical invention; that challenged the very idea of democracy.; "These new organisations," Majone said,; "are, by design, not directly accountable to voters; "or to their elected representatives."; Out of it was going to come the massive range; of new bureaucracies that today run large parts of the modern world.; Not just central banks,; but all kinds of regulatory agencies,; special courts and expert bodies.; All of which govern not through political policies,; but through rational scientific assessment and measured outcomes.; And the European Union became the centre of this experiment.; In front of house,; the elected politicians debated subjects like human rights,; but continually failed to come to any conclusion.; Are we concerned with rights or with political objectives?; And much of what we're going to discuss today is...; But quietly, behind the scenes, what were being created; were, in Majone's words, "specialised institutions; "staffed with neutral experts, carrying out policies; "with a level of efficiency and effectiveness; "politicians cannot and never will achieve."; The original idea behind mass democracy; had been that the politicians would be the bridgehead; for the people into power.; They would challenge the powerful groups; at the top of society on behalf of the people.; But then the people, driven by the new individualism,; had retreated into their own private worlds.; So the politicians switched sides and became instead; the representatives of the new powerful technocratic class.; It still looked like they were powerful; and had control over events.; But now the people had gone,; beneath them was a void.; But, in 1999, Tony Blair realised that there might still be a way; to change the world dramatically and recapture some of that power.; The conflict between the Serbs and the Muslims in the Balkans; had erupted again.; Serbian nationalists were attacking the Albanian population in Kosovo.; Blair worked hard to persuade a reluctant President Clinton; to join in a bombing campaign to force the Serbs; to stop the ethnic cleansing.; And it succeeded.; Tony Blair came to Kosovo and was welcomed as a hero.; CHANTING AND APPLAUSE; At the refugee camp, Blair presented what they had done; as an expression of that epic vision; that Bernard Kouchner had put forward 20 years before.; We are all one world linked together simply as individuals,; not divided by political ideas or by nations.; And we, the good politicians in the West,; have a duty to intervene,; to help the victims of all evil dictators,; wherever they are in the world.; This is not a battle for territory.; This is a battle for humanity.; It is a just cause.; It is a rightful cause to make sure that these people, innocent people,; who have been driven from their homes at the point of a gun,; are allowed by the world community, acting together,; back to their homeland, back to Kosovo.; So these people can become symbols of hope, humanity and peace.; Thank you.; And the new ruler of the independent Kosovo,; appointed by the United Nations, was Bernard Kouchner.; We are taking a significant step towards stability; and democratic self-government in Kosovo.; In the 1990s,; the triumph over communism had ushered in a new era.; Liberal politicians in the West; had willingly given up much of their power; in the interests of the greater good of global stability.; The power had gone first to the global financial system.; And now it was being given to the American military as well.; It looked like a new world.; But, underneath, the old forces of money and military power; were reassembling and resuming their dominance...; ..just as they had in the pre-democratic days; of the old empires.; And that was going to lead to other strange forces; rising up and coming back to haunt the West.; # And I just can't help believing; # Though believing sees me cursed; # For belief ignores the heathens; # Day by day sigh even worse; # But for all we are receiving; # There's an evens key to turn; # You was the generation that bought more shoes; # And you get what you deserve; # I can't help believing; # Though believing sees me cursed; # For belief ignores the heathens; # Day by day sigh even worse; # But for all we are receiving; # There's an evens key to turn; # You was the generation that bought more shoes; # And you get what you deserve... #; DALEK VOICE: Alert! Alert! We have located the Doctor!; # Yeah, yeah! Ooh, baby; # Winter sweeps the streets of evening; # This frequency's my universe; # To reel a deep or meaning feeling; # In seas where schools of fools be first; # But for all we are receiving; # There's an evens key to turn; # You was the generation that snorts fortunes; # And you get what you deserve; # Yeah, yeah! Yeah, yeah!; # Yeah, yeah! #;

5

It was more like a dream than reality; # I must have thought it was a dream; # While you were here with me; # When you were near I didn't think you would leave; # When you were gone, it was too much to believe; # So with tomorrow; # I will borrow; # Another moment of joy and sorrow; # In another dream; # And another with tomorrow; # So with the sun there won't be time just to look behind; # There won't be reasons, no descriptions for my place in mind; # There was so much I was told, it was not real; # So many things that I could not taste; # But I could feel; # So with tomorrow I will borrow; # Another moment of joy and sorrow; # In another dream; # And another; # With tomorrow. #; Jiang Qing, the widow of Mao Zedong had been locked away; in solitary confinement for ten years.; Over that time, she had hoarded socks and handkerchiefs; until she had enough to make a rope.; And, in 1991, she hanged herself.; She left a note.; It said, "Today the revolution has been stolen by a clique; "led by Deng Xiaoping.; "The result is that unending evils have been; "unleashed on the Chinese people.; "Chairman, your student and fighter is coming to see you."; Jiang Qing's great enemy, Deng Xiaoping, was now all-powerful.; The new China he had created was growing rapidly,; building vast factories to send goods to the West.; He had got rid of all Jiang Qing's revolutionary dreams,; but he had also smashed all visions of democracy,; by sending troops into Tiananmen Square.; But Tiananmen Square had been a disaster for the regime.; And it also raised a terrible question.; If China no longer believed in revolutionary communism; or in democracy, what did it believe in...; ..apart from money?; Deng Xiaoping's solution was to go back into the past; and reawaken an old, powerful fear.; That what had happened in Tiananmen Square had really been; part of a giant conspiracy by the West to destroy China.; It was a conspiracy, he said, that had been going on for 150 years.; It had begun back in the 19th century; when the British had invaded China; and forced opium onto the Chinese people.; Deng now ordered a vast propaganda campaign to begin.; Its aim was to spread the idea of a conspiracy.; At the centre of the campaign was a multimillion dollar film,; including British actors.; It told the story of how the British had brought; hundreds of tonnes of opium into the Port of Canton...; ..and how the Chinese had tried to stop them.; But the British, led by Queen Victoria,; were determined to smash their resistance; and use the opium to reduce the Chinese people to zombies; and so control the whole world.; Fire!; The Chinese propaganda even created an early computer game,; where you could fight against the British as they invaded.; Now, the campaign said, the West were trying to do the same again.; What the Chinese were alleging in their campaign; was historically accurate.; But what they didn't know was that the opium trade had also had; powerful consequences inside Britain itself.; It had started to undermine the self-confidence; of the British Empire...; ..and introduce a dark and corrosive fear; into the heart of British society.; By the middle of the 19th century, those who ran Britain were; already aware of the horrors created by the slave trade.; For 200 years, the British had transported millions of Africans; to become slaves in their colonies in the Caribbean; and in the Americas.; It had been one of the main forces behind the rise; of the British Empire.; Now they began to realise that they had also done something; terrible to China.; That by forcing opium onto the country,; they had poisoned and corrupted millions of people.; They hadn't enslaved them physically,; they had enslaved their minds.; And, in return, Britain had received a vast wave of money - in silver -; that made it the richest and most powerful country in the world.; One historian wrote...; "Deeply involved as it was in one of the most pernicious,; "yet well-organised and profitable drug trades that has ever; "existed, the British Empire was rotten at its heart."; And that knowledge led to guilt.; In the 1870s, a mass movement was formed.; It was called the Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade.; It published pamphlets and books about the horrors; that were happening in China.; They caused a sensation and hundreds of thousands joined the movement.; But as the campaign grew, a strange thing happened -; the guilt over what Britain had done to China began to mutate.; It changed into fear.; And at the end of the 19th century, a hysteria swept Britain -; that the Chinese were preparing to take their revenge.; There was a panic about Chinese-run opium dens in all the major cities.; The truth was that there were less than 1,000 Chinese in Britain; at that time, but the hysteria ran out of control.; It was called the Yellow Peril.; The panic also spread through America,; especially the west coast where there were Chinese migrant workers.; Novel after novel was published in both Britain and America,; with Chinese villains who were trying to destroy; Western civilisation.; It culminated with the invention of a global villain -; Dr Fu Manchu.; Fu Manchu is described by his creator,; a novelist called Sax Rohmer, as a yellow Satan,; an archangel of evil who wants to take over the whole world; and revenge himself on the white race.; The injection of the serum will make his brain mine.; In other words, he becomes a reflection of my will.; He will do as I command, exactly as though I were doing it.; In the name of the British government,; I demand the release of this boy. British government?; I'll wipe them and the whole accursed white race; off the face of the Earth when I get the sword and mask that will call; the teeming millions of Asia to the uprising.; This is only the beginning.; I will wipe out your whole accursed white race.; # C'est toi et seulement toi; # Qui ne voulais plus de moi; # Maintenant c'est trop tard pour pleure; # Sans doute t'imaginais; # Que j'allais rester enfermee; # Au carmel pendant dix annees mais tu t'es trompe; # C'est a l'amour comme a la guerre; # Tu l'as voulu et tu me perds; # Va faire soigner tes blessures ailleurs; # C'est a l'amour comme a la guerre; # Tu l'as voulu et tu me perds; # Et moi je ne suis ni la Croix rouge; # Ni ta mere; # C'est toi et seulement toi; # Qui t'ennuyais avec moi; # Qui connaissais toutes mes histoires; # Par coeur... #; In the early 1990s, the Western democracies seemed to be the future.; The collapse of the Soviet Union meant that their ideas; were now going to spread all across the world.; # C'est a l'amour comme a la guerre; # Tu l'as voulu et tu me perds; # Va faire soigner tes blessures ailleurs. #; But at home, in both Britain and America,; there were still forces deep in the heart of both societies that; had little to do with democracy.; Man with a gun.; 12 Georgia 30, I need additional units,; 6-7 and Dacre, I've got a 4-50 male with a gun...; It seemed that despite all the changes of the past 30 years,; that underneath,; the old structures of power and the corruption; and the anger that created was still there.; In Los Angeles in March 1991, Rodney King was chased; and stopped by police for drunken driving.; Despite offering no resistance, he was beaten repeatedly; by four officers.; It was videoed by a man watching from a balcony.; He took it to the police, but no-one was interested.; So he gave the tape to a local TV station.; When it was shown, there was an outburst of anger; against the police violence.; Four of the officers were put on trial.; But they were all acquitted by an overwhelmingly white jury.; Due to the escalation of the situation,; and seriousness of the problems that are occurring,; the sheriff has mobilised all department personnel.; For six days, thousands of people rose up; and rioted across Los Angeles.; It was only stopped when the National Guard and soldiers; and Marines were brought onto the streets.; It was an outpouring of the anger that had been simmering; throughout the 1980s in the black community.; But despite all the reforms and the changes in attitudes; since the 1960s, nothing had really changed.; It seemed that those in power in America were still deeply racist,; and would use violence against blacks in America; to maintain that power.; All of it needs to stop but I'm going to tell you...; Get down on our knees and pray to God...; One at a time.; That the violence... Let me talk.; I know that the government, whatever, can't stand; us black people.; He's doing everything in the world to make black man be extinct.; But I'm going to tell you one thing, us black people; are going to survive.; And that's wrong about the black people tearing up the, you know,; burning down buildings, that's wrong.; But still, through it all, we're going to survive.; So fuck everybody, I'm off.; All right, that's just an example of the frustration; that's being felt here.; In Britain, a series of scandals revealed that dozens; of innocent people had been held in jail...; ..some for over 15 years.; They included the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six.; Most of them were Irishmen who'd been accused of being; members of the IRA and planting bombs in English cities.; Every time they had tried to prove their innocence,; they had been blocked by some of the most senior figures; in the British establishment,; despite overwhelming evidence of false confessions; and faked evidence.; Eminent men at the very centre of power,; from the most senior law lord to the Attorney General; and to the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police,; all of them, it was alleged, knew that the prisoners were innocent.; But they had done nothing,; and the evidence remained locked away...; ..because they had an unshakeable conviction that the establishment; must never be shown to be wrong.; Finally, in March 1991,; the Birmingham Six were freed at the Old Bailey.; Ladies and gentlemen.; For 16 and a half years, we have been used as political; scapegoats for people in there at the highest.; The police told us from the start that they knew we hadn't done it.; They told us they didn't care who'd done it.; They told us that we were selected and that they were going to; frame us just to keep the people in there happy.; That's what it's all about.; To save face.; Justice? I don't think them people in there have got the intelligence; nor the honesty to spell the word, never mind dispense it.; They're rotten.; But there were others, also at the heart of power in