A short history of Stupid: The decline of reason and why public debate makes us want to scream, (2014). Bernard Keane & Helen Razer, published by Allen & Unwin, RRP $29.99.
Bernard Keane
I am a big fan of both Crikey political editor Bernard Keane and the Saturday Paper‘s gardening writer Helen Razer. They are intellectually sharp, write with good humour and come across as eminently rational in their thinking.
Helen Razer
Therefore, I was delighted to find A short history of Stupid in time to add the book to my Christmas wishlist for 2014. Yes, even über rationalist Marxist scholars have some use for Santa Claus!
Keane and Razer are friends and obviously share a dislike for stupidity in all its forms (and they are many); but they are not cut from the same cloth. Keane comes across as a socially-concerned and progressive individualist, verging on the libertarian, while Razer is more than willing to own up to her own proto-Marxist and critical feminist intellectual development. Razer is also a bit of a potty mouth, so if you are offended by the occasional use of c—t, f—k and s—t in your reading material, perhaps you should only read the chapters by the more (ahem) refined Mr Keane.
But I’m not fazed by Ms Razer’s crudities because I love her razor wit and sharp insights. Her chapter on reason and unreason is one of the best in the book and one paragraph in particular sums up her (and my) take on the psychological pressures of modern working life:
“When we fail at life as it is so broadly and meticulously prescribed, we call it mental illness. We have failed life. We are not permitted to think it is the conventions of life that have failed us.” (p. 164)
It has many good points and I recommend you read it, but A short history of Stupid is a very uneven book. This is partially because chapters are written individually and the writers have very different tones and registers in their prose; but the bigger issue is that the book doesn’t seem to really know whom its enemy is.
Identifying the “causes” of major civil disturbances is always difficult, there are so many to choose from. Even the mundane vagaries of the weather have to be taken into account. Nearly all urban riots of recent vintage happen in the summer, hot sultry evenings are ideal, and it seems that rain has, of late, dampened the spirits of enthusiastic rioters in the Midlands and northern cities.
In fact one might plausibly argue that without the typically dreadful English weather, riots would be more serious and happen more often. The underlying and proximate cause of urban rioting have been festering quite nicely in Old Blightly and I for one am not the least bit surprised over recent developments .
If we start with Tottenham, police racism, police brutality and a police culture disconnected from local communities is a perfect Molotov cocktail to set things going. Such was evident in the Afro-American race riots of the 1960s and the Parisian riots of 2005.
There are many other examples; a spark to set off the cocktail is all that is needed.
Now, it also true as the Tory press and politicians have tirelessly pointed out that thugs and “yobbos” have joined in the action. These outgrowths of Cameron`s “broken society” belong to postcode gangs who have formed alliances of convenience to loot, take on the police and cause mayhem.
This has echoes of the “Babylon’s burning” era of the late 70s and early 80s, since then 20 years of neo liberalism have embittered a new generation of white and non white gangs. No suprises there. Out of this general milieu there were also, without doubt, disturbed individuals who gained immediate pleasure from burning out cars, smashing plate glass windows and torching buildings.
And then we had the pilferers, “illegal shoppers” who just wanted to grab stuff because, well, it was cheap and armfuls of trainers and iPads are are tidy little earner, covertly on Facebook or down at the markets. This was the spirit of self reliance and entrepeneuralism that politicians from Margeret Thatcher to Tony Blair have been trying to promote. To put it another way this was consumerism by other means.
As far as I could see the illegal shoppers and their accomplices covered quite a wide demographic, some were black dispossessed youth, others were low to middle income people of both genders who were relieving the frustration of not being able to afford the relentlessly advertised fashion items and electronic goods. Still others ,of more comfortable means enjoyed the thrill of it all. I agree somewhat with the conservatives on this matter, there has indeed been a breakdown in social ethics in British society.
However, I must point out in the strongest possible terms that ethical breakdown is endemic at ALL levels of society from the bonus swilling tax avoider and financial speculator propped up by powerless taxpayers to the political classes of in the Commons and Whitehall lining their pockets with the baubles of office; to the media elites who hire professional privacy invaders to hack the communications of anybody they choose in order peddle defamatory lies and half truths for a tidy profit.
With these shining examples of cynical self interest why not join in?
It’s bloody obvious innit, everybody’s out for what they can get. And then there is the nihilism ,the purposelessness of bored youth. I saw them during my last visit to London, in Camden Town, hundreds of them just hanging about after 1am, waiting for nothing to happen. So then, what has been the establishment’s response?
I think we saw it in a newsphoto from Clapham of a young blonde woman standing among a group of angry gentrified Clapham residents,they were out to clean up the mess with their brooms, the young woman wore a teeshirt which said “rioters are scum”.
