Laurie
Penny, ardent feminist and writer for the New Statesman, wrote an article about
the ridiculous set-up of many television interviews. They are often men in suits,
broadsheet columnists and thus working in a dying industry, but the most
concerning of these was that the producers seemed to egg them on into
bear-baiting. That this technique is one used on the Jerry Springer Show, so
that the guests in a ‘roid rage can beat up his adversary as rigorously as
possible, is not favourable to those working on BBC Newsnight which claims to
be a show of high debate with experts on current affairs. But it shows a trend
that is becoming more prominent; debate about serious issues which may have
dire consequences on the poor, ethnic minorities, gay people – the underdogs of
society – is being downgraded in reputation and downgraded in quality, leaving
for a vacuum of show and vanity.
It’s probably
why I hardly watch any serious programmes on television at all these days, for
the pure reason that it’s not serious anymore. If we are talking about a benefits
cap which hinders most those, for example, who work poorly paid jobs in London
we spend less time on the issue at hand and decide that the debate itself
should be treated as a WWE match but with more dialogue. Indeed, the
arrangements for a WWE match are similar to television debates. Each one seems
fixed, it’s a jolly good show, and we commiserate the inevitable result. The
columnist from the Telegraph delivers his poisonous rhetoric while the Social
Studies expert from the University of Sussex loses, even if she were to point
to all the evidence proving her point, while the referee/adjudicator simply
watches on, before reading us the FTSE and the exchange rates. It pains me to
make this comparison, one that would not be possible if, perhaps, the rules and
the customs were changed.
What has
also happened is Twitter. As much as I use it, I hate it with every cell in my
body. The reason is because if we believe Twitter to be a democratisation of
debate, then it would senseless to compress serious points into 140 characters,
unless we were to introduce short-hand as an alternative alphabet. Indeed, the
mixing of cheap jibes, instantaneous outrage with attempts to serious
challenges to the mind is toxic. By nature of human vulgarity, the jibes are
most numerous, drowning out those who are serious and generally interested,
leaving those who use Twitter to conduct their business, be it politics,
disappointed, ignorant and disdainful. I imagine that when a politician
receives messages on a regular basis expressing their rumoured phallic tendencies or
about how X could do their job better than them, you don’t feel better about or, more importantly, responsible in, your role of power. Like Peter Mannion had said in The Thick of It, “That’s the
problem with the public, they are fucking horrible… I’ve met them.” Indeed, it’s
one of the reasons why I think that a universal dislike of politicians is
harmful for society and democracy, because once someone in power knows that
they are disliked, it only makes the powerful one stronger due to the extreme
stoicism that comes with constant hate on all sides. After all, Machiavelli
said that it is better to feared than to be loved if your intention is to get
people to do as you want.
But
there is something that I find especially abhorrent; instead of offering
solutions, the world of debate becomes a series of blame games and attacks. The
TED talks, whereby idiots with no lessons in rhetoric or public speaking give
crappy lectures to pseuds, are guilty. Russell Brand tweeted a link to one of
these talks:
@rustyrockets:
This is interesting. People are preventing us from taking over by making us all
bored.
It’s not
only that I disagree from him, but it’s a very vague attack (“people”) combined
with a bold statement, intended to gather thousands of retweets in his name. It’s
not comical to analyse, just very bad. And this trend in modern discussion is
widespread, whereby people are invited on television or to write in a newspaper
and make these very bold but vague statements under which lies very little
evidence or very shallow thought.
And the
worst part, it’s that we accept it. Bernard-Henri Lévy, despite his numerous
appearances on television and in print, is decried each and every time for his
appearances by actual intellectuals i.e. by those who spend their time doing
research as opposed to building a media profile. We may not have one equivalent
figure; we have many, and in English-speaking countries we accept it, and we
shouldn’t. Considering that this country has one of the finest debating chambers in the world, it is a shame
that, be it because of spin and because of an intellectually deprived audience
or one that has yet to think for itself or have its own values, it makes no
sense whatsoever that we should stand for the drivel that has become public
discourse, serving only one purpose; to undermine a dissenting but sensible view
in order to keep the status quo, be it for better or for worse.
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