Emotionally Potent Oversimplification

[bcholmes]

Captain's Blog: Stardate 2003.08.10

My main computer decided to blow up. (ObSecondCity: "Woo-hee, it blowed up good." "It blowed up real good.") So instead of writing an already extremely behind schedule code audit, I decided to take a break today.

I've been working 60 hours a week for the last couple of weeks, and I'm pretty exhausted. Besides, I have a handful of DVDs I've been meaning to watch.

Several weeks ago, I went downtown to pick up a bunch of DVDs. I was pleased to discover that Sam the Record Man's DVD section has finally recovered from the company's bankruptcy and subsequent sale. Sure, there's an HMV just a block away, but I'd rather support the Canadian-owned Sam's any day. My only beef with Sam's, now, is that they've started over-categorizing their music selection. I'm often interested in buying a CD from a particular artist with no idea which section that artist should be classified in ("Portishead"? "Electronica" "Ah. Where's that?" "Second floor"). But HMV is even worse.

One thing I did find at HMV that doesn't appear to have a Sam's equivalent is a well-hidden DVD section called "special interest" from which I purchased two DVDs: Comic Book Confidential which I'd seen before, and the National Film Board-funded Manufacturing Consent. The latter is being distributed by a company called Zeitgeist Films, whose tagline is "Bringing quality foreign and independent feature films and documentaries to American screens since 1988." (Which vaguely reminds me of the time I yelled at the guy at the local video store when I found Jesus of Montreal in the foreign film section. "Foreign film" is actually code for "not English" it seems. Also Canadian video store companies buy their classifications of films from American distributers.)

So today, I spent three hours watching a documentary about Noam Chomsky. Now I don't have a strong opinion about Chomsky one way or the other. I've always been a little bit wary of him given how often he's described as libertarian. (I have a mild allergy to libertarians). But Manufacturing Consent was really good. While it was, first and foremost, a primer on Chomsky, it had a healthy dose of discussion with people that disagreed with Chomsky's views. An editorial writer from the New York Times was probably the most articulate and relevent dissenting voice, who made this wry suggestion: that legislation is a lot like making sausages -- the less you know about it, the more you can enjoy it.

Some of the topics that Chomsky talked about that have long been of interest to me include the role of the formats of mass media in structuring the types of discussion that are allowed to go on in popular fora, and the discursive effect of alternative media. A statistic cited in the film was that over 50% of mainstream media outlets are owned by 23 large corporations, including Ruptert Murdoch's, Disney, CBS, and others. The film was made in 1992, and I suspect that media ownership is even less diverse now than it was then.

One segment that interested me was a segment started when Chomsky was asked why he hasn't been on Niteline. The film cut to a taped interview with a producer at Niteline who said that while he didn't know why Chomsky hasn't been on Niteline, one of the reasons that Niteline has a "preferred guest" list is because it needs people who fit the TV model of discussion. The producer went on to say that if a guest took eight minutes to explain a topic, then the guest is a bad guest. Guests must be concise. Guests have to nail their points quickly. Need good sound bites. Emotionally potent oversimplifications.

Chomsky: Suppose I get on "Nightline". I'm given two minutes and I say Quaddifi is a terrorist or Khomeini is a murderer. Everyone just nods. On the other hand, suppose you say something that isn't just regurgitating conventional pieties. Suppose you say

CUT TO CLIPS OF CHOMSKY IN OTHER CONVERSATIONS:

"The best political leaders are the ones that are lazy and corrupt"
"Education is a system of imposed ignorance"
"Fundamentally, there is no more morality in world affairs today then there was at the time of Genghis Khan"

BACK TO ORIGINAL DISCUSSION:

People will want to know what you mean. Why did you say that? You'd better have a lot of evidence. But you can't give evidence if you're stuck with the concision of "Nightline". You end up sounding like you're from Neptune.

Yeah. It's a yucky thing.

(Another interesting point that didn't get much coverage in Manufacturing Consent, but which was discussed a great deal in the film Collateral Damage -- the documentary, not the Schwarzenegger flick of the same name -- is a significant re-thinking of the role of the media. In Collateral Damage (in which Chomsky appears), the president of ABC talks about his shows providing a product to advertisers. Not media being a product for its consumers, but rather its consumers being a product for its advertisers. News, then, can be viewed as a smelting process -- a way of refining viewers into people more ready and willing to hear what advertisers want to tell us. "The product is you," Adbusters says so eloquently. (Good sound bite. Emotionally potent oversimplification).

One thing that continues to interest me is the role of online journaling and blogging as a new media outlet. One of the barriers to media formats such as radio and television is the high cost of entry into those technologies. The average person cannot simply start up their own television or radio station. Newspapers are iffy, although magazines might be possible. But the Internet. That's far more accessible.

One of my bizarre hobbies is Ripperology -- the Jack the Ripper murders. And it's been said that one of the reasons that the Jack the Ripper murders are so well-known is that it happened at a time when the press was really coming into power. In London there were scores of newspapers, each with a different slant on some topic. I'm told that there was a time when people would gravitate toward a newspaper that held political views of interest to a particular reader. We don't have that any more. (In Toronto, have four major papers). But I'm currently reading a set of about 120 journals and blogs that talk about things that interest me. In fact, blogs of people I like are the most common way I find out about the articles, stories, and editorials that interest me.

(There was a time, back when I used to watch Star Trek: The Next Generation. I wasn't able to believe in a future in which pretty much everyone on a starship was regularly recording a personal log. I expected more variation, 'cause there was a heck of a lot of variation among my friends about keeping diaries. My disbelief wasn't so much suspended as consciously ignored. Now, however, almost everyone I know blogs).