Britain,; who seemed to have lost all contact with reality.; The intelligence agencies, from MI6 to GCHQ,; whose job was to watch and monitor what was happening in the world,; had completely failed to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union.; Mrs Thatcher, who had supported the spies throughout the 1980s,; was shocked.; Her foreign policy adviser wrote...; "All that intelligence that they gave us didn't tell us; "the one thing we needed to know.; "That the Soviet Union was about to collapse."; It was a colossal failure; of the whole Western system of intelligence.; But some of the spies still didn't believe what was happening.; Sir Percy Cradock was head of the Joint Intelligence Committee.; Despite everything, he was convinced the Soviets were just; faking the collapse.; They were just up to their usual tricks.; They were still planning to take over the world.; Both Britain and America were societies that had been; built on empire and conquest through violence and the exercise of power.; But neither of them had ever faced up to this.; And instead, they had both built dreamlike myths; about their exceptionalism, to shield and protect themselves.; But in both cases, those myths were rooted in fear.; In Britain at the start of the 20th century,; not only were those in charge frightened by what; they had done abroad, with the slave trade and in China,; they now had a feeling that it was coming closer,; that something dangerous might also be happening inside England itself.; The Empire had led to giant industrial cities; rising up all across England.; They were dark, frightening places where millions of people; lived in appalling conditions.; What alarmed those in charge was the violence and the anger that; was building up there among what was called the masses.; But the danger also seemed to come from the top of society as well.; From the new industrialists and bankers, who ran the global empire.; They also seemed to be out of control.; There was a wave of financial scandals; and no-one seemed to be able to stop them.; The novelist EM Forster wrote...; "England is being menaced by the inner darkness in high places; "that has come with this commercial age."; Trapped by what they saw as a danger below; and corruption above, the middle classes retreated.; They turned away into another imaginary version of England,; where there were none of these threats.; It was invented for them by a whole generation of writers,; artists and musicians who,; in an act of collective imagination,; created a complete dream image of England's past...; ..one that still haunts the country today.; At its heart was a vision of a natural order in the countryside,; outside the cities.; One of the key figures was a man called Cecil Sharp.; He travelled through England recording old songs,; and he filmed himself and his friends learning old rural dances.; Sharp made it absolutely clear that this was a political project.; His aim was to create a new kind of English nationalism; which had, at its heart, the idea of the folk.; It was a concept that he had taken from German nationalism -; the innocent rural people and their culture.; Now, is the sort of dancing he does the dancing that would have been; done around here...? Yeah, there's a lot of that done in the pubs.; Do-do, do-do, do-diddly-do...; What was implicit in Sharp's vision was that it was; an England before mass democracy had come.; An England where villagers lived in harmony and safety,; taken care of by the lord of the manor.; I've never seen a thing like this before in my life.; What do you call him? I call it Dancing Doll.; Sharp was not alone.; In 1914, a festival was started in Glastonbury.; It ran every year until 1927.; It was organised by Rutland Boughton,; who wanted it to be the centre of this new English culture.; He composed an opera for the festival,; which became a national sensation.; It was called The Immortal Hour.; It is set in a dark, mysterious wood,; where there are powerful, ancient forces.; They can be frightening, but they are also a way of connecting; with a forgotten natural order of power in England.; They are the lordly ones.; # How beautiful they are; # The lordly ones; # Who dwell in the hills; # In the hollow hills; # They have faces like flowers; # And their breath is a wind; # That blows o'er the summer meadows; # Filled with dewy clover; # Their limbs are more white than shafts of moonshine; # They are more fleet than the March wind; # They laugh and are glad and are terrible; # When their lances shake and glitter; # Ev'ry green reed quivers. #; This is a story that begins in any part of America,; wherever you may be.; It's a story that begins at your front door, on the street; where you live, in your town or village or city,; somewhere in America.; And paths enchanted that lead to the wonderful pages; of a storybook, that tell the story of America, the beautiful.; Unlike Britain, America had emerged from the First World War; as the most powerful country in the world.; Its president, Woodrow Wilson, had a vision that America should; now use that power to spread democracy all around the globe.; Behind this was a belief in what was called American exceptionalism...; ..that the country was special,; not like the old corrupt empires of Europe.; And it could use that specialness to remake the world.; But the Republicans who controlled Congress refused to back Wilson.; They thought that such a crusade would end up corrupting America...; ..and Wilson's dream of a globalised democracy collapsed.; Instead, the American economy went into a severe depression.; In a growing mood of fear, there were race riots,; as whites turned on the black communities in the cities.; In 1921, a white mob attacked the black areas in the city of Tulsa...; ..and destroyed them.; They even used aircraft to drop bombs.; Out of this fear came an organisation; called the Ku Klux Klan.; The Klan had first been formed after the American Civil War...; ..but now it re-emerged.; The Klan also believed in the idea of America's exceptionalism.; They took that myth and turned it into something frightening; and violent,; and they used it to protect themselves against; the perceived threat of a growing black population.; The model for this dark and hateful version came from a feature film; made in 1915 called The Birth Of A Nation.; It was an epic that caused a sensation,; reaching a wider audience than any film had ever done.; The director, DW Griffith, had based the film; on a novel called The Clansman.; The image of the clansman in both the book; and in the film was of white-robed figures with burning crosses.; These had nothing to do with anything real in America's past.; Instead, the novelist had invented them; from a romantic vision of an old Scotland and Scottish clans; that were portrayed in the novels of Sir Walter Scott...; ..which Scott himself had just made up.; Again, like in England, it was a vision of a stable society; watched over and protected by benevolent leaders.; Figures from a feudal time,; a time before mass democracy and all its dangers and uncertainties.; In real life, the new Klan then copied the costumes; and imitated the rituals from the film...; ..and it quickly became a mass organisation.; By 1925, the Klan had five million members...; ..and the political power to mount a mass march on Washington.; They called themselves the Invisible Empire.; The Klan had a powerful appeal to whites,; frightened of the blacks in the ever-expanding cities.; And they also revived fears of the Chinese, the Yellow Peril.; What the clansmen were doing was retreating; into a mythical version of the past.; It gave them a sense of power...; ..and of being part of a natural order.; And in Britain, the belief in the idea of a natural order; of power continued to grow, even as the real power was declining.; And this deluded confidence was going to have very strange; consequences for the whole world.; After the First World War, a group of upper-class English men; and women were sent to Baghdad to create a new country; out of the ruins of what had been the Ottoman Empire.; The most famous was Gertrude Bell.; She was the daughter of a baronet and had been a famous explorer.; Almost immediately, hundreds of thousands of Arabs rose up,; demanding independence.; The British had been financially broken by the war,; so they invented a new and cheap way of suppressing the insurgency.; They used aircraft to bomb the rebels.; They called it aerial policing...; ..and they took back control and set about creating the new country,; called Iraq.; But because there was no money,; the group could also not afford to survey the country.; Instead, with no information, Bell and the others; simply projected onto the Arabs that powerful, romantic dream; of an old England.; They decided that the middle classes in the cities, who had run; the country under the Ottoman Empire,; were corrupt and untrustworthy...; ..which meant that they had to be excluded from power.; Instead, power should be given to the sheiks who ruled; the tribes out in the countryside.; To the British, the sheiks represented the true Iraq,; because they hadn't been infected by the corruption of the modern world.; Their system was one of a natural order,; just like in the England of the past.; "The sheiks," said Gertrude Bell, "are like great aristocrats.; "They will run a system that will maintain a natural equilibrium."; The truth was that this picture of Iraq; was completely detached from reality.; The sheiks were really marginal figures,; while the Ottomans had begun to create a modern,; progressive society in the cities.; The British now tore that apart,; and replaced it with a strange dream that had nothing to do with; the complex, multilayered society in front of their eyes...; ..but was really rooted in the strange, dark fears that were rising; up in Britain itself as its power declined.; Then, in 1932, the British, facing an economic crisis at home,; packed up and went...; ..leaving behind them a completely unreal and unstable society.; DOLLS CHATTER AND LAUGH; # I know that it is freezing; # But I think we have to walk; # I keep waving at the taxis; # They keep turning their lights off; # But Julie knows a party; # At some actor's West Side loft; # Supplies are endless in the evening; # By the morning they'll be gone; # I got a flask inside my pocket; # We can share it on the train; # And if you promise to stay conscious; # I will try and do the same; # Well, we might die from medication; # But we sure killed all the pain; # But what was normal in the evening; # By the morning seems insane; # And I'm not sure what the trouble was; # That started all of this; # The reasons all have run away; # But the feeling never did; # It's not something I would recommend; # But it is one way to live; # Cos what is simple in the moonlight; # By the morning never is. #; MECHANICAL VOICE: We have located the Doctor.; At the same time as large numbers of factories began to; close across America, a new drug was created.; It was made by a company that had been founded by Arthur Sackler.; In the 1970s, Sackler had marketed the drug Valium to deal with; the feelings of anxiety and loneliness in the suburbs.; He had died in the 1980s, but in the mid-'90s; his company released a new drug called OxyContin.; It was a synthetic form of opium, and it was sold as a painkiller.; But then, workers who were being laid off as the factories closed; found that they got more benefits if they were disabled...; EXPLOSION Oh, shit!; ..so they went to their doctors and said they were injured.; And the doctors gave them OxyContin.; They got their benefits,; but they also discovered that OxyContin made them feel safe,; in a bubble, protected from the anxieties and fears; of the new post-industrial world.; CLOCK CHIMES; In the 1950s, as the Empire collapsed around them,; the British Government saw the intelligence agencies as one of; the few ways in which Britain could still remain powerful; around the world.; In the public's eyes, the spies were powerful, glamorous figures,; epitomised by James Bond,; who proved that Britain still had global power.; In reality, MI6 was full of communists who kept defecting; to the Soviet Union...; ..while MI5, whose job was to catch such traitors,; hadn't caught one for years.; A tough police chief from Glasgow was sent in to reform MI5,; but the agents would only talk to him in Latin,; which he didn't understand.; He gave up, and told his wife that it was like working in a madhouse.; Then MI5 was told by the Americans that one of its own agents; was also a traitor.; Surveyor of the Queen's pictures, Sir Anthony Blunt.; He, of course, is here. Sir Anthony, if we are going to...; MI5 asked Blunt if he was spying for the Russians.; He said yes, he was,; so to avoid embarrassing the Queen, they gave him total immunity; from prosecution and let him carry on working at Buckingham Palace.; The negro is ticking under the picture.; I've been listening to him while you were talking.; And it is indeed a clock. Yes.; And the mechanism is peculiar because the actual time,; if you want to know the time, you have to look into the eyes.; John le Carre had worked as a spy for MI6,; and the experience made him understand what this secret world; was really about -; that, in a country whose power had collapsed,; leaving only a drab, decaying reality all around,; the spies had managed to recreate a magical world; where they could go anywhere they wanted,; bug, burgle, and even assassinate people; without any fear of judgment or control,; just like in the Empire.; There is something delicious about being told,; "Now, we're going to have to burgle that house tonight,; "and what we'll do is we'll have a policeman outside,; "and while the owners of the house are away, in case they come back,; "the policeman will say, 'I'm sorry, you can't come in.; "'We've had a burglary report on your premises.'"; And these larcenous instincts which are put to the service; of the Crown had a voluptuous quality in the sense; that this was a necessary sacrifice of morality.; I really believed at last that I had found a cause I could serve.; I also longed for the dignity which great secrecy confers upon you.; KNOCK AT DOOR; NO AUDIBLE DIALOGUE; In America, the spies and their secret operations; were also being used to maintain a fiction.; Ever since the Second World War,; the American Government had been using the CIA to manipulate; and overthrow the governments of many other countries.; One of the most senior members of the US State Department,; Hans Morgenthau, had given this hidden system of power a name.; He called it the dual state.; America had to do this, Morgenthau said,; because of the harsh realities of power in the world.; But it had to be kept secret from the people,; because revealing it would undermine their belief in democracy; and in their exceptionalism,; a belief that was essential in the Cold War.; From the 1950s onwards, the CIA rigged elections,; destabilised governments through fake information,; and organised violent coups in Italy, Greece, Syria, Iran,; Guatemala, South Vietnam, Indonesia, and Chile.; In all, the United States ran covert operations to overthrow; 66 foreign governments, and in 26 cases, they succeeded.; Morgenthau believed