My lingering feeling that he sucks/is an op is growing. I’ve long figured that nobody truly subversive would be getting published by the BBC. The majority of his latest work is a borderline anti communist hit piece tbh.

  • BigLadKarlLiebknecht [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    4 years ago

    He’s been pretty clear that he’ doesn’t hold left wing views, from 2012:

    People often accuse me of being a lefty. That’s complete rubbish. If you look at The Century of the Self, what I’m arguing is something very close to a neo-conservative position because I’m saying that, with the rise of individualism, you tend to get the corrosion of the other idea of social bonds and communal networks, because everyone is on their own. Well, that’s what the neo-conservatives argue, domestically.

    …

    I’m very much a creature of my time. I don’t really have any. I change my mind over different issues, but I am much more fond of a libertarian view. I have a more libertarian tendency…

    I still find his films an entertaining exploration of the superstructure, even if they don’t tie things back to the base with a material analysis. He’s certainly not an op, his stuff is just the right kind of Guardian-friendly edginess that BBC commissioning editors love.

      • KurdKobein [any]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Isn't that basically what Hoppe libertarianism is?

    • captcha [any]
      ·
      4 years ago

      He is sort of a natural moth-light for leftists and Marxists not because of his opinions but because his analysis is a familiar dialectic:

      These people believe X and have material interests Y so they do Z, but these other people believe A and have material interests in B so they do C in response to Z. Etc etc. That sort of analysis is rare in documentaries. Candy coat it with some trippy archive footage and western Marxists gobble it up.

      If anything he's a dialectical idealist in a way. Not like he believes the material world is an idea just that ideas shape the world more than material interests do.

      • glimmer_twin [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        I do think his work is extremely dialectical, you might have hit the nail on the head about why it appeals to marxists there.

        If anything he’s a dialectical idealist in a way. Not like he believes the material world is an idea just that ideas shape the world more than material interests do.

        Adam Curtis is a Hegelian confirmed