Category: Culture

Is Transparency Even Possible Anymore?

The other day, a meme was haunting my Facebook feed with a photo of Senator Elizabeth Warren and a quote attributed to her saying that the TPP negotiations are too secretive, even beyond the scrutiny of Congress.  Now, I really like Senator Warren, and she’s one of the few pols who is likely to earn the benefit of my doubt.  And assuming the quote is accurately attributed, I’m open to the idea that this unprecedentedly large and complex trade agreement is being negotiated in an unprecedentedly secretive manner, though that may not be the case.  As stated in earlier posts on this subject, trade negotiations are historically pretty close-vested affairs out of necessity; it’s either that or no trade deals at all.  But setting that specific debate aside, whether it’s the TPP or any number of other initiatives meant to be conducted by elected and appointed representatives, I have to wonder about the prospect of an effective measure of transparency in the digital age.  After all, even today, it’s still newsmakers who shape public opinion. But who are the newsmakers?

Let’s imagine for the moment that the daily doings of the TPP were made publicly available in real time, at least in the U.S.  Based on comparable data measuring political involvement, let’s assume that 50% of Americans will not only not care, but would say, “The TP-what?” if asked for an opinion.  And let’s go crazy and say that a full 20% of Americans would get so involved that they watch the negotiations like sports fans, parsing all the language, arguing about it on social media, and making a real hobby out of Tradespotting.  Setting aside whatever we might assume about individuals who have this kind of time on their hands, the odds are quite high that these most ardent Tradespotters are also going to be the most entrenched in their views, predisposed to dislike global trade agreements, but all for different reasons.  Because the people who fit that description includes a pretty diverse range — from NGOs who seriously study global economics and real matters of social justice to anarchists who don’t know anything, but really like to show up at WTO summits and set stuff on fire.  In either case, this category of watchdogs is likely too small collectively to have much political influence and too fragmented as a segment to represent a collective in the first place.

So, that would leave 40% of us who care about a deal like the TPP but cannot possibly spend our days scrutinizing, let alone understanding, the fungible details of a multi-lateral trade agreement.  Still, we like transparency, we’ll call ourselves open to all sides, and we are a big enough, engaged enough population to have political influence on our representatives.  Historically, I think it’s a pretty fair portrayal of the engaged American citizen to describe him as someone who cannot engage first-hand with every issue but who looks to experts — journalists, trusted elected representatives, experienced analysts, etc.  And this is where I believe the proverbial wheels have come off in the digital age.  Because not only have many of the traditional information filters lost credibility (in some cases deservedly so) in our digitized times, but they are also often outnumbered and outspent by commercial entities that are in a position to buy public opinion on trade or any other issue in which they have a vested interest.

I’ve accused organizations like the EFF of scare-mongering on behalf of the Internet and electronics industries with regard to the intellectual property components of the TPP. Agree with that example or not, what I think is important is that The Koch Brothers, the pharmaceutical industry, the bankers, or any other powerful interest can all avail themselves of the same, low-cost, manipulative tools that can sway public opinion either for or against a particular initiative. And against is always easier.

On social media manipulation can look an awful lot like transparency when it is in fact corporate PR disguised as public advocacy. Because you’ll likely never see a meme or an article with the headline “Pfizer says XYZ trade deal will make the world a better place.”  Instead, you’ll see The Global Outreach Center for the Benefit of Mankind and Kittens says, “XYZ  trade deal will make the world a better place.”  And lo, it turns out The GOCBMK just happens to be funded by the pharmaceutical industry.  So, for us 40% of Americans who try to be engaged in the traditional manner of seeking wisdom from middle-man sources, and who now get most of our leads from social media, it is entirely possible that we are looking through much more opaque filters than we were 20 years ago.

Sticking with the example of trade agreements, these are initiatives that naturally affect hundreds or thousands of business interests.  So, if we were to make the language of ongoing negotiations publicly available, it’s the wealthiest corporate interests that have both the time and the resources to launch social media campaigns designed to scare people about whatever it is they might want to kill in the deal.  That kind of PR is not new, but it is cheaper,  faster, and potentially more effective in a climate that has devalued and fragmented the authority of traditional, disinterested commentary. So, one unintended consequence of seeking greater transparency in our times is that the information, which sill won’t be accessed by most citizens, does provide free grist for the PR mill of any vested interest that wants to manipulate that information.