that this secrecy was creating a dangerous; time bomb at the heart of America,; and in the mid-1960s, details started to leak out.; One of the senior members of the CIA, Miles Copeland,; revealed that he had been involved in organising coups; throughout the world, starting in Syria in 1951.; It seems to confirm from the inside, many of the people's fears,; worst fears, about the way in which American policy is conducted,; for example, plotting to overthrow the Syrian Government and others.; Do you think that's a useful way of conducting foreign policy?; Keith, I'm not going to make a moral judgment.; I've simply described the way things are done.; It is true. Now, let me finish.; It is true that in many cases, we would sit around, in our attics; of the State Department, and we would have long discussions.; "Our government does not interfere in the internal affairs; "of a sovereign nation."; And we meant that from the bottom of our hearts, and then we'd say,; "But this is one case where we have to,"; and so we had to try to decide; how to do what it was we said was against our policy to do.; And we did, in fact, interfere in internal affairs; of many sovereign nations.; Wherever he walked, all hell broke loose.; SCREAMING; Across all the Orient, the flames of violence leaped.; Was the quiet stranger the torch?; 10,000 mysteries swirled about him.; Wherever danger exploded, they found the quiet American.; And in 1961, the CIA decided to overthrow a government; in the heart of Africa, in the Congo.; 200 years before, the Congo had been at the centre of the slave trade.; Millions of Africans had been forcibly taken down the river; and shipped to America,; where their forced labour fuelled America's rise to economic power.; Now the country had been given independence by its old; colonial rulers, the Belgians, but it was completely unprepared,; and had collapsed into violence.; The CIA were frightened that the new Prime Minister,; Patrice Lumumba, was about to turn for help to the Soviet Union.; It meant that the Russians might take control of the; giant copper mines in the south of the country.; The copper was crucial to the new electronic systems; and computers that the Americans were building.; They were the foundations of America's new wealth and power...; ..and the CIA helped Lumumba's opponents capture and kill him.; And they helped install a dictator in his place.; He was called Colonel Mobutu,; whose brutal regime the Americans would support for the next 30 years.; Rather than establishing a democracy,; what the Americans had found themselves doing was continuing; the instability that had been created by the old European empires,; and then they did the same in Iraq.; In 1963, agents from the CIA came to Baghdad to plan another coup.; One idea was to secretly poison the communists in the government...; ..but the country the British had created was by now so unstable; that before the Americans could act,; the Ba'ath Party mounted their own coup.; The streets of ancient Baghdad become the scene of a short; but decisive revolution that topples the pro-communist government; of Premier Abd al-Karim Qasim, shown here on the right.; A six-man military junta seizes power on a holy day,; and within hours, the premier, who reportedly had executed; 10,000 people, is himself shot.; But the American agents supported and helped the overthrow.; They even gave one of the young Ba'ath Party members, Saddam Hussein,; a list of communists in Iraq.; Saddam Hussein used it to execute thousands,; and it began his rise to power.; He later ordered a feature film to be made about his heroic role; in the coup.; It was made by the British director Terence Young,; who had also made the James Bond film Dr No.; When Deng Xiaoping died, the country he had created was growing fast,; becoming more and more powerful.; But those who took over knew there were threats.; They were frightened of their people,; because they knew that, having got rid of the communist ideals,; they were now totally dependent on the economic system; that Deng had created, but that had brought with it the growing force; of individualism, a force that had the power to eat away; at all the collective ideals that had held the society together.; And outside China, they were increasingly frightened; by the global financial system run by the Western bankers.; The paranoia and suspicion about the West; had gone very deep into the minds of the new rulers.; But for the moment, the money from the West continued to pour in,; and their power grew further.; At the end of 1997,; Britain had agreed to hand Hong Kong back to China.; During the negotiations, the British had insisted that Hong Kong; should remain democratic.; The Chinese were shocked by this.; They said it was completely hypocritical,; because the British had never allowed democracy in Hong Kong.; It had always been an authoritarian system,; controlled by a brutal and racist police force.; SHOUTING; Who's got the mace? Chemical mace? Sergeant, mace!; SHOUTING; Get the fuck out of it, you little gobshite.; Get out of it.; He's got to be subdued, man.; Get him! Hold him down!; Get him down! On the floor!; Come on, come on. Get him down.; HEAVY BREATHING; HEAVY BREATHING; The British Government sent an envoy to negotiate with the Chinese.; He was Sir Percy Cradock,; who had finally accepted that the Cold War was over.; But after the talks,; Sir Percy announced that he agreed with the Chinese.; The demand for democracy, he said, was difficult; because when the British ruled Hong Kong,; there had never been any democracy.; Sir Percy was not invited to the handover.; And in the pouring rain, Prince Charles watched as the Chinese; said goodbye to the British by singing them a Rod Stewart song,; Rhythm Of My Heart.; THEY SING; And despite the Chinese triumphalism,; the BBC continued the fantasy of the special virtues of Britain's Empire.; NEWSREEL: China is certainly jubilant about the return of this; 412 square miles of territory, and that jubilation is everywhere; in Hong Kong, but as we've seen tonight,; it isn't quite as simple as that.; There's a genuine fondness for Britain's decent contribution here,; a genuine fondness for the last governor, too.; "He's family," as one Chinese Hong Kong-er described it to me.; In 1998, the very thing the Chinese leaders were frightened of happened.; The global financial system went out of control.; It began in Thailand, where Western banks had been pouring; millions of dollars into a property boom.; Suddenly, the bubble burst,; and developers defaulted on their loans.; Western investors panicked, and rushed to get their money out.; The crisis then spread all across East Asia to Korea and Indonesia.; In every case, the country's exchange rate crashed,; causing economic chaos.; Indonesia's currency has collapsed, losing 80% of its value,; and the economy is in ruins.; With riots and looting breaking out across the country,; there are fears that it's now on the brink of anarchy.; The IMF gave huge loans to try and stabilise the countries.; For a moment, it worked, but then the currencies crashed again; as those dollars were used by Western banks; to get the rest of their money out of the countries.; It left the Asian societies in ruins.; To the countries' leaders, this was the old corrupt imperialism; returning in a modern form.; Power corrupts, as much as government can become corrupt; when invested with absolute power,; markets also can become corrupt when equally absolutely powerful.; We are seeing the effect of that absolute power today,; the impoverishment and misery of millions of people; and their eventual slavery.; China managed to escape the crisis,; but it seemed to confirm to the country's leaders; that their paranoia about the Western conspiracy was right,; that the West was prepared to use its economic power to loot; and wreck the Asian countries, just as it had in the past.; They decided that the only way to make China safe; was to take control.; The chairman, Jiang Zemin, instructed that all the dollars; that China got from exporting their goods should be sent back; to America and used to buy up the United States' Government debt.; This would make the dollar rise in value,; which meant that Chinese goods would be even cheaper,; but it would also make interest rates in America low,; which meant that people would borrow even more money from the banks,; and buy even more Chinese goods.; It was a virtuous circle.; What the Chinese were doing was using the money; to create a safe bubble, wrapped around the United States,; that would stabilise the system, and so keep China safe.; But in the process, the Chinese money would create the biggest; consumer and property boom ever in history,; and lead America into a protected dream world; that was increasingly detached from the reality outside.; And that dreamlike state was going to have extraordinary consequences,; not just for America and China, but for the whole world.; The city is going through its worst sandstorms in living memory.; It's swathed the city in this...; ..ochre colour, this blanket of red dust, it's raining now...; It's literally raining mud.; Just look at it. I mean, this used to be just completely full; of the international press.; I mean, there's still a lot a lot of foreign journalists here,; but it's just blown apart by the worst sandstorms; that people say is in living memory.; Watch the cable.; In 2003, America and Britain were preparing to invade Iraq.; For George Bush and the Americans,; the aim was to bring stability to the Middle East,; but Tony Blair saw it in wider terms.; It was part of a new kind of global intervention; that was not like the empires of the past.; Instead, it was a way of liberating millions of people from a brutal; dictator, which would then allow them to become free democratic; individuals, but there were people in Britain who knew the; strange origins of Iraq, how 80 years before, English administrators; had gone there and created a highly unstable society; rooted in false dreams of England's past.; A group of six historians came to see Tony Blair.; They explained to him the complex reality of the different groups; in Iraq, and how they could easily turn on the Western intervention.; There was silence in the room.; Tony Blair said,; "Saddam Hussein is an evil man who needs to be removed,"; and the historians left.; Then the spies came to see Tony Blair.; They told him that there were hidden weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,; which justified the invasion.; But yet again, they were inventing a magical world of hidden threats...; ..and the invasion began.; By 2007, the war in Iraq had become a nightmare.; The Americans were pouring nearly $1 billion in every day; to keep a conflict going that no-one knew how to win.; In the past, the Vietnam War had caused chaos at home in America,; not just in the mass protests,; but the cost of such a gigantic war had wrecked the American economy,; with growing inflation and unemployment.; The politicians had no idea how to deal with the economic chaos,; and it, as much as the protests, had forced them to admit defeat; and flee from Saigon.; But now with the Iraq war, there was no effect on the economy,; and there were no protests.; The reason was the Chinese money.; The Chinese continued to buy up more and more of the American; Government debt, which meant that the consumer boom continued,; and, safe in their protected bubble,; few of the American people protested.; The war was far away, and had no effect on their lives,; which meant there was no pressure on the politicians to admit defeat,; and that led them to try ever more desperate measures; to achieve victory.; But that desperation was going to awaken ghosts from the past; that would return in a distorted and frightening form.; Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Risha was the leader of one of the largest; Sunni tribes in Anbar Province outside Baghdad.; He came to the Americans and offered to help them.; In return for large amounts of money, he said,; his tribe would ally with the Americans and create a militia; to fight against the insurgents, above all, against al-Qaida in Iraq.; In desperation, the Americans agreed...; Which tribe?; ..and the idea quickly spread across the country -; the Americans giving out millions of dollars to Sunni tribal leaders; to create private armies.; It was called the Awakening,; and Sheikh Abu Risha became a heroic figure.; When President Bush came to Iraq,; he met the sheikh to thank him personally for saving the Americans.; TRANSLATION:; But what the Americans had found themselves doing; was exactly the same as the British had done 80 years before.; Faced by a complex society that they did not understand,; they were turning to the tribes outside the cities; and giving them power.; They called the militias the Sons of Iraq,; and it seemed to work,; but in reality, it was going to lead to something even worse.; Three years later, as the American troops prepared to leave Iraq,; the money stopped, and the tribal leaders saw their power disappear.; So they made a tactical decision -; they turned and allied instead with the very people; they had been fighting - the al-Qaida in Iraq jihadists.; And out of that alliance came; the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.; ISIS was far more than just another version of al-Qaida in Iraq.; Its public face were the jihadists,; but it was organised and guided by men from the Sunni tribes,; many of whom had been experienced soldiers in Saddam Hussein's army.; As a result, they swept through Iraq and on into Syria.; What had begun a long time ago as a make-believe version of England; created in the deserts of Mesopotamia as the British Empire; fell apart, had now turned into a terrifying nightmare.; # How beautiful they are, the lordly ones; # Who dwell in the hills, in the hollow hills; # They have faces like flowers; # And their breath is a wind that blows over summer meadows; # Filled with dewy clover; # How beautiful they are, the lordly ones; # Who dwell in the hills, in the hollow hills; # They have faces like flowers and their breath is a wind; # That blows over summer meadows filled with dewy clover; # Their limbs are more white than shafts of moonshine... #; And that mythical romantic view of the past was also about to return; at home in both America and Britain,; and it was going to have powerful consequences there too.; In his campaign, Donald Trump promised to recreate a lost America.; We will make America proud again.; CHEERING; We will make America safe again.; And we will make America great again.; God bless you and goodnight.; I love you.; But with the exceptionalism also came the fear,; and the violence.; And in Britain, thousands of those who had been marginalised; by the new global economy also came to believe in that romantic idea; of England as a special place.; A picture of a lost greatness that had been invented by; the upper classes in the 1920s.; Now, hundreds and thousands of frightened and angry people; demanded that Britain leave Europe...; ..and the old ruling class come back and turn that dream into a reality.; CHEERING; HE SHOUTS TO CROWD; MUSIC: With Tomorrow by This Mortal Coil; # In another dream, and another; # With tomorrow.

