Jason Stanley's woke propaganda

 There was a time when it was blindingly obviously what product was being advertised by a TV commercial. The name of the product was repeated constantly. The thing was thrust in your face. Older people like me found this reassuring. Then, quite suddenly, we were faced with artsy commercials which scarcely mentioned the product. Young people thought they were cool. I was drinking Forsters coz a handsome Australian told me to drink Forsters. But the cool kids were drinking Guinness. Why? Well, apparently, they had seen commercials for Guinness. So had I. But I didn't know they were for Guinness. I thought the thing was a snippet from a Cuban art film or maybe it had something to do with Hemmingway or Pablo Neruda or something high-brow of that sort. If Guinness wants me to buy Guinness why doesn't it just tell me Guinness is good for me? It will put hair on my chest. My wife will dote on me. The kid will look upon me as a role model- not a fat sack of shit. 

The answer, of course, is that Guinness owned a lot of beer companies. They wanted poorer and stupider people like me to drink Forsters while smarter more affluent people drank their flagship product. This was explained to me by some poor sod who had to do a Marketing diploma after failing Cost and Management Accountancy. The think wasn't rocket science. It was market segmentation and price discrimination and other Econ 101 stuff.

Older people- and Noam Chomsky is still much older than me, though probably much more physically fit- lived in an age when Propaganda was a profession and Advertising in its infancy. 

What of younger people- like Jason Stanley- who grew up in a world where Propaganda was a joke and Advertising had evolved into a highly cerebral art?

This is what the fellow writes-

Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman seek to explain how, without postulating a conspiracy theory, the mass media can end up producing “news” from the perspective of the flawed ideology of powerful interest groups.

This is silly. Competing news channels, back when there were high barriers to entry into broadcasting, followed the relevant economic theory and thus sought to tell the median viewer what he wanted to hear. So did 'powerful interest groups' interested in staying powerful. But, because of 'Hotelling's rule', regional outlets too tried to occupy the 'center'. That's why if there are two shops on a road selling the same stuff, they will tend to be located next to each other.  

The explanation is their so-called propaganda model. It explains how government restrictions on the media and private industry and oligarchic control of the media interact together to present selectively controlled information.

This is not an explanation because the explanans is itself determined by the explanandum- i.e. what people want to hear is what causes Governments and industries to arrange matters so that those they serve get what they want.  

The propaganda model explains how each node in the transfer of information from world to audience via the media must be cleared through a kind of checkpoint: federal government acceptance, local government acceptance, corporate ownership acceptance, corporate sponsor acceptance (the last is to assure corporate profits). Given the interdependence of the nodes, these pressures tend to lend themselves to coalescing around a rough pattern of uniform interests (just think of the role of advertising in every show one watches on television). The interdependence also allows the whole media system to be rapidly deployed in the service of propaganda in times of supposed emergency.

The problem here is that each 'check-point' is checking back with the population that it is getting what it wants. Failure to do so means losing interessement or obligatory passage point status- or more simply being fired from your job. 

It is possible to see Chomsky and Herman’s propaganda model at work, even in the recent past, in apparently robust liberal democratic states. In the aftermath of the Al Qaeda terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, on the United States, the administration of the United States undertook a massive propaganda campaign to legitimate the invasion of Iraq, a country that was uninvolved in the terrorist attack.

Why? Americans wanted them A-rabs to pay for the Forever war with their petroleum. Afghanistan had none. Iraq had plenty. So long as Americans- but also their allies who eagerly joined the war in the hope of getting a share of the spoils- thought the thing would turn a profit, the public got to hear what it wanted it wanted to hear- viz A-rabs will pay for a more glorious USA. 

Lee Artz summarizes a widely held consensus about the US media during this time: [T]he U.S. corporate media deemed the administration’s rhetorical appeals newsworthy and legitimate, accordingly giving them favorable consideration and promotion, and often dramatizing the same copy points emphasized by government speakers.

This just means the money guys gave the public what they wanted so as to keep making money.  

CBS news is the most watched and influential network news. During the run-up to the Iraq War, its prominent anchor, Dan Rather, was as explicit as possible about the media role in the push to war. Shortly after the terrorist attack, in a CNN Tonight interview with Howard Kurtz, Rather said: I want to fulfill my role as a decent human member of the community and a decent and patriotic American. And therefore, I am willing to give the government, the president, and the military the benefit of any doubt here in the beginning.

