Daily Mail » 21stCenturyFix.org.uk

I wasn’t going to write about the subject of the Daily Mail‘s horrible journalistic instincts, but this piece from Left Foot Forward this morning deserves a thoughtful link and read.

In the light of its thesis – it talks about how newspapers such as the above-mentioned treat the miseries of the poor compared to the miseries of the rich, as well as how very wrong wild polemic is in both cases – I’d like to quote something I posted on Facebook last night, explaining as I was the situation in question:

“Vile Product of Welfare UK”, I think the headline runs, on man and woman found guilty of manslaughter of six kids. I felt someone should write a companion piece on corporate negligence: “Vile Product of Corporate Britain” – start with the Cabinet, eh?

Of course, neither the former nor the latter is a correct response to crisis. Not all corporates are dens of iniquity; not all poor people are repositories of good. But there are two thoughts I’d like to leave you with, before I finish this morning’s post. The first on partiality in one’s political points of view, as enshrined in this tweet:

So when people rioted, wasn’t society but personal responsibility. And when a man kills kids, not personal responsibility but society. Huh?

And the second on propaganda, as enshrined in this tweet:

Bet you after lurid stories of pre-privatisation NHS improprieties, we’ll now get accusations the Welfare State eats kids for breakfast. Oh.

It’s kind of true – and it’s kind of sad. When the blessed Fourth Estate, a supposed pillar of our representative democracy, becomes corrupted as a result of its extension into representing the interests of government or opposition, then a questioning tool of real significance becomes a propaganda tool of miserable inhibition.

And I sorry to make such casual observations, but – at least as far as the effect of the propaganda process is concerned – using events to take the focus off something you don’t like, as the Daily Mail would appear to have done this morning, is about as close an equivalent to spinning news about the Jews as an allegedly civilised society could engineer. By damning a whole Welfare State for the actions of two parents, we are rapidly arriving at a point where anything and everything becomes possible to argue.

Only media like the Daily Mail and its hangers-on would ever find it in themselves to do any such thing. And it’s such a shame really: whilst the debate is about this number or that, it could really be – should really be – about competence: in the case of Iain Duncan Smith, our beloved Minister for No-Work and Haircutted-Pensions, we should be talking about his lack of leadership, his inability to manage change and his absence of real ambition for his adopted country.

But no. We must – instead – all choose to use broad brushstrokes in our callous and unyielding descriptions of each other, as we – almost criminally – prefer to lose the arguments in political hullabaloo.

Not a good day for our democracy.

Not a good day for our future.

Not a good day, the day that propaganda was outsourced.

On the subject of presumably a number of popular movements fighting Coalition policies at the moment, and in particular the campaign against workfare, Chris Grayling is reported in the Daily Mail yesterday as arguing the following:

‘This is part of a broader anti-capitalist trend in our society. Campaign groups are waging war very deliberately against big business.

‘If we don’t have big employers who are hiring, we won’t have any jobs for our young people. The idea that we should allow a bunch of extremists to get in the way of providing genuine, voluntary help for unemployed young people is just crazy.

Well, I’m sorry Mr Grayling – but you’ve just revealed a massive hole at the centre of government ideology. A truth you’d have probably been best off not uncovering.

There is no way that big business can be equated with the purer tenets of capitalism – unless of course your idea of capitalism involves sanctioning effective monopolies and cartels; the right to destroy small- and medium-sized businesses through unfair practices such as cross-subsidisation and loss leaders; creating cash cows on the backs of low-wage policies in emerging economies (more even-handedly reported here); and making so overbearing perfectly valid legal figures such as copyright and patent law that all reasonable attempts at innovation by new companies are effectively locked out of the market.

No, Mr Grayling – you and your government have got it wrong. Being anti-big business does not mean one is necessarily anti-capitalist – just as being pro-big business does not a freedom-loving government make.

And whilst our government understands and identifies capitalism exclusively with big business, we will continue to commit these huge errors of judgement. As well as fail to take advantage of so much that could be good about our nations.

So my suggestion? Sort out your deeply ingrained prejudices first, Chris – and then come back and start governing for us all.

