Editor’s note: This commentary is by Stuart Graves, of South Burlington, who is a retired physician.
[I]n the mid-’60s Lionel Trilling published a slim collection of essays titled “Beyond Culture.” In it he explored the idea and its evidence that the individual, or the self, is not entirely created or formed by culture, but that a person has a place to stand and be “beyond” culture. This may seem common sense when viewed from many regions of our contemporary intellectual compass, but remember that we were just then emerging from an era in which all of psychology had been reduced to stimulus and response, and sociology had followed lockstep with that by asserting that what a person felt, thought, and did was determined by the society in which they existed. Trilling, however, viewed the whole of modern literature as contrary evidence. He understood it to be the stories of the self: the howl of Ginsberg at not being wholly owned, described, understood and defined by the forms of the culture in which one found oneself. From Fyodor Dostoyevsky to Isaac Bashevis Singer to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn; from Franz Kafka to Günter Grass; from Frederico Garcia Lorca to Pablo Neruda; from Jean-Paul Sartre to Albert Camus; from Virginia Woolf to Aldous Huxley to Evelyn Waugh to Samuel Beckett; from Emily Dickinson to Mark Twain to e e cummings to John Steinbeck to Kurt Vonnegut to Maya Angelou to Margaret Atwood: they all gave voice to the horrific violence that could be inflicted upon the self by culture.
Much of today’s media has become the unwitting (and sometimes witting) purveyor of that dull, blind horror slouching our way. It has become mired in, and can recognize little beyond our own culture. It has a marked tendency to describe every person, every action, and every event as only instances of preformed cultural understandings; understandings from the realms of biology, intellect and the spirit do not exist. This is not to deny that there is much that is good about our media, but it is to begin an explanation of the widespread disaffection (from left, middle, and right) with it in our society today.
Our media is mired because it is both controlled by, and is controlling of culture. This is a positive feedback loop: the sort of thing we easily recognize as an ear piercing, crescendoing screech over a PA system. It is hard for any “outside sound” to enter the system.
Control of the media by various elements of a culture is effected through the mechanism of money. This can be either indirect, utilizing money to create police and prisons who are then directed to imprison those who espouse unwanted viewpoints, or it can be direct, utilizing money to hire only those who look and speak as desired.
Our founders were clear about the need for an informed citizenry and believed the “press” played an important role in that, and that it therefore needed to be free. They were familiar (via the European aristocracies) with the indirect mechanism of money purchasing police and jails to control the press. So they were at pains in the First Amendment to speak of a “freedom of the press,” and to attempt the protection of that freedom by prohibiting laws that would “abridge” expression. In other words prohibiting our government from writing laws that would direct police to jail people for something they said or wrote.
In aristocracies, oligarchies and dictatorships the line between business wealth or personal wealth and governmental wealth does not exist, or is much more blurred than in most democracies. For aristocracies, oligarchies and dictatorships the use of police and jails is still the preferred method of abridging freedom of expression. We, though, have developed wise laws meant to curb our traditional Homo sapien pursuit of eradicating the opposition or competition. But, unfortunately, instead of accepting this curb on our social instincts, we have merely found new ways to succumb to it. We bypass the complexity of law, and the expensive middlemen of police and jails; those with money simply purchase or create de novo the outlets, writers, and talking heads of the “news.” It may be that those who espouse a profession of journalism think about such things as facts, and balance, and objectivity, and nuance, and truth, and morality, and fairness, and plurality, and divergent points of view, and civility, but those who control where they can work, and how they can work frequently either implicitly or explicitly do not.
Large sums of money in the hands of a few has become the main oppressor of free speech in our country today. The Supreme Court hasn’t a clue about this. It actually thinks a large sum of money is free speech rather than a weapon by which others are silenced or drowned out.
Propaganda may be defined as: “chiefly derogatory information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view: he was charged with distributing enemy propaganda.” (New Oxford American Dictionary version 2.2.1)
The question then arises: Is propaganda the free speech our founders sought to protect? Certainly in the sense that “the truth will set you free” it is not. People producing propaganda are not free to speak their minds, but must “stay on message” and hew to the party line, and because propaganda is an assertion of power, often times those working in propaganda organizations are subject to various abuses of power. Those listening to, viewing or reading propaganda are similarly meant to be constrained and not allowed any innate freedom. The goal of propaganda is winning, or defeating somebody or something. Its goal is not truth. It is meant to serve that age-old impulse of vanquishing others.
