La Trahison des Clercs

[aeolium]

Nothing to do with Benda's book, but rather this article in the Independent, which seems to crystallise some of the debates about broadcasting, and particularly BBC broadcasting. I hate the phrase 'dumbing down', but as someone who has experienced that type of broadcasting where there was an inclination to respect the intelligence of the listener/viewer as well as the more recent kind which does not, I agree with the tenor of Christina Patterson's argument. For highly educated executives and producers to shy away from presenting material which is at all difficult or esoteric is indeed a trahison des clercs. And this applies as much to the debate about R3 as it does to television broadcasting.

My only qualification is that in recent months there have been some impressive (TV) programmes which suggest a possible turn in the tide, for instance the TV documentaries on Russia and the West, the Crusades and medieval illuminated books (and the Jonathan Meades mini-series), and radio documentaries on Germany. But I am sceptical that Chris Patten's influence will bring a significant change. One ray of hope is the recent announcement that the dreadful Mark Thompson is to step down as DG this summer - a lot will depend on the choice of successor.

[french frank]

Yet it's this bit:

He was, he said, "unashamedly" of the view that "introducing people to good books, great paintings, or beautiful music" helped to "enrich them as individuals" and "improve the quality of civic life".

Do they, at Radio 3, really believe that is what their new strategy is doing? [Cf B-o-D's note about Breakfast 'where we'll be talking to a taxi driver who likes classical music'.]

I've really come to think lately that the voices which have decried the artistic and intellectual on the Third and Radio 3 ever since the station began have at last finally triumphed.

There was a time when you could say, for example, that it was "better to overestimate the mentality of the public than to underestimate it", as the man who created the BBC once did say, and know that people wouldn't frown, but would nod their heads. And when you could quote the words Lord Reith said, and not have to add, as Chris Patten felt he had to, when he quoted them last week, that Reith "wasn't being elitist". And when saying that someone was "elitist" didn't mean that they were a snob.

[amateur51]

Nothing to do with Benda's book, but rather this article in the Independent, which seems to crystallise some of the debates about broadcasting, and particularly BBC broadcasting.

Many thanks for this, aeolium Somewhat padded out with rhetorical repeats that rather clog up her page (what do sub-editors do these days/ or do they not exist?) it still makes some useful points, as you say. Let's hope it gives Lord Patten some reforming courage for that long-wished-for morn when Mark Thompson has been replaced by ... well who knows?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

the lord hisself

[aeolium]

I don't believe Patten is right when he claims that the Third Programme was intended by its founders to be elitist. G R Barnes wrote at its launch in 1946, "The Third Programme is for the alert and receptive listener, the listener who is willing to make an effort to select his programme in advance and then meet the performer half-way by giving it his whole attention. The Third Programme is not planned for continuous listening night after night. Every night there will be one principal programme, but there will also be something else for people of different tastes." And the D-G Haley wrote that "[The Third Programme's] whole content will be directed to an audience that is not of one class but that is perceptive and intelligent....of all post-war developments in the field of sound broadcasting the Third Programme has the greatest value both to the individual and to the community as a whole." Those are hardly elitist intentions; on the contrary, they aimed to spread access to culture as widely as possible.

[amateur51]

I don't believe Patten is right when he claims that the Third Programme was intended by its founders to be elitist. G R Barnes wrote at its launch in 1946, "The Third Programme is for the alert and receptive listener, the listener who is willing to make an effort to select his programme in advance and then meet the performer half-way by giving it his whole attention. The Third Programme is not planned for continuous listening night after night. Every night there will be one principal programme, but there will also be something else for people of different tastes." And the D-G Haley wrote that "[The Third Programme's] whole content will be directed to an audience that is not of one class but that is perceptive and intelligent....of all post-war developments in the field of sound broadcasting the Third Programme has the greatest value both to the individual and to the community as a whole." Those are hardly elitist intentions; on the contrary, they aimed to spread access to culture as widely as possible.

I agree with you aeolium, coming as it does from 1946. However from a 2012 viewpoint, that does sound quite elistist given what the current Radio 3 regime believes the attention span of 2012 listeners to be.

Writing that, I believe that the problem lies as much with what the regime says that it is trying to achieve as it does with the 2012 listener. I belong more to the Field of Dreams school of broadcasting:Build it and they will come

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I agree with you aeolium, coming as it does from 1946. However from a 2012 viewpoint, that does sound quite elistist given what the current Radio 3 regime believes the attention span of 2012 listeners to be.

[aeolium]

I agree with you aeolium, coming as it does from 1946. However from a 2012 viewpoint, that does sound quite elistist given what the current Radio 3 regime believes the attention span of 2012 listeners to be.

