The Corporate Media: Language as Vending Machine

[arendt]

"Like water to fish, or air to birds, so is language to humans." - anon.

(on edit: moved the introductory history into Appendix 1 to shorten this.)

LANGUAGE IN THE CORPORATE MEDIA

The topic of this essay is language - specifically, the impoverished and biased language foisted upon us by the corporate media. (Can you say "double-plus ungood"?) This language is identifiable by its blatant over-simplification of complex issues, its lack of historical and social context, its black-and-white choices, and its blatant pro-GOP bias. Politics is reduced to a "horse race". International relations are reduced to good guys (us) and bad guys (anyone who "crosses" us). Tax cuts are always good. Government is always bad. Solutions to problems are invariably called "wars"; and, increasingly, war is the only solution the U.S. seems to have for its many troubles.

Why does this impoverished language work? For two related reasons: rationality and emotion.

Critical thinking used to be at the heart of good reporting; so it couldn't simply be dropped. Instead, it has slowly been replaced by a barebones "rationality", consisting of simple, literal events: this poll number, that soundbite, this highly-selective listing of the facts. These data constitute a highly abstracted (and highly biased) digest of the news of the world. They are increasingly a blizzard of disconnected factoids that can be assembled to any purpose, like a bunch of custom Lego blocks - except that they can only build evil liberals and virtuous conservatives.

Of course, this skeleton of rationality would easily be recognized as impoverished and twisted if it were not for its skin of emotion - a sort of reactive armor against facts. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactive_armor) Emotional provocation in the mass media (i.e., demagoguery) was legalized by the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1988. All of the sudden, the corporate hirelings in the media could character assassinate anyone they chose, present lies and made-up propaganda as truth, and get well-paid for these outrages. The result was an outpouring of hate speech unseen since the 1930s. The usual suspects were targeted: gays, feminists, liberals, Hispanics, welfare recipients, crack addicts, college professors, Democratic politicians. Wedge issues like abortion, school prayer, gay rights, and evolution were lathered thickly over the threadbare skeleton of "legitimate" news factoids.

So, to summarize, corporate media can be characterized as a large collection of random facts, connected by a few simple rules, with a slick user interface. It is an artificial and biased machine constructed by corporations; and yet many people think of it as a genuine and honest organization full of independently thinking people. This false projection of "personality" onto an artifact reminds me of the whole, decades-long (~1950-~1990) fight over the hyper-rationalist, "hard-AI" version of artificial intelligence. For those unfamiliar, the next three-paragaph section is a thumbnail sketch of hard-AI.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO "HARD A.I."?

From the moment computers were invented, there was a group of people that automatically assumed that they would become "intelligent". At first, because no one had a clue about how the brain calculated even the smallest of its myriad outputs from its even larger set of inputs, this idea was open to experimentation. Given the concept of "programming" and logical decision making, the hard-AI crowd tried to write enough rules and provide enough of a database for a program to behave intelligently (i.e., pass the so-called Turing Test). (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test)

After decades of elaborating upon their basic idea, with ever more powerful computers and software, the hard-AI crowd produced nothing of value - only "toy" applications or merely "competent" bookkeeping systems. Even the DOD recognized this, and pulled the funding plug (which was all that kept the hard-AI crowd in business) at the end of the Cold War. Within a few years, almost all the hard-AI workers had departed for other fields.

Over the same period of decades, graphics hardware and software became so good at simulating pictures that it began to be indistinguishable from real movies. Unfortunately, Hollywood script writers have become as formulaic as corporate news directors, so the special effects "skin" covers mostly threadbare plots. Even more depressingly, 12-year olds (of all ages) still rush to these pathetic movies, further embedding the corporate control memes of action and violence into their impressionable young brains.

LANGUAGE AS A VENDING MACHINE

Corporate media has caused a large database of facts to be compiled. Like hard-AI, the extraction of facts from reality (what the hard-AI crowd pretentiously called "knowledge engineering") is highly selective for a few important "features", which the corporations have determined to be the ones that make corporations' behavior look benevolent. The media then operate on that data with a very simple set of rules - rules that are highly biased: pro-corporate and anti-democracy.

They have replaced the communication between the electorate and the politicians with this simulacrum of communication - this bogus hard-AI pile of biased news factoids and talking-head spinmeisters. They want voters to buy into the idea that what is presented on TV news is an accurate copy of real world, the same way the hard-AI crowd wanted Turing testers to buy into the idea that their AI system was an accurate copy of a real human brain. The corporations want the output of their "news-AI" to be accepted as genuine political thinking.

However, even worse than the hard-AI crowd, the corporate media crowd knows from the start that their assertion of genuine thinking is a pack of lies, that the biased conclusions are implicit in the biased programming choices. (Interesting that both computer people and TV people use the word "programming"; except geeks program machines, while corporations program human beings.) So the media distract people from that embarrassing truth with immense piles of theatrical interface bullshit: screen crawls, graphics, live reports from the field, election center sets, news center sets, drumbeat music themes. But, if you can see through the glitz and the emotional hype, "there is no there there."

FLUNKING THE TURING TEST

The problem is, many Americans are flunking this Turing Test. They are buying into the idea that political thinking and political action is nothing more than selecting from a multiple choice list, where all the choices are bad. They are buying into the media setting the agenda. They are comfortable with political language being akin to a vending machine, where the corporations select what items (i.e., bought politicians) are for sale (cf. "The Permanent Campaign") and the voters only choice is which button to push.

