Monday 28 December 2020
Cheap Whine
A tedious aspect of mainstream media is the constant whining. As if a persistent whine is used as an easy substitute for rational argument. Children do this as we know. Lacking the language skills of adults, they may nevertheless try to persuade adults by protracted whining over some slight defect in their world. The aim is to wear down adult resistance.
Over recent decades the media have adopted the whine as a way to wear down rational discourse. The motive may well be a simple one – whining is cheaper and easier to present than considered analysis. Huge numbers of supposedly educated adults now appear to accept the constant media whine as a legitimate tool of public discourse.
It’s an obvious, slightly superficial yet unsettling conclusion this one. A decidedly unhealthy change in the tone of public debate. Changing the whine habit back into something more analytical and constructive seems to be virtually impossible. It almost seems trite to push it as akin to arguing with children, but when we consider how infantile mainstream media can be – then it doesn’t seem trite.
A man pretends to be a woman and we are expected to join in the game or there will be tantrums or worse.
A celebrity pretends to know that the weather will get much worse unless we stop driving cars. Again we are expected to join in the game and again there will be tantrums or worse if we don’t.
An academic pretends to know that white people have some kind of ineradicable racial privilege. Yet again we are expected to join in the game and yet again there will be tantrums or worse if we don’t.
Once a culture sinks into infantile substitutes for adult discourse there appears to be no way back. Apart from a major shock perhaps, a grow up or die kind of shock. I’m convinced that one aspect of Brexit is simply an urge to find some way of growing up culturally before it is too late, some way to stem that constant whine.
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6 comments:
"Apart from a major shock perhaps, a grow up or die kind of shock."
Unfortunately the only sorts of shocks that would achieve anything would be ones that threatened the very existence of society. A war or an economic shock of a very severe kind perhaps, the collapse of the financial system, that sort of thing.
Its why I'm so downbeat about our prospects, the only things that could turn the supertanker around could also sink it.
Perhaps the whine appeared when the middle class expanded to include large numbers of literate but ignorant people. They have to be engaged in the "national debate" somehow, but lack the skills of reasoning and weighing evidence. Emotion and trivia become dominant.
Trouble is, these people can vote.
Well, I entered University in the 1970s and you could certainly encounter whining then. At that time it was whining about 'why we didn't have Russia's lovely communism for our society' or why 'the Tories kept winning elections' or 'why the poorest most deprived of the population would never have enough resources allocated to them' - (very common whine that). I used to get very fed up with it I can tell you.
The headline is to the point. I gave up my subscription to the New Scientist (more than a decade ago) when it started reporting less science and rather more science gossip. My hypothesis is that good science trained journalists are expensive but humanities trained journalists are cheaper. While there may be some immediate gratification offered by gossip, it is hollow and doesn't contribute to a better public understanding. It does bring in the advertising money though.
As the New Scientist, so the world. A sentence I wasn't expecting to write. We complain (whine!) about our politicians being infantilised by the EU, but I expect it would have happened anyway. Newspapers are opinionpapers. Broadcasters digital gossip.
What do we do about it? Certainly don't buy or pay for MSM. Campaign for an unwinding of the universities back into fewer 'proper' academic STEM organisations and more art colleges/technical institutes to sop up the rest.
Oh, and also give up on social media.
I saw some science on the box the other night. We were watching a programme about the latest research into the Loch Ness monster, desperate for something new and factual to turn up. Australian researchers had done an extensive DNA search of the loch and presented their results. These ruled out some theories, allowed others and the lead researcher admitted that there were reams of data which were neither one nor the other. The science clincher came when he said that these reams of data were there and available for anyone to work with should they have a need to do so. That's how science works, not by grasping figures from the air to back up a political power trip.
Sobers - I'd prefer to be more optimistic but it isn't easy because as you say, turning things around probably requires a very severe shock. However it may be that modern people would treat a survivable shock as much more severe than it really is and react to it in a rational way and before too much damage is done. I hope so but even that feels too optimistic.
Sam - looking through mainstream media comments suggests you may be right. As if the wrong people are attracted to positions of influence, which we know already but it never becomes a public issue. Can't become one presumably.
Tammly - it's odd too, because universities are supposed to attract the best and the brightest and the most open minds. They clearly don't though and even worse many students seem to keep hold of their student politics in later life.
DJ - I used to enjoy New Scientist but like you I gave it up. A lab colleague once described it as a comic and I couldn't disagree even though I still read it occasionally. Haven't read it for years now though. Yes we do need to unwind universities and find ways to put more emphasis on experience.
Jannie - interesting and yes, that is how science works. The trouble is, the chance of backing up a political power trip seems to attract enough scientists to corrupt large and influential sections of any scientific fields.
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