Martyn in Europe

This article first published on the 14^th October 2003, minor revisions, for readability, style and format, made on the 22^nd February 2009.

When I was in the process of thinking about writing this article, one idea kept coming back to me, "Virtue is not chosen; it is the chosen that becomes virtuous".

As my idea developed, I could see that this article could serve, as a vehicle with which I could argue that "popular acclamation" conditions the perceived legitimacy of "things", whether it is a commercial product or a political policy. The greater the popular acclaim, the easier the sell.

What I sought to show in this article was that the popularity and the legitimacy of certain products is a result of a heightened and widespread sense of discernment, judgment and perspicacity, and not the results of social programming, memes or conditioning, which we typically associate with the media in the guise of the entertainment and information industry.

The crux of the matter is that although we may consider that we can exercise choice, because we have options and free will, we do not actually choose what we want from a whole range of real and imaginary possibilities. I will try to argue that there is very little choice in some aspects, and instead having a civil society that is building on the democratic advances and gains of the past, we are moving backwards into the future. We are going forwards in time whilst leaping backwards, past modernity, past the enlightenment, past the classical period, and straight to the pre-classic.

We are witnessing the illusion of progress and we are oblivious to the reality of regression, we use unconvincing names for unconvincing ideas, we call it post-modern, which gives the impression of progressing into the future, when in fact we are regressing directly to a period of pre-classic obscurity.

My concern then is that find ourselves in a quagmire of disarming blandness where most of us are content to wallow in unwitting ignorance, cosseted by vague ideas of moral certitude, and the fallacy that we have the inalienable right to choose and that our choices are well informed.

Many of those who refuse to go along with the self-deception, are acutely aware of the clogging social resignation of the liberal/conservative status quo, the "oh, but there's nothing we can do about dear" attitudes, and the indifference to the real and constructive possibilities of renewal, popular democracy and social transformation.

 Indeed, regardless of political persuasion, the democratic fight for decency, honour and integrity sometimes takes on the feeling of pushing against a very large and immovable spiritual mattress.

The message is clear; none of us is free from the all-pervasive influence of a meme that is destroying the value of meaning, the credibility of definitions and the acceptance of previously established terms of reference. We have seen a quantum leap in the use and abuse or power and in the skewed arguments used to justify it, we have become used to receiving a steady barrage of pornographic relativity that beggars belief - sometimes we reduced to pointing at things, in disbelief.

With all common sense of language, truth and logic destroyed, then, in its most obtuse manifestation, the interpretation of anything can mean anything or nothing at all.

We should take particular care here. There are good reasons why we are we told that class and context mean nothing, it is through such devices, together with the use of deceitful relativity, that we are being enticed  down the garden path, to abandon our natural rights,  to embrace globalisation and to accept a state of control, that will serve no one in the long run.

Indeed, there are illustrations of the loss of meaning and the abuse of language and logic, and many ways of showing how relativism pervades the mindset of those who would seek to gain and retain power.

Here is the first example:

In the invasion of Iraq more than 20,000 Iraqi men, women and children were murdered, but curiously, in some people's minds this was a relatively small number when compared to those murdered in the twin-towers in New York on 9/11.

European Jews murdered in the Holocaust organized and executed by European Nazis and Fascists, were direct victims of one of the most terrible acts of man's inhumanity to humankind, in history. However, whilst not wishing to rest importance from the Holocaust, the European Jews have not been the only people in history to suffer genocide.

In the concentration camps and the death camps of the Nazis, almost 6 million European Jews were murdered. There are many movies and books about the Holocaust.[i] At the time of writing, no mainstream movies exist that relate the plight of the millions of European Communists, Socialists, Unionists, Anarchists, Gays and Gypsies vilely murdered at the hands of the Nazis.

We now learn that the Iraqi regime was overthrown, not because they really had Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), or that the Iraqis were an imminent threat to the USA, but because Saddam Hussein was a very bad man who murdered and tortured his people. However, and at the same time - actually in more recent memory - tyrants and dictators in Africa have murdered millions of people, yet the west does nothing, there is no regime change and there are no embargoes worth mentioning and there is no corrective or remedial action. Of course, in the places in Africa where these atrocities were committed they do not have either oil or liquefied gas.