Most worrisome of all, citizens (don't hear that word often in news-AI land) are comfortable with corporate media being the gatekeeper of political vocabulary - the organization that gets to "stock" the vending machine. That means they are comfortable with (or anaesthetized to) the hijacking of vocabulary, the lack of objectivity, the exclusion of viable alternatives, and the ridiculing of even minimally non-trivial thinking and planning by government. They have been so conditioned that when they find the vending machine doesn't have any candidate they like, they take whatever junk food is for sale.

COMMUNICATION FOR ACTION

I know that there is a community of political people who see through the bogus claims of the "news-AI". The question is, how do they derail the heavily funded and increasingly powerful corporate stranglehold on information before its too late?

You might want to reason by analogy and say that something like the "information wants to be free" techno-libertarian movement will save the day, as it did when personal computing got computers to the people, and out of the glass-walled rooms in the corporations.

But, that was a near-run thing. If you are interested in the history, "The Dream Machine" by Mitchell Waldrop is a chronicle of just how bottom-line-fixated stupid the corporations had to be, and just how much wisely-spent government money had to be disbursed with almost no strings attached, to get to the personal computer. Bottom line: don't assume that the mere existence of the Internet means the corporate media vending machine is doomed.

The best positive action I can recommend is to go down the little-known and esoteric resistance to hard-AI. The weakness of AI is that there is no commitment behind the software - unless its the commitment of a human being or organization. You might as well expect commitment from the piece of paper your contract is written on.

This lack of commitment shows up in the so-called politicians we elect. They make promises to get elected; but there is no commitment to follow through on them. They simply declare that some action, some media factoid, counts as fulfillment of their pledge, and then they move on. In the absence of the news-AI, people would object to the politicians claim. In the false world mediated by the news-AI, the people don't have that choice.

So, my vote for the weakness of the corporate media is the disconnect between the commitments of politicians and their actions. Its all about the lack of commitment. Voters perceive their powerlessness in the face of that lack; but they don't know how to engage in a "communication for action". Those of us who can pass the Turing Test need to learn this skill.

But, I am long past most people's attention span. I can only encourage you to read the references in the Appendix 2 and hope that they make a difference.

Thanks for listening to a crazy computer-guy rant.

arendt

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APPENDIX 1 - Some historical background

THE COMING OF THE CORPORATE MEDIA

The tide of anti-regimentation, anti-Establishment, sentiment in America peaked around the time of Watergate. The upper class reaction to that sentiment was already underway, beginning with the massive funding of conservative think tanks. This reaction had been signaled by Lewis Powell, just prior to his being appointed to the Supreme Court by Richard Nixon. In characteristic fashion, this signal to the upper class was "under the radar" of the public. Powell wrote a quiet memo to the U.S. Chamber of Congress, in which he agitated for a concerted conservative pushback against the increasingly egalitarian society that the U.S. was becoming.

http://reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate_accountability/powell_memo_lewis.html

The memo was acted upon. By the time the pre-senile Reagan was installed, with his stage manager, Poppy Bush, the unconsolidated media that had exposed the Viet Nam debacle and the Watergate crimes was already being centralized and purged. Conservative apparatchiks, like William Safire and Pat Buchanan were inserted into the liberal media, in the name of "balance", to blunt its message. Newsrooms were made into profit centers and had their budgets cut.

The free press was slowly, but relentlessly, disassembled and reassembled into a poll-touting, sound-bite spouting "balanced" corporatized caricature of its former self - without ever missing a news deadline or flubbing an on-air line. Working class "reporters" were replaced by upper class graduates of journalism schools. It was done so seamlessly that few people at the time were able to fathom the strategy behind the seemingly unconnected tactics.

Today, an entire generation has been raised in this post-Reagan corporate media bubble - a bubble whose language has slowly been deformed so that "liberal", "union", "public interest", and a host of other common words have been demonized. At the same time, naked greed and violence have been sanitized and excused, as long as its the rich people doing the deed.

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APPENDIX 2 - Some references to the literature

The one thing that electronic media seems to have destroyed for good is the all-night, college intellectual bull session. Granted it was pretentious, but it was something that everyone should try at least once in their lives before settling down to being a faceless drone in a corporate cubicle.

In the 1960s, arguments among people like Herbert Marcuse and Jean-Paul Sartre were, believe it or not, actually interesting to a substantial fraction of college students. In the 1970s, the so-called "human potential movement" (read Esalen, EST, and other touchy-feeley groups) paid attention to the "veil of language". But, that is all a rapidly fading memory. Today's 20-somethings, by and large, have not been exposed to the philosophy of language - although they have been manipulated by advertising agencies full of ex-POMO philosophers. This is hardly the fault of young people, since philosophy seems to have self-destructed in the 1980s, as cognitive science exploded naive philosophical speculations about brain functioning.

This essay is an attempt to interest people in how the debate about language is relevant to politics. If you know George Lakoff, this stuff will be old news to you; although, I am talking at a less practical level than he does.

My viewpoint derives from the massive debate from 1970 to 1990 in the computer science/artificial intelligence community over language and intelligence. Key players from "my" side (phenomenology/ existentialism) in this debate were Terry Winograd & Fernando Flores, Hubert & Stuart Dreyfus, and John Searle. (Wikipedia them if you are interested.)

If you have ever programmed a computer, you may have had reason to think about language as a "thing". Philosophers, like Searle, took it much further, inventing "speech act" theory. Searle created the famous "Chinese Room" thought experiment (Wikipedia has it) that made the "hard AI" crowd (Marvin Minsky, et al) go absolutely ballistic.

