Recently in the American Scholar, Thomas Mallon challenged readers with 10 questions about American intellectual life today. As our regular readers know, the gang at Printculture thought we should rally the troops and try to actually answer them. The one that interested me in particular was #7.
First let’s examine the question itself. 1, Right off the bat the phrasing proceeds in bad faith, by arrogantly taking as its premise that any disagreement is already an error, a lack of preparation. It’s as if I were to ask Mallon if he was “truly prepared” to admit he’s an idiot. No, not yet? Okay, let me know when you are, I'll be waiting right here.
2, Note how Mallon’s verbosity attempts to conflate writer, artist and thinker, as well as thinking, saying and creating, in order to give the lowly writer of this sort of editorial blather the bright nimbus of artistic creativity, much in the same way that top philosophy professors dream of the day they can pass themselves off as contemporary philosophers.
3, Where is this supposed great wealth of American creativity that needs cultural protecting? I haven't seen it at the Oscars or in the Times Book Review lately. And if it is so great and vital, then why would it be so delicate that it must be cultivated in international isolation? Is it some strange kind of mushroom which can only grow in the darkness of ignorance? You would think the designation “American” in American Scholar harmless enough, as with Scientific American, but no, it turns out to be more of the former than the latter, coming up light on the scholarship and heavy on nationalism.
4, “Imminent threat“ is itself the alarmist rhetoric of the militant mind Mallon pretends to be warning against. The divisive Us-or-Them mentality is a greater threat than any of the Thems serially proposed by America's fear peddlers, the Thems of the Soviets, the Japanese, the Muslims.
5, It is the pompous self-flattery of the elite to believe they are ”accustomed“ to creating, as if it were a posh lifestyle one can rightfully inherit (see Esquire’s pseudo-breezy Napkin Fiction project for a good example of this tone). Actual artistic creation is very hard work with little guarantee of success, something few if any individuals could ever grow accustomed to. When reading biographies of artists, you seldom come across any who are reconciled to the rewards and recognition they receive, even at the top.
The larger point to be made is that ”Islamofascism“ is a made-up word and a terrible one. It is hardly a useful or accurate descriptive term but rather one that aims to block the process of thinking. It is nothing more than an attempt to smuggle the propaganda slogan ”Islam = Fascism“ into a sentence as if it were a noun.
Anything that is wrong with Islam is wrong with Christianity as well. If Islam has its flaws, they are the flaws of religious fundamentalism or of all major religions. The coinage ”Islamofascism“ itself shows part of what is wrong with Christianity and its kin, the hysterical attempt to brand any opposition as demonic, here with the pseudo-secular and increasingly ahistorical and unreflective term fascism. Islam and Christianity are practically twins; they are rival brothers like Jacob and Esau, with the legacy of Judaic poetic authority being the greater part of the mess of pottage in dispute.
If the case can be made that Islam is an inherently militant religion that does not recognize the Enlightenment doctrine of the separation of church and state, the same case can be made equally well for Christianity, and with only a pair of scissors and your local newspaper. Both may be summarized as follows: A mighty god made up our minds for us before we got out of bed in the morning, a mighty god told us not to listen.
Fascism is a slippery word but let's not avoid it; let’s take a stab at a working definition. Fascism is when a nation abandons reason and succumbs to a false cult of strength, when it masochistically abases itself before a heroic icon rather than seeking competent administrators working in the public service, when bullies and demagogues roam the airwaves like wild dogs set to sniff out and sic themselves on the spirit of inquiry, when sincere debate is nowhere to be found and only authority and masked aggression may parade the curfewed streets. When an executive has the impunity to bypass or ignore the legislature as Bush and Chavez are both doing at present under very different circumstances, the balance of democracy is threatened and fascism may lurk around the corner.
In the context of the Middle East, the term ”fascism“ is transplanted inappropriately from European politics, which are an entirely different kettle of fish. The muchly monarchical Middle East has not even achieved enough democracy to be able to turn fascist. If Mallon et alia wanted to speak clearly, they would talk about democracy instead of “Islamofascism” and then our Saudi allies would look worse than our proposed enemy Iran.
As such, the term ”Islamofascism“ is the mark of a war within religion or between religions, and it is certainly not a war that any state should allow itself to be dragged into by a little clever misrepresentation, anymore than Sky Masterson would have been wise to bet whether Mindy's on any given day sold more cheesecake or more strudel. If church and state are to be kept separate as a means of combating persecution and promoting tolerance and civil unity, then the terms Islam and fascism should be kept separate as well, and our political efforts should be directed against the latter wherever it appears and not simply when it is taped on a mullah's back like a bull's-eye to make one religion a target to the advantage of another.
