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Media and responsibility

My ideas have shifted a little from when I chose the topic last year. Originally, I approached it as the responsibility of the media in imparting opinion or information, and for the waves that creates within society. I’d thought of discussing where the line fell between media and readership, distribution and consumption; with the share of responsibility that falls on the consumer – on the reader, the watcher, the sharer – highlighting the importance of education.

It seems to me lately that the media stands somewhat at the crossroads between state and citizen; between those who determine political, diplomatic and economic relations, and the mass of the population. Maybe that’s obvious, or maybe it’s just been highlighted more of late.

In recent years I’ve felt the media largely presented opinion as fact, clinging to old divisions and maybe reinforcing them, often speaking provocatively and possibly irresponsibly for profit, rather than being a responsible voice within a public dialogue seeking truth. Ultimately though, these institutions are charting the waters of social media and technology in redefining that dialogue for modern times as much as we are.

So, the role the media plays and the responsibilities of that are seeming more complex. We’ve seen lately the potential of the media voice in shaping democratic outcomes, and also the important role it has in challenging events in the public sphere. With both of those functions there must be a weighty responsibility to the utmost honesty and transparency, as any falsehood risks undermining your voice.

On the other hand, through revenue and readership reaction, it seems the media has become accountable to the masses: there seems to be a demand for the media to reiterate the public voice and legitimise it in the sphere of politics. This is interesting and also concerning, as while democracy is a part of politics it’s my understanding that it is limited to certain aspects of those processes in order to preserve social stability as “if taken alone and as a matter of principle, it is the destruction of politics” (see Bernard Crick’s book “In Defence of Politics”).

In times such as these, it seems destabilising to politics and diplomacy for vocal elements of society to demand democratic control through media coverage and coercion. Surely we elect people with the attributes and experience to be able to navigate the world of politics; drawing on their personal understanding and also the added insights they presumably have through their roles within government or other structures.

Going back to my initial view of production and consumption, this may simply be a slightly more nuanced take on that. The media clearly has important roles to play for society and politics, and needs to be responsible in how it does so in order to retain credibility and not unduly destabilise society. And we as citizens surely need to be suitably informed so as to understand that function, to be able to interpret their meaning, and to allow them a degree of independence and impartiality in their reporting and the demands they feel obliged to make on political figures.

In all of this, and in so many other ways, it seems so important that we understand the systems we are a part of and the roles we play within them. For me this sheds fresh light on the importance of education, as I said, and also highlights the risks of economic or other factors unduly influencing freedom of speech.

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Living the dream

It seems to me that we’ve been placed in, or exist within, quite an incredibly harmonious set of self-regulating relationships. These often beautiful landscapes of rolling hills, dramatic mountains, exquisite lakes, dense forest ecosystems, or vast expanses of wilderness. All spun round in these gentle rhythms of night and day, winter and summer, warm and cold, and the varying climates that embrace the globe. All of which brings forth this abundance of plant life that sustains us with nutrients, shelter, clothing, air, and beauty. Then the intriguing variety of animals that seem to work together to regulate these environments, co-existing creatively and wisely in the balance of the natural world.

Within all this, humanity appears as this strangely independent creature who is nevertheless quite dependent upon it all. I suppose it’s hard to receive something so beautiful and complex that you have not earned and cannot claim to control – hence perhaps our desire to master it, to assert our independence and understanding.

So far the natural world seems to have been fairly resilient in the face of our actions, although we are seeming quite out of balance compared with the example set by nature itself. It’s fair enough I think to seek to understand, to try to get involved and maybe tweak things a bit. Hopefully that’s done with a sense of balance, reflection, and duty of care.

I mean, we could take what we’ve found, run it into the ground for the sake of displaying our capacity and freedom, cash it all in for one big party while we’re here. I just feel there’s greater wisdom, greater strength in self-restraint; in knowing that we could do that, but deciding not to. For me, “because we can” was never a compelling reason; although it seems to be one that holds sway in many quarters.

It’d be nice if humanity could open its eyes just a little more to the amazing gift we have in life and the immense responsibility and beauty of learning to work together in overcoming this desire to dominate purely for the sake of it. The sense of logic and power may be prevailing at times, but I feel that in the human heart the inclination towards greater harmony and collective restraint could still win out.

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Reality as a sense check

With this post, I want to consider the idea of reality serving as a sense check for what we might experience in a more abstract or virtual way online or in other activities.