When Bill Clinton was President of the USA many Republicans and some Democrats accused him of bringing down shame and dishonour upon the highest office in the land. Part of the Republican Presidential election platform for the 2000 USA elections was the highly touted return of honour and integrity to the White House. Some people are still convinced that there is now greater moral authority in the administration of the USA than there was during the two Clinton administrations.

The Republican Party and the Bush administration in the USA made much play of the claim that Castro's Cuba sits on the axis of evil, and they demonstrate this by highlighting the detainment of citizens and political prisoners and the summary trial and execution of people charged with crimes such as terrorism. At the same time, the BBC - probably the most reliable English-speaking news agency - reported that the handling of alleged Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters detained at the USA base in Cuba's Guantanamo Bay had developed into an international scandal.

In addition, the Red Cross broke with tradition to condemn conditions at the detention centres. Former US under-secretary of state William Rogers stated that there was concern that the situation in Guantanamo would take the US from the moral high ground. Rogers and eighteen past US diplomats, including eleven former ambassadors, filed papers which stated: "The perception of this case abroad - that the power of the United States can be exercised outside the law and even, it is presumed, in conflict with the law - will diminish our stature in the wider world". All of this coming on the heels of allegations that the US troops were passive witnesses to the gross mistreatment and execution of suspected Taliban prisoners of war.[ii]

From just a few examples of the abuse of relativism, we can see that we live in weird times: war is peace; warmongers are peacemakers; lies are truth; hate is love; perversion is variety; torture is discourse; invasion is liberation; destruction is rebuilding; debt is wealth; occupation is nation building; and, theft is the highest form of entrepreneurial spirit.

The culture-business projects an idea of popular desire; it invents idols by proxy, in much the same way that Feuerbach stated that god was just a projection of humankind. Therefore, it is with cultural and political manipulation, our demigods and idols may appear to be our choice, but this is false. False idols are created for us, they are chosen for us, and when they are no longer useful, they are removed from us.  

In reality, the new industrial 'culture god' is sold partially as if it were a projection of humankind and partially as something divine, but of course it is merely a projection of long term marketing plans that are solely driven by power and the profit rate. This is why there is no real difference between the Democratic Party and the Republican party in the USA, or the Conservative party and the New Labour party in the UK.

It is clear that political parties of the right and centre (parties of the left, now reinvented as social democrats) are in the pockets of capital and self-interest. As much as they may project the idea of choice and affinity, the only real attraction they have is to selfishness, business and to capitalism, so they play a finessed democratic game, but for a master who essentially does not care for democracy.

However, the culture business is as much an arm of global corporate monopolistic capitalism as the war or terrorism or electoral manipulation or the creation of useful scenarios. The culture industry serves as a business and as a means is a service of global capital, in it's many guises, it decides and promotes its values in all the channels that it has at its disposal to reach a susceptive audience, whether it's a movie idealising fascistic violence or one that glorifies conspicuous consumption, the motive is the same.

Where are we today? A whole generation brought up on the values of interactive gaming, and we let it happen. We are given and we accept, the media that we have been trained to want; we are Pavlov's dogs. This is the picture; we are global capitalism's willing band of trade executioners and consumers. Sometimes we complain, mostly we do not. Clearly then the media is an essential part of the culture industry, and not for nothing does Fox News describe itself as being part of the entertainment industry. Subsequently the entertainment industry, also known as the culture industry[iii], is at the service of capitalism.

The "information" that we get is not information at all. The first Gulf War was supposed to have been the first war that provided all the information, all the facts of the event unfolding before our eyes, directly to the living rooms and board-rooms those who wanted it. In reality, this claim was a lie; the coverage of the first Gulf War was nothing more than a projection of fantasy and half-truths. In reality very little content at all, what happened was that we were given much less information than in previous times, and all under the guise of providing us with all the information we could possibly want, real-time and around the clock. Very clever but also exceedingly corrupt.