6

in america in the 1950s, there was a famous exhibition called the, family of man, it put forward a new way of seeing the, world as an alternative to the horrors, of nazism and communism, it showed hundreds of photographs of, individuals from all around the world, the message was simple we are all one, world, and at the center of that world is the, individual self, the man who helped design it was a, refugee from germany called herbert, bayer, he saw it as a new kind of propaganda, instead of being overwhelmed by dramatic, stories created by those in power, the individual would make their own, story out of the photographs, [Music], bayer made a diagram to show his idea, at the center is the giant eye of the, individual self, surrounded by a massive images, it was a utopian vision of the self, selecting and arranging the fragments of, images, into their own story and so becoming, strong enough to withstand tyranny, confident individuals in control of, their own world, parents are the same no matter time no, place they don't understand that our, skills are going to make some mistakes, so to you other kids all across the land, there's no need to argue parents just, don't understand, [Music], you should have seen this girl's bodily, dimensions i honk my horn, just to get her attention she said was, that for me i said yeah she said why is, it come on until you ride with the hell, of a guy, on the surface tupac shakur was part of, the age of the individual, he believed deeply in the idea of, self-expression, but he was also one of the few in the, 1980s, who still believed in the power of grand, stories to move people, and to inspire them to change the world, his mother afeni had been a black, panther, and she still believed in the idea of, revolution in america, tupac later said the phrase black power, had been like a lullaby when i was a kid, my mother she would tell me these, stories of things she did or saw, and it made me feel part of something, she always raised me to think i was the, black prince of the revolution, what hernia taught him was that the, world most americans lived in, both white and black was an unreal fairy, land, that concealed the harsh reality of the, power, that controlled their lives we're not, being taught, to deal with the world as it is we're, being taught to deal with this fairy, land, which we're not even living in anymore, and it's it's, it's sad because i'm telling you and it, should not be me telling you, it should be common knowledge aren't, they wondering why, um death rates are going up and suicide, is going up and, drug abuse aren't they wondering don't, they understand that more people look i, mean, more kids are being handed crack than, they're being handed to diplomas, i mean i mean it's like you know those, little things they have for the mice, where they go through around the circle, there's little blocks for it and, everything well society is like that, they'll let you go as far as you want, but as soon as you start asking too many, questions and you're ready to change, boom by the 1980s, it was clear that the promises of the, civil rights movement had not been kept, in america, and the idealism of black politics fell, away, and the communities divided into gangs, that then turned on each other, the shooting started about what 76 on, melbourne, yeah in 76. you know they, stopped fighting they just started, shooting you know and it was, something new to me you know we used to, fight all the time, the next minute i'm running from, gunshots so i only think i said to, myself, say man we're gonna start doing what, they doing you know, same thing they do to us we do to them, do or die stay in the house, you know fight or stay in the house so i, wasn't gonna scare the house for nobody, then crack swept through the black, communities in america and the faintish, shakur, finally gave up she became addicted to, crack, and tupac found himself alone, [Music], at the end of the 1980s he moved to, california, it was supposed to be one of the most, integrated parts of the country, but one night tupac went to a party and, he realized that white racism, was re-emerging even there there was a, fight, at the party and i was like what, happened he said the skinheads came, and told called the black people [ __ ], and made him to sit down and leave and, of course it was fight, i was like oh my god so we were sitting, there i mean they went home we were, sitting there talking and everything i, mean my friends just like, this couldn't happen in the 60s you know, let's figure out what to do and you just, said i know we'll start the black, panthers again so we're starting the, black panthers, but we're doing it more to fit our our, views, you know less violent and more, silent you know more knowledge, tupac shakur set out to reawaken the, radicalism of the panthers, and to do it he was going to use himself, as the central character, i hear brenda's got a baby but brenda's, barely got a brain, a damn shame the girl can hardly spell, her name that's not our problem that's, up to brenda's family well let me show, you how it affects our whole community, now friends i really, it's sad cause i bet brenda doesn't even, know just treasure in the ghetto doesn't, mean you can't, grow she wrapped the baby up and threw, him in the trash, she tried to sell crap but end up, getting robbed so cc sex, has a way of leaving her so she really, can't complain prostitute fam, swing and brenda's a name she's got, but there was another country that was, also like a fairytale land, saudi arabia ever since the 1970s, billions of dollars had flooded in from, the west, this vast wave of money had created a, dream-like society, run by an elite where no one paid any, tax, [Music], but there were those in saudi arabia who, saw another, much more sinister reality underneath, this facade, abuser had been born in saudi arabia, but he was not a saudi his family were, palestinian, and he quickly discovered that if you, were not a part of the saudi elite, you were nothing he and his family were, looked down on, and scorned, in the 1980s zubaida grew more and more, angry, and lonely he began to write a special, diary, into which he poured out his feelings, it was special because it was written to, be read by just one person, in the future himself in the year 2000, [Music], the diary is full of a growing fury, about how saudi arabia, had been taken over and corrupted by the, vast wealth that had come, into the society, he describes how everyone around him, including his friends, were false and treacherous they pretend, to be pious, but really they have no values, the money has created a society where, nobody believes in anything, and nothing can be trusted, zubaida tried to lose himself in music, the singer he loved most was krista berg, and his songs like the lady in red, but then at the end of the 1980s zubaida, discovered the ideas of jihad, at that point modern islamism was, sweeping through the arab world, the attraction of jihad was that by, losing yourself, in the struggle you could free yourself, from the emptiness and the nihilism, that the western money was bringing into, societies like saudi arabia, [Music], abu zubaydah traveled to the town of, peshawa on the afghan border, to lose himself in the new revolutionary, struggle, i was going to remake the arab world and, him, [Music], i've never seen you looking so lovely as, you did tonight, i've never seen you shine so bright, [Music], i've never seen so many men ask you if, you wanted to, looking for a little romance giving half, a chance, i have never seen that dress you're, wearing, or the highlights in your hair that, catch your eyes, [Music], i have been blind the lady, both abu zubaydah and tupac shakur in, their different ways, were part of something that had begun, 200 years before, with the french revolution it was the, idea that through revolution, you could break through to a new kind of, world, something beyond the corrupt reality of, this one, but at this same moment a completely new, way of seeing the world, was rising up in america it's said that, all attempts to change the world through, revolution, would always fail because the world was, too complicated, for anyone to be able to predict the, consequences of their actions, it came from engineers and scientists, who were using computers, to model the way the world behaved, between the modest simulation and the, advice is it accurate, it will not latch this data in time the, simulation, would determine how long it took the, signal they saw the world, as a series of complex systems, populations of animals, flocks of birds whole human societies, and even global weather patterns were, all complex systems, that you could recreate as models inside, the computers, but when the scientists did this the, computers began to reveal something they, hadn't expected, one tiny change in their equations could, have massive, catastrophic which they could never have, predicted, it was called chaos theory, but we're beginning to learn that very, simple laws very simple equations, can generate astonishingly complicated, dynamical behavior, apparently random behavior which we call, chaos, so the bad news is we can have nothing, random in the system, everything is known and yet we cannot, make long-term predictions about the, future, because the fluttering of a butterfly's, wing will disturb the initial conditions, chaos theory had a very powerful, influence in the west, because it rose up at the very moment, the soviet union was collapsing, and it seemed to explain why all, attempts at revolution, had led to disaster the world was just, too complex, for human beings to change in a, predictable way, but in the 1990s as the computers became, more powerful, scientists argued that even though human, beings would never be able to understand, the complexity, the computers could be used to see, hidden underlying patterns, and make the chaos manageable, this new idea was called complexity, theory, one of its main promoters was the man, who had discovered the elementary, particles of all matter, quarks, he was called murray gel man and he, believed that there were underlying, patterns, at every level of the universe not just, in the particles, but in the way people think in the, structure of human societies, and even in the languages they spoke, you're always looking for patterns in, nature yes, well what's the patterns in the way, people think patterns and the elementary, particles it's all, part of the same way of doing things i, suppose, trying to spot the law trying to spot, relationship, customs of primitive people languages, and the relations among them, and it's fascinating to try to figure, out what these laws are, as complexity theory spread it seemed to, offer a new way of managing societies, by using computers to analyze vast, amounts of data, that would bypass the failed political, ideas, that had always led to disaster in the, past, but it brought with it a deeply, conservative idea, that was going to be the foundation of, today's computer-dominated world, it's said that what you are looking for, in the data, are the underlying laws that govern the, systems as they already exist, you never ask why those systems came to, exist, and who benefits from them existing, one of the leading complexity scientists, insisted that the meaning of any system, was irrelevant i don't understand, what meaning is he said in science, there is no meaning to anything it, doesn't ask the atom, why it is going left when it is, subjected to a magnetic field, it just observes and describes, [Music], a man's man a man that go kills with, this, is really mad, it will kill you you better watch out, it's a, m1 car beam 32 rounds, i can go tab lewis park with this, i can kill about 32 people if i hit them, all, guns all about shooting taking them out, yes and when they come shoot us we go, back and shoot them, as he became more successful tupac, shakur, dramatized in his music what he called, the thug life, his aim he said was not to try and stop, the violence, but to make those in the gangs who were, killing each other, realized that they could turn the, violence outwards instead, and fight back against those who really, oppressed them, [Music], but shakur had begun to suspect that, maybe, many people didn't really want change so, they were happy, living in their own fairy tale world of, gangs and violence, now if we do want to live a thug life, and a gangster life and all of that okay, so stop being cowards and let's have a, revolution, but we don't want to do that dudes just, want to live, up a character they want to be cartoons, but if they really wanted to do, something it was that tough all right, let's start our own country let's start, a revolution let's get out of here let's, do something, but they don't want to do that in, response shakur was accused by a number, of the gangs, of simply using them that he was sucking, out details of their lives, and then acting it out in his music to, make himself rich, that he wasn't real in response, tupac tried to become more and more part, of that world, to prove his authenticity, [Music], but then the black radicals accused him, of getting lost, in the character he had created but, really he was reinforcing, and intensifying the violence not, changing it, one radical wrote ambition is completely, predatory, because it is driven by an individualism, that deliberately avoids the fellow, feeling, and the group solidarity needed by, revolutionaries, in 1994 shakur was sent to jail for five, months, for raping a 17-year-old girl, [Music], shakur found himself in the new world of, mass incarceration in america, driven by fears of a wave of violent, crime, president clinton had brought in tough, new crime laws, even though in reality crime was falling, hundreds of thousands of young black men, were now imprisoned with no hope of, parole, even for minor offenses, [Applause], it seemed to show that president clinton, cared more about the fears of the white, middle-class voters, than he did about the lives of young, black men, while the white radicals who were buying, tupac shakur's music, did nothing to challenge it, by moving radical politics into the, world of culture, tupac shakur had also become part of the, fairy tale world, because he helped keep the anger and the, descent sealed off from the real world, of politics and power and now, he was all alone trust nobody, trust no body after dog, you know what i mean straight up my, closest friends did me in, my closest friends my homies people took, care of their whole family, i took care of everything for them, looked out for them put them in the game, everything turned on me fear is stronger, than love, remember that fear is stronger than love, all the love i gave, didn't mean nothing when it came to fear, so it's all good but i'm a soldier i, always survive, i constantly come back you know i mean, only thing that can kill me, is death that's the only thing that ever, stopped me is death, one night at the end of 1991 abu, zubaydah was part of a group of, jihadists, attacking the city of gades in, afghanistan, they were trying to overthrow the, communist regime left behind by the, russians three years before, but then suddenly a mortar exploded next, to abu zubaydah, and a piece of shrapnel pierced his, skull, [Music], it went into his brain and his whole way, of seeing, and understanding the world suddenly, changed, the next day he was taken back from the, front line, over the mountains to