Week 11

References

Hyper-normalisation:

1975 – New York and Damascus
New York City was on verge of collapse. Borrowing money from banks. Middle class fell from the city, taxi’s they paid fell with them. Banks just stopped on one day. Issue bombs in return for the loans. Financial institutions took power away from the politicians and started to run society themselves. Radicals of America turn to art and music to express. Self-expression, not collective action.

Dr. Strangelove 1964, the movie was based on nuclear weapons and Henry Kissinger – this documentary makes it seem as though he was modelled on this however, Sellers said, “Strangelove was never modelled after Kissinger—that’s a popular misconception. It was always Wernher von Braun.”Furthermore, Henry Kissinger points out in his memoirs that at the time of the writing of Dr. Strangelove, he was an unknown academic.“

Soviet Union – to be new and better humans. It instead became a society where nobody believed in anything, without any vision of the future. Discovered it was impossible, so pretended it was all ok. It became a society where they could see the leaders were lying and living in a fake world as the economy was falling apart. This is where the term hyper-normalisation comes from.

This film is eye-opening, and feels extremely raw with uncensored footage from bombs, deaths etc. I am someone who has very little knowledge of politics. I have chosen to be this way. I find politics quite a personal, sensitive topic, and I feel that I do not understand enough of it to have an opinion. I find it hard, as I equally want to learn about it but I find it very difficult to understand the logic behind radical beliefs.