Stop and think outside the box. Dylan Thomas for example, is an unexceptional case in point, some people claim that he was perhaps the best Welsh poet of the 20th century, which is arguable. As I see it, Dylan Thomas was one of the most influential poets in the English language of his time, maybe in part this was due to the fact that his poetry was popular amongst the English and especially academics in the USA, but mainly because he wrote in English. Dylan, was after all, the "Rimbaud of Cwmdonkin Drive", but if he had been in fact had been the Dylan Thomas of the Boulevard de Saint-Germain, writing his poetry in French, would he have received so much attention in the Anglo-Saxon world?

That is to say nothing of what would have happened if he had written all his work in Welsh. His "Welshness" was not essential to his success, some would say it's a bit of a hindrance at times, neither was his success found essentially through the quality of what he produced, because many produce works of quality in many languages, but do not have the same success. So what was it all about? It was, in my opinion, because he was chosen, and maybe because he was just a highly sociable bloke.

Indeed, in terms of language and presentation it is well worth remembering, if our sole aim is to ingratiate ourselves with the masters of the moment, that we must do so using terms and references and style that will find favour with those who would listen to us or read us.

This is why people of cultural/"ethnic" groups that adopt the eclectic cultures of their masters, fair better than if they did not. On a purely artistic level, it may be a humiliating perversion, driven by a fear of alienation and the need for self-preservation, an existential drive, acquired to avoid hunger, the cold, death, destruction and perpetual exile, but nonetheless it has happened.

Maybe this is why capitalism has such a hard time from time to time with religions such as Islam, and an easier time with slightly older religions - the older the easier. In that, there are certain moral values that people in the Muslim world will not sacrifice, even in the name of globalisation or the making of money or for usury, or speculation. Nevertheless, this tangent of thought may be more fanciful than realistic, and more dangerous in its implications than interesting in its analysis.

Our understanding of religion, radically altered, by both media presentation and style makeovers, is significant to our understanding of the human condition. We have become accustomed to power's ability to reconfigure old-time religion to suit its present day needs, but we believe that this is normal and that anything else, for example, an unwillingness to change values to suit capitalist goals, is just plain unadulterated fundamentalism.

If this was not enough, we need to associate certain fundamentalism, not ours of course, with things like terrorism, repression and a hatred of our way of life, completely bogus manipulation, but nonetheless a series of lies and half-truths that many people are only to eager to believe.

If we look at the seventh art, we may note that, despite honourable exceptions, there is as much morality in "Hollywood" as there is in imperialist foreign policy.

For more than 60 years we have been targeted with cinema that is comfortably built on a reusable product framework and a mix and match of a variety of ingredients. Let us start with the shallowness of pathos, and continue with the vulgarity of cheap sentimentality, which leads to the crookedness of patriotism; the revisionism and simplification of history.

We can continue endlessly, with the the exclusive and selective and distorted view of history; the promotion of righteous and unlimited violence; and the trivialisation and debasement of humanity. The strengthening of the idea that class and privilege are the natural order of things; the vilification of socialism, communism and unionism; and a plethora of assorted cracker-barrel philosophy, and sociology, that is hardly worth mentioning.

However, if we were completely discerning and aware this in itself would not be a problem. However, one of the main problems with popular cinema and our relationship to it lies in its pervasive influence, and it is easy to confuse the direction of the references between cinema and ourselves.

At times, we forget where we get our references from, this is quite normal, and although in our intellectual lives we may wish to believe that we get our references from serious and reputable sources it is also clear that we sometimes ascribe values and attributes to cinema that in fact do not exist. One of the problems with cinema, and to some extent television, is that they provide palpable and reassuring surrogates for realities that would otherwise make us uncomfortable and would make us significantly more aware of the effects of alienation.

With the expeditious use of cinema we can ensure that history can be rewritten to our satisfaction, wars won, evildoers slain and the anxiety of modern living dispelled momentarily through a strong identification and association with otherwise fantastic stories of romance, rags to riches transformations and happy endings. Another of the problems with cinema and reference is in the simplicity and vividness of cinema, which means, that we have a tendency to imbue references from cinema with strength greater than references obtained from other sources and experience, which may not have quite the same fundamental impact on some of our senses.

