Talk, Radio and Democracy
In Iraq or in the U.S., demagogues are bad for democracy.
When the Soviets took power, the communications technology they favored wasn’t telephone networks, but the loudspeaker. — Nicholas Lemann
As it becomes more difficult to reach across the party line, campaigns are devoting more energy to firing up their hard-core supporters. For voters in the middle, this election may aggravate their feeling that politics no longer speaks to them, that it has become a dialogue of the deaf, a rant of uncompromising extremes. — “Political Split Is Pervasive,” The Washington Post
I recently had the opportunity to interview, via email, the astute editor of a magazine devoted to talk radio.
Early on in our email exchange, the interviewee quoted Shakespeare to say “All the world is a stage,” and talk radio, though it claims to offer political advice, is primarily a form of entertainment.
To which I responded: If talk radio is mostly entertainment, then it need not be faithful to the democratic process.
In other words, if talk shows hosts are merely entertainers they have no obligation to defend their statements through a dialogue with expert detractors.
Perhaps, their entertaining but not necessarily truthful depiction of political matters, left unexamined, might negatively affect our society’s ability to engage in democracy. (Mind you, this applies to liberals as much as conservatives.)
My concern, as a Cuban refugee and an American citizen by choice, is the anti-democratic effect of the populist demagogue. As I see it, when monologuists set the tone for public debate, dialogue is often very difficult– and democracy relies on dialogue.
But, the editor of the talk radio industry magazine countered that politics is actually war by peaceful means and no one side need give the other the opportunity to speak.
He went on to say that the occasion for a rebuttal is made possible by the “Freedom of Speech” protections in the U.S. Constitution and it ultimately falls to the marketplace of ideas and enlightened consumers to sort out competing claims.
Respectfully and joyfully, I disagreed, on several points.
First, while the definition of politics as “war by other means” has a long historical tradition, from Machiavelli to Clausewitz to Karl Rove, it is not the only definition of the political process.
From the time of Plato, there has been a countervailing definition which holds that, unlike war, politics is a deliberative process where the preferred outcome is not necessarily known beforehand.
In this tradition, people enter into politics not only to establish a particular order (as they would through war) but, rather, to investigate and determine what the best possible order might be.
Furthermore, the marketplace of ideas (or goods) is not inherently transparent and has, on many occasions, been manipulated at the expense of the consumer; whether purchasing fruit or buying into an idea.
And while the First Amendment protects the right to rebutt claims, it does not provide for the means to do so in a public square ostensibly dominated by private soapboxes.
Finally, “What’s entertainment?” For if talk radio is the domain of monologuists, it is also a deviation from the tradition of Shakespeare, novels, movies and other forms of popular storytelling.
In most of these genres, the best stories include not one but multiple perspectives and voices. Almost always, the better realized the villain, the more compelling the story.
For the record, my nerdy response led to a snippy riposte (his), a puzzled apology (mine) and a conciliatory gesture (his).
We ended our email exchange shortly thereafter, with a perfunctory: “We will agree to disagree.”
Later on that same day, I caught an episode of The Charlie Rose show devoted to the Sadr militia revolt in Iraq. As the guests on this television talk show pointed out, wining the war in Iraq proved very easy — but establishing a democracy will be far more difficult.
One guest on the program drew a parallel to the Western democracies, saying: It took us one thousand years, from the signing of the Magna Carta, to develop our democratic institutions. It took the Japanese five to seven years after World War II to create their democracy. In conclusion, Why would we think we can create a democracy in Iraq in less than 12 months?
And that’s when it hit me.
If, as the shrewd talk tadio expert had said, politics and war are two sides of the same concern, then there should be no problem in Iraq: the winner takes all.
But, in fact, there is a tremendous problem in Iraq. For war and politics — by which I have always assumed one means democracy — are not one and the same.
And so the U.S. must now slowly, painstakingly, use military means to create the conditions for a democracy in what was formerly a dictatorship — to fashion a society where dialogue rather than monologue reigns supreme.
This last week, that march towards democracy was ambushed by a charismatic and, I would imagine, highly entertaining figure: Muqtada al-Sadr. Note that what al-Sadr says is beyond refutation — although he is but a student, he has used his father’s legacy as a member of the clergy to issue proclamations that allow for no rebuttal.
Furthermore, in the chain of events that triggered his power play — his military act — the turning point may have come when the U.S. occupying forces closed down his newspaper, al-Hawzah, last week.
[This was all wrong. Dec. 8, 2005] Why was the al-Hawzah newspaper closed down? Because it was printing stories that often had little to no basis in reality. Instead, like entertaining opinions, they painted sensational pictures of U.S. misdeeds.
