4 ms·

Curtis should really scratch a certain part of me, the part that listens to numbers stations and stays up at night reading old declassified cold war papers etc.

by mhh__ 5y ago

Curtis should really scratch a certain part of me, the part that listens to numbers stations and stays up at night reading old declassified cold war papers etc., But I just can't believe anything he says. The ratio of confidence to lack of citations is just alarming. I enjoyed and somewhat agreed with the main thesis of hypernormalisation but it just seemed impossible to verify. It doesn't help that a lot of his work is inspired by philosophers writing about society, which is usually completely unfalsifiable and comes with a certain smugness.

vizzier 5y ago
If you take it as a piece of entertainment, more of a historical clip show with some connected narrative they can be enjoyable to watch even without trusting the information entirely. Curtis has a gift of picking out obscure and interesting clips many of which were filmed before many of his audience (including myself) were even born. His British slant (and the fact that they come from the BBC archives) may make their relevance to those watching from outside of the UK particularly low however, depending on the overall film's subject matter.
- mhh__ 5y ago
  The clips are why I bothered to finish watching it. Its interesting it just isn't true... I am British so no complaints about archival footage
  - sgt101 5y ago
    Which bits aren't true?
    - mhh__ 5y ago
      I was being hyperbolic. The whole narrative with Syria for example is vaguely plausible but I really struggled to find sources to back up this grand conspiracy he very directly alleges.
max_ 5y ago
> But I just can't believe anything he says. He is the only guy I believe when it comes to politics. He things as they can be seen (often backed up by video evidence) not narratives. Its an accurate view of politics that actually explains a lot of what happens
sgt101 5y ago
The different elements can all be verified, the narratives aren't there because he doesn't push them. The fundamental that I took from hypernormalisation was that there are co-incidences everywhere if you look hard enough but that co-incidences don't prove anything.
- mhh__ 5y ago
  Pushing narratives is all he does. He carefully writes as though he isn't, but he is absolutely pushing a narrative. The whole section about Gaddafi is a narrative just one that he presents carefully The elements can be verified but does that mean his central thesis is emergent or the result of people's will? Is Curtis himself a hypernormalizer? I am tempted to say yes.
okmnji 5y ago
you sound like someone who would say they cant read Shakespeare because he writes fiction so he has nothing to say about the human condition.
- mhh__ 5y ago
  So you're saying Curtis is writing fiction? FWIW I am deeply sceptical of fictional accounts of the human condition. What's the difference between (say) Lord of the flies and some white supremacist novel - ignoring the actual quality of the writing? They both purport to tell deep truths about the human condition, but does that mean they are right? Telling us something does not mean that thing is true; I think this is a real blight on our discourse (and probably will be forever). The only time something like the lord of the flies ever actually happened in real life, the story was apparently very different https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/09/the-real-lord-of-the-flies-what-happened-when-six-boys-were-shipwrecked-for-15-months https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/09/the-real-lord-...

by mhh__ 5y ago

vizzier 5y ago

If you take it as a piece of entertainment, more of a historical clip show with some connected narrative they can be enjoyable to watch even without trusting the information entirely. Curtis has a gift of picking out obscure and interesting clips many of which were filmed before many of his audience (including myself) were even born. His British slant (and the fact that they come from the BBC archives) may make their relevance to those watching from outside of the UK particularly low however, depending on the overall film's subject matter.

mhh__ 5y ago
The clips are why I bothered to finish watching it. Its interesting it just isn't true... I am British so no complaints about archival footage
- sgt101 5y ago
  Which bits aren't true?
  - mhh__ 5y ago
    I was being hyperbolic. The whole narrative with Syria for example is vaguely plausible but I really struggled to find sources to back up this grand conspiracy he very directly alleges.

max_ 5y ago

> But I just can't believe anything he says. He is the only guy I believe when it comes to politics. He things as they can be seen (often backed up by video evidence) not narratives. Its an accurate view of politics that actually explains a lot of what happens

sgt101 5y ago

The different elements can all be verified, the narratives aren't there because he doesn't push them. The fundamental that I took from hypernormalisation was that there are co-incidences everywhere if you look hard enough but that co-incidences don't prove anything.

mhh__ 5y ago
Pushing narratives is all he does. He carefully writes as though he isn't, but he is absolutely pushing a narrative. The whole section about Gaddafi is a narrative just one that he presents carefully The elements can be verified but does that mean his central thesis is emergent or the result of people's will? Is Curtis himself a hypernormalizer? I am tempted to say yes.

okmnji 5y ago

you sound like someone who would say they cant read Shakespeare because he writes fiction so he has nothing to say about the human condition.

mhh__ 5y ago
So you're saying Curtis is writing fiction? FWIW I am deeply sceptical of fictional accounts of the human condition. What's the difference between (say) Lord of the flies and some white supremacist novel - ignoring the actual quality of the writing? They both purport to tell deep truths about the human condition, but does that mean they are right? Telling us something does not mean that thing is true; I think this is a real blight on our discourse (and probably will be forever). The only time something like the lord of the flies ever actually happened in real life, the story was apparently very different https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/09/the-real-lord-of-the-flies-what-happened-when-six-boys-were-shipwrecked-for-15-months https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/09/the-real-lord-...