So here we have the preconditions for the next riot, “them and us”, class war, batten up the hatches and let’s continue with our strategy of systematic social exclusion and seclusion of the better off. More police, more security guards more electronic surveillance and lots of finger pointing. Cameron`s “broken society” thesis is not far off the mark.
We need the wealthy and the talented more than they need us. Their skills are international, their enterprise is universal. They can make more money, live better lifestyles and generally advance their family’s prospects better in countries more developed than our own. Australia, North America, the UK and even the new Asia. [Michael Laws, 23 May 2010]
What’s wrong with this statement? This wasn’t really going to be a post-budget post, but in a way it is. It has to be because this budget has been celebrated in some circles as somehow “fair” in terms of tax redistributions and certainly as being “good for business”. The implication there is that what’s good for business and business owners is good for all of us. In fact, that’s not the case. The budget favours the wealthy and as Michael Laws argues, so it should, because we must be grateful for any crumbs that drop from the top table.
But, how do the rich get that way? Is it really because of their talent? Am I, and are we, as Laws suggests, just envious of their elegant ways and clever business acumen? Or are these tall poppies actually gold-plated jerks in need of chopping down?
I’m in that usual happy-anxious phase that authors get into when their manuscript is in the production process, but the first pages have not come back with editor’s queries and comments.
It’s a double-edged feeling because you are happy to have the MSS off your hands, but anxious because you don’t really know what the editor thinks and, even worse, stuff keeps happening. Stuff that would be good in the book. “Damn!”
This is really obvious in the world of News 2.0. The rate of change has not slowed, just because I’ve reached my contracted word length.
However, I’m also feeling a little smug (dangerous, hubris inducing, I know) because I see evidence again that one of my key theses is correct.
In my exposition about why I’m arguing for the term User Generated News-like Content (UGNC), rather than “citizen journalism”, I make the point that the once radical posture of Indymedia and citizen journalism and the innovative use of collaborative technologies has been superceded by the MSM’s attempts to monetize the stream of cheap and free content they get from consumers – iReport on CNN is the best example, but not the only one.
Now I am a bit disappointed, but not surprised, that one of the world’s leading media and journalism research institutes is touting a conference for news executive at which they can learn how to exploit UGNC for profitable ends.
Participatory journalism. Crowdsourcing. Pro-am. Whatever you call it, you’re probably debating how to create or expand user content for your organization.
…
Explore the benefits (and drawbacks) of enlisting volunteers or semi-professionals to cover the stories your professional team can’t. Learn how to maximize impact and create a system that makes sense for your newsroom.
Another interesting development from Poynter is a scheme to give some training to these UGNC newsroom volunteers.
Yes, lift your jaw up off the floor. It’s actually about training them to a level so that they can attain a Poynter Institute “certificate of understanding of journalism basics and skills”.
That is, turning them into real “journalists”. Perhaps not, it will be a low value qualification; probably more aimed at making your volunteer feel special and to not really mind being exploited.
In News 2.0 I suggest that monetizing and exploiting UGNC is going to become more common and that it totally undercuts any suggestions that UGNC will be a real defining challenge to the mainstream.
The MSM is fighting for its survival – this is no more than the dynamic of global capitalism – and it will do so by any means necessary.
Oh poor neglected blog. I haven’t updated EM for a week or so. I think my writing juices were used up in the final push to get the News 2.0 manuscript off to the publisher. It’s gone and this weekend I thought, “toe in the water Marty.”
And this bit of news is too “good” to miss out on. A court in New Jersey has made a landmark decision that may well help us to better define the concept of citizen journalist.
In a decision that attempts to better define who is protected by New Jersey’s shield law, the court said Shellee Hale’s writings about Too Much Media LLC, which supplies software to online pornography websites, amounted to nothing more than a letter-to-the-editor in a newspaper.
Well, well. I wonder what NYU professor journalism Jay Rosen – famously the author of the quip about the people formerly known as audience will say about this?
When the people formerly known as the audience employ the press tools they have in their possession to inform one another, that’s citizen journalism.
In News 2.0 I actually go to some length to nail down the whole Cit J thing because I believe that the term is tossed around without any really solid definition beyond what Jay Rosen has offered. I contrast that view with the idea that to be a citizen journalist, one has to actually be engaged in an act of politically or ideologically-motivated citizenship.
Otherwise, you might really only be an amateur, an eye-witness or an accidental reporter. My take is that all of those categories – including citizen journalists – can be better understood as sub-categories of what I am calling “user-generated news-like content”.
Of course, you’ll have to read the book to get the full account of this. I’m sure Allen & Unwin would not want me to give it all away here – tempted as I am.