In making that distinction about what’s virtual both online and in other ways, I’m thinking of questions raised in my posts on “Response Ability” by Frank Fisher and also in Tech as an evolving second life: ways that technology or machine-thinking spills over into other more human or environmental aspects of life. It may seem at times that tech is all there is, given that it’s made its way into so many areas of our lives, but here I want to think again about what is real, what’s actually happening behind all this in the real world, and what we’re creating there.

For example, within the realms of communication, relationships and interpersonal interest; our actions there have a counterpart in real world. Increasingly that is becoming quite detached from reality – we may click Like or send a sequence of messages, which are then received by the other out of context within their quite separate reality. So much of communication – tone, body language, intention – seems lost in the ether, as we must in a way ‘hear’ these messages through the lens of our own perception and voice. It seems to me that much of the reality of the other can be lost, if we are not careful.

And looking at the business world: what’s behind purchases and purchasing systems in terms of human and environmental costs and also market influences? Everything we repeatedly or occasionally buy sits within these realities of its impacts on nature in terms of resources and waste; then within the human or business realities of those people involved in its production and how that company operates relative to others in the commercial world. To my mind, all of that creates real world impacts and perpetuates systems and standards we may or may not be so aware of.

So, going back to the Frank Fisher post, his concern seemed to be that tech distances us from real world consequences, depriving us of important feedback or information about ourselves and our relationships to the world around us. Could that be a valid concern? In doing so much through a user-friendly interface are we living in our own little bubbles, happily distanced from what goes on behind the screens?

Surely every action we take, every word we cast out there has an impact both on others and in how we are choosing to be and to relate ourselves to the world that surrounds us. Are we more careless than we once might have been because these impacts are virtual, invisible to us, out of sight? Maybe taking the time to imagine those impacts might actually have a huge impact on the world.

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The value of art in society

Building on How many aren’t well represented? (which considered culture as creation of meaning, and our engagement with this as a society and as individuals seeking identity), this post looks more towards the world of art.

Defining what we’re talking about in terms of art can be tricky: is it self-expression, purely subjective, or is it a way of seeing and representing realities and relationships that seeks more objective meaning? It seems in some ways society has commodified and co-opted artistic creativity into economic activity, either as branding and lifestyle or within the lucrative entertainment industry. But does art itself still have intrinsic value?

In modern cultural life economic considerations seem to seek recipes, possibly at the cost of other options (see Values and the economic for more thoughts on principles underlying human activity). So is art an ongoing flow of forms and interests as society explores itself and creates meaning, or a commercial concern trading on audience behaviour? There seems a tendency to play it safe and capitalise on trends, possibly artificially amplifying certain interests rather than cultivating new ones. I question if economics should have any say in cultural life; whether money muddies the waters of what’s happening there.

With the relationship of art to society more widely, it draws on images and ideas within society but does it do so to shock, to inform, to reinforce, to challenge, to offer meaning or alternatives, or to drive certain industries and conversations? Should art ‘say anything’ in politics or social life, or is it there to reflect reality back to us in a way we may judge with fresh eyes? In seeking to say something, I feel it lose some of its power; that it might be better leaving us free to interpret and decide for ourselves.

People seem to be identifying more – and more closely – with cultural forms such as films, books and artists in attempting to create their own sense of self. Which is interesting, and possibly concerning: maybe it’s always been the case, but maybe cultural institutions held different values and intentions in the past, and maybe people did so with a different awareness as well. Is the self holding an interest, or are we creating a self out of these things?

Who’s to say the meaning of art in society, and within education it seems Arts are still at risk of falling by the wayside – nice added extras that might serve a creative career or a well-rounded personality but a less ‘sensible’ choice for today’s economic realities. It seems society generally is struggling to relate to art, as discussed in this Guardian article on the future of Art History studies.

As with so many things, it’s hard to grasp what’s really going on and what it’s all about in terms of how we live. And, as with a few posts so far, this one is attempting to explore the topic for future consideration more than to definitively master these questions.

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“Ecological Intelligence”

Here I’ll be talking about the book “Ecological Intelligence: Rediscovering Ourselves in Nature” by Ian McCallum (as opposed to many others of a similar name). It’s not a book that seems to have a large following, but its premise and the converging interests and expertise of the author make for an interesting and insightful read.

The author draws on his own personal and professional experiences in the fields of psychology, poetry and nature to weave together science, language and mythology in a consideration of what it means to be human and what we are facing up to in the world around us.