There is a very important book, which most people outside the computer science community have never heard of:

"Understanding Computers and Cognition (A New Foundation for Design)" - Terry Winograd and Fernando Flores (1986).

A lengthy "Cliff notes" for this book is available for free at:

http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/380188.html

From a review of book on Amazon:

A few years ago Byte Magazine named this one of the 10 most important books in the history of the computer industry. Flores was asked to keynote the 50th anniversary meeting of the ACM on the strength of the work he has done, some of which is shown here.

A "Cliff notes" for the critical section of this book, "Communication for Action" is available on-line:

http://www.inf-wiss.uni-konstanz.de/RIS/1996iss01_01/articles01/sitter03/02.html

[arendt]

1. Yeah,its a snorer. But I'm kicking it anyway. n/t

[arendt]

5. Hey, am I worse than the shopping channel? n/t

[HCE SuiGeneris]

43. I will kill this thread with an enthusiastic kick.

[arendt]

2. Back to the front page. n/t

[arendt]

3. I'm kicking this until someone responds. It can't be that bad. n/t

[calimary]

45. I'll help.

Long and ponderous. I'm gonna bookmark it.

It'll take some time to work through, but it also looks rawther intriguing. WHOLE bunch of verification I'm finding for a lot of things in my online pursuits this morning - while I can't get back to sleep (and I just don't quite feel up to watching another round of maudlin gushing about Tim Russert).

[arendt]

4. Lather, rinse, repeat. n/t

[Gabi Hayes]

6. if you like the OP:

Jacques Ellul
Propaganda

Karl Rove & the Spectre of Freud’s Nephew {he being the father of modern 'marketing'}
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/bender2.html

the last with a little bit of Goebbels tossed in for seasoning

[arendt]

7. Water in the Desert. Its nice to know at least one other person here cares about language.

Yeah, that Ellul book is my second most read book, after Arendt's stuff. He is so on target.

Really a shame that the Unabomber has allowed the corporate media to trash anyone who quotes him.

And, the ubiquitous Mr. Bernays. Its nice to see that even the paleo-right gets that they are being manipulated.

Thanks for the reply

arendt

[Gabi Hayes]

10. funny, sorta.....I had water damage last week, and tumbling out of one of the

boxes on the floor, but undamaged, was a paperback copy of Ellul's book, which my Social Foundations of Education prof had us read way back when (looking back, best course I ever took). just flopped out. taking that as an omen, I started reading it again, seeing as how I'm rereading I, Claudius, chock-full of omens and auguries and sybils, oh my!

[slipslidingaway]

8. Kick for tomorrow, thanks for putting this together. n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Off to the greatest with you

[arendt]

11. Any comments on {rationality, emotion} as a simulacrum of news? n/t

[raccoon]

12. I feel your pain. See my post,

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3468511&mesg_id=3468511

Thanks for the link.

[arendt]

16. "He who controls the past, controls the future. He who controls the present, controls the past." n/t

[Cerridwen]

31. I put up a thread a few days ago that, I think, addresses

just that point. Interestingly enough, it comes from a television interview in 1957.

I used "dictatorship" in the thread title specifically to grab people's attention so they'd read the OP and hopefully, entice them to go to the linked site and watch television history. Yep, I went after the emotional, knee-jerk response. Guilty as charged. :D

...{the new dictators will find} if you want to preserve your power indefinitely, you have to get the consent of the ruled, and this they will do partly by drugs.., partly by these new techniques of propaganda. They will do it by bypassing the rational part of man and appealing to his subconscious and his deeper emotions and physiology even...making him actually love his slavery.

...this is the danger that actually people may be in some ways be happy under the new regime. But they will be happy in situations in which they oughtn't to be happy..."

Perhaps the bolded portion touches on that point.


link to that thread and link to the archive linked in that thread.

[arendt]

32. I recall that thread. Spot on.

Come to think of it, rational vs emotional is just a reworking of Orwellian vs Huxleyan.

arendt

[Cerridwen]

33. I think one of the ways in which we run into difficulty is by taking

an either it's Orwellian or it's Huxleyan view of what can happen during our time. The either/or frame denies/obscures the possibility of strategies used in both Orwell and Huxley being used to apply control to "the masses." The both/and frame, while more difficult to hold within one's mind, can provide a look at more possibilities and/or permutations of outcome(s).

Another poster in that thread linked to an article about the "China's All-Seeing Eye" from The Rolling Stone which is more the Orwellian view.

The thread was already off the front page so I didn't respond to that post; perhaps I should. Anyway, that post in addition to the Huxleyian view can provide a look into what happens as the two views of a potential dystopian future could come together and result in what both Huxley and Orwell wrote.

Both/and thinking; a little difficult, but worth the effort.

[arendt]

34. In the OP, I said BOTH/AND; it was only in the recent post that I said VS....

I agree with you. It is both. As I said in the OP, emotion covers the weakness of the rational points, while the weak rational points give the emotion an anchor. The whole thing is a balloon-frame house, where the individual components of the structure would fall down, but assembled together they are very strong.

arendt

[Cerridwen]

37. Ah, I hope you don't mind,

I took that vs opportunity to expand on an idea of both/and thinking rather than either/or thinking (which is itself, an either/or proposition :D )

Sorry, 'twas not a criticism nor correction, just a chance for me to "catapult" my "propaganda".



