Commenter Brian M asks: Is it mere propaganda, or do editorial pontificators really believe the piffle they rewrite?Everything that Mr. Boyd says is important and true, but I do think he neglects to explain that the question results from an erroneous premise made evident by the or. Why should we presume mutual exclusion? Isn't it not only possible, but likely, that editorial pontificators "really believe the piffle they rewrite" which is, nevertheless, propaganda. In our ironic age of Rosie-the-Riveter graphic tees and old Soviet posters appropriated as style, it is easy to forget that propaganda is not ironic and is meant to be believed. The propaganda of the past often seems corny and unbelievable to us, but that too is a matter of style. The home décor of 1981, its thick carpets and bad wallpaper and weird mirrors, now appears hokey and unsophisticated, but it didn't appear that way at the time. Kirk's old Enterprise now appears to us like a relic of a primitive past, but in that past it appeared as a vision of a more distant future.
Whether or not they believe what they say, we mustn't lose sight of the fact that in any system of concentrated power there are penalties and rewards for saying some things versus others.
-Ladypoverty
To call it "mere propaganda" is implicitly to accord propaganda a lower place in the hierarchy of information. It implies that propaganda is inherently less believable than, what? The Truth? Real Journalism? I would tell you that the "hard news" of the non-editorial pages in our major newspapers is equally propagandistic, if not more so, than the opinion-page chin-strokers.
It is tempting to look at the various monsters who rule this strange, satanic country and to think that they can't really believe this vicious nonsense, to think that Fred Hiatt or Bill Keller or Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama are, in private, mere sociopaths; intellectually aware that they are tromping around the world eating babies for the pleasure of their dark masters even as they whistle a lot of bullshit about democracy or freedom or whatever. In the case of Barry and Hilly, that may be partially true, but in the case of the world's newspapermen, I suspect not. If they do not "really believe the piffle," then they at least believe that they believe it.
40 comments:
I have always been fascinated by what these creeps think in their private moments. Is Hillary and Bill's evil as banal at home as it is in public, or is it more snickeringly cynical, knowing and nakedly brutal when they're drinking Scotch and comparing notes on the day?
In the journalistic world, I think it varies. I think the majority are just lazy dimwits, quite happily transcribing whatever elite sources hand off to them. But then there are the Judith Millers and jeffrey Goldberg's who actually seem to be operatives of some kind, whose sense of their own worth comes from their ability to get propaganda into the ether and don't seem to mind that everyone regards them as truly rotten journalists.
I think most of the members of the punditocracy are true believers of one kind or another. Certainly Tom Friedman is too stupid to work any kind of system. He's just the kind of dolt who rises on his own merits. Work in any field for long enough and you'll meet a hundred like him. He's a brownnoser.
It's like what Lenin said... you look for the person who will benefit, and, uh, uh...
Your post also raises an interesting question about sociopaths.
Is the temperament of a sociopath such that they need no illusions about how awful they are? Does a sociopath have no need to regard himself as a good guy?
Didn't Upton Sinclair answer that? About how difficult it is to get a man to understand something if his paycheck depends on his not understanding it?
Good thoughts about propaganda.
Sociopaths are rare, and successful sociopaths rarer still. Pathology is a crutch, anyway; real killers wrestle with their consciences, and win.
when i was a kid, the Wizard of Oz terrified me. watched it with my kids the other day and was taken aback by how hokey it seemed. they were unimpressed, and un-terrified. apparently, back in the day, imagination was a much larger part of "movie magic" than it is today, when people expect their special effects, make-up and backdrop to blend together seamlessly. though i don't recall experiencing movies that way. used to be able to suspend disbelief like a motherfucker.
well i demand the same verisimilitude in my propaganda that modern moviegoers expect. i don't believe anything unless it's been printed in the new york times.
I think JRB addressed this point a little further down with this, In consequence, unequal societies are populated by those whose private thoughts to whatever degree diverge from their public acts, leaving them vulnerable to depression or despair; or whose lives are spent without any independent sense of self at all; or who, lastly, bear the full penalty of thinking unsanctioned thoughts when they are expressed as public acts.
It follows from this that editorial writers who are retained in highly unequal societies will fall either under the first or second description
The famous and powerful lose every important component of self-definition as a qualification for being such. We are more accurate to think of them as holograms possessed by superorganism than to characterizing them with the DSM.
What are they like by themselves? Like TVs left on in empty rooms.
Sociopaths are rare
People say this a lot, but I don't really understand why. Sociopathy, or at least sociopathic behavior (and how can anyone tell the difference?) is extraordinarily common.
Interesting comment, Ioz, and commentariate. This Blog is excellent. Good points, all. Now can I interest you in some Brooklyn trans-channel real estate?
Brian M
Ethan,
Truth. The business environment selects for them.
The famous and powerful lose every important component of self-definition as a qualification for being such. We are more accurate to think of them as holograms possessed by superorganism than to characterizing them with the DSM.
this is correct. Their private self-image is that they understand the necessity and responsibility of being fully possessed by the social organism (being "realistic" and "pragmatic") and you are naive and do not. They hang out with other powerful and sigh about it occasionally.
Foucault is very helpful here actually -- power acts us, we do not act power.
@bonobo: sociopaths don't think that way. It's me and what the rest of the world can be to me. There is no good and no evil.
The famous and powerful lose every important component of self-definition as a qualification for being such.
Tell it to Bill Clinton, smoking a snatch-scented Cuban cigar, happily recollecting the recent ass-to-mouth moments the gazillionth power-worshipping nymphet at his side provided, just after a speech for which he collected a cool quarter mil.