Islamophobia is usually one of two things, a thinly-veiled Christian evangelism or a more than usually confused racism. Islam is of course a religion not a race but in the underdeveloped mind of the racist it is often simply used as a synonym for Arab.
One could only believe a decrier of ”Islamofascism“ to be sane and sincere if they were also concerned about preventing the teaching of Biblical Creationism in the schools, guaranteeing access to contraception and a woman's right to terminate an unplanned pregnancy, funding stem-cell research, and ending the misdirecting of public funds to religious schools and the so-called ”faith-based" charities.
As long as we’re on the subject, what is the current intellectual situation in America? A misguided and unjust war that took years to even make the front page has thoroughly discredited the mainstream media. Remarkably few people spoke out clearly against it.
Since the Clinton-era deregulation of media ownership, the press has been in ruins. America is for the most part a blinded country now, cut off from contact with modernity and the outside world like some dinosaur-ridden land of the lost hidden behind a jungle waterfall. We are the polluters who didn't sign the Kyoto Protocol, the militarists who wouldn't ban mutilating landmines that rip off the limbs of children years after conflicts end, we are the obstacle to every form of international cooperation or progress.
If our politicans have lost credibility, I'm not sure our public intellectuals should fare much better. Thanks to the combined forces of the universities and the press, the one-sided ideology of market capitalism is enjoying an absolute triumph. There is little sense of an alternative, of a context or even a perspective. For many of those who don't like what they are hearing, it is a time of quiet demoralization.
Perhaps I'm biased, but the Internet still seems like a bit of a bright spot in all this. It's very hard to reach a large audience but easy to find a small and sustaining one, to stay active and vocal even if you can't make any significant difference in the foreseeable future. And it is an interactive medium which, spam-bots aside, is the greatest boon to discussion since the invention of the call-in talk show.
True, it has a tendency to breed paper tigers, and frequently the gunslinger ethos of the Wild West prevails, but argument has always been something of a contact sport. For my part I see nothing wrong with a little trash talk in the service of a higher good. For those who would be American thinkers today, the greatest threat is not Islam but rather the unthinking Americanism which equates it with terrorism and tyranny, combined with the absence of any real public debate at home.
I think its unfair to blame the press. The Uses and Gratifications theory of mass communication says that people gravitate toward information they are interested in. Our media caters to its customer, the citizen.
That said, there are more information outlets today than we have ever had before -the internet, cable and satalite are just some new mediums.
I am working with the National Association of Broadcasters and local TV and radio stations are having a hard time making ends meet. The FCC can solve the problem by modernizing its media ownership rules to generate competition. This will allow local stations to continue to provide free programming and critical emergency services.
Are you a hired stooge? How did you find this post so fast?
If you compare public opinion as measured by polls to the opinions expressed in editorials, you can objectively measure the top-down distortion imposed by private media ownership. The reason tycoons buy papers even when they lose money is because they want to influence public opinion, not reflect it.
Essentially you are using market logic to justify the status quo, much as people once used unknowable divine intention. Market logic can only make sense when people are being offered a genuine choice, which they are not.
The airwaves are publicly owned and loaned to broadcasters. If it is a burden on them to provide “critical emergency services” (like what exactly, the long beep of the emergency broadcasting system?), the government could easily step in to do so.
Yes, I see examining SiteMeter that “Jeffdiddy” is not a regular PrintCulture reader but rather someone who uses Google BlogSearch to try to keep track of public opinion on “media ownership” (his search term). Thus his comment by its very existence rather ironically proves my point about media manipulation and non-neutrality.
His basic argument is one I am not unfamiliar with. He argues that because there is more competition between media, there is less need for competition within media. So one company can have a total cable monopoly, because they need it to survive and be able to compete against that which is not cable.
Taken to its extreme (and I have seen it taken to its extreme), this argument is expressed in terms of people's use of time. Because people can do something other than watch cable, cable is still competing.
All of this relies on the failure of a basic understanding of the supposed role of economic competition under capitalism. What we have today isn't even capitalism, it's something far worse. It is a corrupt control economy masquerading as competitive enterprise. To my mind, all of this proves another point I was trying to make, which is that unless you understand capitalism as one system among many alternatives, you can't even really understand what it is and how it is supposed to work.
And how ironic is it that “JeffDiddy” should take his pseudo-hip web-friendly name from the great whore of rap P. Diddy?
Pwned.
Not sure if Jeffdiddy will check back . . . I do think one should be careful about venting frustrations at particular journalists, many of whom are just trying to make a living within the parameters of the career within which they've found themselves, perhaps having entered it with some pretty lofty ideas. But the general claim of Jeffdiddy --if that is his real name!-- really shows the bankruptcy of much of the contemporary media system, according to which journalism is a business like any other except that its commodity is information. Journalists are not like doctors, say, with an obligation to evaluate what important or credible or bests serves if not the public or the public record. Journalists are, rather, like McDonalds: their primary function is to move as much product as possible, regardless of the consequences for their consumers. This is not a great analogy, but I think it is actually useful to have media professionals say outright that they are less interested in what is true than they are in what people will pause to look at long enough to justify ad rates.
