Fuck You Buddy

Last night I saw the first in a series of documentaries on BBC 2 called The Trap: What happened to our dreams of freedom, and I was overwhemled to see that my own thoughts and worries about society were being reflected back at me on the TV.

I felt vindicated and bolstered in my thoughts on the subject, which most would consider paranoid delusional ramblings. Although as a result I may have to change my views of the UK being a free country, and of the BBC being a puppet of the government, but then I did spot a problem in the logic of the programme and maybe why it was allowed to be aired.

The show called out the idea of a theory having the opposite effect to that intended, an example used was the war in Iraq. The theory was to free the Iraqies and give them the kind of freedom that we have in this country, however as a result of this action, the region has been unstablized, islamic faiths have been angered, and terrorists have made Britain less safe, now laws are in place that make us less free.

What this means for the series is that by airing this show, telling of the loss of freedom, people will actually become less free. More people will now associate with game theory and cold war thinking and this is in the governments interest. Had the show been a warning about our future it would be a different thing, as would a programme just exploring the freedom that we all have but often do not use. The latter sort of viewing probably would not be allowed on the BBC!

Having been born into the Cold War and not knowing life before it, I found the most startling idea in The Trap that of cold war thinking. According to the programme, this changed society so that in all our hearts and minds there is still a cold war happening, however it is not between east and west, but between us as individuals and our nearest and dearest, we have all become indoctrinated in the game playing that the theorists of the cold war invented. This is the the new invisible control that governments have over people, and something that rings true for me and my own experience.

The idea of betraying your partners rather than trusting them for personal gain is something I see going on all around me, and something I try my best stay away from. I don't play "fuck you buddy" and neither should you.

Finding out that ones ideas are not madness is an enlightening experience, like that of realising that everyone is actually mad and madness is just part of being human.