Charting the course of evolution, humanity is placed within the context of the natural environment, both scientifically and poetically, bringing us to consider self-consciousness and the human ego: “like the conductor of an orchestra, it has an orientating function … as well as acting as a point of reference as to who we are and what we might become”. McCallum highlights the intricacies of our psychological existence and the challenges of truly knowing ourselves as human beings – of coming to terms with our shadow or dark side. Notions of repression, projection, and the psychological journey to wholeness are framed as part of an archetypal struggle as well as a personal and environmental one.

The author talks of our psychological interaction with our surroundings and the role this plays in cognition and our sense of self; how “The mind, which includes a tiny, conscious portion known as the ego, has evolved not only to reach out into the world but to be receptive to that which is reaching for us”. As in “Response Ability” by Frank Fisher, the view here is that our consciousness or mind is formed in a way by our environment; and, building on this, that the extent we now shape that environment ourselves will “acquire central importance in the environment to which we then have to adapt ourselves”.

It’s really a very ambitious book that seeks meaning between divergent ideas; talking on one side from a highly scientific and psychological perspective, then on the other with an imaginative, poetic voice. In concluding, McCallum speaks of the need to live within our environment rather than attempt or pretend to control it; drawing together the threads and looking for ways of reconciling them through the worlds of science, poetry, ecology, religion, psychology, and nature.

While I may not agree with all the premises and conclusions of the book, I love the way the diverse ideas and insights are drawn into a fascinating and informed dialogue that seeks to bridge the chasm between science and poetry quite beautifully: “The paired words ‘yes’ and ‘no’ … convey a simple wisdom: everything is in process … every idea, every interpretation and every strategy has at least two sides … yes and no are the two most powerful words in the vocabulary of a species that has become capable of deciding what to do about its future.”

Reference: “Ecological Intelligence: Rediscovering Ourselves in Nature” by Ian McCallum, (Africa Geographic, Cape Town), 2005.

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Tech as an evolving second life

It’s interesting how society is grappling with technology and social media in terms of how we live, what it means, and in what respects it’s a good thing or needs adjustment.

Now and again videos, articles or artworks appear that spark concern over the implications of technology and how it’s changing us (for example, the videos “I Forgot My Phone” by Charlene deGuzman, “Look Up” by Gary Turk, or Moby’s recent animation for “Are you lost in the world like me”). Themes of loneliness, human relationship and happiness are regularly worked upon by psychologists, journalists and artists as we try to understand all this.

Then there’s the discussions around changes to our thinking (such as the BBC’s “Digital dependence ‘eroding human memory’” among many) looking at how we no longer prioritise knowledge and developing our mind, given we ‘know’ where to find information. Likewise, another recent BBC article questioned the value of face-to-face contact in learning (“Shouldn’t lectures be obsolete by now?”), suggesting it’s ineffective in the face of technology.

Questions around causality and human nature arise in response: Is thinking changing as a result of technology, so people are now more suited to that than to listening to someone? Are people forgetting how to remember now it seems an old-fashioned necessity? Are principles of education and of knowledge being asked to change in light of technology? And is there any deeper social or personal value in being present and working to relate yourself to traditional bodies of knowledge? In doing so, are we recreating realities within ourselves?

My main question with all this though is that surely we’re making ourselves very dependent upon something outside of ourselves. If all knowledge, relationship, psychological security, meaning comes through technology then we seem to have leveraged ourselves almost completely. What do we know or hold within ourselves and our environment after that? Do ‘we’ know or understand anything?

Looking back at the videos mentioned before, there seem to be social, psychological and emotional consequences arising from the spread of technology which are concerning on a purely human level. (On that note, see my recent post on “Response Ability” by Frank Fisher which takes these questions further).

Essentially though, tech is now a core part of our lives and dictates a lot of what we do and how we do so: communication, cultural consumption, everyday logistics, personal habits and lifestyles are all being shaped by it. We can look at all this as creating networks of a virtual world, layered over our existence – a second life woven above and beyond our immediate realities, and maybe replacing them.

It seems constructive, if slightly overwhelming, that these issues are being written about and addressed as much as they are. I just wonder at what point talk leads to understanding and onto change – are we going to be forever circling in these debates and the flood of data, or will we be able to form decisive conclusions on the paths to take?

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What do we see in beauty?

What’s probably becoming clear is that I question quite a lot of the cultural or social attitudes of our times and, to be clearer, when I do so it’s more to stretch out the conversation in an attempt to provide space for re-evaluating things. In that light, today’s topic is beauty.