:blush:

[arendt]

40. Not at all. Its nice to have a conversation at DU, instead of a slanging match. n/t

[Cerridwen]

47. I wholeheartedly agree. n/t

[raccoon]

13. Thanks for posting this.

“This language is identifiable by its blatant over-simplification of complex issues, its lack of historical and social context, its black-and-white choices, and its blatant pro-GOP bias. Politics is reduced to a "horse race". International relations are reduced to good guys (us) and bad guys (anyone who "crosses" us). Tax cuts are always good. Government is always bad. Solutions to problems are invariably called "wars"; and, increasingly, war is the only solution the U.S. seems to have for its many troubles.”

Well said!

“Unfortunately, Hollywood script writers have become as formulaic as corporate news directors, so the special effects "skin" covers mostly threadbare plots. Even more depressingly, 12-year olds (of all ages) still rush to these pathetic movies, further embedding the corporate control memes of action and violence into their impressionable young brains.”

I strongly agree. Which is why I rarely go to the movies these days; most of them suck.

“The problem is, many Americans...are buying into the media setting the agenda.”

I’m afraid you’re right.

Haven't read the appendices yet but I've bookmarked this thread to read later.

[windoe]

14. K & R The program of words as you describe it

sound to me to be a filter or firewall that prevents operators, or people, from knowing the inner layers of programs, unless you have a password, or you learn to break the code. It seems there are many of us who are adept at codebreaking. Multimedia have been used as a tool of influence to create distraction from this long enough for development to occur.
Yes, we have created a frankenstein that has outwitted the average person. It's complexity and AI assists many consolidated power structures. Banking, secret and military, and being mostly private they have become their own countries.
I would like to think that our future is not a sci fi nightmare where AI evolves to an entity that actually turns on us, but many writers have used this theme as if to act out the collective unconscious nightmare we all sense is on the horizon already.

[arendt]

15. The AI automates the underlying sociopathy of the corporation and the socipaths who...

make it to the top in the corporations.

As you say:

"It's complexity and AI assists many consolidated power structures. Banking, secret and military, and being mostly private they have become their own countries."

The super rich and sociopathic have succeeded in re-escaping from the box that genuine democracy temporarily put them in. Unfortunately, this is the normal arc of new technologies. First, it is ignored by the PTB; so reformers gain temporary advantage. But, when the PTB recognize its power, they take it over and use it to reinforce their control.

A corporate-dominated media means corporate control of the very meaning of words. Yet, most people have been so dumbed down they do not even perceive the threat.

Some at DU, as you say, are "adept at codebreaking", but that does no good if the majority can be made to believe that we are "kooks" or "subversive".

----

Sci-fi isn't fun for me any more. Too many dystopias, extrapolated from where we are now.

arendt

[windoe]

21. I imagine possibilities

not all of them catastrophic. To continue the analogy of AI, I often imagine an antidote that would inoculate and empower the individual. Since I am not a fan of antibiotics, I hesitate to suggest a virus to treat the sociopathic, yet the reality of their nature exists, to dominate.

What challenges us is that of power, literally in the form of money, health and utilities, and virtually in the form of language, ideas and access to this power. But it takes two to play this game, many people have grown comfortable in their authoritative dependent cage, and will defend it blindly. Power abhors a vacuum. Notwithstanding the vacuum tube in every home, the sheer mental power of the once educated have literally been sucked out, transformed and transferred with their consent. This power was given away.

If power access is cut off at one point, one must find alternative sources. The paradigm shift necessary to find and keep alternative sources of power requires not only a will and a need to do so physically, but with the critical awareness of the human potential, of those amongst us who live to abuse power.The people who are able to break out of the present construct will pave the way for others, the way it has always been.

I think less and less people are being ridiculed, by degrees as once outlandish theories are coming to pass, however there remains a noticeable rift between people who are able to maintain a vantage point outside the construct and those that resist doing so.

I still enjoy sci fi, the well written ones that offer insight into human nature and machines. I know this is ancient but I loved Foundation series by Asimov, parts of Dune, and the Matrix. I would love to read or see stories of how we made it out of this mess. :)

[arendt]

17. Back to the front page, again. n/t

[Cerridwen]

18. Well, I think I'll trust your insight enough to K & R and then read

:hi:

My post is not much of a response, but I figured your "kicking finger" might be getting tired.

[arendt]

19. Thanks. The topic is off-putting; but it is important, in a Lakoffian way. n/t

[Cerridwen]

20. After a quick read through - some things I might add or I might

have said differently. Pardon me for a little arm-chair quarterbacking. Hey, agree or disagree, it'll keep it kicked. :D

--"This language is identifiable by its blatant over-simplification of complex issues, its lack of historical and social context, its black-and-white choices, and its blatant pro-GOP bias"--

In the bolded portion above, I would suggest, rather than "pro-GOP bias" that it was noted as pro-authoritarian capitalism. By pointing at the GOP, it can lead us to a discussion of party rather than a discussion of language AND it serves to obscure the authoritarian and capitalistic language that is again being embraced by the "party of the working man (and woman)". It can also obscure the influence authoritarian values can exert and subsequently pervert any social, economic or political movement. Even the phrase "predatory capitalism" that is being used more these days, leaves out the recognition of its authoritarian "nature."

--"Tax cuts are always good. Government is always bad."--

I would call those part of our collective default settings. That is, those things "just assumed" unquestioningly (and perhaps, unconsciously) to be correct, valid and accurate.

