When a person tries to connect the dots of how power is wielded, they are sometimes called a "conspiracy theorist." too often it's an accurate label. The person is paranoid and misattributing coordinated efforts unrealistically or, worst of all, overpersonalizing the world as if everything is centered around them:
Yes, you're right, there ARE voices coming from the television telling you what to do... But they're also trying to tell a couple hundred million other people what to do, too.
Yes, there are rooms with a group of white guys in suits deciding things that will affect the world deeply... But your name is probably not on their agenda.
There are some important considerations to keep in mind when evaluating the validity of labeling something a "conspiracy theory":
First, let's think about how people coordinate and how power is distributed. One of the biggest errors of conspiracy thinking is to assume that behind the scenes there's an efficient, coordinated effort to maintain power. This is true in some ways, and in some industries, but a vital fact to remember is this: if a hundred individuals, for example, have overlapping and similar interests, then -- even if they act independently -- it will often appear that they are working in concert.
Let's consider the entertainment industry for a moment.
If you want to make money in entertainment, there are a few strategies to consider, and most firms invest in all of them now, to different degrees:
1) Make entertainment that will offend almost no one, yet has enough dramatic appeal to be interesting. Emotionally potent, perhaps even produces an adrenaline rush, yet accessible to the widest audience. To say something unpopular is to reduce potential sales.
2) Create entertainment that will offend some people, but only in a manner which is cathartic and not destabilizing to stratification. This permits an emotional valve via entertainment that helps people blow off steam, but not question society's structure or priorities.
3) Produce entertainment that is radically disarming, commodifying rebellion and in turn profiting and controlling from the most visible messages of dissent in culture.
4) And no matter what, you also can't offend the sensibilities of your advertisers.
These policies are primarily in place to make profits, not first and foremost to control people's thinking. I would guess that most decision-makers don't consciously intend to control dissent. Of course, one would be unlikely to release a film, for example, that spelled out that very rich people don't deserve to have so much more than the rest of us, or that freedom of speech is deeply curtailed by the funding mechanisms of distribution -- that would be digging one's own grave. So aside from not releasing messages that might be detrimental to oneself, the primary motivation is to make more money.
If you have almost all media moguls being guided by the same principles, what is the result? A culture with empty, silly, dramatic, violent, cathartic, sexy, conformist entertainment that almost entirely avoids talking about the same things. You don't need a conspiracy to result in a predominantly unified, apparently coordinated message.
This puts freedom of speech in America on a respirator, since not only are we talking about entertainment here, we are talking about news. News programs have to remain profitable as well, and I would argue are guided by some of the same principles. We have to ask ourselves constantly, how is the need to sell this affecting its character?
So are we being mind-controlled by a vast conspiracy? Yes, in some important ways this is true. But it's often more the result of the common interests of privileged people being expressed than any carefully orchestrated effort... Well at least, much of the time.
It's our challenge not to fall for it, and to demand more truthful representations of what's happening in our lives and world. But let's face it, life is hard, and sometimes it's a relief to see a world where it always works out in the end. But if the real world is going to have a Hollywood ending, too, then we can't just pay for a ticket and hope that it will.
2 comments:
the media ignore us and the state harasses us because if we talk about our beliefs we're dreamers but if we act them out we're crimimals. Do not be seduced by creed or ideology and reject the glitzy amorality of consumerism and the gry comformity of statism. When men stop oppressing woman and the rich stop oppressing the poor and the whites stop oppressing the blacks and the strong stop oppressing the weak and WE ALL stop oppressing the earth mabye then we can break these chains and live truly free . The entertainment industry is nothing but a sheep in wolves clothing , if I may feeding on those who can't think for themselves brainwashing them into beleaving that this is how the world should be , we know better.....!
there is much that is NOT illegal that goes against consumerism and conformity, though bureaucratic, social, and architecture can be dissuasive. sharing is not illegal, for example. we must be careful that in recognizing the forces at work, we do not overly cast ourselves as powerless victims. the liberal mistake is to identify only with victimization, and the conservative mistake is to identify only with responsibility. we ALL can think for ourselves, we just have to make the effort and dig in our heels and make up our own minds.
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