Virtue is not chosen,
the chosen becomes virtuous
The title of this essay is "Virtue is not chosen,
the chosen becomes virtuous", it aims to argue that we have
been conditioned to accept that what is "popularly acclaimed"
is generally more legitimate than that which is not, and that the
popularity and legitimacy of "things" is a result of a
heightened and wide-spread sense of discernment, judgment and perspicacity,
and not the result of big lies, propaganda and unceasing conditioning
carried out via channels such as the entertainment industry at the
behest of the beneficiaries of globalisation. The argument is that
although we may consider that we do have choice and that we do choose
what we want from a whole range of possibilities, this is not in
fact the case, and instead of building on the democratic advances
and gains of the past we are in fact being pushed backwards into
the future, going forward in time whilst going back in the direction
of the laws of the jungle, we witness the illusion of progress and
are oblivious to the reality of regression.
My concern then is that we have been sucked into a quagmire of
disarming blandness where most people are content to wallow in unwitting
ignorance, cosseted by vague ideas of moral uprightness, and the
fallacy that we have the right to pick and choose as we please and
that we are well informed. As for the few who might refuse to go
along with all of the big lies, we are told that resistance is futile,
and indeed the fight for decency, honour and integrity sometimes
takes on the feeling of pushing against a very large and immovable
mattress.
The message is clear, none of us is free from the all-pervasive
influence of a sub-movement that is destroying the value of meaning,
the credibility of definitions and the acceptance of terms of reference.
We have seen a quantum leap in the use and abuse or power and the
language used to justify it, we have become used to a constant bombardment
of pornographic relativity that beggars description - sometimes
all we can do is point at things, aghast. When all language, truth
and logic is destroyed then, in its most obtuse manifestation: the
interpretation of anything can mean anything or nothing at all.
But take particular care here, not for nothing are we told that
class and context mean nothing, it is through such big lies and
the use of deceitful relativity that we are being led by the nose
down the garden path to a globalisation that will serve no one other
than the profit rate.
Indeed, there are many examples of the loss of meaning and the
abuse of language and logic; there are many ways of showing the
shameful relativism that pervades the mentality of those who would
seek to retain power.
In the invasion of Iraq more than 20,000 Iraqi men, women and children
were killed, but curiously in the realms of many people's minds
this is seen as a relatively small number when compared to those
who were killed in the twin-towers in New York.
European Jews murdered in a holocaust organized and executed by
Nazis were direct victims of one of the most terrible acts of mans
inhumanity to man in history, however the Jews have not been the
only people in history to have been subject to such genocide. It
is well documented that in the concentration camps of the nazis
more than 5 million people of Jewish origin and affiliation were
murdered, there are many movies and books about the holocaust[1],
there are no "Hollywood" movies that I know of that address
the plight of the millions of communists, socialists and unionists
who were 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 makes
much play of the fact that Castro's Cuba sits on the axis of evil,
and as if by way of demonstrating the nature of the Cuban government
they point to things like 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 - reports that the
handling of alleged Al-Qaeda and Taleban fighters detained at the
US base in Cuba's Guantanamo Bay has developed into an international
controversy. In addition, the Red Cross has broken with tradition
to condemn conditions at the camps. In addition, 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 18 past US diplomats, including 11 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 Taleban prisoners
of war[2].
From just a few examples of the many we might see that the crass
immorality in the abuse of relativism is clear, but this relativism
is hardly surprising considering that we live in times in which:
warmongers are peacemakers; lies are truth; hate is love; perversion
is variety; torture is legitimated by the biggest bully on the block;
invasion and occupation is liberation and rebuilding; debt is wealth;
and, thievery is enterprise.
The culture business projects an idea of what is popularly desired.
They invent idols by proxy, in much the same way that Feuerbach[3]
stated that god was just a projection of humankind, so it is with
cultural and political manipulation, our demigods and idols may
appear to be identified by the masses, but they are created for
us and they are chosen for us, and when they are no longer useful
they are removed, in the main, and primarily and ultimately, by
big-time corporate capitalism. In reality the new industry 'culture
god' is sold partially as if it were a projection of humankind and
partially as something divine, when it is merely a projection of
long term marketing plans that are solely driven by the profit rate.
This is why there is no real difference between the Democratic Party
and the Republican party in the US, or the Conservative party and
the New Labour party in the UK, for example. Political parties of
the right and centre (and here we find some of the old parties of
the left) are in the pockets of capital, as much as they may project
the idea of choice and affinity, the only real attraction they have
is to business, to capitalism, so they play the democratic game,
but for a master who essentially doesn't like 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. A whole generation
is being brought up getting its values from movies and technology
based games and we, in the main, let it happen. We are given the
media that we have been trained to want, as much as Pavlov's dogs
were trained, they were probably not as highly subservient as we
have become, but this is the picture, we are global capitalism's
willing band of collaborators, sometimes we complain, mostly we
do not. Clearly then the media is part of the culture industry,
and not for nothing does Fox News describe itself as being part
of the entertainment industry, and subsequently the entertainment
industry (also known as the culture industry[4])
is at the service of capitalism.
