Xanthippa's Chamberpot

As our society evolves, so do the means we keep ourselves informed.

A thousand years ago, traveling merchants, storytellers and ‘going to the fair’ would be the main ways non-elites (as in, us regular citizens) got information about what was happening in the world.  A hundred years ago, we would likely read the newspapers – or have someone who read them tell us about all the interesting things that were going on.  Then, the radio, TV….well, you know the rest.

The large and established newspapers, news-magazines, TV-news and to a degree, radio, make up our ‘mainstream media’ (MSM).  The majority of the people in our society get all of their news through this means – hence the term, ‘mainstream’.

During the early part of the 20th, the MSM had earned for itself a reputation of impartiality and fierce independance.  Journalists were proud to ‘hunt down’ the truth, the whole truth – and report nothing but the truth.  And not just report it – report it in as factual a way as possible.

Recently, my father-in-law was looking up some news story from the 1st half of the 20th century – so he went down to the ‘National Archives’ and started looking through the dailies.  He was struck at how very differently the ‘news’ had been reported.  No fluffy wording.  No idiotic interviews with a neighbour who had not seen anything, but happened to be ‘around’ when the reporter needed an ‘eyewitness’.  No guesses about what ‘society’ had done to ’cause’ such a tragedy.  Just, well, facts.  A bit stark, to be sure, but informative…

So, what happened?

Dan Rather has some insights that I think are very interesting:

By the way, Mr. Rather thinks that ‘bloggers’ are the next wave in news-communication – and a healthy antidote to the current malaise of the MSM.  Though he does not have a blog himself, in another interview, he said that if he were offered an opportunity to join a group of several bloggers, he just might consider making it the place from which to fight this battle!

Growing up behind the ‘Iron Curtain’, a person had to learn to ‘read between the lines’ of what the official news-media were reporting.  The alternative was being left with patently self-contradictory messages.  One little example:  the headline in a newspaper touted the Soviet Union as the most developed country in the world, while the newsstand itself was just by a big ‘inspirational’ sign that read ‘We will catch up to, then surpass the USA!’ 

In other words, keeping one’s brain from exploding from ‘doublespeak’ required that one began to construct filters through which to pass all ‘official news’.  And, it was all ‘official news’.  Of course, we had ‘freedom of the press’ – there were several independent sources besides the official government newspapers!  There was the Communist Party newspaper and there was the official ‘Union of Trade Unions’ newspaper, too!  Plus, we were told  we had freedom of the press!

When we came to Canada in the 1980s, we experienced something that we had then written off as just a bit of a quirk – but, looking back, I suspect it may have been a symptom of a malaise that is now causing the part of the illness of our ‘Western’ mainstream media sources.

I say ‘part’ because in my never-humble-opinion, there are several underlying causes….  It is not a simple situation.

So, what was this ‘quirk’?

When we came here, many Canadians were very welcoming of us.  Most were very nice – even if somewhat naive of the world situation, at least, it seemed so to us.  They would ask us a lot of questions about what our life had been like and offerered very empathetic replies.  We we would describe to them the type of censorship of the press that existed there – how difficult it was to actually find information on what was happening in world events.  They smiled indulgently and told us:  ‘It is the same here – just from the other direction!’

This seemed a singularly strange response to us.  We concluded it was just a poor attempt at trying to make us feel welcome.  But, because several different people offered me the same sentiments, it is something I have never forgotten – it did continue to bother me over the decades.

It bothered me because it showed an inability to differentiate between the freedom of the press and censorship.  It bothered me because it diminished the importance of protecting freedom of the press by a smile and a wave of the hand…. 

But it also told me that there was a danger that these people would perceive ‘right-wing bias’ where none existed.  That they would suspect it is there – simply because they are told that in Communist countries (which is their ‘opposite’) there is a ‘left wing bias’ – so here there ‘must’ be the opposite, ‘right wing’ bias…  This seemed to me to be both a twisted form of reasoning, lack of an ability to assess veracity, as well as an indication of undeserved self-deprecation.  Perhaps it was a kind of self-put-down:  considering one-self unworthy of actually asessing the situation using their own reasoning an therefore refusing to even try.  And I thought this was potentially dangerous….

It seems to me that this, or similar, faulty reasoning has permeated a lot of the learning institutions in ‘the West’ – that this ‘attitude’ is actively being taught in schools to our kids, teens and young adults.  And, it has been taught since at least the 1980s!

This started me thinking about how this attitude may have become come to be in the first place – why was this type of mis-reasoning never debunked by the intelligent people who were being taught it?  And then it occurred to me:  people will NOT question something IF they do not realize there is something to question!!!

