Sent to you by D via Google Reader:
via "Les Confessions" on 19/07/05
Guys Drugs Research UnitOn Saturday I had my first dose of what I presume is anthrax vaccine. I don't know for sure because one of the five injections they give you is placebo (to see if you're some sort of faggot that would scream bloody murder after being injected with saline or whatnot) but obviously it's not clear which one. There were no observable side-effects, except for a slight case of dry mouth which passed within half an hour or so.
Basically the process goes something like this :
Saturday 16th July : 16 blood samples (!) + injection
Saturday 23rd July : More samples + injection
Saturday 6th August : More sample + injection
Saturday 20th August : More samples + injection
I then get another injection after six months, plus a bunch of other tests and that's about it. I think. There's quite a few more appointments where they just test your general health. I'll let you know if I die.
After the blood letting and the injection I went to a party (Hesters), then clubbing (Slimes) where I took some drugs. I will only say this : losing a small amount of blood is a good fucking pre-roll.
Time
I've recently felt like I've got no time to do anything. This is a reoccuring theme in my life although I'm not sure why. Most of my time seems to be spent doing very little at all. In fact, here's something that could only be made more gay by the use of Power Point :
Here I am of course referring to exclusive activities. A lot of my time spent wasting time on the internet is also spent at work, and I'm not including things like "listening to music" since it's very rare that that is all I am doing (so I might be listening to music while commuting or something like that).
I've subdivided the right hand side into the things which seem to be more optional activities - that is where I think I have a reasonable degree of control (I could vary the amount I do any of them without considerable hardship).
But I don't really know where I should spend more time. On one level I should take things easier and spend more time with friends/relaxing, but from another perhaps I should work harder in my job or spend more time writing. Who knows?
Even if you can narrow these things down to one thing (e.g. I will dedicate all my life to playing the guitar) then there's still a whole range of sub-issues. Do you spend all your life learning acoustic or electric? Do you join a band or just try to become individually excellent? What songs do you try and learn? What style of guitar playing? Etc, etc. Obviously all of this is just taste, but there's also a moral issue. Where _should_ you spend your time?
That, in a round-about way is kind of what I've been thinking about lately. And so I let my mind wonder on the subject.
"Fuck Natalee Holloway", Bending the Stick And Other Issues
As seen above, I waste a lot of time on the internet. The sites I've visited today include :
-- The Planetarion Forums
-- Livejournal
-- Slashdot
-- The Register
-- ZNet
-- Monthly Review
-- The Economist
-- Google News
-- BBC News
-- IR London
-- Kuo5hin
Plus some private and work related sites (how worthwhile your job is can be directly measured by how many times you have to check the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister Website in a month).
One of these, Kuro5hin, a tech and cultural site recently carried a story which was entitled "Fuck Natalee Holloway". The story can be found here, but basically can be summarised that the US Media have gone (or went) over-the-top in their coverage of an individual case of a missing person. A young girl on holiday on a foriegn island went missing, big deal of it made in the media. Kuro5hin was posting the natural counterpoint : "We don't care". Well, it wasn't that harsh. Basically they were talking about the disproportional nature of the coverage compared to the many other disappearances of young children - many of whom are young, poor and non-white (the story gives the example of a girl called Reyna Alvarado-Carerra).
Of course, anyone who has watched TV news or opened a newspaper before will not be surprised by any of this. Some things are hyped up beyond all belief and other things go strangely unnoticed. One death results in a thousand columns, another in none at all. One of my friend's neighbours was murdered and I don't recall seeing a single mention in the newspapers about the incident. At the other end of the spectrum who can forget the stupidly over-the-top reaction the death of Diana Spencer?
Most of the time it's fairly obvious why certain things get more coverage than others. Tony Blair being killed warrants more coverage than me getting killed not because he is a better human being (well, possibly) but simply because his death has more of an impact and he is known to more to more people and therefore his death of more interest to more people.
There are also plenty of other (equally obvious) reasons for different (but similar) stories getting disproportionate coverage. I've sketched a few examples with very crude explanations for each :
Political / Structural Bias
The people who control / own / dominate the media have a vested interest in reporting specific types of stories. See Manufacturing Consent or any number of Marxist Media theories.
Cultural Bias
Different groups are (unsurprisingly) going to have varying degrees of sympathy depending on the source. This works on all manner of levels but for instance; a recession which affects middle class people will perhaps be of more interest to journalists (of a generally middle class persuasion) than one which effects coal miners or what-not. Britains are more likely to care about Australia than (say) Japan because of the cultural links which exist.
