On power and responsibility in media · 2:18pm Feb 19th, 2018
Let's play an hypothetical case. I don't really like to do it, but I think it will work out better this way first before using real life examples. Say, while you and your family are making the small talk after food, that grandpa/uncle we all have (non affiliated with Uncle Grandpa or Grunkle Stan) says something within the lines of "all latinos are lazy bums who take our jobs".
Besides that weird contradiction of a lazy bum taking a job from someone else, it's a racist thing to say. No way around it. It takes a race (Latin Americans) and reduces it to a generalization; Textbook racism. But it's our grandpa/uncle who says it, and we know he's from another time/had a different upbringing. So we let it slip through the table talk and if it comes up later in a more serious context, then we move on the debate. Or at least that's why used to do in that situation when my pops and granny were around.
Now let's take another case. Think of a political figure. President, Pope, celebrity; The point is, this is someone whose view on the world affects society on a large scale and whose position is followed and backed up by a large group of akin thinking people. Now, in a similar context, that person says the exact same phrase. It can be an informal reunion, a social media comment, or just something that slipped while talking about an unrelated subject. Is it the same case?
No. It is not.
The main difference is that, unlike my pops or your uncle, we're talking about someone with power. Someone who can say 'jump' and you know there's a large group of people who will ask 'where'to'. Now, I've seen a lot of people saying that someone shouldn't be held accountable for this kind of things. At least not when it isn't an official statement. That there's no use in taking everything someone says with the same gravity. Although I do agree that context changes the importance of any statement, the communicator is also part of said context.
Now on the real life example: Pope Francis I. In 2015, during an informal instance, he was recorded by a cellphone saying that the people from Osorno (Chile) where "stupid" because of the accusations of pedophilia over Bishop Barros in the zone. Even if out of a formal context, this means that the head of a sovereign state and the institution in charge of holding Barros accountable doesn't consider the accusations as valid. In consequence, any action taken by the Catholic Church on the matter will be done with the minimal effort and without the initiative of it's main figure.
Fittingly enough, when Francis came to Chile, he let Barros come in to all of his activities through the country and, in the last one even kissed him in the cheek. What's more, he refused to talk to the victims in Osorno, and when the accusations where brought up to him, he dismissed them as "slander". This is still an explicit declaration of support to Barros. Even if he didn't say any of this while officiating a liturgy or addressing the general public, it's still a powerful gesture. As said before, people in the position of Jorge Bergolio (his real name) are immensely empowered.
There's something to be said here about accountability. Leaders like Marine Le Pen or Binyamin Netanyahu hold more than just the explicit power of their positions. They have influence on what hundreds and thousands of people think, say and do. When Nigel Farage says something in the lines of "UK should totally leave the EU", it's strong enough for Brexit to become a thing. A thing that ended up winning. Power is more than what a position or an institution gives an individual, and it can't be turned off. Having influence over society is something that should be held accountable for.
But a modern trend, or maybe a movement on itself, is to not do that. Instead, the following of a person with power have come to the tendency of defending said person, regardless of what's being said. More often than not, it's said that what political figures say shouldn't be taken as serious as what they do. However, a big part of what build a political figure as a position of power is the discourse and social perception. Another common defense is that words are just that, words. However, every social action is backed up by a discourse, which comes from a representative figure.
Society has become prone to not hold accountable their leaders for their discourses. I have a theory in why this happens, and it's the final reason of this article. Coming back to Bergoglio, when he dismissed any and all of the pedophilia accusations in Osorno, he left his followers with one of two options: Either support him and his declaration by extension, or oppose his declaration and him by extension. The first option os off the table, because it implies supporting a serious crime. However, the second options means opposing one's religious leader, extending that opposition to the institution itself. For a catholic, stop supporting Bergoglio means reconsidering one's faith.
In order to avoid the ethic and moral dilema, the solution is to separate the figure from their discourse. So people can keep their religious position, but also avoid the more reprehensible implications of supporting its institution. The same situation can be seen in other religions and more often in politics. People refusing to hold their leaders accountable for what they say in order to avoid loosing their own institutionality as a group. And recently leaders have caught up on that response, and have begun to push more extreme positions on their discourses. This, knowing they not only won't be held accountable for it, but that attempts to do so will be met with justification.
But I don't call people to abandon their principles. All the contrariare, I ask them to hold those principles for their own. Don't be afraid of questioning those who are in a higher position than you, because they're there because of you. A catholic can condemn Bergoglio and keep their faith. It's not the catholic's job to support the Pope, but the other way around. If your political leader says something that goes against your principles, question them. If they keep that as a position, there's no real reason for you to keep supporting them.
There, a whole column on politics without mentioning him, despite the theme being tailored for the moron.
I refrained from mentioning the idiot directly to make my point that this is a broader problem. However, I am implicitly mentioning him in the comments section to make clear he's also part of the problem.
The biggest irony of traditional racism is that it declares the "enemy" both strong and weak. The lesser races are morally and intellectually inferior, yet somehow, they steal our jobs. They're ugly and unhygienic, yet our women want them. This contradiction always lies at the heart of racism. It's the greatest and most significant mark of its fundamental disconnect from reality. The enemy is both good and bad. It is both weak and strong. It is anything, so long as it gives me a reason to hate them and blame them for all my problems.
That's where you can draw the clear line between racism and real issues of immigration and social concerns of race in education and the workplace.
4800510
Good point. However, all I can think out of it is "great, now doublethinking. I can't believe they really need to put a 'not a instructions manual' on the over of 1984".
4800526
Believe me, considering some of the shit I've seen in the news recently that feature autonomous video-drones that can dive-bomb people and explode if they recognize their faces? George Orwell is rotating in his grave fast enough to power all of Europe.
4800527
Kinda unrelated, but I remember when Gundam Wing came out, some fans mocked the space whale aesop it had. That being "automated warfare is inhuman" in a time computers could get overheated running Age of Empires. Then automated warfare became a thing, so here we are.
4800551
Disturbing how quickly science fiction can turn into just plain fiction, isn't it?
4800556
Can we have flying cars? Not yet.
Can we have light sabers? Not yet.
Can we have distopic cyberpunk bullshit but without the amazing technology to balance it out? You're already there.
I swear to God, if Mad Max is the one that got it right, I'm going to loose all my money on leather.