Let me add that I'm more impressed with Jeffdiddy than I had been, but only because of this:
“P. Diddy bragged to a London tabloid that he had tantric sex with girlfriend Kim Porter for ”at least 30 hours“ on their recent trip to Paris. The rap mogul with the ever-changing moniker claimed: ”As meticulous as I am with my work, I'm more meticulous with my lovemaking.“”
I've watched Making the Band 3, and let me tell you, P. Diddy is pretty meticulous with his work...
... “and for twenty-eight of those hours, she was totally asleep,” P. Diddy didn't add.
I guess I should have said cocksman instead of whore, but I haven't been keeping up with the papers.
S Shirazi, Your opinions of the media are too cynical and only contribute to the fallacy that the media is too consolidated. Clearly you have never worked in broadcasting where there are over 1200 TV stations controlled by over 300 different owners. Whether you like it or not, millions of Americans depend on their local television and radio stations for free news and emergency weather and AMBER alerts.
I love the media competition we have today but the playing field is not level. I get just about all my national and political news from the internet but I get my local news from TV, radio and the paper.
I appreciate the dialogue.
I have to say, the idea that I depend on my local media for Amber alerts is really hilarious.
Jeffdiddy: 1200 owned by 300 isn't that great. But let me just give you one piece of evidence (if evidence is really what you're interested in) to suggest why your statistic is misleading. Here's a list of stations owned by CBS:
* KEYE-TV - Austin, TX
* KOVR-TV - Sacramento, CA
* WJZ-TV - Baltimore, MD
* WBZ-TV - Boston, MA
* WBBM-TV - Chicago, IL
* KTVT-TV - Dallas-Fort Worth, TX
* KCNC-TV - Denver, CO
* WWJ-TV - Detroit, MI
* WFRV-TV - Green Bay, WI
* WCBS-TV - New York, NY
* WFOR-TV - Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, FL
* WCCO-TV - Minneapolis, MN
* KYW-TV - Philadelphia, PA
* KDKA-TV - Pittsburgh, PA
* KUTV-TV - Salt Lake City, UT
* KPIX-TV - San Francisco, CA
* KCBS-TV - Los Angeles, CA
Now if you add up the population served by those stations, I bet you get a pretty big number. The fact that Joe Schmo owns one television station in a small market in Indiana doesn't compensate.
Also, just FYI, here's a list of media owned by the Disney corporation. Notice the radio and TV markets, not to mention the cable stations and the ABC networks:
Film
Walt Disney Pictures
Touchstone Pictures
Hollywood Pictures
Miramax Films
Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Pixar
Broadcast Television
ABC Network
Owned and Operated Television Stations
* WLS - Chicago
* WJRT - Flint
* KFSN - Fresno
* KTRK - Houston
* KABC - Los Angeles
* WABC - New York City
* WPVI - Philadelphia
* WTVD - Raleigh - Durham
* KGO - San Francisco
* WTVG - Toledo
Cable Television
ESPN
ABC Family
Disney Channel
Toon Disney
SOAPnet
Lifetime Network (partial)
A&E (partial)
E! (partial)
Radio
ABC Radio
* WKHX – Atlanta
* WYAY – Atlanta
* WDWD – Atlanta
* WMVP – Chicago
* WLS – Chicago
* WZZN – Chicago
* WRDZ – Chicago
* WBAP – Dallas
* KSCS – Dallas
* KMEO – Dallas
* KESN – Dallas
* KMKI – Dallas
* WDRQ – Detroit
* WJR – Detroit
* WDVD – Detroit
* KABC – Los Angeles
* KLOS – Los Angeles
* KDIS – Los Angeles
* KSPN – Los Angeles
* KQRS – Minneapolis - St. Paul
* KXXR – Minneapolis - St. Paul
* KDIZ – Minneapolis - St. Paul
* WGVX – Minneapolis - St. Paul
* WGVY – Minneapolis - St. Paul
* WGVZ – Minneapolis - St. Paul
* WABC – New York City
* WPLJ – New York City
* WQEW – New York City
* WEVD – New York City
* KGO – San Francisco
* KSFO – San Francisco
* KIID – Sacramento
* KMKY – Oakland
* WMAL – Washington DC
* WJZW – Washington DC
* WRQX – Washington DC
* KQAM – Wichita
* KKDZ – Seattle
* WSDZ – St. Louis
* WWMK – Cleveland
* KMIX – Phoenix
* KADZ – Denver
* KDDZ – Denver
* WWMI – Tampa
* KMIC – Houston
* WMYM – Miami
* WWJZ – Philadelphia
* WMKI – Boston
* WDZK – Hartford
* WDDZ – Providence
* WDZY – Richmond
* WGFY – Charlotte
* WDYZ – Orlando
* WMNE – West Palm Beach
* WEAE – Pittsburgh
* WDRD – Louisville
* WPPY – Albany, NY
* KPHN – Kansas City
* WQUA – Mobile
* WBML – Jacksonville
* WFDF – Flint
* WFRO – Fremont, OH
* WDMV – Damascus, MD
* WHKT – Norfolk Radio Disney
* ESPN Radio (syndicated programming
Music
Buena Vista Music Group
Walt Disney Records
Hollywood Records
Lyric Street Records
Publishing
Book Publishing Imprints
o Hyperion
+ Miramax BooksESPN BooksTheiaABC Daytime PressHyperion Audiobooks
+ Hyperion East
* Disney Publishing Worldwide
+ Cal Publishing Inc.