The legal fight over who is and who isn’t a journalist is an aspect of the techno-legal time gap. That unresolved contradiction between the technology – the means of journalistic production – and the social relations of production – in this case the legal framework of shield laws designed to protect “journalists” from forced disclosure of sources, etc.
The New Jersey decision goes to some length to create a working definition of a journalist that I think is very interesting and reflects some of the arguments I use in News 2.0 about the economic relationship that journalists are engaged in – a relationship of salary or other payment for their work.
Hale, a former Microsoft employee and a mother of five from Washington state, contended she was acting as a journalist when she posted comments to a message board about a security breach at TMM and allegations that its owners had threatened her. She argued the postings were part of her research into a larger story about the online pornography industry.
TMM sued for damages, claiming Hale was not working as a journalist and was not covered by the shield law, which protects journalists from revealing their sources.
In an age where technology has far outpaced the law, courts have conceded there has been no clear decision on whether writings on the internet, particularly by bloggers, are protected by the First Amendment or New Jersey’s shield law.
Maybe the court’s got this wrong and I am sure there will be some who think I’m an old Trot with too much invested in political economy.
I think I’m right on this issue. Some background in my review of Atton & Hamilton Alternative Journalism
You know what: we think it’s tough fending off the Wellydogs and Dribblejaws when it comes to National Radio. And there’s a certain element of truth in that.
But, take heart, we are not alone. If Ruper Murdoch’s News Corporation had a bigger presence in New Zealand, it could be a lot worse.
After a year or more of sniping, bitching, biting and barking, Uncle Rupe’s dogs of war have had a substantial victory in the UK.
The BBC – the paradigm example of public service broadcasting – has trimmed its own wings, rather than have them ripped off by a Tory government. According to a recent piece the The Guardian, the BBC has cut 600 million pounds from its expenditure and is reducing its online presence in response to whinging, money-grubbing complaints from commercial media (led by Murdoch) that the BBC was stifling its profit potential.
You know what, these free-market shysters should shove their own medicine where the sun-don’t-shine. They want to live an die by competition, yet when a service is popular and actually out competes them they bleat on about how it’s unfair that the BBC is so successful and has licence-fee money to spend.
The market is a failure and for the losers to whine and cry till they get their own way is pathetic.
Murdoch has now set his sights on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. News Limited columnist Mark Day is spear-heading Murdoch’s down under, low and dirty under the table kneeing in the groin attacks on the ABC.
In a piece just yesterday [1 March] Day makes a direct link between the BBC’s pre-emptive self-kneecapping and what he thinks should happen to the ABC.
It is time we had a full debate about the role of the ABC. It was established in a vastly different media landscape as a taxpayer-funded entity designed to, in part, fill in the market niches not served by the commercial sector. Now, thanks to pay-TV and the digital revolution, those niches are hotly contested. [Day 1 March 2010 redefine ABC]
The man has no shame when it comes to doing Murdoch’s bidding and some people still wonder why we fight so hard for public broadcasting. This is a totally self-serving argument that ignores the reality and history of the market and clearly serves Murdoch’s interests.
So far the ABC is standing firm and Managing Director Mark Day Scott [tx Rob] has responded to the shot across the bows.
But it seems the vigorous pursuit of commercial agendas by some of our media rivals is allowing the facts to be sidelined in pursuit of a good story.
There is a concerted attempt to portray the ABC’s role in the media as solely that of a niche provider- participating only in sections of the market not served by the commercial sector.
This “market failure only” portrayal ignores the history: Australia has been richly served by a dual system of public broadcasting working alongside commercial media. [Not for sale]
Don’t lose sight of the fact that this is a global trend. The media industry is in trouble and public service broadcasters are actually doing OK. We tend to trust them more; they’re reliable; they’re staffed by people who care about good journalism; and they don’t have greedy shareholders sucking the life out of them.
Now the greedy slugs and layabouts want a slice of our pie too.
We need to tell them to “piss off” in no uncertain terms.
This is the fight we are now joining in terms of Radio New Zealand.Murdoch may not have any direct influence here, apart from Sky TV, but there are plenty of stalking horses in the commercial media. Whanganui’s mayor is an obvious early starter.
I have been tracking the various speeches by shady members of the Murdoch clan. You can read all about it on the following links:
The state broadcaster robs taxpayers of $38 million a year to, essentially, provide two radio options. The ironically named National Programme (when its politics is ostensibly liberal Labour) and the leech-like Concert Programme.
At a time when your radio dial is replete with choice – from Radio Rhema to The Rock – public policy has decided that two types of listeners require direct subsidy. Actually, three – but that is another scandal.
The whistle is blown, the hounds are baying; they smell blood.
