"Charlie Rose" = The Answer

I was watching Charlie Rose last night as I often do, and it suddenly occurred to me (like Doc Brown and the Flux Capacitor) that it was, indeed, the best program on television. I've had a great fondness for the show for some time, but this cosmic revelation was a refreshingly new awareness. The molecules for this "Eureka!" had always been present in mind but, until last night, had lingered deep under the surface, twinkling quietly in my subconscious like a stars in a distant galaxy. Like with any revelatory episode, I wanted to examine its causes and evaluate its truth. I wanted deconstruct the psychological elements that triggered the ignition of the light bulb. And if the show is, indeed, perfect, I wanted to understand why. Let us explore.

It so happened that the particular interviews featured on last night's program were with Steven Levitt, of Freakonomics fame, and Malcolm Gladwell, of Blink, Tipping Point, etc. Of course, both gentleman are highly celebrated for their uncanny ability to refine fascinating insights from seemingly banal human behavior. They've carved out a wonderfully lucrative niche as venerable princes of pop-sociology. However, what struck me about their interviews, and what precipitated my epiphany, was that both men emphasized a central theme: the latent splendor of life. Levitt put it indirectly: "It's about asking the right questions." Gladwell put it more succinctly: "you have to train yourself that everything is interesting". Then it hit me: this is the unspoken mantra of Charlie Rose- in precious few words, this is why I love the show.

Charlie Rose is a shining affirmation of this terribly unsung dictum. Everything is interesting, but only if you look closely and honestly, without pride or prejudice. Exploring the exceptional complexity of the world requires two critical assets: an open mind and the ability to listen- this is the Charlie Rose calling card. Not simply listening as in absorbing and processing sound waves, but listening in the much broader, more active sense: hearing, thinking, feeling, assessing, evaluating, studying, exploring and reacting in kind. The art of listening.

Similarly, I mean an open mind not just in the sense of a dispassionate observer, but also in an ethos guided by a childlike curiosity for everything. A voracious appetite for all knowledge. Whether he's interviewing Warren Buffet, Charles Manson, LeBron James, or Jay Z, Charlie has an unmatched ability to elicit extraordinary stories from subjects of all stripes. The viewer doesn't need to fancy politics, sports, economics, film, or what-have-you in order to become engrossed in the program because, fundamentally, all people are interesting in some way- it only needs to be drawn out of them. This is what Charlie does better than anyone else, but more still, he does it on every show, across the grand spectrum of humanity. In an epoch of television typified by mindless, over-produced sensationalism (that has also crept into the news room), Charlie Rose glows brilliantly amid the darkness.

Media Warfare is the Message

The recent Whitehouse media offensive on Fox News is not necessarily a new political communications stratagem, but it is perhaps unprecedented in its public stridency and deliberateness. While President Obama, himself, has kept his distance from the partisan wrangling, his proxies have leveled a full-fledged, unabashed indictment of the cable channel and its claims of journalistic legitimacy. This very public action is not only a grotesque manifestation of the hostility that seems to invade all modern political debate, but it signals a new, more ominous chapter in the evolution of media politics.

As I stated in my introductory post below, and as a recent New York Times article points out, the problem is much bigger than Fox News- the deleterious trend of media polarization signifies the wholesale coarsening of American political discourse and a dangerous contraction of the public sphere. Whether you're liberal or conservative, we should all be concerned as citizens of a democracy- a system of government grounded in intelligent and rational debate amongst its people and elected officials.

Often, the most critical component of compromise is the ability to genuinely listen and appreciate the opinions of others. This uniquely human faculty is a candid recognition of our own fallibility and an affirmation that the best way forward is usually arrived at through the contribution of many individuals with varying opinions. It seems we are approaching a pivotal point where the institution of democracy is serving more as a veil of legitimacy for those in power than as a philosophy for guiding political practice. "Democracy" has become an empty justification for an explosion of invective and the preservation of an atmosphere of mutual enmity that invades all discussion and decision-making. It seems to me that the current media landscape, particularly cable news and radio, is, if not the root of the problem, certainly public enemy number one.

With the unfortunate decline of print journalism, cable news is now the dominant information space where public opinion is created, modulated, and crystallized. The punditocracy, whether Sean Hannity or Keith Olbermann, has laid claim to the public mind, seducing its audience with rank sensationalism, infantilizing propaganda techniques, and the toxic pretension of condensing an incredibly complex world into a handful of snarky soundbytes.

Of course, the most insidious aspect of this dynamic is that this is what sells. People do not want to sit through an hour long exposition on the current state of the Afghan insurgency, they simply want someone to tell them that we're winning the "War on Terror" while waving the American flag and flashing a few stock images of AK-toting mujahideen. In doing so, a very complex problem is reduced to an easily digestible meme that reinforces the viewer's value system. It feels good to have a reputedly "smart" person pat you on the head every night and say "you are, in fact, right... again." And this is the real problem: no one wants to listen to or hear anything anymore that conflicts with their highly insulated view of the world. Cable news, whether right or left, has constructed two alternative (and grossly opposite) realities for their viewerships- realities where political opponents are represented as the very picture of evil. Not only are various politicians repeatedly tarred and feathered, but the media orgs themselves continually malign each other with the dignity and tact of spoiled middle school girls.

To take a quote from the consummate sage of democratic principle John Dewey:

"A genuinely democratic faith in peace is faith in the possibility of conducting disputes, controversies, and conflicts as co-operative undertakings in which both parties learn by giving the other a chance to express itself, instead of having one party conquer by forceful suppression of the other - a suppression which is none the less one of violence when it takes place by psychological means of ridicule, intimidation, instead of overt imprisonment or in concentration camps."

I just wonder where we go from here?

Bread & Circuses

Hello and welcome to Plum Politics.

As this entry is our maiden voyage together, and you don't know me from Adam, I would like to take a brief moment to provide some background on what has led me here:

I think it's fair to say that the motivation for this blog originates in a passion for truth arrived at through a critical examination and intelligent discussion of the issues. In some ways this blog is a personal refutation of the aggressive, sound-byte brand of infotainment that has, unfortunately, come to embody the ethos of mainstream media news and political reporting. In my opinion, the once dignified quest for truth has been eclipsed by "bread and circus" political theater.

In too many instances, a media practice that delivers empty spectacle produced to enthrall rather than inform, distract rather than enlighten, sell a point of view rather than explore an issue, has supplanted sophisticated journalism. Of course, quality information is out there, it's just increasingly hard to find. In this regard, I believe cable television is a terrible detriment to the proper function of the American political mind. Nonetheless, I still watch a lot of it (and do enjoy some of it)- but my other motivation is more akin to the reasons a doctor monitors the course of a disease and soberly educates the patient.

This is not to say that this blog is by any means the antidote, rather it is my attempt as a student of media and politics to bear public witness and hopefully provide some compelling insights into this modern media miasma. At the risk of patronizing the reader, I think many people (myself included at times) approach media with a certain passive innocence rather than the critical awareness that is often necessary to manage and appropriate messages without being subliminally coerced. So in writing this blog, I will examine and critique the public debate, offer my own thoughts on these issues, and also direct the reader to outside information that I believe to be exceptional. At the very least, I hope you find my words thought-provoking.

For those interested, and as further background, I will leave you with a short doc (9 min) that I made on the modern notion of "Spectacle" as espoused by Guy Debord in his seminal work "The Society of the Spectacle". It's my amateurish filmic exposition of his compelling and underappreciated theory.