I've not yet found a really satisfying Blogger's Manifesto -- and when I say satisfying, I'm of course saying "something that satisfies my desire for a leftist political intellectual perspective on what blogging can do to change the way in which the mass media has a stranglehold on what's acceptable for public debate." The things that I've found that call themselves Blogger's Manifestos all say "I'm posting what interests me. Deal." (Maybe that's what a Blogger's Manifesto should say. I dunno).

I know, for my part, there's shitloads more I want such a Manifesto to discuss and analyze and put forward. I want to analyze the issues of self-marginalization. I want to discuss the relationships between free speech and mass media's perception that they own the airwaves and that they get to decide what is said on them.

I believe that blogging is hugely discursive. One need only look to Salma Pax to see that.

There's another film that leaps to my mind, here. Chris Marker's Sans Soleil and its discussion of Sei Shonagan's lists. "I wonder how people remember things who don't film, don't photograph, don't tape. How has mankind managed to remember? I know: it wrote the Bible. The new Bible will be an eternal magnetic tape of a time that will have to reread itself constantly just to know it existed." Marker was pretty close. We're living in an age when many people have access to technologies that allow us to compose our own lists of things that quicken our hearts.

Then I went down into the basement where my friend -- the maniac -- busies himself with his electronic graffiti. Finally his language touches me, because he talks to that part of us which insists on drawing profiles on prison walls. A piece of chalk to follow the contours of what is not, or is no longer, or is not yet; the handwriting each one of us will use to compose his own list of 'things that quicken the heart,' to offer, or to erase. In that moment poetry will be made by everyone, and there will be emus in the 'zone.'

There is a bit more, though. A something that's missing from blogging. Deliberate conversation. Blogging is mostly monologue with time for response. I would really be interested in experimenting with point/counter-point formats for blogging. Find someone who holds an interesting, but different, point of view on something that interests me and have a blogged conversation. I think that debate is so much more interesting than monologues and editorials. Someone once said something about the value of inviting people to dinner as a way of developing a well-rounded attitude about things (or something like that; I'm probably butchering the original phrase). (And, as an aside, I'm weirdly reminded of the quirky film, The Last Supper).

I don't think blogging has yet developed a good debate structure (and Usenet never managed to get the visibility it would need to be discursive). Maybe I'll start a LiveJournal community called deliberate_conversation, or sumpthing.

Comments

[deepforestowl.livejournal.com]

the lj community idea is interesting and kind of cool. too often when i ask for peoples input they dont respond but when i say something utterly random i get a ton of responses...very strange. you are lucky that you have a dvd store close by. i wont be buying any dvds for about a year which really sucks. oh well..the wonders of living in a region 2 country with a region 1 dvd player!

[lovelyangel.livejournal.com]

Hmm... I remain a little puzzled about blogging (thus my reluctance to jump in -- although here I am... if solely for the purpose of being able to reply). A blog seems like a person's soapbox upon which she can stand, perform, vent, muse, overact... whatever. Hecklers and supporters are welcome, and the crowd surrounds but never displaces the owner of the soapbox. It's more dynamic than a website but less dialog-oriented than a forum. And I would say it is closer to the vanity publishing model of the website than the peer-to-peer debates of internet forums.

(This is not a criticism of your vehicle of presentation, B.C.; it is merely my observation and opinion. If anyone should have a LiveJournal, it is someone with a plethora of fascinating ideas such as yourself.)

I find that internet forums provide ample opportunity for vigorous dialog -- so much so that I have to stay from them -- otherwise they consume all my spare time. The UBB forum software makes threaded debates very easy to follow. But even crude Yahoo!Groups forums are workable. The debates can be exhausting (and addictive) and go on for weeks. Get a bunch of thinkers together such as in the INTJ forums, and the exchanges can get intense.

From what I've seen so far, Live Journal will never (and should never) equal the capabilities of UBB for facilitating peer-to-peer discussion. A screwdriver shouldn't try to be a hammer.

But then again, maybe I just don't understand LiveJournal. Won't be the first time I've underestimated a piece of software.

Amy

[skylark-10.livejournal.com]

this is not a reply to this subject, i'm afraid, although i may well do so later.

i'm just popping in to let you know, bc, that i've added you to my LJ friends list - you've been linked to my blog for some time now.

your thoughts are top-notch, and i like keepings track of what's on your mind (in the public domain, at least).

cheers,
skylark

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

Hi Skylark. I noticed your name show up on my friends list, and happily found your journal and blog.

Glad to see you. I've added you to my friends list so you can peruse the non-public domain stuff as well.

two examples of public dialogue (one now taken down alas)

[girlsownpaper.livejournal.com]

I don't think blogging has yet developed a good debate structure

Couldn't agree more. I've got two partial examples which, by being flawed, illustrate the need for what you are calling for. Feel free to skip...

(1) David Weinberger's blog (http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/) doesn't have the dialogue you are looking for, although his newsletter JOHO has a lot of back and forth comments quoted in it. But probably the closest thing to online dialogue that he has done, is that he wrote a book in public. His book about the internet, was written ON the internet, with people jumping all over the chapters as they were written. It was fascinating. I was one of the jumpers...

All the jumpers' stuff has been taken down now that the book is complete, but here's some of his diary of that time: http://www.smallpieces.com/history.html

(2) This is a group blog in which three friends riff on internet design problems and anything else that takes their fancy: http://www.satn.org/

The problem here is that they tend to agree with each other too much for it to be the kind of dialogue (Chomsky vs. his critics) you describe. Having said that, this recent (gossipy) entry is interesting:

http://www.satn.org/archive/2003_07_20_archive.html#105898281547332970

Speaking of which, you don't know me. I only came here to get your e-mail address so I could write you and S. about altpolyconx! And then I got hooked on some of your rants. Anyway, see yr inbox for a note from me, and hope the computer is feeling better soon!

Ciao / Julianne