The film is well made and the subject matter is thought-provoking.
However, after watching this movie, the question that I am most confused about and want to clarify is: What does Dominic Cummings want from all this?
What he wants is not secular power: before joining the movement, he stayed away from politics for a long time, and even lived in seclusion on his father's farm for several years, during which the main content of his life was "extensive reading." After the successful Brexit campaign, he soon retired again.
What he didn't want was money: when the board of directors was going to give him a large sum of money to ask him to quit, he didn't even have any interest in listening to the number.
He is not trying to realize his political ideals or ambitions: From the movies, Cummings does not believe that Brexit is really good for the country. There is no friendship between him and his colleagues who are struggling for common ideals.
According to Wikipedia, Cummings graduated from the Department of Ancient and Modern History at Oxford University. After graduating from university, he went to Russia for 3 years and opened an airline with only one plane. (Interruption, BC played a radio drama called Cabin Pressure, about an airline with only one plane. This is the funniest drama I have ever heard, strong Amway for everyone.) Then, Cummings returned to the UK Began to engage in political consultation and organize and lead various campaigns. During this period, he resigned/resigned many times, mainly because he could not bear the "incompetence" of colleagues or other politicians, or could not accept the interference of these people. When he was not in politics, Cummings devoted himself to education and charity. He wrote a 240-page paper-"Some Thoughts on Educational and Political Priorities" on the topic of how to transform Britain into an "elite technological society". A reporter commented on the 240-page paper "It's either crazy, bad, or genius, maybe a combination of the three." The main evaluation of Cummings is that he is an "idealist." ", and he "cannot accept fools happily." Cummings is sharp and direct, Cameron said he is a "professional antisocial." After the success of the Brexit movement, Cummings once again stayed away from politics. Now his time is mainly used for "learning", and his Twitter and blog are all about "machine learning".
So, what does such a smart person want from this drama?
In the movie, Cummings expressed this opinion when he went to the bar with the leaders of the Remaining faction: You (the elites) control everything, use your self-righteous expert opinions to occupy all the right to speak, and make some people completely Lost the opportunity to speak up-I want to fight back for those people the opportunity to speak up. At the final hearing, Cummings also pointed out: the country’s political system has been ineffective for a long time, no matter which faction comes to power, it is a backwater, so I must completely break this malfunctioning mechanism and strive for an opportunity for change (even if this This change is catastrophic).
These two explanations, in my opinion, are not Cummings' real motives.
The first is hypocritical. If he really cares about these people, he should tell them the facts and let them weigh them for their own interests, instead of deceiving them with lies and using them by emotional manipulation. Moreover, since Cummings wrote a 240-page essay to demonstrate how to transform Britain into an "elite technological society", it is difficult for me to understand why he has such a populist ideal.
The second article is very logical, because the current situation is very bad-so I have to change and make it worse? Do you hesitate to destroy everything for one idea?
So what does Dominic Cummings want?
In my opinion, his motivation is exactly the slogan of the genius he put forward: "Take back control".
He withdrew from political career many times, precisely because he could not bear the idiots, incompetence, and disgust of others. He couldn't bear those boastful, empty-headed politicians who commanded him endlessly, who was truly talented and capable. He is clearly right, why should he be led by the wrong person?
Cummings wants to "Take back control". Only great deeds and victory can prove that he is right, and the stupid people who interfered with him are wrong-no matter how much disaster this victory will bring to the country and the people he claims to help.
The Remaining faction wants to use statistics and facts to persuade the people. They believe in rationality. The brilliance of the Brexitists (Cummings to be precise) is that they know that what really drives people is not rational at all, but irrational emotions: their fear, anxiety, pain, their dreams, ambitions, Eagerly. Even if these things can't make the world better or their lives better, this is what drives people to act desperately.
Facts have proved Cummings is right, irrational triumphs over rationality, and Brexitists have won. But I don’t know if Cummings realized that he himself also let irrational triumph over rationality. In order to win, to prove that he was right, and to regain illusory control, he destroyed his ideals, severely injured the democratic system, and reversed the destiny of the entire country. The results he obtained were not beneficial at all, or even at all. Not what he really wanted.
Even if a literally smart person is like this, who has a stand to blame those people who voted for Brexit?
At the people's exchange meeting, a white woman finally gave up communication completely, just kept crying: "I'm fed up with my own worthlessness, fed up with others always telling me to shut up, I'm fed up! Enough! Enough!"
That hysterical woman may be a portrayal of everyone in this era.
Cummings has had enough. So when the Brexitists asked him to come out, he didn't want money or power, as long as he was "completely autonomous." He just wants to take back control.
Enough for blue-collar workers. So they don't want to know whether Brexit can bring them job opportunities, and they don't even care whether their living standards will really improve due to Brexit. They just want to take back control.
I think the leader of the Remaining faction has had enough. The facts, evidence, arguments, and rationality he believes seem to be no one wants to listen to. Only the low-earth lies of the Brexitists are brainwashed in the media all day long.
Probably even Cameron has had enough. So after he made his resignation declaration and got rid of the mess, he actually wanted to hum happily.
Because the differences between one part and the other are so great, discussion and reconciliation seem impossible.
Information, data, and all kinds of arguments are overwhelming. No one has the ability or the mood to listen, analyze, and communicate seriously.
In fact, we no longer care about the real world, we just don't want to hear those different voices. Because the world is so chaotic and terrifying, so many voices that oppose us can never fight for a result. There are only endless upsets, changes of the times, explosions of information, we cannot understand, we are powerless to resist, out of control and powerlessness overwhelmed. Without us, we can no longer or unwilling to bear so much fear, anxiety, and pain.
So we no longer want to solve the problem, we give up rationality. We just want to prove that we are right and they are wrong. We just want to take back control.
I don't care if it hurts.
I wanna have control.
Maybe this is the overwhelming voice in each of us. In the past, we communicated and reconciled, only because we, as social animals, must do so in order to survive.
Now, thanks to technology, we don't have to do that anymore.
We are all fed up.
We were fed up with others who kept saying we were wrong, so we decided to retreat into our own small world. As long as everyone looks at the small screen of the prison and only looks at the information that is pushed for us and suits our hearts, we will never hear objections again. In the false world tailored for us, we finally regained control and became the king of the infinite universe in the nutshell.
From a certain perspective, we have entered a mild version of San Junipero ("Black Mirror" s03e04).
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