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The BBC, Ayn Rand, computers and the explanation of everything

by Robert Teitelman | Published June 3, 2011 at 12:33 PM

Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution watches a BBC documentary called "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace," which, he says, manages to link "Ayn Rand, Silicon Valley, the 'rise of the machines,' anarchism, the financial crisis and Monica Lewinsky" into one "hallucinatory" narrative. Comments Tabarrok: "Not your usual documentary. Evaluated as a whole, it's madness but delicious madness."
Tabarrok is spot on: It's not your usual documentary, although I confess the "madness" and the "hallucinatory" quality quickly grate on me. The BBC film -- at least the first few segments, which Marginal Revolution offers up -- is a vast conspiracy-as-dream, a feverish attempt to "explain" the last two decades. Given its dream-like logic, the film is all but impermeable to criticism; you can't begin to make a rational argument about any of its numerous connections and interconnections because much of its argumentation is conducted not through cause and effect, thesis and evidence, but through juxtaposition, metaphor and statement -- or overstatement. It's as if the filmmakers took any number of events, themes and personalities over the past few decades and said: These will only make sense to us if we shuffle and arrange them in beguiling ways that, well, make sense to us. It's a paranoid vision: Everything is connected. Ayn Rand's famous affair with disciple Nathaniel Brandon in the '50s, which ended badly, is somehow tied to Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky in the '90s, which ended badly. And that Clintonian affair, which the film argues rendered Clinton powerless -- not true -- had something to do with the Asia Crisis, the rise to absolute power of Alan Greenspan, theories of networked society based on "Pong," and on and on and on.

If there's a theme that survives all this ricocheting from one subject to the next, it's the hubris of elites: Rand, the wizards of Silicon Valley (far fewer of whom are Rand devotees than the film suggests: The evolution of the computer, the Internet or even the New Economy was not fueled by secret Rand cells in Palo Alto), Wall Streeters, Washington policymakers and politicians. These last few decades have been punctuated by popular utopian beliefs in technology (notably the Internet), in a new world order, in a New Economy, in risk management, in the Great Moderation, in the Rational Expectations Hypothesis, and in (though far less than the rest of these) the sort of romanticized libertarianism inspired by Rand and her heavy-breathing novels of self-centered men and titanic deeds. What ties much of this together is the notion, hardly a big secret, that tangible technological advances, notably digital electronics, loosed a variety of overheated expectations -- intellectual, ideological and economic. There were others (the fall of the Soviet Union), but the Internet was a big deal.

The BBC folks declare that this hubristic dream feeds off some unifying theme of "stability." Now "stability" is one of those rhetorically delicious, if definitionally challenged catch phrases that may apply to everything -- or nothing. While the Clintonian advocates of the Washington Consensus did believe in a stable global order under American hegemony, it's a stretch to view Internet mania of the '90s as dominated by some outgrowth of Randian libertarianism whose goal was stability. The popular notion of a new kind a stable, self-regulating networked society of anarchic freedom was always puerile; and how that can be extracted from Rand's stew of Nietzsche-lite ideas is unclear beyond the fact that some tech types read her books and were wowed. (There's a real conflation here, by the way, between conservative free-market ideas and Rand's notions, which would make the likes of Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek howl.) This is popular history fueled by the Zeitgeist. If you believe people are sloshed in great tides by ideas that are "in the air," which is sort of a Time magazine theory of history, then you never need to prove any motivational link. You simply conjure up a world of correspondences, mediated by the invisible hand of the Zeitgeist, say between Rand and Clinton's adulteries. The link? Since the documentary never explains, you have to guess. Maybe that's the delicious part. Both Rand and Clinton saw themselves as above ordinary morality, which is hardly rare, though Clinton as a Randian -- as opposed to merely randy -- is laughable. If Clinton, why not Cleopatra as a Randian precursor? Or Henry VIII? Is it too late for Dominique Strauss-Kahn?

The BBC was clearly not satisfied with an essay on technological and economic enthusiasms. It wants to provide a universal explanation that makes sense to folks who have the most cursory of knowledge of any of these subjects. This requires ruthless simplification. Alan Greenspan comes to Clinton and says you must cut the deficit, and the president robotically obeys; there is no argument, no debate, no context. He does so only to please the bond markets, which consists of a handful of plutocrats. There are no better long-term reasons to control deficits. Greenspan then sits in his tub and can't find the productivity gains to justify the resulting boom. He utters a truth, "irrational exuberance," gets hammered and folds like a cheap suit. Greenspan is both weak and all-powerful; Rand hovers behind him like a ghost. Clinton is feckless, callow, rudderless; Hilary (no mention of her role in the important, if disastrous, healthcare reform effort) is shown in herky-jerky clips acting like Jackie Kennedy, as if her image in the popular press of the day was real. Clinton is a cipher, a pawn, a cheesy chump -- also mysteriously manipulated by scary Bob Rubin who, if he's not a secret Objectivist, seems impelled by the same forces. Motivations here are either murky or profoundly simple, mostly involving some deep loyalty to Wall Street. Despite all the blathering about Rand and networks and machines, everything seems to come down to the will of a small cadre of Wall Streeters. I kept waiting for the Goldman, Sachs & Co. segment. Perhaps they're saving that.

"All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace" is our age's version of Oliver Stone's "JFK": a tangled, difficult, painful history simplified into a cartoon for folks unwilling to deal with complexities and ambiguities. Like "The Fountainhead," its blend of menace and paranoia is most appealing to the credulous and to the adolescents among us. Its fluid, drifting, surreal style makes it seem far more hip and "smart" than conventional narrative, which in any event would quickly collapse under the top-heavy argument. It is another sign, I suppose, of our current infatuation with hidden, murky conspiracies rather than challenging, complex realities. It is another explanation how we got into some of these messes in the first place. - Robert Teitelman

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