peshawar, for two months he was unconscious, then his memories from the past began to, come back, but in a mass of fragments nothing, linked them, they made no sense, [Music], so zubaida began to use his diary to, write down, all the flashes of memory to try and, make sense of who he was, in the end it would run to over a, thousand pages, a vast collage of memories and feelings, moments of intense loneliness as a child, of watching pluto meet an angel in a, disney cartoon, moments of fear and combat, the smell of perfume the anger he felt, at friends, moments of sexual desire and the, sensation of autumn coming on, when he had physically recovered abu, zubaydah went back to the jihad training, camps in afghanistan, but he found that whatever he did he, could not put his memories, back together they remained just, fragments in his brain, he also had a growing sense that the, whole organization of jihad, was disintegrating into rival factions, [Music], all ideas of solidarity and collective, action had gone, in the diary he describes how you, couldn't trust anyone any longer, [Music], zubaida knew bin laden who was running, another jihad camp, bin laden asked him to make an alliance, but zubaida refused, he was aware that bin laden was planning, some kind of retaliation against the, americans but he didn't trust him, javeda spent his time making explosives, and watching american movies like rambo, 3., [Music], zubaida wrote in his diary how up in the, mountains everything was falling apart, the revolutionary dream of islamism was, failing, or his sense of who he was his identity, had disintegrated into random memories, they meant nothing there was no story, that made sense, he wrote how it was as though time had, stopped, he was trapped in a perpetual now, haunted by fragments of memory with no, way of moving forward, into the future, [Music], but in the west scientists were, beginning to ask, whether the very idea of an integrated, self, was actually a fiction for everyone, in the 1980s the new group of behavioral, psychologists, had argued that what human beings think, of as their self, was not fully in control of their, actions now, they had been joined by neuroscientists, who said they had discovered something, even stranger, [Music], that inside their brains human beings, had all kinds of different selves, which the conscious mind had no, awareness of at all, they were led by michael gazzaniga who, would win a nobel prize for his work, with your right hand you point to this, row, and with your left hand you point to, this row okay, okay cause annika studied the brains of, people like vicky, she suffered from extreme epilepsy i'm, thinking about that, to try and stop her attacks surgeons had, cut the nerve fibers, that linked the two sides of her brain, it worked but it also revealed something, very strange, there was another force inside vicky, that emerged, that kept trying to take control, i knew what i wanted to wear and i would, open up my closet, get ready to take it out my other hand, would like just take control, it would just reach in and get something, that i wouldn't want at, all and a couple times i had a pair of, shorts on, and i find myself putting another pair, of shirts on on top of a pair he already, had on and which i knew was i knew was, wrong kazanega argued that really there, were multiple selves, inside the human brain each one taking, control, at different moments normally that is, hidden, because the one self that is conscious, constantly makes up stories to explain, what all the other selves are doing, but when the connection between the two, parts of the brain is cut, it can't do that and the other parts, emerge vicky wasn't strange because, zenica said, she just showed the truth kazanika, argued that really, all human beings live in a made-up dream, world of stories, which give them the illusion that they, are in control, when really there is something else, inside them, that they will never contact we have to, quit viewing man as a single, psychological entity, that in fact his psychological self is a, multiple self, that he has a variety of mental systems, existing in his brain they have emotions, they have memories they have, incentives they have destinies and, they're able to control the motor, apparatus by which i mean they're able, to make movements they're able to, actually precipitate behaviors on the, part of, of someone and once those actions are, completed, here comes this verbal system in to give, an explanation, and to and to propose a theory to itself, to explain why these actions were, carried out, the 1990s was the high point of the idea, of individualism, with all the old revolutions gone it, promised the vision of a new world of, free, confident people but what was happening, was that the sciences that had grown up, with that individualism, were now turning on it and eating away, at it, complexity theory said that human beings, were just components, in vast complex systems systems that, they would never be able to understand, which meant that what they thought and, what they felt, was irrelevant to the system, our psychology and now neuroscience said, that much of what went on, inside people's brains was beyond their, control, which meant that the conscious bit, inside the brain, the part that applies meaning to the, world was actually irrelevant, bit by bit the idea of the world as, something that human beings could, understand, and change was disappearing, human consciousness was being sidelined, [Music], in 1996 tupac shakur was shot in las, vegas, he was taken to hospital in a critical, condition, six days later he died, still today no one knows who shot him, [Music], the suspicion and the lack of trust that, he had come to fear, was now spreading through the black, community, and in that mood a new conspiracy theory, was rising up, it's said that the crack epidemic in, black areas, had been created by the cia and the us, government, and the feelings of suspicion and, paranoia spread even further, this show is about finding some truth, was the cia responsible for, in any way shape or form funneling, cocaine into the united states of, america, back in the early 80s and then helped to, develop and turn them into crack which, was then spread across america as the, reason why, most of our inner cities are in the, plight that they are in, so we're right between that house, and this house we're renting this, half of a house, all right so this is our garage, basically nobody's in here but yeah, ping-pong table, computer but there was still a group of, idealists at the heart of silicon, valley who still believe that, individuals could remake the world, and they could help them do it in a new, way, it wouldn't confront the old systems of, power it would simply bypass them, there's larry ceo of google, at google our mission is to make the, world's information accessible, and useful and that means all the, world's information, which now in our index numbers over a, billion documents, and it's an incredible resource i mean, in history you have never had access to, just you know pretty much, all the world's information in seconds, and, we have that now my hope is to provide, instant access to any information, anybody ever wants, in future, i think i want to make the world a, better place, [Music], the idealism behind google was the same, vision that had been behind the family, of man exhibition, 40 years before it said that everyone, could use the information, to build their own story free of the old, elites, who in the past had controlled what they, read and what they saw, but it would also link them together, one world at the center of which would, be the individual self, assembling the data in any way they, wanted, but in russia that same dream was now, seen to have led to disaster, at the start of the 1990s a giant, experiment had begun, to transform the country into a, free-market democracy, but it had gone disastrously wrong, russia had been taken over by a small, group called the oligarchs, who had looted the country of much of, its wealth, and the idea that russia could become a, society of free individuals, was now seen as a joke, no one believed in communism or, democracy, any longer what does it mean what does, democracy mean there for most russians, not in moscow, unfortunately uh well, word socialism has lost its, meaning and its value in this country 10, years ago, after 10 years democracy is a kind of a, curse, you can curse you can offend someone, by naming him a democrat, so this is the answer to your question, thank you very much thank you in 1999, the oligarchs decided to select russia's, next president, to make sure it was someone who would, protect them, they selected vladimir putin he was an, anonymous bureaucrat running the, security service, and a man who believed in nothing, with their money and the media they, controlled backing him, putin was duly elected, the oligarchs believed that they were, now safe and their power would continue, undisturbed, but then something unexpected happened, [Music], in august of 2000 the nuclear submarine, kursk, set out on the first navy exercise since, the fall of the soviet union, as a torpedo was being loaded it, exploded, and the submarine sank to the ocean, floor, [Music], to begin with the russian navy didn't, notice that anything had happened, then they began to search for the kursk, but they couldn't find it, the families of the crew came to the, base of amansk, the officials assured them that they, were in contact with the crew, but this was a lie they knew that all, 118 sailors, were already dead the families grew, [Music], desperately, [Music], [Music], to begin with putin did nothing he had, no idea how to react, but finally he was forced to come to, momansk to confront the angry families, in a closed meeting, what putin then did to save himself, was turn that anger away from himself, and towards the very people who had put, him in power, the people who killed your sons he told, the families, where the corrupt elites in moscow, the oligarchs who have all the money and, control all the media, they are the ones who are lying to you, they are the ones who have destroyed the, army, and the navy they are the ones who have, stolen, everything and have everyone in their, pocket, faced by a catastrophe what putin had, discovered, was a new source of power it was the raw, anger of those outside the major cities, in russia, who felt lonely and isolated as their, jobs and lives had collapsed around them, [Music], they had been promised a democracy but, what they got, was chaos and corruption on a vast scale, and putin had realized the power that, anger could give him, but he himself still believed in nothing, he had been taken and placed in power, and he had no goal the russian, journalist mikhail zaigar wrote, there is no logic in the age of putin, there is no plan or strategy, everything that happens like with the, kursk is a tactical step, a real-time response to external stimuli, devoid of any ultimate objective, by the start of 2000 silicon valley had, become the focus of a giant financial, boom, wall street banks were pouring millions, of dollars into small companies, that they knew were unlikely to ever, make any real profit, their real aim was to create massive, share price rises when they took the, companies public, on the stock exchange, but then the bubbles suddenly burst, companies that only weeks before have, been valued at billions of dollars, disappeared overnight their technology, auctioned off in fire sales we have a, hundred thousand dollar, computers with eight processors and ten, hard drives and just, decked out with you know gigs of ram and, that that stuff's going for 10 cents 20, cents on the dollar, google managed to survive but the crash, meant that they met the power of money, which was going to reshape their aims, completely, the venture capitalists who had invested, in the company now had the upper hand, they told sergey brin that he had to, find a way to make money, and quickly and a sense of emergency, gripped google, but then they found the solution every, time someone searched the web, they left trails behind them traces as, they traveled through the internet, up to this point that mass of data had, simply been used to make the system of, giving people information, more efficient but now, the company's engineers realized that if, they gathered enough of it together, they could build up a picture of how, every individual behaved, and how they were likely to behave in, the future, it meant they could predict what, advertisement an individual would click, on, and respond to, without having to ask them anything, google started to tell advertisers that, they had found a way of replacing the, hit and miss of old advertising, with a new scientific certainty, and very quickly they began to make, millions of dollars, but there was a problem what google were, doing, was gathering vast amounts of data on, millions of people, without them being fully aware of it and, by 2001, the federal trade commission was, preparing a law which would stop, much of what they were doing but then, suddenly, many of those problems disappeared, [Music], because no one had seen them coming the, phrase constantly used, was we failed to join up the dots, [Music], and in the state of fear the government, passed the patriot app, it's said that everyone's personal data, must be open to examination, to stop further attacks, privacy of the individual now became, irrelevant, in the face of a much higher need, security, it meant that the very thing that google, had invented looking for patterns in a, mass of data, now became central to the security of, the united states, and the threat of new laws to stop, google collecting as much data on people, as they wanted, faded away, [Music], the shock of the attacks of 911 began a, shift, away from the individualism that had, been at the center of america since the, 1950s, and google was going to become central, to that shift, because rather than doing what they had, originally dreamed of, giving people data so they could make, their own stories, what google were now doing was taking, people's data, and using it to predict what those, individuals would do, without having to ask them anything, what they thought or felt as individuals, and the stories they told themselves was, completely irrelevant, consciousness was being sidelined even, [Music], more, [Applause], foreign, when the coalition invaded afghanistan, had fled he had not been involved in the, attacks, but he knew that the americans were, arresting all the jihadists they could, find, he traveled back over the mountains and, hid, in faisalman in pakistan, but two months later he was captured, within months of september the 11th 2001, we captured a man named abu zabeda, we believe that zebedee was a senior, terrorist leader, and a trusted associate of osama bin, laden, zubaida was severely wounded during the, fire fight that brought him into custody, these are dangerous men with, unparalleled knowledge, about terrorist networks and their plans, of new attacks, zubaida was taken by the cia to a secret, prison they ran, in pakistan he told them that he had had, nothing to do with the attacks, but they didn't believe him then they, read his diary, that he had written to himself, and the cia decided it meant that, zubaida had a multiple personality, and that the other hidden self was, hiding the information they desperately, needed, so the cia turned