But now, anyone can instantly publish on the web. And as long as they have content people want to see and read they will reach millions. The extent of the revolution could not have been seen – the extent of the transformation.
A nice thought isn’t it? Anyone can now reach an audience of millions if they have content that people want. It’s pleasant to imagine this world; a place free of the media barons, where simple souls like us can wield the once unassailable power of the moguls.
Too bad it’s just a digital myth at this point.
It is an aspect of what Vincent Mosco calls the “digital sublime”. a mythology that he says is sustained by the “collective belief that cyberspace was opening a new world by transcending what we once knew about time, space and economics” (2004: 3).
It is this mythology that leads many commentators to suggest that citizen journalism, or what I prefer to call “user-generated news-like content” is going to transcend and eventually replace the news industry of the 20th century.
But you know what, the media empire is an adaptive beast and while Rome wasn’t built in a day, it didn’t collapse overnight either.
OK, so can you tell me what’s wrong with this picture?
Chinese President Hu Jintao (7th L) poses for a group photo with co-chairpersons of the World Media Summit prior to the summit's opening ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, on Oct. 9, 2009. The two-day summit, hosted by Xinhua News Agency, opened here Friday morning. (Xinhua/Li Xueren)
Talk about a nightmare featuring Men In Black. This comes pretty close.
The World Media Summit was held in Beijing from 9-11 October 2009 and brought together the leaders of 170 global news media companies to discuss the opportunities and challenges facing the news industry in the age of News 2.0.
It’s remarkable for the lack of irony, but the statement called for the news media to be a conduit for “world peace”. Yes, if this sounds like some lame beauty pageant, that’s exactly what it was, viz:
We hope that media organizations around the world will provide accurate, objective, impartial and fair coverage of the world’s news events, and promote transparency and accountability of governments and public institutions, and thus facilitate the mutual understanding as well as exchange of views and ideas among peoples from different countries and regions.
A fine sentiment, particularly given the summit was hosted by the Chinese regime and the keynote address was given by that well-known democrat and champion of media freedom Hu Jintao.
The Philistine phase of the digital age is almost over. The aggregators and the plagiarists will soon have to pay a price for the co-opting of our content. But if we do not take advantage of the current movement toward paid-for content, it will be the content creators, the people in this hall, who will pay the ultimate price and the content kleptomaniacs will triumph.
The writing is on the wall…but actually the content creators were not in Beijing with Rupert Murdoch; they’re scattered across the globe and Murdoch wants their content, he just doesn’t want to pay for it.
Can you imagine a future without journalism: a time in which journalists are replaced by “content directors” and amateurs?
As journalist and commentator Peter Kirwan put it in Wired magazine:
If traditional journalism is too expensive, and if user-generated content really is “good enough”, the way forward seems obvious.
For some news industry managers, this is a happy prospect: they can legitimately get rid of the expensive journalists, take your amateur copy for free and rake in the profits.
I spent an interesting 24 hours in Christchurch on Friday and Saturday as a guest of the New Zealand Broadcasting School. I was a speaker at the school’s conference to celebrate 25 years of turning out great Kiwi broadcasters and industry heavyweights.
Some other interesting speakers too, including the head of the Australian Special Broadcasting Service, Shawn Brown, himself a Kiwi; Brett Impey, the CEO of Mediaworks; Rick Ellis, CEO of TVNZ, Jim Mather, head of Maori television and John Follett, the head of Sky New Zealand.
All of them had some interesting things to say about the state of Kiwi broadcasting, but they are also fairly optimistic that the industry is in relatively good shape-if only it wasn’t for this blasted recession. Advertising revenues are down somewhere between 15 and 30 per cent and of course there’s been several rounds of cost-cutting, particularly in news and current affairs, but each of them was surprisingly upbeat about the state of broadcasting, particularly television, in the relatively (in global terms) small New Zealand market.
I was on a panel talking about the future of news and my fellow presnters were TVNZ head of news and CAff, Anthony Flannery, his TV3 counterpart, Mark Jennings and a recent NZBS graduate, Katrina Bennett, who’s now with the Radio Network in Wellington.
We had a lively discussion and again both Mark and Anthony were confident that television will continue to be the dominant news media for some time to come.There were some great questions from the audience too: about the ubiquitous TVNZ live cross that doesn’t seem to go anywhere. Anthony Flannery made the point that he thinks TVNZ news gets it right about 40 per cent of the time. There was also some discussion of how PR is tending to overshadow news to some degree and Katrina made the interesting point that to some extent journalists have just become the re-mediators of press releases. She asked why don’t organisations like the police just go straight to the public and this provoked some interesting responses from the panel and from the floor. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Ethical Martini 
Ethical Martini 