|
still dont know what you mean by truth in this context--i really dont---so to an extent discussion stalls out there.
when i said that there is no conspiracy, no discrete cabal pulling the strings behind the scenes and that could be invoked in order to show or demonstrate hegemony was being exersized, i meant only that. i didnt say anything (i dont think at least) about mechanisms..only that they could neither be proven as what they are or disproven as what they are based on the presence or absence of a cabal.
it seems self-evident that television is a fundamental mechanism for opinion management, for setting and controlling the parameters of "legitimate" debate---it seems self-evident that conservatives have been much better than anyone else in reducing their viewpoints to soundbites and in thereby having disproportionate access to the various forums for pseudo-debate that work as a substitute for meaningful debate in american pseudo-democracy. it is also pretty clear that this same medium operates to exclude/trivialize opposition.
all this without a particular cabal.
for television to occupy this role, it has to lean on (and presuppose) modes of sociability--that one acquires through the various institutions that shape you as a functional subject--these modes of sociablity are what enable a cultural system in whcih individual actors dominate themselves...which is a way of saying that as much as i dislike george w bush, he in no way invented this--his adminsitration simply exploited features of it in order to legitimate itself on the basis of paranoia, and to extend authoritarian tendencies already working in a particular direction.
it is the combination of the far right in power and the far right in a position of such influence over the terms of debate that makes this situation--2004, now--one that is geared toward authoritarian rule. a curious kind of authoritarian rule, one in which is seems mandatory to talk about how free and open things are. i was in a seminar like this once, in france: it ran like a kingdom in which a royal decree required that all subject talk about direct democracy. the contradiction of form and content is easier managed than you might think.
__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
|