to psychology to, unlock the information, they knew was concealed inside his head, is this the new positive psychology, class yes, it is so what is this positive, psychology stuff, is the rest of the field negative well, that's not really the case, positive psychology is the study of the, psychological aspects of what makes life, worth living, it simply focuses on building the best, in people, as opposed to repairing the worst i see, i need to get to my next class catch you, later, thank you for helping me learn more, about this fascinating field, positive psychology was part of the new, psychology that had risen up in the, 1990s, it said that millions of people were, really far weaker than previously, thought, that they were trapped in a state of, what the psychologist called, learned helplessness and positive, psychology, would develop techniques to rescue these, people, but psychologists working for the cia, decided they would turn the system in, reverse, they would use it to reduce avery, zubaida back to a state of learned, helplessness, they called it enhanced interrogation, and they did it, by waterboarding zubaida 83 times, by repeatedly smashing him against the, wall and locking him naked in a freezing, box for weeks at a time, [Music], the cia videotaped the interrogations, but later destroyed the tapes they, reportedly show abu zubaydah screaming, shaking uncontrollably and vomiting, what was done to him became the model, for a system of torture, that the americans then used across the, war on terror, including the prison at abu ghraib, desperate for the torture to stop, zubaida just spewed out, all the disconnected memories inside his, brain, memories that even he had not been able, to piece together, they were fragmented images of what, might happen in america, many of them drawn from the films he had, watched including godzilla, and that same sense of incoherent, confusion, was now unleashed on america the cia, believed them, and the fragments inside abu zubaydah's, brain, now spread out across america to create, yet another wave of fear, but there were more and more people who, were beginning to realize that out in, the margins of western societies, there was a growing anger and a total, disillusion, with the system, because it offered hundreds of thousands, of people nothing, and gave their lives no purpose or, meaning, i was brought up in a working-class way, in a working-class background, i was lucky i was good at school i was, academically minded, i would quick i could make people laugh, you know i mean i could do things i, could chat and still go on with me work, most people couldn't do that, there were people genuinely who were, fantastic, with working with their hands but the, other five hours of the day they were, just, miserable it's just not set up to cater, for, working-class lads who were that way, inclined there's just no end goal, there's no end point there's no path, there's just get on with it, is the main phrase that you hear, constantly and, that messes with your mind after a while, dominic cummings worked as a political, advisor for the conservative party, but he believed that all politicians, left and right, had completely lost touch with the, people they were supposed to represent, cummings came from the northeast and he, had seen the disillusion, and the anger that had been growing, there ever since a wave of factory, closures in the late 1990s, the labour government had insisted that, there was nothing they could do, in the face of what was called globalism, but cummings wanted to find a way to, remake politics, so it could challenge these new forms of, unaccountable power, and the way to do that he believed was, by using complexity theory, cummings was fascinated by the founder, of complexity theory, marigold man because cummings believed, that gel man's ideas, explained why politicians like tony, blair, had failed to stand up against the force, of globalization, the systems of power like international, finance, were now so complex the politicians, could never predict, what effect their policies would have, so they had stopped trying to control, them and simply let them rip, [Music], but complexity theory he believed would, allow you to understand, and control these new forces, because if you looked at the world as a, series of complex systems, you would find that there were, underlying patterns, a very simple point but very important, when i think about sheer complexity, if you look around at social networks, physical networks mental networks they, consist of, they consist of complicated non-linear, and independent, systems in these networks properties, emerge from the interaction of lots of, different agents, you can't tell what's going to happen, just by looking at a single agent, so for example if you look at ant, colonies you have lots of interacting, ants, and from this you have emergent, behaviors like farming, slavery and war that you can never, predict from a single and, the extreme complexity means that, prediction is extremely difficult over, even over tiny time scales it means this, scale of complexity means you can't have, centralized control there's no master, and, there's no master neuron there's no, master immune cell, cummings wanted to use data and, computers to see the underlying patterns, in modern society, and then use that knowledge to take, power back, from the unelected elites who had seized, control, but to do that he was going to have to, find a way, to harness the anger and the, disenchantment, that was growing in the country, [Music], but cummings was not alone across the, world there was a growing feeling, that politics had completely lost touch, with the people, and was therefore losing its power to, hold society together, in china the children of those who had, led the cultural revolution, were now in power they were called the, princelings, we are very happy to invite the newly, elected members of the standing, committee, of the political bureau of the 17th, century on the surface, the china they ruled over was a powerful, country, it had a rich and rapidly growing middle, class, [Music], and china was also pouring money into a, rapidly growing military force, [Music], but what had been buried and forgotten, was any guiding ideology, any confident story about what this was, all for, instead money had filled the void, and that now seemed to be dissolving the, bonds that held society together, there was an extraordinary wave of, organized crime sweeping through chinese, cities, vast amounts of government money was, being stolen and smuggled abroad, but at the centre of the corruption was, land and property, on the edge of the new giant cities, organized gangs were forcing farmers, out of their houses at gunpoint in, seizing their land, what's happening is quite literally a, massive, land grab those with political power, or money and political connections are, doing everything they can, to take control of land the reason is, very simple, today in china land is extremely, valuable, it's in demand for all sorts of things, for housing developments like this one, for factories for shopping malls making, money was never easier, what made the corruption so widespread, was that under communism, no one was allowed to own land, all the land was owned by the party, which meant that hundreds of thousands, of party officials, were being bombarded by bribes and, threats from organized crime, wanting to get the land and corruption, spread on an extraordinary scale the, government's chief advisor, wang hu ning called it ultra corruption, he said it was so extensive that it was, hollowing out the whole political system, of control, the country he said risked fragmenting, into the anarchy of the 1920s, when hundreds of separate areas were, controlled by rival warlords, [Music], but one man decided he was going to make, a stand against this, he was called bourgeois he was at the, heart of the chinese elite, [Music], boar's father had been one of the, leaders of the revolution with mao, zedong, but in the cultural revolution mao had, turned on boar's father, and he was brutally beaten the boar's, mother was killed mysteriously, thor himself had been a red guard but, was sent to a labor camp for five years, but born now announced that he was going, to bring back the dreams, from that time in 2007, boar was made the head of the city of, chongqing, chongqing was one of the biggest cities, in the world it had a population of 32, million people, and board decided to use the city as a, laboratory for a giant experiment, he started to hold mass rallies in the, city which were broadcast live on, television, and read songs from the mao era were, sung by thousands, [Music], [Applause], [Music], oh, boar said that the reason for the, corruption in china was because there, was no, shared vision of the future no aim or, purpose, other than money and he was going to, reawaken, the idealism of the past, and he also passed sweeping laws to try, and tackle the growing inequalities, subsidizing housing and education, and boar brought in a new police chief, whose job was to root out the gangsters, who had corrupted every part of the city, government, and were still demolishing thousands of, people's houses, bourson became famous and he was seen as, a future leader, he and his wife a lawyer called gu, kailai became a glamorous couple, they like many others of the chinese, elite had a fascination for old england, many of the estates being built for the, new rich in china's cities, were designed to look like an imaginary, version of england's past, [Music], decided to send their son to an english, public school, harrow and it led them to meet an, englishman who had come, to china called neil haywood, he had also been to harrow and he helped, their son, and he soon became close to the family, he would also lived in the old dreams of, england from a time when it was powerful, he dropped hints that he worked for mi6, and he drove around beijing in an aston, martin, with the number plate 007. haywood used, his friendship with the family, to make a property deal in chongqing, but then for some reason the deal went, wrong, and hayward blamed gu kailai, [Music], at the same time rumors started to come, from the center in beijing, that what bourgeois was doing in, chongqing, might not be as idealistic as it seemed, [Laughter], i love how your eyes, you kiss me, and when i'm away from you, i love how you miss me, i love the way you always treat me, tenderly, [Music], but darling most of all, i love how you love me, i love that you think of me, without me, [Music], and in russia there were those who were, also trying to attack and expose the, emptiness and the corruption, that had taken over the society there, in 2007 members of the small national, bolshevik party, that was led by edward limonov burst, into the finance ministry in moscow, they wanted to make people realize the, corruption of russia hadn't gone away, it was now spreading even deeper into, the society and the putin, had to go, they were arrested and 39 of them were, put on trial together in a giant cage, i believe we are a most effective, organization of russia who irritates the, government, but very effective very effective that, climbs the police state cannot, struggle against us 39 young people, behind bars more than six months what, they said, they said we want putin to go out, putin's other main opponent was the, journalist anna politkovsky, what putin had done she said was simply, take the vast corruption that had begun, with the oligarchs, and shifted into the public sector, so the civil servants the managers and, the intelligence agents, around putin all now benefited, one of them put it simply why take, handouts from billionaires, if you can become a billionaire yourself, olikowski said that the society putin, had created, was one in his own image, it too believed in nothing, [Music], he became president without any program, without any words, the bureaucrats have made literally, millions together with their families, i think they were very happy with putin, they knew he would create favorable, conditions in which corruption could, flourish, three months after the interview anna, politkovsky, was shot outside her apartment in moscow, but despite the shock and outrage, nothing changed, since putin had come to power the global, price of oil had increased massively, money had poured into russia one, journalist described what happened, the country you said rode through the, first decade of the 21st century in a, state of semi-oblivion, in a dream world of consumption, [Music], like bourgeoisie in china edward limonov, believed that the only way to escape, from this empty world, was to bring back the old dreams from, the past, but in his case the communism was mixed, with a fascist nationalism, [Music], why does the sun, does the sea rush to shore, don't play no it's the end, of the world, [Music], was now making billions and at the heart, of it, was data it had become a new gold rush, products of more and more companies, around the world were set up to mine, all the traces of human behavior, everywhere, and nothing was quite what it seemed, the makers of roomba revealed that new, models would also be able to gather and, transmit information, about the inside of people's homes, people though they added could always, turn this off if they wanted, hi i'm tristan global passion ambassador, for we vibe, couples vibrator and even the vibrato we, vibe was discovered transmitting data, about people's private behavior, back to the service good morning kayla, good morning i love the morning don't, you while the german government, instructed parents to destroy any models, of kayla the doll, because it contained what they called a, concealed espionage device, that could also transmit personal data, about the behavior of the whole family, and pokemon go which was created by a, subsidiary of google, was more than just a game as well as, extracting even more data from the, player's phones, it was also what one researcher, described as persuasive gaming, an experiment to see if you could move, mass groups of people around, to where you wanted them as well as, having fun, the players could also be guided to what, was called sponsored locations cafes and, bars, that would pay to be a part of the, system one journalist described the aim, pokemon she said is about herding people, to monetize checkpoints, without them being fully aware of it, all this was not only creating a world, where human behavior could be predicted, he was going to do something else, something that scientists and engineers, had been struggling with for 50 years, it was finally going to solve the, problem of how to create, real artificial intelligence, but it would do it by creating machines, that could see a different kind of, reality, one that was hidden from human beings, [Music], the key figure who did this was a, psychologist called jeffrey hinton, he was the great great grandson of, george bull, who had invented boolean logic that is, behind all the algorithms in modern, computers, [Music], in the 1990s hinton realized that the, idea that you can create ai, by feeding rules of human logic into the, machines, had completely failed, what hinton said was that you do the, opposite, you get rid of all the rules of logic, and instead, feed a mass of data into the computer, and let it look for its own connections, and patterns, he used what were called neural networks, where the connections, inside