I'd say a combination of @1:18PM and @4:50PM, strangely enough. The very real privileges and accolades enjoyed by correctly positioned right-thinking people ensures compliant mimickry among themselves and the larger set of up-and-coming wanna-bes (think MattY); the rat race weeds out the more thoughtful personalities, and selects for focused savvy system-reproducers.
Things like "neoliberalism" wouldn't even be possible without the concerted shebang of think tank openings, monthly journal gigs, private foundations hand-offs, graduate research chairs, grants package, and other efforts to make zombie economics into academic/journalistic sinecures.
Why on Earth would you want a propagandist who didn't believe what they were peddling?
The owners of, say, the New York Times could hire almost anyone they want to run their paper; why would they pick someone who didn't believe in the message they wanted to project?
I don't think the relevant quote is Sinclair's about a man's salary depending upon his believing certain things, but rather Stalin's statements about useful idiots.
Putting aside the good point about propaganda, I think the answer to the intended question is that they believe their own bullshit and they're fucking conscious liars.
My guess is that not only are they not depressed, but the mouthpieces of power are actually quite satisfied with themselves. It's the thought of unpatriotic wreckers (a set whose members may vary a bit depending on the mouthpiece) that gives them a bad taste in their mouths.
If they do not "really believe the piffle," then they at least believe that they believe it.
Yeah, but do they believe that we believe that they believe they want to believe that they believe?
Just wondering. Keep up the good work.
I don't see how you can be something like president w/o being a sociopath. The trail of bodies you leave behind seem testament to this assertion.
Someone as effervescently talented as you must experience a soupcon of a frisson upon writing a piece that flirts with the prosaic as shamelessly as that one does ...
Time to kick the current beau out and replace him with someone who'll get the juices flowing again ...
Anon @ 2:27 is a sociopath!
The whole goddamned society is sociopathic--just as the native Americans, for instance. In this context, NOT being sociopathic would make a person stand out, no?
that's 'ask the native Americans', btw. sorry!
I think the answer to the intended question is that they believe their own bullshit and they're fucking conscious liars.
Exactly - it's like a story where Scheherezade and the Sultan are the same guy
Between this conversation and a related one going on at Ethan's place, I am left profoundly confused as to who qualifies as ruling class and who qualifies as ruling class defender/supplicant/tool.
Is Henry Paulson a member of the ruling class? Is Bill Clinton?
Another question, since there seems to be wide agreement that well on up to the highest layers, these douchebags believe their own bullshit, do you think there is an upper echelon of douchery, where they don't believe the bullshit? Where they do the fabricating and chortle over the results? In other words, are there people in the world who both appreciate Tom Friedman's service to their self-interest but chuckle amongst themselves about his self-regarding stupidity?
The whole goddamned society is sociopathic
This essentially renders the idea of sociopathy meaningless, which, on reflection, might not be a bad thing.
I think most evil is probably done by folks who aren't sociopaths but rather people who can easily rationalize the evil they do, aided and abetted by the evil people with whom they have surrounded themselves.
I'll get you a satanic mechanic.
Is Henry Paulson a member of the ruling class? Is Bill Clinton?
I'd say yes and yes, but hasten to add that they are, at the same time, "defenders/supplicants/tools". The most useful distinction for me has been, to paraphrase JRB, that the ruling class comprises those people who have their own independent means of survival, while the ruled is everyone forced to work for them.
The salient thing about the ruling class though is that it's a class, not a conspiracy. It arises and perpetuates itself not according to some Plan scrawled in goat's blood in a musty grimoire somewhere, but inevitably out of certain blindly deterministic functions of economics/psychology/etc... There's no capstone to the economic pyramid, no one ultimately pulling the strings. The system is such that the strings pull themselves. Everyone, no matter how high up they might seem to us, is replaceable, because it's the machine that's immortal.
Are there people in the world who both appreciate Tom Friedman's service to their self-interest but chuckle amongst themselves about his self-regarding stupidity?
How could there not be?
boetian for the win.
"Everyone, no matter how high up they might seem to us, is replaceable...
some would be less missed than others.
and LOL @Mistah Charley
Anon @ 7:56 -
Thanks for the nod.
I works hard for the money around here, and damn little of it comes my way.
+1 to both boetian and Montag. No matter how entrenched one person gets, there's someone else gunning for the same spot who believes the cant that much more. Or who's better at manipulating rhetoric. Or who went to a better school. Or who's younger, anyway.
Not only does the engine fail to mourn when the time comes to replace a gear, I promise you the engine doesn't even notice.
Pft, whatever. Sociopaths are red herrings. Everyone believes something strongly enough to justify barrels deaths.
Our own fraternity here practically engaged in violent revolt lately cause of some over zealous frisking of the richest people indulging in the world's most wasteful convenience.
Humans are violent creatures. It doesn't matter the type. Everyone has the motive. It's just a question of who's got the means and opportunity.
NoT, your hyperbole is intellectual violence.
Montag I'm flattered, but also abashed, as I basically ripped off JRB's formulation "Remember how Marx begins his discussion of class: the "haves" are the people who possess their own independent means of survival, the "have-nots" are anybody that doesn't."
But then I guess that ripped off Marx, so we'll call it square
The universe is cold and does not care!
S-n-K for da win.
But about sociopathic behavior? Between social pressures and individual cupidity, "good germans" will do a lot. It is but the grace of God that the pig can't be pumped full of glory forever.
Capt'n Obvious
I think I am with NoT and Capt'n Obvious. I have known a few bad people - though only a few - and some of these were almost certainly sociopaths. The sociopaths were not the worst ones, by any means. Not by a long shot.
Exempli gratia: last night Terri Gross interviewed New York Times head-honcho Bill Keller. What complete douchebags, both of them.
http://www.npr.org/2011/02/01/133277509/times-editor-the-impact-of-assange-and-wikileaks
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