Henry Porter in The Guardian

[Stillhomewardbound]

** Note to our Fab mods, I have started this thread here as I see it as more of a social question than an overtly political one. I'll understand if you wish to bounce it over there.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/07/britons-privacy-not-important?commentpage=1

Around about the 80s, through some bizarre quest for modernity, propelled by I know not by what,
print and broadcasting journalism started to come together under the starrier umbrella of 'media'.

These were the Thatcher years, I suppose and after the discord of the late 60s and 70s, Britain, politically, arrived on a plateau of benignity. In this new environment the likes of sociology, once the hotbed of radicalism, gave way on the campuses to the touchy-feely options of Humanities and Media Studies.

About the same time (indeed, probably when The Guardian changed its font!) The Face and Channel 4's The Tube came along and journalism and broadcasting suddenly became sexy and that really has to be the death-knell for any craft or trade. The point when people aspire to do something, not because they feel it in the pit of their bowels with a passion, because it's 'cool' and it's 'trendy'.

Well, today's journalists have emerged out of that condition and while Henry Porter you despair at a lack of bite, and you are right to do so, we can see it in your own newspaper where stories about Prince Harry and the Royals will get as much coverage as say the suppression of gay rights in Russia.

Sorry, but there's not going to be any revolution today, nor tomorrow. Not even possibly in a hundred years time, by which time we will be allowing FB and the like to pass us subliminal messages in our REM time.

Your opening question might be more succinctly put as 'why aren't people angry any more'?

I wish I knew an answer. I really do, but as one at the end of an angry generation who stood at Ludgate Circus and stood with my back to Thatcher's, I knew that the damage had long since been done. Her real legacy was the delivery to the markets of the docile, compliant, consumer society and that can only be reflected in our media.

By the time her most genuine acolyte, Tony Blair, pops his clogs, the average reader of the Guardian iPad app will quickly digest an account of his career before swiftly swiping their screen on to the story that really concerns them … more on Prince Georgie's bad behaviour while out nightclubbing at Anabelle's.

The damage is done and the seeds for this stultifying state we now found ourselves in were sown deeply too many years ago.

[teamsaint]

Thanks for an excellent post, SHB.

Why aren't people angry any more?

The answer , I think , lies in part in the spectacular ongoing success of government divide and rule policies.

At every turn, one group is set against another. One protected while another is made to suffer and pay the price.

The divide and rule policies, and the apparent all encompassing consumer society have left people feeling powerless. Even when, on Syria, people know they are being manipulated and lied to, they feel powerless.

But nothing is for ever.

[JimD]

So no responsibility lies with "people" themselves (ourselves)?

[teamsaint]

So no responsibility lies with "people" themselves (ourselves)?

who are you asking, JD?

[JimD]

Anyone who cares to respond.
Or perhaps it's a 'rhetorical' response to the repeated unqualified references to 'people'. I am reminded, by the tone of the material, of Heidegger's (or at least his translators') category of 'the "They"'.

[teamsaint]

well, personal responsibility , the choices we make, as individuals are very important.

Economically, socially, politically, those choices are often powerfully influenced by the choices made by those with power and money.

People don't choose high unemployment, sky high house prices, static or falling wages,
, a debased media with a thousand choices of pap, a consumer society where expensive goods fail quickly and companies offer terrible service, a very narrow choice of voting options, an economy where the banks call the shots. The people of Britain didn't want was in Iraq or Afghanistan, and they don't want it in Syria. We didn't choose fracking.
I could go on, but you get my drift. We didn't choose those things. They were foisted upon us by powerful interests.

However, we DO have the responsibility to make choices at our level, and though good choices are not always easy, (and decent education for all would help) we do have responsibility so seek and act for positive change where we can.

Change for the better can come from the top or bottom. The top seem only to want to consolidate their power, and our compliance .

[JimD]

Well, I am not in a position to say with any confidence (or probably even meaning) what "They" ('the people of Britain') want or choose, though I guess it's fairly safe, if pointless, to say "They" don't "choose" things generally considered to be unalloyed ills.

But enough of them voted repeatedly for the Thatcher and Blair governments to maintain them in office, have read the Sun newspaper to make it a sustained commercial success, engage with what I consider to be corrosive trash in "the media" ditto ...and so on.

So whom do "we" hold responsible...if that's what this thread is about?

[teamsaint]

Well, I am not in a position to say with any confidence (or probably even meaning) what "They" ('the people of Britain') want or choose, though I guess it's fairly safe, if pointless, to say "They" don't "choose" things generally considered to be unalloyed ills.

But enough of them voted repeatedly for the Thatcher and Blair governments to maintain them in office, have read the Sun newspaper to make it a sustained commercial success, engage with what I consider to be corrosive trash in "the media" ditto ...and so on.

So whom do "we" hold responsible...if that's what this thread is about?

Is that what this is about? I' really don't know.
I guess you and I have differing ideas about where personal responsibilty lies, JD.
Your "Unalloyed ills" are things other people, people with power,have chosen for us.

So why do people read the Sun. More pertinently, why do some educated people read the Sun?
Corrosive trash in the media? its around us all the time. It gets heavy publicity. TV, for whatever reasons, is enormously powerful and persuasive. And don't "They" know it.

On politics, we don't always get what we vote for, and we don't always get to vote for what we want.
Blair quite simply did things that we (one time supporters) never ever voted for.
Thatcher (and the others) was elected by probably 25/30% of the population.

[french frank]

I think this counts as Politics: I'm trying to frame an Announcement that there has been some discussion behind the scenes as to how we deal with topics which have nothing to do with Radio 3 or the arts; such as a recent thread where two thirds of a huge number of posts were contributed by six people; or other topics where, seemingly regardless of the subject, the same half dozen members, with a dozen more hangers on (including me!) take up their positions and disagree with each other often with varying degrees of venom.

[eighthobstruction]

Two interesting subjects passed my ears on R4 (and some of it went in)....TOR a software fix for Web Anonymity (anyone clicking on this link may immediately go on a LIST of some GOVT TYPE....https://www.torproject.org/....This was originally produced by USA Armed Forces to scramble their messages between ships ans shore....but is now available to criminals and child sex offenders to be anonymous ....seeing the source of the computer programme it must be likely that they have cracked their own computer code and can actually know the names of users....

....the second was James Burke (the old Tomorrows World presenter).... https://audioboo.fm/boos/1574606-jam...-does-it-again .....lots more stuff ref Burke on web http://www.missionlondon.com/blog/ja...from-this-man/....for instance....

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

enjoyed Henry Porter's thrillers, really rather good