the computer mimicked the human, brain, [Music], back in the 90s there was a completely, different paradigm that wasn't called, artificial intelligence it was called, neural networks, that said we know about an intelligent, system it's the brain, and the way that works is you have lots, of little processes with lots of, connections between them, and you change the strengths of the, connections and that's how you learn, things, and those connection strengths change, have to somehow be driven by data, you're not programmed you somehow absorb, information from data, and you can't do it with rules there's, too many rules to write you just have to, learn it from data, now that data was available online, and hinton began to feed millions of, words and images, into the machines and instructed them to, look for patterns, to learn a language the neural network, would look for which particular words, appeared next to each other, in the billions of sentences they were, scanning and which were far apart, the machine is not interested in the, meaning of the sentence, only the patterns it was a completely, different way, of making sense of reality, human beings told themselves stories, about what was happening around them, minute by minute hinton's neural, networks, were a kind of intelligence that, completely ignored all stories, instead they crossed back and forth, across time and space, as they searched through data on the, internet looking for links and patterns, that human beings would never be able to, see or understand, [Music], it began to work on artificial, intelligence at google, and he gave what he had created a name, he called it, vector world it expressed what was, becoming one of the most powerful, mythologies of our age, the idea that had begun with complexity, theory in the early 1990s, it's said that the world is too, complicated for us as human beings to, understand, but nothing is too complicated for the, machines and the data, for they can see the hidden reality, under the surface, and this new fragmented way of ordering, reality into patterns, was going to spread as it did, it would detach human beings even, further from, understanding what was happening in the, real world, in the banks computers were being used, to package the vast amounts of mortgages, that were being lent in the property, boom to everyone, and anyone, the computers cut up the dangerous, high-risk loans, and recombined them with other safer, loans, the bankers believe that this, neutralized the risk, and stabilized the system, but as they did this the connection of, the deaths to human reality was broken, instead they simply became patterns of, millions of fragments of meaningless, data, moving harmlessly around the system in, the server farms, what had happened was that the bankers, the risk analysts, the rating agencies the accountants and, the politicians, had all given themselves up to this new, way of thinking, a way of thinking that said that the, data and the algorithms, understood the complexity of the world, better than you did, which meant that none of them saw the, absurdity of what was really happening, a vast wave of money was being lent to, millions of poor people, who could never afford to pay it back, [Music], but then it got more complicated because, human beings were also exposed to the, avalanche of data online, and they started to behave in very much, the same way, as jeffrey hinton's artificial, intelligence machines, they too spent vast amounts of time, searching through all the data, looking for patterns links and, coincidences, that had no obvious meaning but being, human beings, they then turned them into fantastic, elaborate stories, they were called conspiracy theories, [Music], forty years before kerry thornley and, his friend greg hill, had started what they called operation, mind [ __ ], they had spread the conspiracy theory, that the illuminati, were really the secret rulers of the, world they had done it, to parody and ridicule all conspiracy, theories, because they thought that they, undermined the confidence of individuals, and made them easier to control but now, in the mass of data online those stories, about the illuminati, got mixed up with other conspiracies, both true and false, and out of it came extraordinary, dream-like stories, built out of fragments of truth and, fiction, millions of people became convinced that, all the major stars, from britney spears to beyonce were, being manipulated, and controlled by the illuminati, the theory said that the illuminati had, worked with the cia, and their mk ultra project and with walt, disney, to create a new system of mind control, [Music], the star's videos contained hidden, messages, above all images of triangles put there, by the illuminati, telltale clues to what is really, happening, so, [Music], and in it shakur had attacked the way, the black community, was already in the 1990s retreating into, conspiracy theories, about the illuminati they were doing it, he said, to avoid confronting the very real, powers that did control their lives, turmoil on the american housing market, gets even worse and the aftershocks wipe, tens of billions off world stock markets, the organizations which underpin, mortgage lending in america need a, multi-billion dollar bailout, are you checking me are you asking me, the systems in the banks that had, structured the mortgage loans, failed completely it led to a global, economic crash, [Music], the governments in britain and america, rescued the banks, but they then decided to transfer the, debt that incurred, away from the private sector to the, public sector, and what was called austerity began, that decision was going to have powerful, consequences, because it created anger among millions, of people, outside the system then in the wake of, the crash, evidence of widespread corruption came, out that all the major banks had been, rigging interest, rates and many of them had been, laundering money for organized crime, including the drug cartels in mexico but, again, nothing seemed to change a few lowly, people were prosecuted, and experts talked of reforms and stress, tests, and the shock among those outside the, system grew further, and from that came the reaction it was, the elites, and people like you and me people that, bought into the system, and who's been held accountable namely, one, banker one ceo one, law firm one accounting firm we, basically just flooded the zone with, liquidity we bailed, out the party of davos and let me say it, differently, the party at davos the scientific, engineering managerial, financial cultural elite bail themselves, out, remember this populist movement in, donald trump, is not the cause of this they're the, product of this, and it worked on different levels it, wasn't it was most obvious level was we, got to take back control from brussels, but it was also, uh and i think david cameron and george, osborne didn't quite appreciate this, it was also about taking back control, from, of the of the system itself it was for a, lot of people take back control, made them think yeah these are the guys, who screwed up, the economy who drove off a cliff in, 2008, whose mates are all the goldman sachs, bankers and the hedge funds on massive, bonuses, us mugs on p-a-p-a-y-e are the ones, paying, paying the bills for this will show, those guys we'll take back control from, you lot in london, for dominic cummings brexit was not an, end in itself, for him it was a way of getting rid of, the failed elites, and the old political systems that ran, britain in their place, he was going to use modern network, technologies and data, to transform an old decaying society, but what cummings hadn't reckoned with, was how the campaign that he had begun, would awaken ghosts from britain's past, ladies and gentlemen, how they would reach out to possess, brexit, and modern britain, [Music], [Applause], at the end of 2011 the body of a british, man was discovered in the lucky holiday, hotel in chongqing, it was neil haywood who had been friends, with bourgeois and his wife, there were rumors that he had been, murdered did a british man die here, [Music], after the body was found boar's police, chief came to him, and he told him that boar's wife had, arranged the murder, because hayward was threatening to, reveal that she had been illegally, moving large amounts of money abroad, the police chief then fled to the, american consulate in nearby chengdu, because he feared that boar was going to, kill him, [Music], and he told the press that bohr and his, wife were really, ruthless gangsters who had brought, corruption to the very top of the, communist party, what then came out shocked china it was, alleged that while boar had portrayed, himself as an idealistic hero and, paraded gangsters, and corrupt officials in front of the, cameras, he and his police chief had really been, using extreme violence and torture, taking millions from organized criminals, and bribes from property developers, and then keeping the money for, themselves, [Music], sang songs praising mao zedong he had, really, just been using those revolutionary, ideas as a smokescreen, to hide corruption that went to the very, heart of the city government, but bourgeois denied all the allegations, he came to the party conference in, beijing and insisted that what was, happening, was an attempt to smear him by the, corrupt networks that he was rooting out, in chongqing, [Music], no one knew who to believe there were, rumors, that really was an even more complex, plot by his rivals in beijing, to stop more from getting power, and in the middle of the conference he, and his wife were arrested, and thrown into jail, [Applause], oh, uh, [Music], foreign, [Music], [Music], foreign, [Music], suddenly at the end of 2011 a wave of, protests burst out in russia, as well as [ __ ] rat one night a young, internet blogger, called alexi nalvalny got up on a, platform, and he chanted the phrase that redefined, russia, for what up to then had been an, apolitical generation, [Music], [Applause], foreign, [Music], [Applause], putin was furious it was complete, hypocrisy, he had given the new russian middle, classes prosperity, now they were stabbing him in the back, he grew increasingly paranoid, fearful that those groups who had, benefited from the corruption, would turn against him and to protect, himself, he shape-shifted again putin did the, very thing that edward limonov had, called for, he created a new organization called the, popular front, to promote russian nationalism, but putin went much further than the, monarch, because he summoned up a dark, frightening vision from russia's past, it's said that russia as a whole what, was called eurasia, was the last offence against a corrupt, west, that was trying to take over the whole, world, it was a great power nationalism that, challenged america's idea, of its exceptionalism what putin was, promoting, was russian exceptionalism it was, epitomized by the nighthawks, an extreme nationalist motorcycle club, who announced that they were now putin's, bodyguards, [Music], [Music], is, the night wolves put on mass shows that, dramatized the paranoid conspiracy, theory, that america led by barack obama and the, bankers, and the illuminati were planning to, undermine vladimir, putin and destroy russia, in the west after the crash the bankers, had also, now become the villains, they were at the center of conspiracy, theories that said that they were, running a global system of corruption, a wave of leaked documents seemed to, show that the city of london, had become the center of an, international network that was being, used to hide the illegal fortunes, of kleptocrats from all around the world, hundreds of billions it was alleged was, being taken, through london and then hidden in a, network of secretive, offshore territories that, anti-corruption investigators, called the second empire, but the problem was no one could, actually find out, how much of this was really true, because of something else the city of, london had always prided itself on, from the time of the empire its, [Music], discretion, it's not much doing nothing else has it, to you i'll give your symptoms hate me, sorry old man wrong way auntie, is that all has he done it no he's, evidently not satisfied, he'll try somewhere else now the, discretion that the city was still, so proud of had in reality turned into a, force shield, that stopped any proper investigation of, what was really going on, eminent law firms immediately issued, libel rights to anyone, trying to find out what was happening, but by suppressing any real information, the suspicions grew, that there was a dark frightening world, of dictators, drug lords russian gangsters arms, dealers, and international bankers all thriving, together, in the shadows of the city of london, [Music], which reinforced the idea that the world, was bewilderingly complicated, and way beyond our control, [Music], was put on trial for poisoning neil, hayward, she had confessed the court said and she, was given a suspended death sentence, then her husband borjilai was put on, trial in the city of janan, he denied all the charges of corruption, but outside the court something, unexpected began to happen, there are huge crowds here watching the, media, watching the trial and everybody who has, any sort of, grievance any sort of complaint against, the local government or the national, government, is here to try and get it out, oh, [Laughter], gave a glimpse of the widespread anger, and frustration in china, with the ruling system and its, corruption, forces simmering under the surface of, the society, the party leaders were split on how to, deal both with what bourgeois had done, and the forces of anger that had now, unleashed, when jibao who was the premier said that, the problems, the party had never confronted what had, happened during mao's time, unless you have political reform and, open up the society for democratic, debate when said, those ghosts will always threaten, but others disagreed above all the man, who had just been appointed the next, party's secretary, xi jinping his family like bores, had been at the very center of the, frightening forces that mountain had, unleashed, one journalist wrote they want to keep, that great, black box that conceals the struggles, and the brutality, upon which china has built its, staggering economic transformation, firmly closed, and to keep it closed xi jinping decided, to turn, china into a giant system in which, everyone's behaviour, could be predicted managed and, [Music], controlled, [Music], the aim was to learn from the data how, all the individuals linked together in, the society, so their behavior could be predicted, like components, in a system, [Music], but there was a further aim to adjust, the behavior of people, so they would fit better into the system, it was called algorithmic governance, if the data from all the different, sources showed a person behaving well, buying the right food for their children, not cheating at computer, games and not jaywalking then they would, be given what were called social credits, this would then give them rewards from, discounts on bills, to getting better visibility on dating, sites, even avoiding the cue to pay to see a, doctor, [Music], fifty years before an american, psychologist called bf skinner, had become notorious when he had, outlined just such a society, skinner had shown how he could easily, alter the behavior of animals, like pigeons by using