Practical Constraints
A disaster in London is going to be nearer to more journalists than a disaster in the North of Scotland. Rather simplistic, but you can see the point. A disaster in New York will guarantee many thousands of cameras on it, a disaster in Congo less so.
Inertia
"It's the news not because it's important but because our coverage makes it important" as an episode of Duckman once said. Once something has been in the media for long enough, regardless of how irrelevent it was in the first place then it becomes legitimate news. The BBC generally features on the news (for instance) who wins Big Brother to give an obvious example.
Fashionable Issue / Case Study
When my friend's neighbour was killed, there wasn't a lot to be said. Wife stabs husband. There was no bigger picture to see, no case study to develop. A simplistic view would be "Oh well, they were poor and black South Londoners, who cares if they died" but that doesn't explain Daimola Taylor or Steven Lawrence. But of course, they were case studies (of urban blight and police/societal racism respectively)
The People Involved Won't Shut The Fuck Up
In many instances, it's just the determination of those affected which get's and keeps the media spotlight on their case.
And so on.
The reason why I bring all this up is because it's something that occurs to me as a key element to the time question. The media have their reasons, as shown, for giving more coverage to one than the other. But what of us, as moral agents? We only have a limited amount of time on our hands, or energy in our bodies, or grief in our soul. What do we do with it? Should we pay as much attention to Natalee Holloway as we do to Reyna Alvarado-Carerra? They are both human beings, they are both equally distant from ourselves. I've never met either of them, nor any member of their families nor (in all likelyhood) anyone who ever met either of them. Or do we pay more attention to the one most like us?
Noam Chomsky says he writes almost exclusively about the crimes of the United States (and her allies) because that is an area where he (and his readership) can have an influence - rather than condemnation of enemy countries many miles away where we lack such influence. This unfortunately does not help us with purely domestic issues or with the Natalee case above.
This issue came up recently with the two minute silence held on Friday 15th July. There are many things that can be said on this subject, but I will limit myself to one argument I have heard from a number of people : what about other victims? Where are the silence for the victims in Iraq who have been killed since (or before) the invasion? Where is the silence for those dying needlessly of hunger or AIDS or whatever else? Where is the silence for...etc, etc.
You get the idea. I mean, if we wanted to be simplistic, we held a two minute silence for fifty five or so people killed in London. A story on the BBC News today says 25,000 civilians dead in Iraq since the invasion. So, on the same scale we should have 15 hour silence for Iraq. I believe Fidel Castro said in the 80's that if we were to have a minites silence for every child who needlessly tired of hunger the Year 2000 celebrations would have been silent.
This line of argument can be objected to on at least three grounds :
- Obviously we are going to be more affected / focussed on deaths in our country for a range of reasons. If there is an explosion on the tube (a service we/our families might use every day) then quite naturally we are going to take this to heart than some far-off disaster. This is undoubtedly true, but then again we held silences for the 9/11 victims (many thousands of miles from ourselves).
- Silences are a general time to reflect on all victims of violence / poverty and no-one was saying we should restrict our attention to one set of people. This is also true, but these things are never marketed this way.
- Caring about one set of people does not mean we do not care about anyone else. These things are not mutually exclusive. Once again true - but surely it says something as to the degree of time/grief/energy we are devoting to one but not the other. As stated, these are not limitless traits we possess.
Now, no-one is suggesting that caring is a binary value. It is not a yes/no thing. I care if your girlfriend is ill, but of course I care a great deal more if my girlfriend is ill. I care very much if there is a bomb on the New York subway but I care even more about one on the Underground. Selfish, sad but true. Like the media, we have our reasons.
Bending the Stick
As always, I write only from personal experience but I'm going to go ahead and presume the following is quite a common experience. I'll imagine that most of you have experienced something like the following :
Some movie / band / song / cultural product will be released to much acclaim. It'll be heralded as genius by many and some will say it's their favourite thing ever.
And then, out of nowhere someone will say that in fact, the thing in question is a pile of shit. Not only is it not the best thing ever but is in fact the worst thing ever. A band/movie/song/etc without merit of any kind. Depending on the climate and the people you associate with, this might suddenly become the dominant opinion.
Now, while all of this is subjective it's probable that both sides are "wrong" to a degree. The former group are probably guilty of hyperbole and the latter are guilty of what Lenin called "bending the stick". To straighten a stick one has to bend it in the opposite direction.