I would add other default settings such as:

Business is "inherently" good for Americans. That default setting leads us to such ideas that business is always a force of good within a community or society and as such, anything that bolsters business is a good thing. I find it interesting that many people who claim such ideas are then repulsed by the actions of an Enron, Halliburton, WorldCom, or other business doing what businesses do; make profit. I am actually old enough to remember a time in which a good business was considered one that provided a good product or service rather than being judged successful based on its stock price based on its profit. Which brings me to my next default setting.

Profit is good. Usually combined with businesses have "the right" to make profit. I'll leave aside my thoughts about what "rights" businesses should or shouldn't have relative to people for another post/thread/or rant. For now, what I'd like to point out is what profit is and how it's come to replace the idea that businesses have the "right" to make money. The idea of make money is not the same as make profit. Profit is that money left over after all financial obligations are met, yet, the default setting appears to be, profit=make money.

I saw the gradual change over during the 70s, I think it was, when businesses ("good for Americans") would "lose money" if they followed regulations targeted at protecting workers' right and the environment and would "have to go out of business" (bad for America). In many cases, those businesses may have lost profits but not necessarily lost the money needed for operating expenses. In other words, they would have been able to meet their financial obligations (and stay in business); they just wouldn't have as much left over after the fact for...what, shareholders, a new car, management bonuses? But, many took them at their word and panicked that businesses would be closing "all over the country" if they weren't allowed to profit by making money. Businesses did eventually start closing all over the country; not necessarily because they weren't making money and/or weren't able to meet their financial obligations, but because they weren't making enough profit, i.e., they didn't have enough left over for shareholders, a new car or management bonuses. By then, of course, many in the US were rah-rah profit and whole-heartedly approved (as long as it wasn't their field being outsourced). The two phrases were conflated into one word, profit, to incorrectly describe two subtly disparate concepts to justify
business practices no human person would have been allowed. After all, it was "just business" (good for Americans). My next default setting.



"Nothing personal, it's just business."

I think I'll address this in a new post as your thread seems to have fallen off the front page.


edit to add: a link to a DU thread that helps to model my point. Profits are down!! But, are they still making money?

[arendt]

23. I agree with your comments/corrections.

> I would suggest, rather than "pro-GOP bias" that it was noted as pro-authoritarian capitalism.

Yes. I was in a hurry, and all I could come up with was pro-business, which I had just used. So, to keep the prose from repeating I just grabbed GOP. You are correct. It has nothing to do with party - just think DLC.

> Business is "inherently" good for Americans.

It was a little before my time, but I thought that the (in)famous quote "What's good for GM is good for America." was negatively interpreted by most Americans (i.e., what nerve of the CEO of GM who said it). But, over time, "business is good" has been hammered into our collective mind.

> I am actually old enough to remember a time in which a good business was considered one that provided a good product or
> service rather than being judged successful based on its stock price based on its profit...Profit is that money left over
> after all financial obligations are met,

I have the same memories of this change. It all came about due to corporate planning (McNamara and the Whiz Kids). At first, it may have been legitimate - the products being manufactured (strategic bombers) were so complex and risky that some kind of profit had to be built in (also, they were probably cost-plus government contracts). This method then radiated outward through all the product lines of corporations. As corporations gobbled up more of the economy, it became the norm.

But, still, show me a small business that can force a profit margin on its customers. It is only corporations with market power (which no business is supposed to have, according to lazy fairy-tale economics) that can dictate profit margins.

> "Nothing personal, just business."

That's what one a-hole boss said as he shut down my division.

Looking forward to what you write about that.

arendt

[Cerridwen]

25. Good deal.

I too have self-edited in the name of shorter posts (yeah, well, my definition of shorter...) and wanting to get everything out there while tracking the web of threads in language using the very language creating those threads.

You bring up a very good point I missed about the re-definition of business; small business versus multi-national conglomerates that are now lumped together as business - another new default setting.

One obvious result is marketing tax breaks for business as though those tax breaks will bolster small business concerns when, in many cases, they are unavailable to businesses of smaller size or damaging to businesses making under x number of dollars per year. They are, however, frequently beneficial to large corporations. The tax code definition of small business would surprise many here. I'll leave the links and supporting documentation for these assertions for another post as I'm working on a post about "it's just business". :D

Perhaps one of DU's tax experts will chime in with some of the tax code to which I refer.

[arendt]

26. Fernand Braudel calls corporations "anti-markets"

There is a wonderful and enlightening essay titled "Markets and Anti-markets" which lays out the implications of the lumping together that you mention.

I highly recommend this essay.

http://www.cddc.vt.edu/host/delanda/pages/markets.htm

arendt

[Cerridwen]

28. Clicked, bookmarked and now off to read. Thank you.

I "continued" my previous post and I'll watch to see if you have questions or additional insights. I'm not sure I presented my case clearly enough.

:D

[Cerridwen]

27. Continued - "It's nothing personal. It's just business."

Another default setting in our language. (see previous post for part 1)

It's nothing personal; it's just business implies a benign application of business practices. Since, as I attempted to show above, the default setting named business is good for America, many things are done in the name of or under the aegis of "benign" business practices and are therefore, good for America. Outsourcing, downsizing, mergers, acquisitions, takeovers (hostile versus..."benign"?), have all been reported as "business as usual" or "it's just business" tones. But, they are each, anything but benign.

People can be and are personally impacted by "benign" business practices in many ways that are hardly "benign." Loss of income, health care, benefits packages, health, self-respect, community standing, career or career advancement; tangible and intangible, it "runs the gamut."