I talked a little in Age, Image & Self Worth about the correlation between outer appearances and inner qualities, and that’s pretty much my starting point here. Then, I spoke of beauty being mainly associated with youth and how the notion of beauty as we age may lie more in the realm of truthful resonance between the inner self and the outer form we offer the world.

However, we live in a society which embraces more superficial ideas on beauty: concealing imperfections or signs of time, creating illusions with makeup and fashion, asserting our individuality through consumer choices, praising and rewarding those blessed with looks coinciding with current trends. This isn’t said dismissively, none of this is necessarily bad and much of it seems part of shared culture and meaning.

My main concern, as touched upon in Relating to cultural benchmarks and How many aren’t well represented?, is the extent to which it’s wise to assess people’s inner worth based on such external markers.

There’s a book by Edward de Bono called “How to Have a Beautiful Mind” which starts from the premise that inner qualities are more lasting, more important to cultivate than the pursuit of externalities destined to fade or alter. I do wonder to what extent that’s true in today’s society – it seems superficial concerns can get you a long way in our fast-paced world of image, aesthetic, branding etc. Honestly, I see very little motivation today for people to develop character and inner beauty.

It’s something I imagine we’re aware of from a young age. For some reason we often seem blinded or caught up in the beautiful, losing sight of other factors. There’s certainly an ‘unfairness’ there, but I think it’s one we accept and perpetuate in many ways.

I could argue beauty is often inverse to character: that those blessed in this respect are even less motivated to develop inwardly as others tend to defer to them and desire their presence regardless. But I imagine it may well be a double-edged sword: to be treated favourably without needing to make effort, possibly having your wisdom ignored in the process may be a burden for the beautiful.

For me, appearance – be that looks, age, belongings, or whatever else – doesn’t register as much as the way a person is, how they relate, the ideas they hold and their willingness to share them, to listen, to care, to change their mind. Sometimes that correlates to looks, sometimes it doesn’t – some people are just beautiful souls, and that shines through regardless.

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Community – what it was, what we lost

I began talking about this topic in The challenge of community, and here I want to return to the idea of how community has changed over recent times.

Some of these ideas arose in considering Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” – how society was more closely knit and qualities of character had consequences for yourself and those around you, how behaviour and personality were noticed and affected your life. Also how economic activity and your place in nature were clearer, as trade was more locally evident and transport more closely related to environment.

Then how our immediate realities seem to be becoming increasingly irrelevant as we travel further and use methods more removed from reality; consume culture online or in isolation; and so much of life has become quite virtual and interlaced with the use of technology. The relationships between self and environment seem less apparent, more avoidable, as we can tune out from so much or manage it remotely.

Focusing on social aspects, it seems we sometimes prioritise communication and validation from virtual connections over those in proximity to us. Possibly disregarding uncomfortable realities and going where someone will approve and empower us. We seem to drift towards those who agree, where before we ‘had’ to work through our relationships with those who were there. I imagine that made for very different social realities.

Where is the learning now, where is the shared meaning and construction of reality? Or are we all wandering around isolated and unchallenged, not pushing through with difficulties in understanding or relating? Choosing our own perspective.

Looking back at the recent festive season, it seemed there was a lot of ‘living in the hype’ of cultural traditions (heart-warming movies and songs, idealised images of society and family life etc.) but then almost a hatred and intolerance of the realities of sharing time and space with others. As if we want the illusion, the mask of that community without quite being able to create it.

Touching back on Jane Austen, that sense of personal qualities and character mattering – how people managed relationships and carried themselves within their communities. Now it seems we can avoid many of those challenges and disregard the social reflections of our environment, creating our own little worlds.

It seems community reflects reality in a way: social identity used to be shaped by the relationships of community; meanings and truths about human activity and our place in nature were evident in how we lived. Now, maybe community reflects our disengagement and distraction from those realities – what would it take for us to focus our energies on developing community once again?

It’s interesting to me how something that was once so tangible and influential has become something quite different. How the place of the individual in environment and social context has changed so much, and how we can find new ways of working with these realities.

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How many aren’t well represented?

The initial impetus for this post was in reading about disablism and cultural representations of disfigurement, topics I’d not been aware of but found deeply concerning (e.g. this Independent article on Hollywood villains). This led me to thinking more broadly about people within society who aren’t represented positively and attitudes that may arise from that, which is what I’ll write about here.

To my mind, it seems our cultural conversations – be that films, television, books, or other forms – represent looks so as they mean something, and these media images then become the world of meaning we inhabit and relate ourselves to.

