I have a friend who isn't a leftist that really likes all of his documentaries. I watched a few videos and the thing that stuck out to me is how much Curtis focuses on the individual thoughts and actions of specific people throughout history, with almost no focus on the systems that motivate their behavior.

For example, in "The Century of the Self" he discusses how Edward Bernays made it rich using his physchology background to become a marketing consultatant for some of the major corporations during the time period. These corporations were looking for a way to use psychology to manipulate the working class (what Curtis refers to as "the masses" for some reason) into buying their products.

From a materialist perspective Bernays isn't really important at all. He happened to be the person who began using psychology to market to people, but if it wasn't him there would have been someone else who did it.

Maybe this content works as a primer for a more materialist understanding of society and history, but to me it almost seems like he is hiding the ball. "It's not capitalism, it just a collection of individual decisions."