The Trap - We Will Force You to Be Free (2007) 3/3

'We Will Force You to Be Free' - Adam Curtis examines the consequences of the attempts of Tony Blair and the Americans to enforce their version of liberty around the world, from Russia to Iraq. Their approach, he argues, was based on the assumption that their intervention would a inspire a new form of democracy and order to arise. Instead it ended up creating authoritarian nationalism in the former Soviet Union and anti-democratic Islamism in Iraq.

The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom is a BBC television documentary series by English filmmaker Adam Curtis. The series consists of three 60-minute programmes which explore the modern concept and definition of freedom, specifically, "how a simplistic model of human beings as self-seeking, almost robotic, creatures led to today's idea of freedom

Isaiah Berlin made distinctions between a 'positive' and revolutionary idea of freedom, which he believed was dangerous and violent, and the 'negative' freedom that allows people to live their lives without hindrance. From here, Adam Curtis takes us through the 20th Century, right up to the Iraq War. He shows that sometimes the revolutionary positive freedom is more desirable, by providing individuals with meaning in life, while the pursuit of democratic and capitalist negative freedom can be just as brutal.