The Media Loves to Watch Us Die, and Talk About It
I just got back from eating lunch at my regular spot across the street. I love their tea and most of their food, but I don’t care for the steady stream of network news running in the otherwise serene and small restaurant dining area. I couldn’t help but notice, and become quite interested in, the constant reporting of swine flu. They were marketing their news via television, reminding me that I could follow everything online, and even get updates on my cell phone (if I had one).
There was almost a euphoric sense to their story coverage. They also gave me the scoop on the handful of notable murderers and so on. Here is my point: The media loves to watch us, and help us watch others, die, suffer, and kill each other. During the political season they love to help us hate each other under the guise of becoming responsible citizens. The business of daily news feeds of the worst the human condition can conjure up. And we worship it.
We spend our mornings, lunchtimes, evenings, and more, feeding on each other. Unlike the games of Rome, that would attract attention to appease and stupify the Roman public from time to time, we are always plugged into the bloody games of news and T.V. It is no wonder, then, that we have so little time to live and love and be still. We cannot resist the gladiatoresque collesiums of the popular media and their seemingly endless love to see us die, or even better, kill each other.
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War coverage strikes me this way (“Up Next! The LOWDOWN ON THE SHOWDOWN!!!”) as well as Nancy Grace, and all these “documantary” programs about life in prison which are really just prurient exercises in vicarious “thank you O lord, that I am not like other men” judgementalism.
I tend not to watch a lot of cable news for these reasons. It really is kind of disturbing – they may as well just rename every program “The Bread and Circuses Hour!!11!”
Obviously they love action because it brings in more people to watch, and so they get better ratings, and they can make more money on advertising. It’s sad that news is about sensationalism, not news. But that’s what one should expect from a free-market news system.
I am anxious to se if the news media has learned lesson from katrina.
The reporting on that was horrid. I had a friend in the National Guard that wanted to shoot Geraldo, Shep Smith and others. THe real hurricane was in places like the Superdome where the radio was reporting that people were being killed and eaten in the Super Dome and all other matters. It was very hard to maintain control.
It will be interesting too look at the stories after this that were reported and compare them to the facts.
I was Geraldo last night and it seemed like he was getting in his Katrina meets Captain Tripps mode
Yep, the media stinks. We should demand better – this starts with turning the crap off.
Henry, do you intend to suggest with your comment that the media should be regulated by the state?
Zach
I suggest you read my two-part post from last week.
“Henry, do you intend to suggest with your comment that the media should be regulated by the state?”
I hope not. Just saying looking at National Public broadcasting I see no sense of fairness
My money could be going toward the poor or a media supported Govt information network.
I take the poor
You don’t have a cell phone?!?!?!?
Henry, I don’t have time. Could you just answer yes or no?
Nope. You have a cell phone?!?!?!
Zach
It’s nearly 8 pm EST. Now you have the time. Go read.
I don’t have a cell phone, and hope to never get one.
Understood. Good luck persuading people with your totalitarian ideas.
Since when has the non-possession of a cell phone been tantamount to totalitarianism? (just kidding!)
“We cannot resist the gladiator-esque colesiums of the popular media (AND THE CATHOLIC BLOGOSPHERE) and their seemingly endless love to see us die, or even better, kill each other…”
Zach
Can you demonstrate these totalitarian ideas from my writing? Quote and provide evidence that they are just that — totalitarian.
Here’s the thing. You want simple answers, simple yes and nos, without doing the work to understand where I stand. That you are willing to go around writing comments instead of actually reading tells me the issue isn’t time, it is “I can’t take the time.” And if that’s your opinion, it’s fine, but you should understand why I won’t waste my time, since you really aren’t interested in my answer.
Nonetheless, here is where I will end it. Your question was wrong from the get go. There are many options, not just “free market” or “total governmental control,” just as the options are NOT capitalism or socialism. Your yes/no, either/or dualism has no answer, because either side of that coin is wrong.
Henry,
I think Zach chose poorly in using the term totalitarian. If taken as practical advice, your two parter might be taken as statist or indeed authoritarian, but it does not seek to make the state the center of all life, and thus is not totalitarian in the precise sense.
The difficulty I would see with your advocacy is that it assumes that goodness is clearly knowable by those in a position to direct society. I’m myself deeply skeptical that, if we as Christians pushed for the television to be strictly controlled in accordance with the good, that it would be people we even remotely agreed with who would end up deciding what “good” is. The important thing to recall is that liberalism is not necessarily endorsed out of a belief that there is no good, but rather that if we charge authorities with enforcing the good rigorously, they may do so in a manner directly contrary to our beliefs. (This is effectively what the Church has recognized in its developing position on religious freedom.)
On a side note: is that two parter an academic essay that you’re reprinting on the blog, or is it a Vox Nova original?