The "information" that we get is no 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. Of course, this is complete and utter rubbish, the
coverage of the first gulf war was nothing more than a projection
of fantasy and half-truths, with 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, real-time and around the clock, very clever
but also exceedingly corrupt.
Take Dylan Thomas for example, as an unexceptional case in point,
some people say that he was perhaps the best Welsh poet of the 20th
century, which is arguably nonsense. 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 English and especially US academics and mainly because
he wrote in English, he 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 controlled
world of the culture industry? 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 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, no, it was,
in my opinion, because he was chosen.
Indeed, in terms of language and presentation it is well worth
remembering, if our sole aim is ingratiating ourselves with the
masters of the moment, that we must do so using terms and references
and even 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 culture of their masters fair better than
if they did not, it may be a humiliating perversion driven by a
fear of alienation and the need for self preservation, acquired
to avoid 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 Islam, and an easier time with 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. It could also be,
as we have witnessed, that the conception of other religions has
been radically altered by their media style makeovers. We have become
accustomed to powers ability to reconfigure old-time religion to
suit it's needs that 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, and 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 believe.
If we take a look at the seventh art we may note that, despite
honourable exceptions, there is as much morality in "Hollywood"
as there is in US 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:
the shallowness of pathos; the vulgarity of cheap sentimentality;
the crookedness of patriotism; the perversion and simplification
of history, and the exclusive and selective and distorted view of
history; the promotion of righteous and unlimited violence; the
trivializing of humanity that doesn't fit the Judaic-Christian view;
the enforcement of ideas 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 bullshit "sociology" that is not even 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 US
empire - actually the continuation of the English empire, and 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 - and for a 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? What
is most acclaimed has some intrinsic merit that other things do
not possess? Is the fact that we do not hear all the music that
is really out there mean that in essence it does not exist? Does
this non-existent popular music have any less merit than music and
musicians that have been chosen? Of course, political correctness
has dictated that we must believe that all music has its own merit,
that all music has value, that there is no better music or worse
music, that all music has equal validity. This is clearly nonsense,
popular music, as we know it, as is being flogged via satellite
to yet another know-nothing generation, is generally very cleverly
packaged crap, that generates vast sums of business based on the
fact it is tied so clearly with puerile and easy manipulation of
culture, of capitalistic social alienation, of mass fashion, 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 amoral adults - fat heads with
fat butts.
Now, the citizen in general is both a consumer and producer, and
as a citizen 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
buy 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 they created popular culture movements - this
results in a trilogy of exploitation. Globalisation and empire is
therefore reflected in popular culture, as we can see for sure,
it is clearly reflected in products of the culture industry, in
the predominance of Anglo-Saxon culture over others, of the acceptance
of Anglo-Saxon culture over others, even the seemingly political
correct notion of the promotion of world music is controlled and
contained by elements of the empire and its capitalist backers,
this is another way of validating the claim that the days of empire
are not over, yet.
Why are there howls of rage from stage right when the media circus
is occasionally used as platform for outspoken liberals[5],
is it because of what they say? Some state it is because they should
not mix up entertainment and politics, but this is just a bogus
argument, as entertainment and politics are inextricably linked.
In part it is a question of shame and the anger comes from getting
the moral finger pointed at you in flagrante delicto so to speak,
for example people do not like to be told that their war is immoral
and illegitimate. But, I also see that people despise the fact that
their channels of control, their darling news networks and media
freak shows, are occasionally subverted by media terrorists.[6]
Typically when virtue is not chosen but given then we find that
the virtues that we are given lack a certain something, and usually
this lack of a certain something has a lot to do with an absence
of wisdom, a perversion of justice, a bizarre interpretation of
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,
of blissful ignorance and morally corrupt gratification, and if
we don't wake up and try and put things right, to correct the rise
of fascism by stealth and to derail a globalisation that only really
benefits the rich 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.
References:
- - The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the
Exploitation of Jewish Suffering by Norman G. Finkelstein
- - The subject of the documentary Afghan Massacre:
Convoy of Death by Jamie Doran
- - The Essence of Christianity by Ludwig Feuerbach
- - The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass
Deception, from Dialectic of Enlightenment by Theodor Adorno and
Max Horkheimer (1944)
- - For example, Michael Moore's acceptance speech
at the Oscars for his movie Bowling For Columbine, which included
the polemic comment "Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame
on you. And any time you got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against
you, your time is up"
- - On the Sunday, March 9th 2003, in CNN's Late
Edition show with Wolf Blitzer, Richard Perle accused New Yorker
Magazine investigative reporter Seymour Hersh of being a terrorist.
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