Perhaps I am confusing things a little….  Let me explain this by going over a conversation I had with one of my high-school English teachers.  He was a 60’s hippy – all grown up and teaching American Literature now.  As we went over interpretations of differen novels, it became clear he was fiercly pro-peace (all war is evil, nothing is worth going to war over) and that he regarded the Soviet Union and the United States as pretty much ‘equivalent’ – economically as well as morally.  But, his in-born sense of fairness demanded that since he is part of ‘the West’, it is his duty to be critical of ‘the West’ – just as we, emigrants from ‘the East’ are critical of ‘the East’.

He and I had many interesting discussions – inside the class, as well as outside of it.  I’m afraid my inability to properly perceive ‘social boundaries’ meant that I asked some pretty direct questions of him – but he was genuinely a very nice guy and would discuss them with me in the spirit in which I asked them.

If this teacher is indicative of how the attitudes formed in other people of his generation, I don’t know.  However, it is interesting to entertain the possibility that he might… 

Part of the ‘culture’ of ‘the West’ in the decade plus following WWII was a significant amount of propaganda against Communism.  This went along with some pretty serious abuses of human rights – McCarthy and all that.  But that culture was also imbued with very positive things, like ‘patriotism’ and the knowledge that as horrible as war is, it is necessary to fight it sometimes…

It is one of those things we, people, tend to do:  we tend to bundle ideas together.  In this case, the ‘counter-revolution’ which happened – the ‘hippy movement’ – bundled the ideas of ‘freedom=good’  ‘McCarthyism is against freedom’ along with ‘patriotism’ and ‘necessary self-scacrifice in war’, ‘McCarthyism=right wing’, ‘facism=right wing’, ‘facism caused war’….  you see where I’m going with this. 

The Hippies (and, really, many pre-Hippies…Hippies were sort of the ‘trailing edge’ of this trend, but I don’t know the proper term to apply) rebelled against ‘the zeitgeist’ of their parent’s society – the good along with the bad!  And they were so busy rebelling against ‘the bad bits’ that they never noticed they did not reason things out…and that there even were any ‘good bits’ in their parent’s culture.

In other words, many of these people ‘bundled together’ all their partents’ era stood for.  They saw ‘rebelling against government control’ and ‘fighting for freedom’ to be the same thing as ‘rebelling against right wing ideas and people who espouse them’.  It never even occurred to them to question whether this reasoning is sound.  And since it did not occurr to them to question this, they never did.

These people then became the teachers of the next generation!

Thanks to the demographic ‘waves’, people who grew up on the leading edge (agewise) of this cultural wave have filled all the vacancies in Universtities and Colleges that were getting ready for the swelling numbers of the ‘boomers’ and they made sure to drum these ideas into the students’ heads. 

You want to question ‘government authority’?  Then question right-wing ideas!!!

Simply put, they failed to differentiate between the ’cause’ and the ‘symptom’:  since they saw ‘opression’ come from the ‘right wing’, they eqauted the two and did not reason any further.  This then became their entrenched dogma.

And they are still there, still teaching these same ideas… and they are senior enough to be in charge of approving the hiring of new professors.  Predictably, they select ones who think like they do.  After all, they must ‘guard’ the ‘institutions of learning’ against falling under the influence of ‘right wing McCarthyists’!!!

So, how did my conversations with my teacher go?  Rather well.  I walked away with a deeper understanding of ‘the West’ and its ‘internal struggle’.  But, I think I also had an impact on my teacher.  I recall that during one of our last conversations (the year was almost out) we were talking about the Soviet Union’s military backing of some of the most brutal revolutions in Africa. 

My teacher was dismissive of my criticism, saying it did not matter if the ‘new’ country accepted help from the USA or the USSR.  In his words:  ‘When you are hungry, it does not matter who offers you a steak.  You don’t ask about their politics, you eat the stake!’

To which I replied that the USA spends billions of dollars on foreign aid – a lot of it in Africa.  Sure, they do some bad things – nobody says they don’t.  But, they also bring in vaccinations, rice, beans – and books and teachers.  The Soviet Union also spends money on foreing aid in Africa.  But they never send food or books or medicine.  Instead of handing the Africans ‘a steak’, they hand them a gun and say:  ‘Your neighbour has a steak.  Go take it!’

All my teacher said was:  ‘I had not thought of that…’

This is a most excellent video from StopAndLook which explores the origin and nature of our rights.

The author expresses the concepts eloquently and clearly:  human rights, at any given time, are what people agree they are.  Reaching a concensus is difficult. 

The origin of rights determines their nature.  This video explores the difference between the position that ‘rights’ originate with each individual versus the position that rights originate with the social group.

Though it is phrased differently, it is very simlar to the different attitudes captured in ‘Common Law’ versus ‘Civil Law’ legal codes:  very roughly, the ‘Common Law’ would be more closely aligned with the position that ‘rights’ originate with the individual whild ‘Civil Law’ is more congruent with the point of view that ‘rights’ originate from ‘the state’.