The benign business practice of saving money has been used to justify unhealthy and unsafe work conditions, environmental "accidents", wage stagnation, pitting workers of one color against workers of another color and so forth. I think most on this board who would read this post would know the list of "benign" business practices and their very personal effect on people and our environment. Yet, I will still hear today, people defending "benign" business practices when wielded against another with the default setting, "It's nothing personal; it's just business."

One default setting builds upon another which builds on yet another while creating yet another. If business is good for America and profit is good for business and business practices to enhance profit are benign ways of doing business and are therefore, good for America (and through association, Americans); then surely, what Enron, WorldCom, Halliburton, Exxon, et. al., do (have done) to become successful businesses is good for America and Americans.

Yes, this is an oversimplification using some of the more egregious perpetrators and purveyors of the default settings I discussed. To address it fully would require a book-length post. Though this comes across as a business is evil post; what I mean to do is use some of the default settings specific to business to explain how dangerous it can be to accept the default settings unquestioningly and unconsciously which are presented to us through the media.

I would remind those reading this that the media stretches beyond television/cable, newspapers and radio and includes: movies, music, art, textbooks, novels, non-fiction publications, dissemination of research/study results, the pulpit, speeches, and the internet. In short, anything that communicates.


Question your assumptions and their value and validity. Question the default settings.

edit to add something I meant to include that your reply below reminded me. The double standard business and its defenders use to, on the one hand claim "rights" as a person as defined in the 14th Amendment while at the same time claiming an im-personal existence when held accountable for damage against persons or property which would be criminal if done by a human person rather than a corporate person.

[arendt]

29. There's a version of Murphy's Law that goes...

If 100 businessmen are doing it, its not illegal.

"Business as usual" is what they are doing in the private prisons.

"Business as usual" is what KBR/Haliburton does.


"Business as usual" should not be a "get out of jail free" card.

arendt

[Cerridwen]

30. You distilled my point down to 4 succinct sentences.

:D Nicely done.

Thank you. I had not heard that version of Murphy's Law though I have a vague memory of hearing that phrase. Just for grins; a codicil to Murphy's Law is McGillicutty's Law which states; Murphy was an optimist.

[TrogL]

22. Most people can't think, most of the rest won't think

(and those few who do think don't do it very well - Heinlein)

Most people crave being told what to think. This gives them something to babble at the proverbial water-cooler or to "fill up the empty spaces of their lives".

Many people cannot think in terms of grey. They find comfort in a black and white world. Others, specifically sociopaths, are capable of it, but choose to couch their discussions in black and white terms to lead you from one untenable position to another. They also knowingly engage in logical fallacies. I was once in a meeting where a sociopath got the Board to agree that Nerf-balls could break car windows.

The single exception to the corrupt corporate press is, of course, the non-corporate press, specifically some shows on public broadcasting and foreign networks such as the CBC or BBC (although they're feeling the pressure as well).

[arendt]

24. I sympathize; but if that's what you believe, why bother to post here? (no offense meant...

just asking.

Also, if its true, then how does CBC or BBC find people who CAN think and executives who don't shut it down?

arendt

[MedleyMisty]

35. I fall into the same mindframe quite a bit

I have to remind myself that it's ethnocentric and that not all humans are subjected to the same propaganda, raised in the same culture, and educated in the same schools that we are. Also I subscribe a lot that is probably the result of American style nurturing to human nature and assume that most humans are sociopaths or the willing victims of sociopaths.

I came up with the name free mind fallacy for it - because I was raised in a very free atmosphere and have never been one to naturally conform and accept the status quo and I make the common human error of assuming that other people think the same way I do and that the base state of the human mind is free. I am slowly realizing that actually I was pretty damn lucky and that it can take other people a lifetime to make it to freedom if they ever do at all.

Also - bump for this thread, because I love all your threads and admit to getting frustrated with mostly the short, simple, and totally emotional threads getting replies. But then, I guess that is how we were raised. Sigh.

I want to grow up to be like you. :)

[arendt]

38. What is "typical" or "average" mental freedom? Tough question.

We all tend to think that "average" is what we were surrounded with.

I had the blessed good fortune to go through the hideous Catholic educational system just when John XXIII had momentarily brought it out of the Inquisition (it went back reaaaal fast.) With a decent education, I escaped from the Catholic orbit and became a free thinker.

That kind of opportunity was one of the first things that was shut down. No time to think. No money for frivolous, non-business coursework. The current generation is screwed from the get-go.

I am not sure that the base state of humankind is sociopathy. I tend to endorse the statistic (but not the conclusion) of the ponerology people - that maybe 1% of the population is sociopathic for genetic reasons. Another 5% will support the 1%. The other 94%, for dog knows what reason, goes along.

----

It sounds like you, like me, were lucky. It is a blessing (or a curse, if we go fascist). Use it wisely, grasshopper :-)

arendt

[Uncle Joe]

36. The Tennessean ran a Washington Post

commentary regarding Russert and how he "improved" Meet The Press, one of the keywords I picked up on was their using of the word "stiff" to describe the program before him.

I've come to believe after the coup of 2000 the word stiff is a coded negative slam used against intelligent, critically thinking, issue oriented people or leaders. Common sense should tell you, that your greatest leaders and or people with the potential to solve increasingly complex problems would come from this pool.

I agree, the corporate media are using emotional provocation, I would call it the mainstreaming of demagoguery in order to stir the American People's passions in order for the people's emotions to overrule their reason or common sense.