a simple system of, rewards, he called it operant conditioning, in this experiment he must peck at the, cross ten times before the food is, forthcoming, after four or five sessions the pigeon, learns the routine perfectly, and pecks at the cross wherever he sees, it without being at the least upset at, being made to work for his living, now that produces in a rat or a pigeon, or a monkey or, and in a man a very high rate of, activity, and if you build up you can get enormous, amounts of behavior out of these, organisms, for very little pay you don't need to, give them very much to induce a lot of, that, now a world in which a great many, productive things occur, on this schedule will be a wonderful, world skinner wrote a novel, called walden 2 that described a future, utopia, where all human behavior would be, controlled through this kind of operant, conditioning, it was a utopia he said because it would, free society from all the dangerous and, irrational impulses, inside individuals minds all of that, could be sealed off by managing people's, behavior with rewards, and treats, [Music], now china had found a way of creating, just such a system of managing people, through the mass of data it was, gathering, it was being used to create a whole, society where what went on, inside people's heads was completely, irrelevant, their rational thought and their, feelings were all bypassed, [Music], it was only their observed behavior that, counted, and this allowed those in charge to bury, and hide the anger and frustration that, had been created, in a society that was riddled with, corruption, and growing inequalities, and if people didn't respond to the, treats they could be forcibly, reprogrammed, as it is alleged is happening in large, re-education facilities, in xinjiang to hundreds of thousands of, the muslim uighur population, [Music], in the west the corruption and the, inequalities also continued to grow, the politicians seemed unable to do, anything about it, but the technology systems were mutating, morphing into ever more extreme, forms and out of that is going to cover, completely new kind of management, and control in the modern world, unlike in china it wouldn't try and bury, people's emotions and feelings, it would work by doing the very opposite, pushing, and exaggerating those emotions to a, pitch of continual hysteria and, suspicion, that will create a frozen world, paralyzed by the distrust of everyone, and everything, by now the social media corporations had, realized that intense emotions, were the key to increased profits and, what were called viral content factories, were growing rapidly online, their aim was to spread memes and other, material that would create what they, called, high arousal emotions or activating, emotions, such as lust and nostalgia and envy or, best of all, outrage because these were feelings that, got people to pay attention, longer and react more intensely, which then translated into many more, clicks and shares, then in 2014 a group of psychologists, working with facebook, announced that they had found a way to, put hidden messages, into people's news feeds that would then, create specific moods and feelings, without the individuals being aware of, it, it was the moment when the, psychologist's theories of priming, or nudging fused with the power of the, new technology, and it seemed to show that manipulation, could work on an industrial scale, but when it was revealed it also had, another unintended, effect it began to sow a dark suspicion, into people's minds because they no, longer knew, whether what they were feeling or, thinking was their own, or really coming from outside sources, but for the machines that was no problem, because suspicion was also another, perfect high arousal emotion, that they could feed off that suspicion, was about to spread uncontrollably, across the internet, because into this mix came two terrible, shocks, the first was brexit the other was the, election of donald trump, the shock of both these was enormous, especially for the liberal classes who, had always seen themselves as protecting, the working class, they protested but the shock was so, intense, that many people found it difficult to, process what had happened, they couldn't imagine why the people had, not only turned against them, and their benign care but also, seemed to have voted against their own, best interests, and to explain it they latched on to the, idea of hidden manipulation, that thousands of voters in america and, in britain, had been manipulated online without them, realizing it, but then things became more complicated, [Music], because evidence has started to come out, from the world of science, that questioned the whole idea that, people could be manipulated, in such a way, psychology researchers had tried to, repeat a number of the most important, experiments, that were the foundations of modern, behavioral psychology, [Music], they were astonished to find that again, and again, when they repeated the experiments they, failed to get the original results, it seemed that much of the evidence for, priming just wasn't there, it got so bad that one of the most, famous psychologists in the world, who had promoted the idea of priming, daniel kahneman, wrote an open email to the science of, psychology, i see a train wreck looming he said, we have become the poster child for, doubts about the integrity of, psychological research, garnerman was frightened because it was, undermining the idea that he had helped, create, that in the human brain were systems, that the conscious self was unaware of, but which you the psychologist could, trigger unconsciously, but it also had wider implications, because it meant that companies like, cambridge analytica who claimed that, they could alter the way people behaved, by priming, might just be exploiting the hysteria, and the suspicion, the truth was that you might be able to, keep millions of, people in a state of constant anxiety, online, by bombarding them with memes, but you couldn't alter underneath what, they thought, and what they believed, [Music], people might be far stronger than the, scientists believed, but it was too late because once you, believe you are being manipulated, there is no way back even being told you, are not being manipulated, might be manipulation the liberal, opposition became lost, in an endless conspiracy theory, constantly searching for hidden clues, links and fragments of evidence to prove, that really vladimir putin, and firms like cambridge analytica had, orchestrated brexit, and the election of donald trump it was, a mood of hysteria, that ran out of control, [Music], whether the president of the united, states was a russian agent let me say, that again, whether the u.s president might have, been working, for the russians the walls closing in as, it appears the walls are closing in, in terms of the mueller investigation, the walls are closing in the the walls, are closing in i do feel, that he feels the walls closing in on, him legal walls are closing in on donald, trump tonight, from a democratic perspective this is, the president feels like the walls are, closing in as he feels the walls are, closing in, i think he's feeling a rush, investigation i think he's feeling the, wheels the, the walls closing in on him, but what had really been manufactured by, the hysteria, and the suspicion was a constant source, of those high arousal emotions that the, machines needed, they didn't care about the meaning of, what people thought or felt about donald, trump, they just fed off the waves of paranoia, making the technology companies ever, more profitable, and powerful, but many of those old institutions who, had been sidelined, also found that by promoting the, suspicions they could regain their power, trump is about to call me, [Music], can't trust what they tell us major, newspapers in america and, in britain that might have gone bankrupt, without donald trump, were rescued by the continual waves of, conspiracy theories they revealed, while the intelligence agencies who only, a few years before had been hated, because they had invented the weapons of, mass destruction, now became heroic truth-tellers, revealing ever more hidden conspiracies, and vladimir putin whose power in, reality, was becoming increasingly fragile at, home in russia, became in the eyes of the west a dark, malevolent force, which made him seem far stronger than he, really was, [Music], foreign, [Music], [Music], hey, and for donald trump the paranoia, allowed him to hide the fact, that he was doing nothing to get rid of, the corruption in america, as he had promised his supporters though, had their own conspiracy theory cuenon, that explained why nothing was happening, trump was being stopped, by a secret cabal of pedophiles in, washington, and for the liberal opposition it was a, way of avoiding, facing up to the genuine grievances and, the very real anger in america, that trump's election had revealed, that he might be the product of a, country where large areas had fallen, into both desolation, and despair towns where all the, factories had closed, millions had become addicted to opioids, and yet no one in power had come to, rescue them, but the liberals couldn't face this, because they too, had no idea of how to solve those, [Music], problems, and outside in the real world nothing, actually changed, the structure of power the inequalities, and the decay all carried on, unchecked while, all kinds of groups who wanted to cling, on to power, protected themselves behind this brittle, shell of conspiracy theories, built out of disconnected fragments, but it was a very fragile structure, and at this point google's engineers, demonstrated how easily reality, in this fragmented world could become, strange and frightening, [Music], they created an ai program to learn how, to see dogs, but they then showed how if they ran the, algorithm backwards, the machines would alter the images of, reality they were being fed, so they would see dogs everywhere, it was a world where anything could be, anything, because there was no real meaning any, longer, [Music], that it makes, [Music], see honey, [Music], disfigure me, into something i am not recognizing, [Music], and then into this fragile structure, came a catastrophe covid, unlike the other catastrophes of the, past 20 years, like 911 and the economic crash of 2008, the virus was a force that came from, completely outside the systems of power, but it has come at a moment when many of, the old certainties of this age, are already cracking oh my [ __ ] you're, in your, head you understand me don't you get, moving [ __ ] in your, head you hear me, [Music], but the virus did more than just, accelerate the chaos, it has dramatically brought into focus, just how deep the inequalities in modern, western societies, have gone the millions of low-paid, workers, who have to keep working to prevent the, societies from collapsing, are at much higher risk and those living, in deprived areas, are suffering much higher rates of, illness and of death, those who benefit from the system of, power it seems are much safer than those, who do not, but are also getting much richer as the, markets keep rising, in the pandemic, [Music], in the past the shock of catastrophes, has often led to a radical, reorganization of societies, and it may be that even in the grim, uncertainty of these days, but that same impulse to imagine other, kinds of future will emerge, one possible future is that, individualism will disappear, and with it the very idea of individual, freedom, as has already begun in china data will, be gathered and used on a massive scale, to predict and manage all human behavior, in the way that the psychologist b.f, skinner predicted, he said that individualism would be just, a brief moment, in history before science would find a, way to manage and control, everyone you would said skinner, create a world that is beyond freedom, and dignity, skinner believes that the experimental, analysis of behavior, suggests that man's environment performs, many of the functions, once attributed to his inner feelings a, man feels free, if he believes he is free and he will, believe he is free, if he is conditioned by positive, reinforcement to think so, his only hope is that he will come under, the control of a natural and social, environment, which will enable him to pursue, happiness successfully, another possibility is that the future, will be like the past, many people are hoping that with the, election of joe biden in america, it will be possible to return to an old, stability, where individualism can continue to be, managed by a benign elite, [Music], but although donald trump is gone and, the brexit deal done, what they both revealed was that, underneath western societies, there are enormous pressures building up, that will not go away, while protests have broken out again in, russia, after the arrest of Alexey Navalny tens, of thousands came out, onto the streets demanding an end to the, corrupt regime led by vladimir putin, the reality is that all these societies, not just america and britain, but china and russia too are exhausted, empty of any new ideas, all of them have corruption that has, burrowed deep into their institutions, corruption that the politicians seem, powerless to stop, while china which many believe is a, model for the future, is underneath the society not only, riddled with corruption, but its growth is declining far more, than the official figures reveal, while its population is rapidly ageing, far from being an alternative future, china may well be yet another, old decaying society that relies on a, powerful surveillance system, to maintain its power because it, too has no other vision of the future, the third possibility is to try to, imagine genuinely new kinds of futures, ones that have never existed before but, to do that, we as individuals will have to regain, the confidence that we have lost, in this frightened and uncertain time, but already the psychological theories, that tell us we are weak and manipulable, are cracking and more and more people, are beginning to realize, that the fragmented emotions of anxiety, and suspicion that they feel inside them, may really be just the raw material for, the technology corporations to feed off, it may be that we are really far, stronger than we think, the one thing that is certain is that, the world of the future will be, different, and that the people in that future will, feel and think, differently too if we can regain our, confidence, we will find that we have the power to, influence how that future turns out, and as a first step we have to start, imagining, what kind of future it is we want to, build, the anthropologist and activist david, graber who died last year, described the forgotten idea that is, waiting to be rediscovered, and how thrilling it could be, the ultimate hidden truth of the world, he wrote, is that it is something we make, [Music], and could just as easily make, differently, [Music], what you've seen is, [Music], is, [Music], i only hope that you come, [Music], i'm, [Music], no matter what seas i have been, [Music], i'll always roll this way, [Music], there are some times, [Music], let you come, [Music], till, [Music], um, [Music], [Music], i, [Music], circumstances the body, is good business, [Music],

See also

• Wokeness
• Trotsky and the Wild Orchids
• Can't Get You Out of My Head
• Emotions
• Government by algorithm
• Haidt and Hume
• Yegor Letov