What is really important here is the difference in attitude between the citizen and the State.  A little bit of this difference in attitude is described in my post about the difference between a ‘tax cut’ and a ‘tax rebate’:  in a tax cut, the attitude is that the money is yours, and the government is able to accomplis the necessary ‘common goals’ using less of your money while in a tax rebate, the attitude is that the money is the government’s and that they have decided to give you a raise in your allowance.

This attitude, in my never-humble-opinion, is key in how the society evolves because it forms the expectations of the citizens towards the government, and vice versa. 

And this attitude is one of the ‘threads’ in this great big ‘knot’…

It is important – when embarking upon a long and convoluted description of something – to make sure that everyone following the discussion has a common understanding of what is being discussed.  This may sound fatuous, but – it is very common for people to use one word in several ways, to have a very different understanding of a principle or concept from what the speaker has.  Such a discussion will not be productive…

So, I would like to start by explaining what I mean by some of the words and concepts which I plan to bring into focus.

This post will continue to be updated as more posts are added.

Freedoms vs. Accomodations

Absolute freedom and the necessity to accomodate others if we wish to interact with them.  ‘Free Speech’ is the means by which we can arrive at a workable balance.

What does ‘Freedom of Speech’ mean?

This is just a clarification of what is meant by these words in the context of this discussion.

The origin and nature of human rights

This most excellent YouTube video (1st of 5-part series) by StopAndLook.  It contrasts the view that rights are inherent to the individual vs the view that rights are given to people by the state.  This results in very different attitudes (mindsets) between the state and citizen – and I contrast it to my post ‘Common law vs. civil law‘.  To further demonstrate the difference in attitudes, I also mention by ‘Tax cut’ vs. ‘tax rebate’  post.

This is part of the ‘Big Picture’ series.

‘Absolute Freedom’ can only be achieved by a person who is absolutely alone.  When a person has no others to interact with, they are free to do absolutely anything they wish – and they are absolutely responsible for the consequences of their actions.

What I mean by this is that if this person takes foolish or reckless actions – they are free to do so.  But, nobody will help them, as there is nobody else there.

Humans are social creatures – we build communities.  In order to get along, we agree to give up some of our freedoms willingly because we have made the judgment that it is in our best interest to do this.  So far so good.

Now, we have to find the balance between what we are willing to give up and what we are not willing to give up.  In other words, we have started a whole complex ‘freedom/accomodation’ balancing act.

After all, even if we give too many of our rights up willingly, make too many accomodations (or accomodate too far), we will feel oppressed.  (An example to illustrate this:  a young man willingly gives up his career to move into a different area because he wishes to be with the woman he loves.  Even though this decision was done willingly and happily, over time, he may regret the lost opportunities and begin to resent the woman he loves…  It may not even be a conscious thing – but it could fester, eventually put a strain on the relationship.)  

Obviously, this balance between one’s freedoms on the one hand and willingness to accomodate the community is not the same for every person…  Which is exactly why we have to be able to talk about it – openly and without fear. 

It is only through open and honest discourse that we can re-balance ‘freedoms’ versus ‘accomodations’.   And it is only by voicing our concerns that we can realize that the current ‘balance’ is oppressive.  Every society changes and continuously evolves – and as it does, this re-balancing will be necessary!

This cannot be accomplished without the freedom of each and every person to speak their mind, openly and without fear.  Therefore, I think the most fundamental freedom – the one which is key in maintaining and re-balancing all the other ones, is the Freedom of Speech.

This is part of the ‘Big Picture’ series.

Each and every person must be free to speak their mind, seriously or in jest, regardless of who they are or what their ideas are.  I am fully willing to accept that spreading falsehoods or breaking confidentiality agreements can and should be prosecuted in civil court – that is the appropriate and necessary consequence  of this right to speak freely.  However, the key here it that is is actionable by the injured party, in civil court – not by anyone else, anywhere. 

There is a second part to this ‘freedom of speech issue’ – every person ought to have ‘freedom of speech’ on both the output and the input side, so to speak.  The ‘input side’, of course, is the ‘access to other people’s speech’.  Because, if a country were to allow each and every citizen to speak freely – but only in sound-proof cells where nobody can hear their voice – the citizens may be able to say what they wish, but it is not ‘freedom of speech’.

So, in my definition, ‘freedom of speech’ also includes the ‘freedom to be heard’ and perhaps most importantly the ‘freedom to hear others’ – regardless of what they may say.  As in, I get to choose whom I listen to – nobody else may make that choice for me!!!  To me, this is an essential component of ‘freedom of speech’.

Of course, because speech is the means of re-balancing freedoms vs. accomodations, those who wish to control the way a society evolves will allways seek to control speech!