Yes, agreed. I am not saying that it would not be considered elitist now, only that the intentions of the creators of the Third programme were not at that time, as Patten was suggesting.

[amateur51]

Yes, agreed. I am not saying that it would not be considered elitist now, only that the intentions of the creators of the Third programme were not at that time, as Patten was suggesting.

Gotcha!

[Serial_Apologist]

Gotcha!

The expansion of the attention span to embrace forms of art once appreciated and commissioned by those of the more leisured classes could be seen as denotive of increased leisure time for the masses as a whole. I'm not saying that the masses will automatically relate, or need relate, to the ethos ingrained in the great masterworks composed at times when capitalism still served a progressive function is expanding the productive base, but I think V I Lenin was right, in this one respect at least, in believing, given more leisure time and the diminution of the individual imperative to compete and survive for work, that those other than than the privileged minority would appropriate "bourgeois art" at its most advanced, and develop it into something reflective of the range of human experience in general. The form assumed in actuality by that appropriation, namely consumerism, has in fact since the 60s led to commercial interests adopting a "bread & circuses" approach to keeping the masses happy and compliant, serving up ephemeral pap requiring little exercising of any attention span. This raises a perplexing question. Are we... (and I don't mean those of us who have made a conscious effort to develop our aesthetic sensibilities)... are we now in a regressive phase regarding the evolution of the species?

S-A

[Byas'd Opinion]

I think two general strands have become prominent in the last 30 years or so which have significantly contributed to "dumbing down". They'd be bad enough on their own, but it's the combination of the two which is so pernicious.

1. Philistine commercialism. If it doesn't make money, or in some way "help the economy", there's no point to it. Education is purely for getting a (better) job; Andrew Lloyd Webber is better than Hans Werner Henze because he sells more.

2. Misguided anti-elitism. Too often people seem to think that anti-elitism means "not everyone will appreciate it, so don't give it to anyone" rather being about making everything available to as many people as possible and trying to remove the social barriers which mean that culture and intellectual interests are too often seen as only for posh people.

And if you think standards on the BBC have slipped, what about Channel Four? http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/1296872/index.html

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

are we now in a regressive phase regarding the evolution of the species?

very hard to tell i think ... if the various proportions of types have remained constant [not an assumption congruent with the thrust of the question] then the large increase in population size means there are far more morons available than in earlier decades ... and even though there may be an increase in the actual numbers of intellectuals or aesthetes the sheer volume of the moronic tendency will be problematic and likely overwhelm the introverted intellectual aesthete ..... there certainly seem to me to be far more morons running things than used to be the case ..... when i was young the problem was that reactionaries ran things, intelligent or at least quite cunning ..... now it is the morons .... oh and gangsters .... imv it is the vast increase in population that is the major development allowing far more force to the left hand side of the distributions ..... oh and gangsters, this tendency has been enjoying a marked expansion of territory and population in the last two hundred years or so ....

[Serial_Apologist]

very hard to tell i think ... if the various proportions of types have remained constant [not an assumption congruent with the thrust of the question] then the large increase in population size means there are far more morons available than in earlier decades ... and even though there may be an increase in the actual numbers of intellectuals or aesthetes the sheer volume of the moronic tendency will be problematic and likely overwhelm the introverted intellectual aesthete ..... there certainly seem to me to be far more morons running things than used to be the case ..... when i was young the problem was that reactionaries ran things, intelligent or at least quite cunning ..... now it is the morons .... oh and gangsters .... imv it is the vast increase in population that is the major development allowing far more force to the left hand side of the distributions ..... oh and gangsters, this tendency has been enjoying a marked expansion of territory and population in the last two hundred years or so ....

This concurs with my own apprehensions - in both senses of the word.

[Panjandrum]

Yes, agreed. I am not saying that it would not be considered elitist now, only that the intentions of the creators of the Third programme were not at that time, as Patten was suggesting.

Well, I think the point being made was that the Third Programme was meant to be "elitist", but that this had a very different meaning then; i.e. the pursuit of excellence.

[aeolium]

Well, I think the point being made was that the Third Programme was meant to be "elitist", but that this had a very different meaning then; i.e. the pursuit of excellence.

But I don't think it was intended to be "elitist", and I think the quotations in my earlier message make this clear. It was deliberately not intended for any particular class or group of listeners ('intellectuals'), but aiming to present works to high standards to any 'alert and receptive listeners'. I'm not sure that this could be considered an elite group, or that it was considered to be so by the founders of the Third.