I also believe this is a deliberate long time thought out strategy with the sole purpose of separating the American People from their leaders and representatives, in order for the corporations to take advantage of the people.

On some other threads recently I compared the corporate media to the "sport" of professional wrestling, the good guys versus the villains and it's all managed stagecraft. Many if not most wrestling fans over the age of 12 will tell you, they know it's fake, but they will still shell out their money for the entertainment.

I believe the American People have been shelling out their money for the luxury of being entertained by the corporate media instead of the thinking work of being informed or enlightened, for far too long, and this is the major reason as to why we have corrupt, dismal, incompetent leadership, have gone in to another war costly in blood and treasure all based on lies while giving tax cuts to the wealthiest, exploding the debt in the process while melting the dollar with the inevitable result of higher energy, and food prices, and an increase in foreclosures, we have more uninsured and under-insured Americans than most nations' entire populations, we have Big Brother illegal wiretapping as the American People continue to lose their privacy and freedom to a government that trashes the Constitution, promotes torture and believes they're accountable to no one.

The Cheney/Bush administration believe they're accountable to no one because the corporate media betrayed language and sold out the American People and simply refuse to hold them to account. On the other hand if a leader actually cares about the people and the issues, the corporate media will put them under a microscope looking for any flaw; major, minor or even non-existent, because if they can't find something the corporate media will make it up or spin it to imply guilt.

In conclusion I believe the corporate media using language as from a vending machine is quite apt, because if the only food you live on comes from a vending machine, you will surely die from disease whether, cancer, stroke or heart attack, the only question is will the end come suddenly or after much pain. Like wise if the American People don't recognize corporate media propaganda for what it is and wean themselves from it by changing that dysfunctional institution, our democratic republic will die just as well.

Thanks for the thread, arendt.:thumbsup:

[arendt]

39. "Stiff", "not cool", "geeky", "weenie", "nerd"... we have as many slurs for intellectual as...

we have slang expressions for being drunk. Think there is a connection? :-) I think its the flip side. Most people look forward to getting drunk. They hate people with the intelligence and/or discipline to think. Its the classic "geek/jock" clique shit from high school. So, the corporations work is already done for them by the disgusting culture we allow our children to wallow in. (Of course, that culture is the result of both parents needing to work, saturation TV advertising and peer pressure, and the teach-by-example that thinking people get screwed, while cool/vicious people get rich.)

In one generation, the social leadership went from supporting intellectual pursuits and civic-mindedness to flat out greed and Philistine-ism. I don't quite understand how/why it happened, but it happened.

I have a theory that, having built the castle of privilege and all the armaments needed to defend it, the workers were kicked out. Their services and those of their children were not needed. So, why pay for education, for civic virtue for the masses. The American masses have served their purpose; lets just dispose of them. Let em rot. And, the elites saw you how simple it was to stupefy the masses with a little football, cheap food and alcohol, lots of T&A on TV, and vicarious violence. Once stupefied, it was so easy to rob them blind and chuck them outside the walls of the castle.

The eye-opener for me was when Michael Bloomberg made some comment that was almost a word-for-word paraphrase of Orwell's quote about the Proles. It was a slap in the face to ordinary Americans; but they were too stupid to even recognize it was Orwell.

But, I'm rambling. Thanks for your comments.

arendt

[Uncle Joe]

41. I agree with one caveat

the geek jock clique shit from high school only makes their job partially done. I believe most mature people when given a chance can get past those adolescent resentments and I also believe this is why the corporate media market so much to the youth, other nations around the planet venerate or respect the obtained wisdom of age.

Personally I don't have anything against some Philistinism if there were some enlightenment thrown in as well to help balance the equation. I believe the corporate media and we as society should be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. I for instance believe in legalizing Marijuana and fighting global warming climate change.

Peace to you,

Joe

[Cerridwen]

42. Hi, arendt. Me again.

:D

I wanted to add a link (and kick this thread) to a site that has scanned images of editorial cartoons from our (US) past. I find it interesting and informative to read the views of the day as presented by those living the history of the day. Perhaps other will too.

Satire has an ancient and honorable history and tradition of "lampooning" those in power as a form of "protection" against the hubris of power. I will make note here, however, that satire was targeted at those with actual power rather than those with perceived power (see Molly Ivins quote below for distinction between the two). The "modern" media has elevated the powerless to positions of power in order to target them for ridicule and abuse while at the same time hiding those with the true power.

The editorial cartoons at this site are, perhaps, part of that ancient tradition modified by "modern" technology and media on its road to what we have today.

Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful. I only aim at the powerful. When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel -- it's vulgar. -- Molly Ivins

[arendt]

44. Interesting site, but hard to navigate by date. I like the Ivins quote...

but isn't "satire" aimed at the powerless nothing more than mockery, "ridicule and abuse" (as you put it)?

Good distinction, in any case.

Can you explain what you mean by "The "modern" media has elevated the powerless to positions of power in order to target them for ridicule and abuse..."? Exactly whom of the powerless are in positions of power?

arendt

[Cerridwen]

46. I'm glad you asked.

:D

Yes, I do think that what sometimes passes for or is defended as "satire" is nothing more than mockery and abuse that claims protection behind the thin veil of respectability of "satire" or "comedy." Today the fine art of satire has, in my opinion, been replaced by a poor, and sometimes ugly imitation that is referred to as "comedy."