I'm sure we all know somebody who delights in doing this. They'll take great pleasure in ranting against all that is "over-rated" and stomping down on something undeservedly popular. In fact, I'm sure we've all been guilty of this from time to time. I know I have.
Take Final Fantasy 7 for instance. I don't really like the game. I think it's vastly inferior compared to other similar games. But at the same time, truth be told, it's not that bad. It's not a dreadful game by any means. But I often say (or imply) that it is. Why? Not because I enjoy trolling but because in my opinion it is way way over-rated by it's followers. Independently I have encountered at least a dozen people who all claim it is some sort of amazing gamesplaying experience. To counter their hyperbole I inevitably lapse into my own.
There are plenty of other examples of course, and I'm sure you could name several if pressed. Two common ones are 'The Matrix' and 'The Beatles'. I happen to be reasonably partial to both these things and think them reasonably enjoyable if fairly mindless. But I have heard quite extraordinary bile poured out about both. People have told me that the Beatles were utterly shit and worthless and didn't have a single good tune out of any of their releases. Now, it's possible that just genuinely is their opinion independent of anything else, but I'd presume that these opinions wouldn't be as forthcoming (or as strident) if the Beatles weren't constantly hailed as "the greatest band eva!!!" by various sections of British society.
The same with the Matrix. I think that if this film had not been popular then even it's most vehement detractors would be forced to concede it would make a reasonably entertaining piece of tat that Channel 5 could show late at night to a post-pub audience without too many complaints. But of course, this is not the situation.
The point of all this is that someone's judgement needs to be taken in the context it is given. Kuro5hin's "Fuck Natalie Holloway" story is pretty offensive except when you consider they are operating in an environment with such ludicrous saturation coverage and where all perspective is lost.
So I'm not sure whether we should salute these people who "bend the stick" on cultural and political matters. Perhaps they are brave and rebellious souls who are trying to restore perspective in the face of group-think. Perhaps they're just contrary bastards who enjoy annoying people with stupid points of view. Who knows. In the context of the Natalee question above they're people who would immediately think more about the "unknown" case of Reyna. They would instinctively support the "underdog".
But the thing with being contrary is that you have to be contrary against something. And this is where things get complicated. It's acceptable enough for a smallish independent website to carry a story saying "Fuck so-and-so" if the rest of the press has gone crazy on it. But if there'd been no coverage and the girl had just been reported missing then a New York Times article saying "Fuck Her" would be pretty insensitive.
Which brings another dimension to all of this. How we choose to devote our time and mental efforts is not only dependent on the absolute scale of how bad / worthy something is, and not only relative to how important it is to us personally, but also against the efforts/time of other people. To use an example : I do not spend my time condeming George Bush. Not because I think he is great but because the point does not need to be made. At least, not to some people.
Because of the fragmentation of civil society and a range of other developments (e.g. the internet) it's quite possible for groups (or individuals) to become increasingly insulated from each other while still occupying the same geographical area.
After all, if I wanted, I could live in a subculture. In my job I could either ignore my colleagues or exchange mild banalities (much as I do). I could spend all day reading goth or heavy metal websites (for instance). I could speak only to like-minded individuals either via the internet or in person. I could go out every single evening to clubs where they played music I liked, where people dressed how I liked, where they did things in the fashion I was accusomted to. I could avoid reading newspapers or discussing politics with anyone but those who shared my passion.
OK, this is extreme but is just a watered down version of what people kind of do already. People surround themselves with people who think just like them (or there abouts) either accidently or on purpose. But then what? Where is the stick bending then? Who is the underdog?
I already get this, and I'm sure you do too. People come up to me and tell me about Iraq as if they're sharing some sort of revelation with me. They tell me about western imperialism as if it's a concept I've never heard of. I try to smile and look surprised. To most people, giving the rant that George Bush is a cunt may be worthwhile. But in other company it's not. So when you're trying to be radical or rebellious please consider your audience.
After all, what happens when we're bending sticks in a sub-culture? Well, we already know. People start going back in the original direction. Witness the revival of racist jokes in the last five years or so among the educated young on internet forums and the like. Or the "ironic" trend among some people to behave incredibly conservative or praise outdated cultural trends (e.g. students having 'Rainbow' posters and such).
What is required is a slightly complicated balancing act. Opposing society, opposing the opposition, opposing your own contraryness, opposing banality.
All this while, just like Fox News, trying to ensure we give a fair and balanced outlook.
Fat fucking chance.
Things you can do from here:
- Subscribe to "Les Confessions" using Google Reader
- Get started using Google Reader to easily keep up with all your favourite sites
No comments:
Post a Comment