But a seemingly slight rephrasing, “Is propaganda freedom of speech?” can lead to a different conclusion. Because the goal of propaganda is winning (ridding oneself of “enemies”), one person’s propaganda is another person’s protector, and therefore often thought of as “truth.” This leads to a pretty much species-wide inability to fairly identify propaganda. Who would one trust to make such judgments? One solution then is to say, “Have at it! Let there be a free market of propaganda, and the devil take the hindmost.” This then is called freedom of speech.
The problem, of course, is that the market isn’t free; it takes money, or the blessing of local powers, or both to act in a market. So we are back where we began: Those wielding large sums of money oppressing those who don’t. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth as a goal is largely ignored.
A small attempt at addressing this was made by the FCC’s Fairness Doctrine, but that was struck down (with the help of a veto) in the Reagan era as it was rightly seen as an impediment to producing propaganda and thus an impediment to freedom of speech, and since there were by then many “low cost” media outlets it was reasoned that one could safely ignore the problem of propaganda by letting the “marketplace” sort it out. Today, unlike in 1969 when it was prohibited from doing so by the Supreme Court, the owners of radio station WLBT would be free to promote segregationist points of view while censoring news of the civil rights movement. And today, with the advent of the internet and social media, we know that the opposite has happened: Propaganda is flourishing, “false news” sites for profit exist, and algorithms form yet another positive feedback loop feeding people more of the same when it comes to “content.”
The idea of a debate instead of, say, a discussion has led us inexorably into anointing a winner and loser. These are at best social and at worst biological distinctions we readily confuse with the intellectual/spiritual ideas of true and false, or right and wrong.
Independently of the above, the explicit problem of money purchasing media for propaganda purposes, the media remains unwittingly complicit in maintaining our culture, thus completing the positive feedback loop. Journalists do best reporting about cultures other than their own because it is easier to recognize and consider the actual ideas being made manifest in a different culture, and it is easier to separate those intellectual achievements from mere propaganda seeking to expand spheres of power. One’s own culture is like the water a fish swims in. We have grown up with our culture’s ideas, and that is just “how things are.”
We, and thus our media, are quick to deal out ridicule and shame, or worse, simple dismissal via a deafening silence (the equivalent of exile) of anything that does not fit within our cultural forms and concepts. We and therefore our media will be equally quick to give serious comment and praise to that which fits cultural norms. In the case of propaganda and its near cousins this is conscious and heavy handed, but many times the actors lack awareness of their internalized constraints, the meanings of their choices, or even of their facial expressions or tone of voice, so that the resultant pursuit of bending all to a particular culture will be relatively subtle. Where are Paul Harvey, Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow when one needs them!
But for all the drama of the above what it mostly produces in the “consumer” are experiences of the mundane, the dreary, or the shoulder shrugging absurd resulting in tuning out, cynicism and eventually anger. Like Lionel Trilling’s students who could knock out essay after essay about the anguish of the modern psyche, yet peacefully return to pizza and beer, we (and this it seems often includes the news personnel as well) often don’t feel much as we sit manipulated and battered by this particular cultural activity called the news.
Here are three examples.
• Culturally, we seem unable to slip the bonds of commercialism even for a reasonable moment. After viewing images of carnage and hearing tales of horror from Paris, the commentator piously intones a hope that “politicians will not use this for their gain.” But that is immediately followed by “stay with us, we’ll be right back.” The next image is of two overweight white men in white lab coats and white hard hats, dropping a car suspended from a crane onto an air conditioner. One might think that the station could refrain, or that the company paying the station to air such vapid images of absurdity would not want their product associated with terror, and guarantee the station payment despite not running the ad next to reports of human catastrophe. But no, the station needs its money, and the company actually knows this is the best time to get the highest viewing of their ad, and therefore make money. Commercial gain from tragedy is promoted and tacitly accepted with no protest. Political gain gets a little sprinkle of shame, what our parents might have called common human decency has died, and our psyches grow one notch more numb.
In fact, if in the definition of propaganda one substitutes “information especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to … promote a particular product” for “particular political point of view” the result is pretty much the definition of a commercial. Pairing the news (in which most of us would say truth is important) with purposive distortions of the truth would, I think, immediately be seen by anyone from outside our culture as at a minimum odd, but most likely as corrosive of trust. Further to make the whole enterprise of accurate reporting dependent upon obtaining money from those wishing to repetitively air distortions of the truth has to be corrosive of the process.