One could argue that the U.S. was censoring al-Hawzah, but censorship is only meaningful in the context of a civil society, where institutions — like the legal system — exist to hash out the validity of claims. No such institutions exist at the moment in Iraq.
al-Hawzah and al-Sadr tell stories and offer observations that are ostensibly entertaining, popular and compelling. Yet, the expression of same has been found to be a threat for democracy in Iraq, most likely because al-Sadr has no intentions of sharing the stage or engaging in dialogue with his detractors.
Naturally, I don’t mean to imply the popular talk show hosts are the American equivalent of firebrand clerics like al-Sadr. But, the parallels are intriguing.
In order to dismiss this comparison, one would have to succesfully argue that democracy in the U.S. is nowhere near as fragile as it is in Iraq.
Our legal system and our constitution are, without a doubt, a solid guarantee of democracy. Our schools and media are, similarly, both varied, stable and in many ways independent.
But how healthy is our civil society?
postscript
“‘Il Partito d’Amore’ is perhaps the oddest example of a growing phenomenon–the move to the theatre by political satirists unable to gain access to television in a country where all six main channels are owned by, or answerable to, the prime minister. ‘Since classical times, the theatre has been used as a means of communication, especially at difficult moments, as during dictatorships,’ said Fernando Dalla Chiesa, the centre-left senator who plays the part of Mr Berlusconi. ‘In Italy, we do not have an authoritarian system. But we do have a sick democracy.’” — The Economist
footnote: the problem with politics as war
“There is a truth and we don’t all see it, but we have to argue in light of the evidence we have and respect the truth - not power, but truth. With that idea civilization is possible. That is free men, open men, discursive men argue with one another. Barbarians club one another, because it’s all about power. So it makes civilization possible.” — Michael Novak, American Enterprise Institute
From a pragmatic standpoint, the problem with politics as war can be summed up in two words: Pyrrhic victory.
If politics is waged as a constant campaign for victory, the ultimate outcome may in fact be worse for all involved — when considered beyond the narrow scope of a rifle.
While reason is very much a part of successful military campaigns, it is ultimately subservient to the goal of victory; a goal that is seldom redefined in the midst of battle. (”Stay the course…” into disaster.)
And so we come to the constant campaign that has, by many accounts, defined the Bush presidency; a campaign led by Karl Rove with the assistance of loyal guards like Senator Bill Frist and Condoleeza Rice.
Mind you, it’s not their goals or their values that I find most troubling — but, much more importantly, the way in which they seek to make their will a reality.
And the corruption of the policy process — in which political appointees come in with a predetermined agenda, and technical experts who might present information their superiors don’t want to hear are muzzled — has infected every area I know anything about, from tax cuts to matters of war and peace. — Paul Krugman, “The Mercury Scandal,” The New York Times
Now, let’s say you “hate” Paul Krugman and you think the New York Times is a mouthpiece for some “cabal of liberal elites.” Fair enough.
Let’s also, for argument’s sake, suppose that former White House appointee, U.S. Treasure Secretary Paul O’Neill is lying when he reports that the White House wanted to invade Iraq, despite lacking evidence that it was, in any way, a threat to the U.S..
While we’re at it, let’s also assume that Richard Clarke, another White House appointee, is again lying when he reports, under oath, to a congressional commission the same claim: that the White House did not deliberate over the best response to 9/11, but rather, imposed its will as if it were waging war not only against terrorists but, also, against their detractors in the U.S. government.
Moreover, let’s disregard the statements of Richard S. Foster, the government’s chief analyst of Medicare costs, who claims he was threatened with dismissal if he replied directly to legislative requests for information about prescription drug bills pending in Congress.
Nor should we pay much attention to Christie Whitman’s departure from the Environmental Protection Agency, after clashing with the White House over the latter’s decision to withdraw from the Kyoto global warming treaty based on the conclusion that there is, in fact, no validity to the notion of global warming.
Likewise, we need not heed the warning of 60 leading scientists–including Nobel laureates, leading medical experts, former federal agency directors and university chairs and presidents– who note that the White House suppresses and distorts scientific analysis from federal agencies and undermines the quality of scientific advisory panels when same analyses and panels contradict the predetermined objectives of the President.
Nor should we take into consideration the critique offered by John DiIulio, former head the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, who described the current administration thusly: “There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus…It’s the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis.”
Likewise disreputable is Bob Woodward’s latest book, “Plan of Attack,” which, though endorsed by the White House, corroborates the claims made by O’Neill and Clarke, cited above.
Rather, let’s just focus on one question: does the President of the U.S. put his pants on one leg at a time?
If so, we might correctly presume that as with the rest of us mere mortals, he may not know all there is to know about all that can be known.
Assuming that ours is not an all-knowing president or leadership, why should we believe that their beliefs are always necessarily correct, that their conclusions are beyond reasonable doubt?
For this very reason, we enter into politics not only to impose that which we desire to be true but, more importantly, to determine the truth and act accordingly.