The Shock Doctrine

From The Thought Kitchen

Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist, syndicated columnist and author of the international bestseller No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies. She is a former Miliband Fellow at the London School of Economics and holds an honorary Doctor of Civil Laws from the University of King’s College, Nova Scotia. She was voted 11th, the highest ranked woman, in the Global Intellectuals Poll-a list of the world’s top public intellectuals compiled by Prospect Magazine, in conjunction with Foreign Policy Magazine.

Klein recently published a controversial best seller entitled The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. In it she defines shock doctrine as “the use of public disorientation following massive collective shocks-wars, terrorist attacks, natural disasters-to push through highly unpopular economic shock therapy.” The metaphor of “shock” is important because her thesis stems from a contention that what works on a person also works on a nation. Think 9/11 and fear-induced politics that have eroded some of the fundamentals of what we knew as American democracy.

Inspired by Klein’s book, director Alfonso Cuarón created the short film, “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.” Klein explains how the film came to be made,

“When I finished The Shock Doctrine, I sent it to Alfonso Cuarón because I adore his films and felt that the future he created for Children of Men was very close to the present I was seeing in disaster zones. I was hoping he would send me a quote for the book jacket and instead he pulled together this amazing team of artists — including Jonás Cuarón who directed and edited — to make The Shock Doctrine short film. It was one of those blessed projects where everything felt fated.”

You are likely to find the film interesting for a number of reasons, including the historical footage of patients receiving shock treatment.

~ by ncowie on October 3, 2007.