Western culture creates these standards of appearance, style, behaviour, values, character which seem to place many at odds with images they can likely never attain and may not want to. Indeed, are the faces of our cultural life meant as a reflection or a battleground? Who decides the options we’re presented and the meanings they hold?

Maybe that’s always been the way with culture: that society creates representations of reality, assigns meaning, and plays out social options, masks, qualities and relationships in order to give rise to discussion about our values, concerns and ways of living.

However, for this to spill over into our everyday attitudes so we begin judging those who may not value ‘fashionable’ clothing or the endless illusions of makeup seems a mistake. And that doesn’t even touch on the disturbing attitudes towards disfigurement or disability (topics I don’t feel qualified to address, but feel need raising in this context). To infer conclusions about anyone based on outward appearances is troubling on a social level.

Ultimately I suppose it comes down to the question of what this process of cultural representation is all about. I referred to it above as a ‘conversation’ and maybe that’s helpful: if culture is the voice emanating from society, telling stories and using social realities as its characters and forms, then maybe we need to think about how we understand that and what our response might be.

How aware are we of the ‘codes’ used within culture, and do we keep these distinct from our attitudes in daily life? What is really being said and meant? Are our cultural institutions acting responsibly, intending to foster division, or working in consideration of other industries? Are we being presented with ideals we’re supposed to be taking out into social life or ones to work with in a more inward, symbolic way?

There’s clearly more to this topic than I anticipated, as this has delved into interesting questions around society, culture and identity. At its core, this seems to be about how culture relates to social reality, how we relate ourselves to culture, and the extent to which cultural forms are based on reality or allusion. Are these lines being blurred, pulling us into consumption and image-creation? Is culture where we find our selves or where we reflect upon them, possibly hone them? What’s behind it all, and what’s socially acceptable?

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“Response Ability” by Frank Fisher

A few years back, someone introduced me to the writing of the late Frank Fisher and while this can be fairly academic compared with most of the texts I’ll be dipping into here, its rigorous and lively thinking strives to connect with the challenges of modern life in such an important way.

“Response Ability” explores various issues (environment, energy, transport, illness) alongside the process of “social construction” as a way we can come to understand the structures we create together; the essence of “response ability” then being for the individual to begin an active, intelligent engagement with living.

The section on “Technology and the loss of self” raises some interesting concerns that may be worth getting our head around. As its starting point, technology is taken as “an expression of purpose which may or may not be clear to its users”. Fisher then goes on to outline the ways design and social context exclude us from “the meanings (workings) purposefully, i.e. known to be, built into devices”.

Here we are talking about the way technology is created, marketed, maintained and how the face presented to us is one we cannot fully understand but one we relate to in a way somewhat distanced from the realities and meanings nested there. For example, the differences between the control and understanding of a manual car, versus the ease of an automatic; or the reliance on specialists as technology becomes increasingly inaccessible to everyday comprehension.

Using technology without seeing all it entails has the “capacity to trivialise both our understanding of nature and the meaning of the relationships we have with it”. Through a discussion of the nature of self, language and the construction of meaning Fisher then draws us to an understanding of how “meaning arises in recursive interaction between people in language” and “self and selfhood arise in the development of meaning in an individual”, so “where our access to meaning is restricted, our access to self determination, the means to construct our selves, diminishes.”

As I said, this is quite academic, quite deep. But for me, the essence of what’s being said here is that meaning and self arise out of a process of communication within society, so by technology mediating certain relationships we risk losing that feedback, and therefore our capacity to personally understand and respond in an informed way.

It seems Fisher isn’t so much critical of technology itself, but concerned over the degree of understanding of the subtle ways it distances us from nature/reality: “In addition to knowing ‘how it works’, we must know conceptually how it ‘fits’.” These tools arise out of a culture, and in using them we must understand them otherwise we risk being limited by their design. We must understand what we are doing, how we are doing it, and why.

This has clearly been a heavy post, and it’s been challenging to write, but that’s why I’ve stuck with it – if the realities behind technology and our relationships with it and with the world around us are that complicated to grasp, should we abandon the effort? If what’s really at stake is an understanding of self and our relationship to reality, then it seems troubling to shrug such concerns off.

Rather than being swept along somewhat unthinkingly with the tide of progress, we need to be aware of what we risk – to do so more consciously, more intentionally. To assert our selves, our humanity and insist on more transparency, meaning, and social context in what technology helps us to do.

Reference: ‘Technology and the loss of self’ from Chapter One of “Response Ability: Environment, Health and Everyday Transcendence” by Frank Fisher, (Vista Publications, Melbourne), 2006.

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