Sunny made an interesting comment on Twitter the day before yesterday:

@eiohel but how is the press accountable? wikileaks isn’t anything other than the press. It’s just a different kind of a Daily Mail

The implication – if I do not misrepresent or simplify too much what he meant to say – is that WikiLeaks is just one more publishing venture (meanwhile, you can find an utterly different focus here). It trades on its ability to say things that others have not yet said (or not said widely) – and aims to carve out a presence for itself on the basis of saying such (relatively) unsaid things in an accurate, attractive, reliable and convincing manner. In such publishing ventures, reputations are thus everything: fashioned with difficulty and easily lost too.

So. Not like all other publishing ventures in its extreme reach and apparent thirst for an absolutist understanding of what the truth should mean – but similar in the sense that all publishing ventures, all ventures which invoke truth-telling, claim to add something new to the mix that is our media and our – allegedly – free press.

I say “allegedly” because although WikiLeaks makes much of the voluntary nature of its financial support and its often volunteer structure, as if this should be an automatic guarantee of objectivity and good faith, far more overtly subjective and biased organisations such as that which sustains the Daily Mail provide a deal more clarity about the people at the top and where the money comes from. Their legal entity – the fact that, for example, they are often publicly quoted on stock exchanges across the world – mean that such transparency cannot be avoided.

Even if they would prefer that it be quite a different circumstance.

I have reservations about WikiLeaks, even as I am fascinated by its existence. Even as it aims to cast a shining light on the darker and more powerful areas of the globe, its own financial structure and editorial board is unclear.

To me, at least.

If this were, for example, a journalistic cooperative – where those who worked in the organisation did not require the leadership of what appears to be the wiki equivalent of a corporately charismatic CEO – I would feel far more comfortable about the agenda the organisation was pursuing. As it is, I am simply unsure. And that, in a reputational sense, is not a good place to be. For we have a prime example here of how very vulnerable such pyramidal structures can make any institution. His enemies are now after Assange’s head – because his head is so exclusively above the parapet. And his head is so exclusively above the parapet because that is how he wants it.

Be very careful of who you choose to compete against because you may very well end up becoming everything you most dearly wished to resist.

In this post you may have noticed that I have linked to a Dutch version of WikiLeaks, which at the time of writing this piece is still operational. And I choose the Dutch version for one simple reason. The thesis behind these thoughts – that is to say, what has really encouraged me to post today – is simply that the open chatter and self-revelation that is blogging, Facebook, Twitter and now WikiLeaks (the whole caboodle we call the modern Internet, in fact) can all be traced back to the tradition that is Dutch Calvinism and those practices, attitudes and behaviours that still take place in the Netherlands of modern times (the bold is mine):

Today, the Netherlands is a democratic unitary state whose unity is symbolised by the Queen, a descendant of William of Orange. However, the mentality of the Dutch has remained largely the same. Even though Dutch society has become quite secular, it is still greatly influenced by Calvinist values: a strong protestant work ethic; moderation in all aspects of life; decision-making by consensus; and a curb on individualism. Ostentation and boastfulness are frowned upon, orderliness and cleanliness are highly valued, and showing off one’s wealth is still considered inappropriate. Decisions are not taken without giving all those involved a chance to voice their opinion. In many houses, the curtains are left open after dark, signifying there is nothing to hide. The Dutch regard secretiveness with suspicion.

WikiLeaks, then, in this sense, is simply just another publishing venture. The legacy exists for us to trace its instincts to perfectly cogent, valid and honourable belief systems that other organisations share and propound. What’s more, like many publishing ventures before it, its mission to cast light on the outside world is not always matched by an internal cogency of equal clarity.

There is, in fact, something quasi-religious about WikiLeaks that both frightens and inspires awe.

Perhaps we could even argue that WikiLeaks is a 21st century god for those who do not believe. Omniscient, inflexible – both absolutist and absolutely fearless. This is faith for an electronic age indeed – a comprehensive belief system for the growing number of Richard Dawkins amongst us.

Meet your maker, Internet generation. We are Calvinists, all of us, in our sense of duty and incessant communication.

This rather excellent piece of graphical information contains an ideological construct behind it. As it’s from the Daily Mail, I’m unsure if the construct is “look how big government has invaded our employment infrastructure” or “look how supportive big government has been over the past decade or so”.

As always, every observation has two opposing interpretations. I know which one I prefer and agree with.

(Thanks to Claire for bringing this to my attention.)
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Update to this post: how big that government might truly try and be is revealed in this post from Political Scrapbook. Oh dear, Claire. And there I was, innocent me as I am, taking you entirely at face value. Harrumph!