+ CrossGen
* Hyperion Books for Children
# Jump at the SunVolo
# Michael di Caupa Books
+ Disney Global Children's Books
# Disney PressGlobal Retail
# Global Continuity
Magazine titles include:
* Automotive Industries
* Biography (with GE and Hearst)
* Discover
* Disney Adventures
* Disney Magazine
* ECN News
* ESPN Magazine (distributed by Hearst)
* Family Fun
* Institutional Investor
* JCK
* Kodin
* Top Famille - French family magazine
* US Weekly (50%)
* Video Business
* Quality
So if you're serious and “appreciate” this dialogue, perhaps you should say less ridiculous things when you're having it.
p.s. Who owns what in the media, here:
http://www.cjr.org/tools/ow...
And an article worth reading, here:
http://www.cjrdaily.org/the...
I'm with E Hayot and S Shirazi on this issue, but let's not be too rough on Jeffdiddy . . . maybe. Certainly there is some autonomy and diversity of local media, we can grant him that, but the point is that by and large this doesn't really matter. No one is concerned that corporate consolidation of the media is going to prevent me from learning about my local weather. It is in national and international news --where small and private owners generally can't compete and need to rely on bigger outlets-- that the major conflicts really emerge. And that's setting aside the issue of the generally embarassing state of local “news”: lottery numbers, fad diets, the suggestion that a rapist will be released from prison, etc.
Ultimately I think the issue is less about the details of who owns what than it is about effective monopolies on ideas, politicization of the news, etc. In other words, if all media were owned by two or three giant beneficent corporations that somehow enabled diverse quality new sources to function independently, that would be better than the “independence” of a small station that reports exactly the same things as every other small station and is largely dependent on news sources that don't outright “own” it but without which it couldn't begin to function.
I honestly can't tell for sure if Jeffdiddy is being disingenuous here or not . . .
Jeffdiddy, you didn’t answer my question. Are you paid to make these comments? Are you paid to find essays about Islam and academia that mention media ownership in passing and then derail the discussion with propaganda about free market ideology?
A good source for reporting on media ownership is The Nation. Here’s a recent editorial by Mark Crispin Miller [http://www.thenation.com/do...]. Also, check out their subject indexes for Media Consolidation and for the FCC.
Here is FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting), which also has an index on corporate ownership and an interesting analysis of the boards of directors of media corporations:
http://www.fair.org/index.p...
And here is Projected Censored's 2007 list of the top 25 censored stories:
http://www.projectcensored....
I am a paid consultant for the national association of broadcasters and have also worked for clear channel. I admit there are some issues that need to be worked out but my radio stations provide unique local programming different from any other city. We get our news not by some order from the CEO but through independent research.
We are clearly in disagreement on this issue but I truly believe that democracy will thrive when local broadcasters can compete with today's media landscape.
Best of luck and I will stop by PrintCulture again soon.
Jeffdiddy does an excellent job of non-answering. Nonetheless, I feel confirmed in my judgement that he is a shill or “troll.”
Here is a post from IP Democracy discussing a similar group of publicists who have been hired to make “grass roots”-style comments in opposition to government regulation of the communications industry.
http://www.ipdemocracy.com/...
Also, here is an article from the Boston Globe about how the McCain campaign has started using comment shills. The article says that such fake grassroots campaigns are sometimes called “astroturf” campaigns.
http://www.boston.com/news/...
I think for now we should let these comments stand as a pernicious example, but in the future we should probably use discretion in deleting them as empty flack.
Printculture members can review, edit, and delete their comments, create a member page, and don't have to fill in the silly form below. Sign up or log in.
