Sunday, 1 December
JANE, YOU IGNORANT SLUT !
Point / Counter-Point Problems
One of the fundamental methods we use to differentiate ourselves and our intellectual positions is by a comparison/contrast process. Thus, a debate exercise helps us to clarify what we think about a subject. Here in America we used to have a hilarious satire of this exercise called Point / Counter-Point on our weekly Saturday Night Live TV Show in which two pundits, a male and female, would debate a subject while breaking all the rules of civility.
But in order to conduct such an exercise to begin with, one must be sufficiently tolerant to hear out the opposing argument. This tolerance is necessarily predicated on an enlightened understanding that it is in everyone’s self-interest to tolerate other viewpoints so that one’s own views will ultimately profit from this process.
This past week Point / Counter-Point problems occurred in two very different areas of the internet. One set of problems occurred locally in the American Blogosphere; and another set was highlighted in the International Arena of the communications sphere.
Rami Khouri, a well-known columnist for The Jordan Times who often writes in a very engaging manner, published a cleverly titled piece called Arab satellite marriage -- Ben Laden and Madonna about the new Arabic media which has been further circulating around the net. In his column Khouri contends that the new Arab media though cosmetically attractive is rather shallow. Interestingly, one of the features which Al Jazeera introduced to its Arabic-speaking audience which has often caused a furor was Point / Counter-Point.
Khouri concedes that there have been some innovations that have enriched the new media’s presentations, but because of the political impotence of most of the audience, he doesn’t value their potential. This column is one of Khouri’s better essays of recent vintage, and I recommend it to those who are interested in culture and society, freedom of expression, and media issues.
I don’t watch much TV and, therefore, don’t get cable or satellite. But Al-Jazeera did sound like an exciting development. Because I’m a strong supporter of the freedom of expression, I was hoping it would attract viewers who would welcome and value the station as a venue with the potential to broaden the Middle East’s arena of public debate and open up new opportunities for individual citizens to sharpen up their critical faculties.
But much to my chagrin, it has run into all sorts of flack from various regimes in the region who were offended by something critical which may have been said about them and, as a result, pulled away the station’s welcome mat. Although the Emir of Qatar gave the station its seed money, it was expected that it would become a going concern eventually. In order for that to happen, corporations and the like would have to buy air time for commercials to be broadcast on it. This entire process requires everyone’s essential cooperation. In recent weeks that prospect seems to have considerably dimmed.
If Arabic-speaking countries in the Middle East region are not going to support their own communications media, can we reasonably expect much progress in their societies? It is especially worrisome because the literacy rate in the region is so low. Without communications being broadcast, how can many citizens feel they are participating in their society?
Back home in the USA, we had another variation of this kind of aggravation: accusations of cocooning. And I’m still not certain where or how it started. Some say it started on lefty weblogs, while others claim the right-leaning webloggers started the process now referred to as delinking which means that a weblogger eliminates hyperlinks to those with whom he/she has some disagreements, usually of a political nature.
Underlying this action, there seems to be some confusion about the right to do something and the moral imperative to do it. Just because we have a right to do something, it doesn’t necessarily follow that we should do it or that we must do it. But what often does follow is the categorical imperative: what if everyone did this?
If everyone ‘delinked’ all those with whom there are disagreements, it would considerably impoverish the arena of public debate. The internet was devised for the express purpose of facilitating communications originally among groups of scientists and then, by extension, of others. Some people are now taking it for granted as if it were a natural phenomenon like the weather. With the advent of weblogs and something called ‘wickies,’ as well as message boards, tag-boards, pop-up comments, etc., participants are expected to behave like responsible citizens and maybe even demonstrate some communitarian consideration.
But perhaps this is too much to reasonably expect especially from younger participants. Perhaps it was presumed by the more mature lawyers engaged in this endeavor that because our country has been thrust into a war, individual Americans would retain the ‘Big Picture’ or Meta-View of punditry somewhere in the back of their minds.
This brings me to an issue which has interested me ever since the Yale Weblogging Conference Revenge of the Blog which recently occurred: where is a weblog situated-- i.e., does it exist in a private space or a public space? It is my tentative belief that the weblog as it is now commonly understood has opened a new dimension in these spheres which is like a foyer previously reserved for celebrities, the rich and the famous. During past eras a movie star or millionaire might hire a public relations agent to create a kind of public image for them which would mediate between the public and the subject.
With the advent of the freely available weblog, which is a more dynamic additional dimension of the static home page, this mediating dimension is now more widely available to more people. And the question it raises is: how should a mediating ‘foyer’ operate?