Rather was well paid because he was popular. He said whatever he thought he needed to say to retain his popularity with viewers.

A year later, in an interview on Larry King Live on November 4, 2002, Rather said: And, you know, I’m of the belief that you can have only one commander-in-chief at a time, only one president at a time. President Bush is our president. Whatever he decides vis-à-vis war or peace in Iraq is what we will do as a country. And I for one will swing in behind him as a citizen . . . and support whatever his decision is.

Why? Because that was the popular mood. 

Rather here endorses the view

that people act in their self-interest. Rather wanted to be popular and he supported a President who was popular.  

that the role of the media at times when the leader declares a crisis is not to investigate whether or not the leader is correct to declare a crisis, but rather to trust the leader’s word and provide propaganda to unify the masses behind the decisions, whether motivated or not, of the “commander-in-chief.” 

This is not the case. A President may declare a crisis and say that his principal rival is conspiring against the Republic in alliance with the Lizard People of Planet X but no media personality will back this claim- unless it pays them to do so. If their emoluments ultimately depend on their popularity with the public, then what they do depends on how they think the public will react. 

Carl Schmitt argues that the liberal conception of laws that justify every foreseeable application must always give way to what he calls “the exception.”

But Schmitt lived in a country which- as the world discovered- did not have any fucking liberal conceptions whatsoever. But then, when push came to shove, nobody else did either. 

The exception “can at best be characterized as a case of extreme peril, a danger to the existence of the state, or the like. But it cannot be circumscribed factually and made to conform to a preformed law.”

This is nonsense. A Government may declare a State of Emergency and suspend due process under the Constitution. Indeed, it may simply act arbitrarily and the Bench may consider a 'doctrine of necessity' to have been properly applied.  

The decision that the situation is an exception cannot be made in a way that conforms to liberalism.

Yes it can. There is no rule which says that there can't be a meta-rule- because that would itself be a meta-rule. Rules can be set aside during an Emergency or for some other proper purpose.  

Schmitt argues, in an admittedly somewhat quasi-mystical character, that the “decisionist character” of declaring an exception is a feature of absolute monarchy, and not of “the organic unity” of “what the people will.”

At that time Hindenberg had been given  a lot of extra power though he might himself have been a Monarchist. It should be remembered that Horthy was, in law, a Regent, not a Dictator, while Franco eventually restored the Monarchy. 

Schmitt knew little about Anglo-American jurisprudence. But, he was a sort of Catholic and thus was rehabilitated to a certain extent after the War. 

In an exception, there is not enough time for an informed vote.

This does not matter if decisions are made by people who are afraid of losing a forthcoming election. Consider Heath's State of Emergency. It failed because people were not convinced Heath could win a big enough majority to push through tougher anti-Union legislation. Ultimately, Thatcher succeeded without any Emergency. But, she had won the Falklands war.  

It is the primary role of the news media in a liberal democratic state to ensure that claims of state emergency, which by their nature lead to the suspension of liberal democratic principles, are very rare and always legitimate.

This is false. It is perfectly proper for the media to be shut down during a State of Emergency. Instead of 'I love Lucy', you have a guy in uniform telling you to 'duck and cover'.

 Depending on the country, the responsibility for ensuring that the declaration is legitimate falls upon either the Head of State (where this is a ceremonial figure) or else the Legislature (where Parliament is Sovereign) or else it is subject to Judicial review.  

In some countries, the Army, or the Trade Union movement or the Federation of Farmers, of the Council of Clerics, or some other such entity may claim this duty. But so may University Students or powerful Business interests able to field private armies. 

Some political theorists maintain that even in a liberal democracy, it is acceptable for the news media to endorse obedience to authority in times of existential emergency (though even this is clearly undemocratic).

But the views of such theorists are not acceptable to anybody though it is only equally crazy theorists who bother to denounce them as fascists or anarchists or whatever. 

But before even contemplating so doing, it is the primary responsibility of the media in a liberal democracy, in the face of claims of emergency by political or economic elites, to police those claims.