So where do we net out? With something like trade agreements, I’m betting we wind up more or less where we started.  We elect a president, and whoever he or she is appoints trade representatives to negotiate treaties that have to be ratified by Congress.   We hope these deals do more good than harm, knowing full well that any two Americans will likely disagree on the definitions of good and harm.  As it ever was, we remain as good or bad as the people we elect and appoint. Meanwhile, what seems different today is this notion that digitized transparency cuts out the middle-man, but I believe this is illusory.  More typically, I think social media platforms create a kind of power vacuum in which sober, expert voices are often drowned out by the circus of new middle men who know how to dazzle or frighten an audience.

This is a particularly acute matter to consider this week as we watch some of the major news organizations enter into the Instant Articles deal with Facebook. In this new arrangement, readers will no longer have to leave the walled garden of Facebook to read the full text of a piece produced by, for example, The New York Times.  That’s convenient for the reader, but as writer Chris Cillizza points out in this piece for The Washington Post, such arrangements radically alter the relationship between the content of journalism and the advertising that supports it.  The traditional disconnect between advertisers in a newspaper and any individual story in that paper is conducive to the overall integrity of the many stories being published.  But when individual stories are each valued by their popularity and advertised against by specific sponsors, this changes the relationship and brings sponsor and “news” closer than ever.  “And what does that reality mean if the long-term business model of Instant Articles for media companies is centered primarily around sponsored content?” asks Cillizza.  Good question.  To me, the answer doesn’t sound like it leads to greater transparency about anything.

Read Jonathan Taplin: “Sleeping Through a Revolution”

I know I’m a little late to the party in featuring this article by Jonathan Taplin, but anyone who has not yet read “Sleeping Through a Revolution” should find time to do so. Taplin is a former motion picture and music producer and has for the last 12 years been Director of the USC Annenberg Innovation Lab. This article is certainly among the best summaries of the challenges posed by the digital age — creative, economic, ideological, social, and existential.  As others have done, Taplin emphasizes the point that the creative class is merely the proverbial canary in the coal mine, already passing out in an increasingly poisonous economic climate. Citing some chilling data, like the fact that wealth consolidation among the 1% is now more acute than it was immediately before the Great Depression, Taplin very efficiently paints us a comprehensive mural depicting the state of affairs. Unfortunately, it’s kind of like “Guenerica” if all the figures were holding smart phones. Writes Taplin:

“… within 20 years, starting with Peter Thiel’s cohort at Stanford University, the organizing philosophy of Silicon Valley was far more based on the radical libertarian ideology of Ayn Rand than the commune based notions of Ken Kesey and Stewart Brand. Thiel, the founder of PayPal, early investor in Facebook and Godfather of the PayPal Mafia that currently rules Silicon Valley has been clear about his philosophy.

He stated, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible”, his reasoning being that “Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron.”

One theme I’d like to highlight from Taplin’s article is the way he introduces the piece, citing a period in the late sixties when he says the most “critically acclaimed movies and music were also the best selling.”  This has been a big theme of mine since starting to write about these issues.  Because my own opinion is that Hollywood’s real golden era occurred between the late sixties and roughly the catalyst we call Star Wars. This was a transformative time when the movies that had the big runs, made the most money, and earned all the award nominations were the kind of films that today we would describe as “indie.” Obvious examples would be Woody Allen’s Annie Hall or Martin Scorcese’s Taxi Driver.  It was a time when mainstream, American film dealt with sophisticated material in a way that created great works of art that also dominated at the box office.

Hollywood studios and audiences moved steadily away from that kind of mainstream fare, which is not to say that everything big studios produce today is “bad,” but it’s certainly different.  The many reasons for the shift in material, at least initially, have little to do with the post-Napster market forces that have since exacerbated the problem by devaluing works across the board.  But I think the point Taplin is making is not to decry the fact that today’s Annie Halls aren’t box-office leaders, but that they face limited opportunities to survive at all.  And we can easily imagine that destructive model replicating across multiple sectors, as what used to be the middle of the economy is subsumed into the struggling 99%.  In keeping with Taplin’s sleeping metaphor, I find it interesting that the “revolution,” which gave us the shorthand 99% and 1%, was typical of our times — just a little trend that made money for social media companies but that anyone in power could safely ignore.

