One of the things that I have been rolling around my mind for the past few months has been Richard Weaver's Ideas Have Consequences, specifically his Great Stereopticon. It has been about four or five years since I read it, so I've decided to re-read the book in light of how recent events and my intellectual development (in which I am something of a late bloomer) will color my reading.
From what I can remember, the Stereopticon is basically mass media. Weaver had great reservations about its distortive power over images and reality. A cursory search on the web provides this quote:
"The operators of the Stereopticon by their very selection of matter make horrifying assumptions about reality. For its audience that overarching dome becomes a sort of miasmic cloud, a breeder of strife and degradation and of the subhuman. What person taking the affirmative view of life can deny that the world served up daily by the press, movies, and radio [one can add television and that great evil, 24 hour news channels] is a world of evil and negation? There is iron in our nature sufficient to withstand any fact that is presented in a context of affirmation, but we cannot remain unaffected by the continued assertion of cynicism and brutality. Yet these are what the materialists in control of publicity give us."
Is this not what we see in the Iraqi coverage of today? We are bombarded with horrid images of failure and while the American people are level-headed enough to dismiss it for a while--we have a lot of "iron in our nature" after all--our defenses cannot stand for long. He also discusses how much harder it is for public figures to have to fight against this sensationalist tendency. How true this is for Bush who not only has to combat terrorists and self-interested 'allies', but also has to fight to get his message out from under the institutional hostility of the media? I'm sure a full re-reading will provide much food for thought, which I will share with you if I can.
I have been thinking about Weaver in comparison to the darling of the Left intelligencia and storm-troopers, Noam Chomsky, and his notion of 'manufactured consent.' The general gist, from what I gather, is that the government and big business conspire to use mass media to dupe the public and serve their own self interests, kind of a modern military-industrial complex. I have always dismissed this stuff as conspiratorial junk out of a fitting of a Le Carré novel, but with the growing popularity of this junk (you can buy Chomsky at Virgin or Tower Records, why not Weaver or Kirk?) it makes sense to treat it more seriously. (For an informed take on Chomsky, see Keith Windschuttle's deconstruction from the May 2003 New Criterion here.)
One doesn't have to be a student of Chomsky to figure out just how much bunk it is. Is there really manufacturing of consent in America? Is the government using crafted images and events to increase its power? Ha! I wish it were so! It would not take much effort to make the situation in Iraq be much more positive than it is. If Bush (or Cheney, because he is really in power, isn't he) did manufacture consent, all we would see are picture of servicemen building schools, hospitals, roads, etc. They would show pictures and spread the news about the local elections that have been taking place across Iraq. They would not have to make these up because these things are happening. These things are being ignored by the media, so just who is manufacturing consent? I would put forth that it is Chomsky and his ilk (Cambodia, anyone?). They are the ones distorting images and truth.
While I do believe that the Far Left is attempting to manufacture consent and distort reality to further their desire for power and quench their hatred, I don't think this explains why the mass media has been so negative. I ascribe more to the idea of the Stereopticon and believe that the notions discussed by Weaver have much more to do with it than anything else. I also wonder if there has been any essays comparing Weaver to Chomsky, or even if Chomsky uses some of Weaver's ideas in his "work." It would certainly be vary interesting.
I will close this post with another quote from Weaver, one that I include with great reluctance:
It may be that we are awaiting a great change, that the sins of the fathers are going to be visited upon the generations until the reality of evil is again brought home and there comes some passionate reaction, like that which flowered in the chivalry and spirituality of the Middle Ages. If such is the most we can hope for, something toward that revival may be prepared by acts of thought and volition in this waning day of the West.I would have thought this was 9/11 or even 3/11, but perhaps it will take more. I surely hope not.
Side Note: This post was my long promised one which was originally mentioned after I read William Shawcross' reply to The Spectator's negative nattering on Iraq which mentioned Amir Taheri and his notion of there being "two Iraqs" one on the ground and one in the media.
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