This is why Nazi propaganda relied so much on the vividness of imagery, and why it was so successful, indeed this is why Hollywood adopted exactly the same techniques to promote the rise of the USA empire - actually the continuation of the English empire. This is why it still continues to use these techniques, only now in a much more subtler form, and in a much more commercial way - the Nazis never managed to make anything like as much money with the marketing of their conditioning propaganda. These days we are more sophisticated, with our seemingly much more understated form of imperialism: globalisation.

In popular music for example, a highly subjective area, do we really believe that what is widely known is necessarily the best? Do we really believe that what is popular has some intrinsic merit that other things do not possess? Is the fact that we do not hear all the music that is out there an essential denial of its essence and existence? Does this non-existent popular music have any less merit than music and musicians for its condition of "being chosen"?

Of course, political correctness has dictated that we must believe that all music has its own equal merit, that all music has equal value, that there is no better music or worse music, and that all music has equal validity.

This, in my opinion, is clearly nonsense. Popular music, as we know it, is being flogged via satellite to yet another gullible generation, it is generally very cleverly packaged crap that generates business based on the fact it is tied so clearly with easily with the manipulation of culture, of capitalistic social alienation, of mass fashion. It appeals to those who do not want difficult music, anymore than their parents want difficult TV or difficult moral questions and difficult political decisions. Parents and children alike want their choices, but they also want their choices to be easy, sterilised and devoid of intellectual vitamins yet full of the fat and chemicals of ignorance. So as a result, we get over-fatted kids and overly amoral adults.

Now, in the interweb age, and at the margin of "help yourself to anything that you can put in a data file" culture, the citizen or subject can be both a consumer and producer. As a citizen or subject is paying the profit margin in terms of the gap between the value they generate and the rewards they accrue from such, we also pay the second profit margin for goods or services when we purchase them, a double subjugation in any language.

If we add the element of popular culture, then we can add another factor, the culture is exploited for commercial gain, for the gain of corporate business, not for the society that created the popular cultural movements - this then results in a trilogy of exploitation.

Therefore, popular culture reflects globalisation and imperialism. We know of the predominance of Anglo-Saxon culture over others; of the acceptance of Anglo-Saxon culture, over others; and even the seemingly political correct notion of the promotion of world music is dubious - another indication that the days of empire are not over.

Why are there howls of rage from stage right when the media circus is occasionally used as a platform for outspoken liberals?[iv] is it because of what they really say? Some state it is because they should not mix up entertainment and politics, but this is just another bogus argument, as entertainment and politics are inextricably linked. In part, it is a question of the shame, anger and disbelief that comes from the moralists getting the accusing finger of ethical behaviour pointed at them, caught as they typically are, In flagrante delicto so to speak, pants below knees, fingers in the till, and finger on the trigger. For example, people do not like to be told that their war is immoral, illegitimate, and contrary to all decency. But, I also see that people despise the fact that their channels of control, their darling news networks and their media freak shows, are occasionally subverted by media terrorists.[v]  

Typically when virtue is not chosen but given then we find that the virtues that we are given lack a certain something, a certain je ne sais quoi, and usually this lack of a certain something has a lot to do with an absence of wisdom, a distortion of justice, a lack of moral courage and a lack of temperance. Indeed, in this world in which we live "Virtue is not chosen, the chosen becomes virtuous", and we, the vast majority of us, do not do the choosing.

Even if this is the very idea that we carry around in our heads all day, that we have real choices and that we exercise our discernment as an act of free will, it does not make it true.

We are trading-in our culture of enlightened decency for a culture of contentment. We are giving up our fundamental rights for blissful ignorance and morally corrupt gratification. If we don't wake up and try and put things right, to correct the rise of neo-fascism by stealth and to derail a globalisation that only really benefits the greedy at the expense of the poor, then this indigence of decency and lack of respect for hard won rights will come back to eat us alive.

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