• On Nov. 8, 2012, the Wall Street Journal published an article titled, “How the Race Slipped Away from Romney.” In it there is not one stitch of analysis devoted to his character, the truth behind and likely consequences of his proposed policies, nor the ethics of any positions. It is truly shocking (if one is not used to the news) that a major newspaper could publish a major article in which there was such a complete shutout of the intellectual and spiritual realms with only the cultural being considered, e.g. he didn’t have enough money to counter Obama’s ads, he couldn’t “move to center” because he was too beholden to conservative donors, he was “hurt” among Latinos because of his hardline stance on immigration (by implication in the article arrived at not through personal conviction, but because of internal party politics and the need for money, and he was therefore “forced” to take the position). The Journal seemingly couldn’t conceive of delving into what might be right or wrong about any given policy, only how they would play in various demographics. Nor could they delve into what it means to be “forced.” This is quintessentially at once being controlled by and controlling of the culture. But if one is used to the news (acculturated one might say), then the article is experienced as simply a sober-sided good analysis, and we go easily on our way, not noticing truth and ethics lying near dead in the gutter.
• Then there are the primary and presidential “debates” (do I hear snickering already?). The music, advertising rhetoric, video graphics and stage decor make it difficult to know whether one is about to watch Monday Night Football or a primary debate – which is telling. The idea of a debate instead of, say, a discussion has led us inexorably into anointing a winner and loser. These are at best social and at worst biological distinctions we readily confuse with the intellectual/spiritual ideas of true and false, or right and wrong. Debaters frequently do not come close to answering questions, simply talking about whatever they wish. Debaters freely make well-documented false statements. “Moderators” are often reduced to a position similar to that of someone throwing chum into the water, waiting till it’s consumed, and then throwing in the next batch.
Having created the above theater the media then deigns to comment on it as if nothing is in the least amiss, and with great self-importance it will do the following:
• The “winner” is picked in the first minutes.
• If somebody was particularly evasive, this is renamed “pivoting,” and may even garner a little chuckle of admiration for the skill and tenacity of its use.
• The effects upon different demographic groups are considered.
• Occasionally somebody is termed “presidential” or not. But what can that possibly mean? Probably it is a deep biological, not even cultural, propensity of our species that does though get modified with a little cultural tweaking for the style of the place and day. A strongman (notably not a “strongwoman”) grooms and sloganizes differently in different times and places, but that is window dressing on the biological reality. It could be called a special kind of Homo sapien beauty contest to designate somebody “presidential.”
• Phrases such as “not normal,” “not predictable,” “any other candidate doing these sorts of things would be gone by now,” “this fringe candidate has unexpectedly broad appeal,” or “this is a change year,” etc., may be used. These are solely cultural perspectives forcing a purely cultural understanding upon events that aren’t essentially or necessarily of a cultural nature. The events may instead arise from the biology lying behind culture, or may arise from the intellect and spirit lying beyond culture.
“Voice still and small, deep inside all, I hear you call, singing”
It is, however, within the cultural realm that the life of the mind asserts itself. It understands that our DNA has not finished catching up with reality, and therefore, urges us to act more speedily than the biology of evolution can by creating a culture in which we are all secure, and may all act freely in accordance with truth and ethics. But it is also within the cultural realm that biology either contests the mind’s creations through the exercise of power, or within which it may gracefully meld with truth and ethics to form what we call “moral fiber.” If those giving us the news of our culture understood this it would be better news. Journalists would be better able to distinguish between that which seeks to destroy a culture, and that which seeks to improve it.
It is a mistake to think that a culture-bound perspective, or the pursuit of vanquishing one another through the persuasive power of propaganda and advertisements furthers our freedom. If truth, ethics and character, in particular moral fiber, were given their due, and if news organizations could find a way to not simply relegate themselves to explicating and behaving in accordance with the Newtonian mechanics of any particular culture, then that would promote freedom.
Individuals must do their part as well. We do not live in a police state and we can therefore choose whether or not to make a living by producing propaganda, choose whether or not to report without proper identification on propaganda and thereby amplify it, and choose whether or not to be ensnared by propaganda.
Not to do so is particularly dangerous. Without pursuit of truth, ethics and character, “change” or more accurately adaptation of a culture to new circumstances is stifled, and as with locked tectonic plates increasing pressure develops within that culture until there is a sudden catastrophic release of those forces.
We in the United States were, by virtue of place and time, extremely lucky in our revolution. The rest of the world from France to Russia to China to Cambodia to the Middle East (to name a few) were not and have not been nearly as lucky. Whether by the efficient beheading whoosh of the guillotine, a hail of bullets, the devastation of bombs, the slow death of forced labor and starvation, or the simple expedient of a sharp shovel blade unnamed millions upon millions have been murdered. The media should be neither an unwitting nor a procured midwife to these horrors. It should help us understand which adaptations (“changes”) promote freedom of the oppressed in our midst, and help us be aware of the intransigent positions that deny the need to free the oppressed. The truth can, if we become aware of it, set us free.
“To turn, turn will be our delight
Till by turning, turning
We come round right”