Darwin
I would disagree with it being “statist” and I always find it interesting and amusing that most of the people who complain about “statism” in one issue engage it for their own interests. Indeed, my view is one of balance, not extremes. In ages when people could live and experience other systems than the liberal-modern enterprise (in its various forms), it was often noted that the so-called “not so free state” felt more free to live in than those which were “free” (I’ve quoted Richard Burton on this before). Why is it the case? In my view, it’s because we really don’t know what freedom is, and so confuse the way to achieve it.
It was a Vox Nova original. I’ve only reprinted a few papers here that I can remember (one on Joseph de Maistre, one on Constantine and Ashoka, and one on Theophilus). Most of what I write is all original here.
Mark: I get the gist of your parenthetical addition. However, the agonistic exchanges we have here do not necessarily strike me as the same thing. Nonetheless, the danger of becoming nothing more than a reflection of what’s wrong with media, as I described, is always eminent.
Henry,
I would disagree with it being “statist” and I always find it interesting and amusing that most of the people who complain about “statism” in one issue engage it for their own interests.
Indeed, I too find this very amusing. It’s good that we can find these sources of amusement together. Still, one must not laugh overmuch at the afflicted, eh what?
On your other point, however, I would submit that Richard Burton was much deceived in his claim. It was, of course, de rigueur in Victorian society to assert (following Rousseau) that other cultures in general and the “despotic” cultures of the East in particular were more free than the social stiffling social strictures of their own country. However, this was in part because well financed adventurers like Burton could enjoy all the pleasures which other cultures allowed a rich visitor while suffering none of their strictures. Such cultural romanticism is not, however, necessarily an accurate view of social realities.
Now, in an ideal world in which everyone contemplated the ideal forms without obstruction, doubtless it would be possible and reasonable to advocate that authorities regulate artistic expression strictly to allow only the good. However, given how deluded out state authories are on everything else, I must question the wisdom of deploying state authority to restrict what’s on the telly. In areas of more grevious harm, one cannot help but take up the cudgel of the law. But given that with television we have always the simple expedient of turning the silly thing off (or not having one) I think the more light-handed approach of restricting only the most egregious expressions on the public airwaves is preferable.
Darwin
Burton’s analysis was not from speculation, but first hand contact with those who had live in both kinds of societies. Indeed it was from those who moved to the “free world” and found it — tyrannical. His response was not “Victorian” by any means… he was everything the Victorians feared.
The point I was making about television, however, is that if we just geared towards the “free market,” to the base area of “desire,” what we get is what we see — as long as we look to the world to be based upon the standards of the free market, instead of virtue, this will always be the case. Virtue doesn’t need the government, but government can sponsor virtue when the market fails (such as we see with Teddy).
Henry,
Of course Burton was Victorian. That he did not follow all the precepts of Victorian culture does not change that in his reaction against some of those precepts he was fundamentally formed by that framework.
It’s important to keep in mind that Burton was a cultural tourist of sorts. He could galavant around the Ottoman empire and write accounts of his experience of foreign cultural mores and sexual practices that shocked mainstream English society (though for all the official shock, they were temendously popular) without actually experiencing the restrictions those societies placed on their members.
If you’re seeing him out of the context of his rebellion against his culture (and context within it) you’re not understanding Burton very clearly. Similarly, when he talks about foreigners coming to England and feeling stiffled by social mores, the account is more of the fact that the socieal mores were strange and different than that England was “less free” than the middle east.
Darwin
While he was influenced by his Victorian culture, and you are right in saying he reacted to it, that is not the same thing as saying he is Victorian, just as it would be wrong to say Marx was Christian because he was reacting to Christians.
Of course he was a cultural tourist. But if you think he didn’t experience the restrictions of those societies, that’s not exactly right, either. He had to become an authentic Sufi, for example, to get to Mecca. From him, we can even learn about the effects of circumcision on men, because he found out as an adult. But it’s not just that, he had to take on the restrictions of Islam, for example, when he went to Mecca; his discussion of Ramadan is quite interesting.
The final point – that the social mores are different, while true, doesn’t deal with why those who had different cultural experiences found freedom in their culture, if it was so anti-free?
Sam,
So true. I was working from home yesterday and had the cable network news channels on and I realized how sick they make me. I have an increased appreciation for NPR.
Henry,
Well, although I’ll certainly agree that Burton is an interesting read, I guess we’ll just have to disagree on how useful a source he is on this topic.
Though on a side note, it’s ironic that you cite him as an example of how “despotic” realms can be more free than ones which rely on cultural pressures rather than strict laws — in that Burton and his publications were constantly risking jail time for violating the Obscene Publications Act, a law passed to achieve precisely the end that you advocate: making sure that art reflects the good.
Sam,
That’s the devil you are describing, by the way. Therefore, they must be doing his work.
Who is the devil, exactly? I’m confused.