I used the Molly Ivins quote because I consider her writings some of the finest examples of modern satire. Her pieces were precise, painfully funny, and true. True in the aspect they were factually correct and true in that they unerringly hit their mark; those who had the power to make the law. Not those who had perceived power, but those with actual power to make and cause to be enforced, laws that impacted those with little or no power; in short, those who have/had power OVER the lives of others.

I need to break out of this train of thought for a moment to define another default setting that is now distributed from corporate media's vending machine. It's a catch all default and is usually presented as the {fill in the blank} agenda. It includes:

The Gay Agenda
The Feminist Agenda
The Liberal Agenda

and permutations thereof.

That default setting works to do several things. First, it creates the impression that there is a monolithic, hive-mind controlled group called Gay, or Feminist, or Liberal and then it goes on to create the impression that the group it describes has terrifying power OVER all those who do not belong to the "elite" group known as Gay, Feminist, or Liberal. It brings into play so many scary emotional responses that if it were examined rationally, it would be exposed as nothing more than "appealing to the worst" in us.

It calls into play "our" fears of being outcast/other/not one of the cool kids. It sets up a dynamic in which the group defined is given the perception of having power OVER "us" and plays on "our" fear of not controlling our own lives and of being "at the mercy" of those things and people who are OVER us. It reminds "us" of "our" fear of "different." It appeals to "our" territorial "nature." It appeals to so many emotions on so many levels it's taken me several paragraphs to define it yet I don't think I've quite "scratched the surface."

A rational look at that default setting would, I hope, show it to be the insidious myth that it is. Are any of the groups rotated through that setting actually gargantuan, monolithic groups tromping through our cities, towns and countrysides raining down death and destruction on all "us" little people? If gays are so powerful, then why the hell don't they have the same guarantees of civil rights as everyone? If feminists are so powerful, why do they have to fight "tooth and nail" to claim the right to autonomous control over their own bodies? If liberals are so powerful, why the hell isn't every "liberal" piece of legislation easily passed and why isn't every "liberal" politician elected with no "fuss or muss?" Shouldn't "we," any of us who define ourselves in one or more of those groups, be able to simply snap our fingers and have people jump?

This is what I mean by "giving power" to powerless or less powerful groups in order to set them up with the perception they have immense power OVER and thereby make them targets to be pilloried and attacked. It's an effective use of the corporate media's vending machine that dispenses two-bit sound-bites for the "low, low" price of their bargain-basement soul.

They set 'em up so they can knock 'em down. If they get caught, they claim it was a "joke."

Again, using extreme examples in an attempt to illuminate my point; remember this quote - "I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot,' so I — so kind of an impasse, can’t really talk about Edwards." Then her subsequent defense - "C'mon, it was a joke. I would never insult gays by suggesting that they are like John Edwards. That would be mean." (emphasis added). I'm not going to waste my time examining these 2 quotes. I hope they're self-evident.

rush limbaugh, any time he has been caught and called on the filth pouring from his foam-specked maw has claimed "it was just a joke," "what I do is 'entertainment'" and other equally dishonest and disingenuous appeals to our "funny bone."

Not only has the fine art of satire been reduced to mean-spirited attacks against people whose influence within the halls of power is limited at best and negligible at worst, but its remaining shroud is used to defend and legitimize verbal abuse and mockery of those not quite as powerless as "we" are.

I miss good satire. I wish I were capable of writing it. Mine always turns out snark. My own sense of humor has suffered greatly as I've watched language mangled, twisted and perverted out of all recognizable shape; just to be used to catapult some medieval "value" system harkening back to the golden "days of yore" that never were.

[arendt]

48. Faux "powerful" people!

The Gay Agenda
The Feminist Agenda
The Liberal Agenda

and permutations thereof.

That default setting works to do several things. First, it creates the impression that there is a monolithic, hive-mind controlled group called Gay, or Feminist, or Liberal and then it goes on to create the impression that the group it describes has terrifying power OVER all those who do not belong to the "elite" group known as Gay, Feminist, or Liberal.

I see: you mean a false "powerful" bunch, who are really powerless.

I had merely lumped this bit of lying-on-its-face nonsense with all the other lies (WMDs, Saddam in 911, etc.). But, it predates those event-specific lies by decades. It really is an ancient technique: scapegoating. And, the targets have been the same as long as homosocial men have ruled the world: women, gays, and anyone who can think with an organ other than his dick. "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" comes immediately to mind; as does all the pinko-bashing of the Cold War.

Clearly, this kind of "differentiate, demonize, destroy" meme is essential to any kind of emotion-driven attempt to reduce democracy to a tribal grudge match.

>> If they get caught, they claim it was a "joke."

This tactic angers me immensely. Psychos like Ann Coulter say the most inflammatory stuff and get to blow it off. Meanwhile, a Howard Dean or an Obama is unclear on something, and is forced to grovel ("I reject and repudiate..."). It all comes back to who gets to be the referee. As long as the corporate media is allowed to define what is mainstream and what is not, thugs will be given a free pass.

The alternative, to fight jokes with jokes, is being tried (TDS, Colbert). The problem is that only very sophisticated people watch those shows and get the jokes. (I did love it when some moron invited Colbert to do that White House dinner, because the moron thought Colbert was a conservative.) Meanwhile, the other side just plugs directly into racists, mysogynists, and others with their ridicule disguised as "satire" or "jokes". Its an unequal contest.

-------

So, back to Lenin's question: "What is to be done?"

I can't say. But I know that the corporate media has to be taken down many, many pegs. It has to be exposed for the Wizard of Oz that it is.

arendt