Read “Sleeping Through a Revolution” by Jonathan Taplin on Medium.

Free Speech III – Are Today’s Liberals Killing It?

Because there are laws against certain expressions of neo-Nazism in Germany, and because my history-buff son and I are slightly amused by the satire inherent in that otherwise understandable fact, we will jokingly conjure the image of some official kicking a would-be fascist and screaming, “You vill be tolerant!”  But if you really like your irony served thick and over-salted, consider the likelihood that if I made that same joke on an American college campus today, not only might it be utterly misunderstood, but it might get me into actual trouble — especially with anyone unfamiliar with the satire of Mel Brooks.  In fact, in a recent reply to my last post about free speech, the respondent suggested that I have made comments on this blog that would get me fired from American colleges today; and he or she is probably right. Because if this article by Kristen Powers for The Daily Beast is an accurate portrayal of today’s “liberal” college students, they really don’t get free speech at all.

In the context of this blog, I keep insisting that the Internet is not the greatest tool for free speech ever invented. But I should clarify.  The more accurate thing to say is that it doesn’t actually matter if the Internet is the greatest tool for free speech ever invented, if in fact a whole generation of American university students don’t understand free speech in the first place — why we have it, and the often painful experiences through which it has been preserved. “… the politically correct university is a world of land mines, where faculty and students have no idea what innocuous comment might be seen as an offense,” writes Powers.  She also cites an article from Atlantic in which attorney and free speech advocate Wendy Kaminer states, “The belief that free speech rights don’t include the right to speak offensively is now firmly entrenched on campuses and enforced by repressive speech or harassment codes. “

I don’t know if Powers is cherry-picking exceptions and making them sound like rules. She may be pointing to a phenomenon rather than a trend. The article references her book The Silencing:  How the Left is Killing Free Speech, and she identifies as a liberal, so I assume this is not just some Bill O’Reilly-style attack on liberals in general. Additionally, what she says does jibe with anecdotal evidence I hear through acquaintances and that I have read in some online commentary by contemporary college students. And if this is truly what is happening to the liberal tradition of socratic disciplines in higher education, then it is impossible not to sneer every time the heralds of Silicon Valley declare that freedom of speech is the motive behind whatever policy they seek to enact or destroy. I don’t want to suggest that these voices don’t ever mean what they say, or at least think they mean it, but rather how empty their gestures are in contrast to the censoring trends that their wonderful tools of speech have helped create.  After all, Powers’s description of the self-righteous mob shutting down ideas based solely on some hair-trigger offense at the speaker’s choice of words sounds a hell of a lot like life imitating social media to me.

So, let Google & Co. abuse the concept of “chilling” free speech by chucking every artist’s takedown request into the “Chilling Effects” database and tell the kids they’re standing up for the First Amendment.  Whatever.  If Powers’s article is a fair reflection, the kids don’t understand free speech anyway. It’s a lost cause. The irony, of course, is that what preserves both the right of speech and the intellectual rigor to use speech is the conscious choice to be Jacob and wrestle with the damned Angel, to welcome the confrontation and turn it into something new rather than to silence it or pretend it isn’t there. And isn’t it funny that this is exactly what artists do?  We’re just barely victorious over conservatives banning creative works or investigating artists for “obscenity” or some other offense to our half-Puritan nature. Are self-proclaimed liberals now going to write their own black lists and host their own Bradburyian bonfires?

Maybe not.  But Powers does quote comedian Chris Rock who says that playing colleges isn’t fun anymore because people are so easily offended.  And this is truly a sign of the intellectual apocalypse:  when we no longer have the mental fortitude or cultural literacy to be able to laugh at our own folly, to satirize our worst selves, we breed fanatics who would smother genius in a ball of coexist bumper stickers.  I have no idea what the ultimate solutions are to the new rise in racial tensions in this country, but understanding why Chris Rock is funny would probably be a step in the right direction.  It’s sad to think about the fact that Lenny Bruce was arrested for obscenity in the 1960s, that Richard Pryor had racially mixed audiences pissing their pants together by the 1970s, but that a legacy of those two comedians can’t get a smile out of college kids in 2015. I’m not sure that’s progress toward any kind tolerance at all.