Adam Curtis on the Dangers of Self-Expression
Thanks to digital technology, we can all become film directors, musicians and game-makers. Mass creativity is possible as never before. But this isn’t quite the imaginative golden age it should be. Instead, powerful forces seem to be stunting creativity and promoting conformism, complacency, institutional inertia and a fear of being too different.
Geoff Mulgan • Another World Is Possible: How to Reignite Social and Political Imagination
Governments and organisations that arise out of the Subject Story are paternalistic and hierarchical, with the inherently superior few at the top of the pyramid. In light of this story coming before, it is little wonder that the Consumer felt like a breath of fresh air.
Brian Eno • Citizens: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us
I exist on a tightrope between pessimism and optimism. We’re living at a moment in time when there’s more intelligence on the planet than there has ever been. There’s also more connectivity between us, which multiplies that power. That gives me hope. But the power to direct the thoughts of the human race is in fewer and fewer hands. The Zuckerbergs... See more
James McMahon • Brian Eno: ‘Sex, drugs, art… they’re all ways of surrendering’
“But you allow other entities to take away your freedoms all the time. It’s an intrinsic part of your system. It couldn’t function without that. You grant companies access to your attention so that they can alter your choices in exchange for entertainment. You identify with groups and grant them the ability to choose for you which problems you will
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