Then why isn't this written into their contracts of employment? Why have they no Hohfeldian immunities, of a superior kind, in this respect? Is it not because if a media is truly free then it would be invidious to draw a bright line between protected 'media' speech and unprotected 'private' speech? Surely liberty must be most extensive were it is most private? Restrictions should only be placed on an activity as it becomes more and more public. This is not to say that there can be a wholly independent body tasked with 'policing'. But greater restrictions are placed on a Judge's ratio than on any reason he offers to justify some private action of his. Similarly actions taken by soldiers subject to court martial are more restricted than those taken by private individuals in self-defense. 

True, NYT v Sullivan is still good law. But for how long? Clarence Thomas is believed to be against it. Let's hope Biden's Presidential Commission has thrown a scare into the Bench. 

It is hard to see that a venue is a liberal democratic news media at all if it does not fulfill this, its central function.

The dissemination of news has nothing to do with 'policing'.  

Wars and emergencies are clearly moments of exception. Because of this, there is a tendency in liberal democracies to adopt the language of emergency, especially when advancing policies that violate liberal democratic norms. In the introduction, we saw that Michigan’s Public Act 4 of 2011, The Local Government and School District Financial Accountability Act is phrased in the language of emergency.

The alternative was to admit that the situation was hopeless. People should move away from bankrupt Districts if they want their kids to get a good education. Terminal decline isn't an Emergency if nothing can be done to arrest or reverse the process. Take this patient out of the Emergency Ward. Send her to a hospice or let her return home to die among familiar faces.

It is rightly phrased in the language of emergency, since it violates liberal democratic principles.

In the same way that my having no money violates liberal democratic principles. Incidentally, it is very illiberal of you to suggest I should get a job and stop smoking crack. I need a bailout is all. Bankruptcy is undemocratic. Either all must become insolvent or none.  

One might wonder whether there are in principle financial reasons to overturn democratic norms.

Democratic norms only obtain because of financial reasons. Where democratic processes don't 'pay for themselves', they risk being disintermediated.  

However, many theorists do agree that in times of war, democratic norms may be set aside. For this reason, the vocabulary used in the United States of a “war on drugs” is a clear signal that liberal democratic norms will be violated to deal with an emergency situation.

Just like Nixon's war on cancer.  All them Oncologists and such are like totes Fascist dude. Because of my age, I had to go for Bowel Cancer screening. The bastards shoved a tube up me arse! That's straight up Gestapo tactics! What if they've turned me queer? OMG, I see it now! The Log Cabin Republicans are behind all this. They won't be satisfied till ordinary working peeps like wot iz all start flouncing around in stiletto heels! 

In general, politicians are apt to appeal to the vocabulary of emergency in those situations in which they want to bypass democratic deliberation.

But politicians who want to get reelected can't keep crying wolf. There has to be a genuine threat and an opportunity to deal with that threat more cheaply and effectively. What prolonged democratic deliberation can there be about bankrupt school districts or the notion that Iraq had the oil to pay for America's vengeance on Osama?  

In a liberal democratic society, politicians will always make claims of exception for policies about which they care deeply.

But people always make exceptions for things they care about. What has this to do with Liberal Democracy? Why not say 'in a liberal democratic society, politicians will always take a dump. Also they will micturate.' How does this advance any philosophical argument? 

They will wrap these claims in the language of exception: “emergency manager,” as if the majority Black cities in the state of Michigan underwent tornadoes and floods;

rather than an economic tsunami of woe.  

the “war on drugs,”

or the 'war on cancer' 

as if drug use

or cancer 

was an enemy outside. 

In all these cases, special measures could be taken to mitigate harm. There was a discovery process. We found out that cancer is very difficult to beat completely. Many Doctors were surprised at this outcome. Ordinary people thought 'hey, we landed on the moon. Surely, the science guys can find a simple way to beat this malady? There are other diseases which have virtually disappeared. Why not this one?'

It may well be, in the case of drugs and bankrupt School Districts, that a superior approach was available. Perhaps the problems caused by drugs could have swiftly diminished in scale while helpful programs in this respect expanded to tackle other problems creating a virtuous circle of prosperity. Similarly, what if education in underfunded Schools had so improved that Employers started locating close to them? 

Arguably, there were vested interest groups who didn't want the drug problem or the problem of underfunded Schools to be tackled at its root.

My problem with 'wokeness' is that it has a vested interest in preserving or expanding the type of Grievance upon which its savage indignation and mischievous misology feeds in a coprophagous fashion.