Media

Philosophos: Ok, is time for us to shift gears once again. What is the function of the media?

Nomodiphas: To disseminate information.

Philosophos: How should the government interact with the media?

Nomodiphas: I think in much of the same way that it interacts with religion—just as the government should allow freedom of religion it should also allow freedom of speech. It is true that there is no right to freedom of speech, but it is not the role of the government to decide issues of truth for us, that is a right reserved to the individual. Because of that the government should allow freedom of speech. It should allow everyone to have their say and let people make their own decisions.

Philosophos: So the government should allow everyone to have their say and let people make their own decisions based off the information that free speech produces. Do you think the government should ensure that people are getting adequate information from which to make good decisions? Do you think the government should make sure that every side of each issue is heard?

Nomodiphas: No, I think governmental involvement of this sort does more harm than good. If we have laws that allow any tampering with or restriction of speech there is a temptation for the government or party in power to censor information critical about it, all under the cause of making speech ‘fair.’ It will in fact limit what information we have access to and thereby limit our ability to decide on the truth of matters.

But, you have to admit there is bias in the media. Certain people sponsor news companies and they do not want stories critical of them to come out. Papers and television programs intentionally fail to report stories that are critical of their sponsors out of a fear of losing advertising revenue. This self censorship prevents the public from full and free access to information.

Philosophos: This is true, but I think with the advent and growth of the internet commercial based news sources are becoming less and less relevant. User generated news sources and blogs allow everyone to get their voice out and have their opinion heard. I think something like the fairness doctrine does more harm than good (we get governmental propaganda instead of propaganda from news source owners) and is unjust because it takes away the individual’s right to choose on matters of truth. But something like this today is completely irrelevant. We have access to tons more information through the internet. No one is limited by lack of funds or influence in having their voice heard. Because there are thousands of news options rather than three or four on TV, there is less opportunity to hide the truth. Let people be biased and one-sided, there are enough news outlets for people to find conflicting opinions. Every side and then some is to be found on the internet. People have access to the truth, it is their responsibility to seek it out and find it.

Our problem isn’t so much censorship as it is apathy. More people vote for a contestant during a season of American Idol than vote in a presidential election. We have more information at our disposal than any other time in human history, but to our shame we are more concerned with finding temporal entertainment than discovering eternal truth. We will lose our freedom not by force, but rather by means of distraction. We will come to love our chains so long as we can watch TV in them. The dystopia we approach is not from the mind of Orwell, but rather Huxley.

Writers in Russia complain that during communism the government kept them from speaking, under the current system they are allowed to speak, but no one bothers to listen. This is our battle. The greatest threat to our liberty is not government censorship, but the indifference of the people to their liberty. Liberty can only be maintained when the people are vigilant in guarding it.

Is this intentional? Is our government purposefully created distractions so that it may take from us our liberty? I doubt it. What we are falling into is the pitfall of all democracies. Think of Athens. They wanted destructive things and elected Pericles because he promised to give them what they wanted. Socrates said Athens was like a child with a toothache. What they needed was a dentist, but they elected a candy-man to give them more sweets. It made them feel better for a moment, but did nothing to cure their problems and in fact only made their problems worse. Socrates wanted to be their dentist and do what was best, even if it hurt, but they put him to death.

In a democracy the people get what they want. The problem is people often want the wrong things. Athens chose the wrong things and because of those choices it lost its liberty. We want happiness at all costs. We want this so much we are willing to sacrifice our liberty for it. Think of credit card debt. What is that other than the sacrificing of future liberty for the sake of instant, temporal gratification? Like Athens we have problems. We have a tooth ache and desperately need a dentist. But like Athens we have many eager Pericles’. Many are willing to give us what we want, even if it is not best for us, and to our detriment we elect these men in droves. It is true we do not put our Socrates’ to death, but we ignore and marginalize them all the same.

This is not some grand governmental conspiracy; it is the outworking of a democracy. We the people do not want to hear the truth. We the people want to live happily in our sin. The truth is a reminder that we are living wrongly and this reminder takes away from our enjoyment. We the people don’t want anything to come in the way of our enjoyment, not even the truth or our liberty. So we the people silence and ignore those who speak the truth and instead give power to those who promise us more happiness. It is we the people who are foolishly making our bed and we the people who will lie in it.

Sorry I spent so much time on that tangent, but once I got started I had to follow it to the end.

Nomodiphas: Not a problem. I did want to mention early on that I agree that the growth of internet is amazing. It is common for political changes to follow advances in communication technology; I would not be surprised if in a decade or two (maybe even sooner) the internet brings such a change. But before I follow your lead and too get sidetracked, I will return to the topic of freedom of speech. So do you in fact advocate complete freedom of speech?

Philosophos: Of course not. We have libel and slander laws and I think these are good things (they may not be Biblically demanded, but they are wise and prudential nonetheless). In fact I think the government should go further in restricting speech in one area. I believe there is no right to pornography and the government should ban it completely. Pornography is not expression or speech, it is degrading. People do not have absolute rights to their bodies; no human being is a commodity to be bought and sold! We do not allow people to sell their organs or to sell themselves into slavery. Nor do we allow people to prostitute themselves. There is no right to use our bodies in this way; in fact government has an obligation to prevent this behavior.

We have a right to bodily sanctity and the government is to protect us from others that try to harm us. This right to bodily sanctity extends even to the personal use of our bodies. The government has an obligation, in the case of pornography, to protect our right to bodily sanctity by preventing us (or after the fact, punishing us) from degrading ourselves by means of the selling our bodies. I think pornography falls under the same category as slavery and prostitution. It should be prohibited because it does not recognize the value of humans. It degrades humans and treats them as mere commercial commodities rather than creatures created by God and made in His image. People have intrinsic value and the government is to defend that value. Pornography treats people not as ends in themselves, but like prostitution or slavery, treats people as means to another person’s selfish end. Pornography is not free expression and even if it was, the right to expression should never trump the right bodily sanctity. People do not have right to use others, nor themselves in this way and the government should destroy this industry.

Nomodiphas: So we have a freedom of speech, but not freedom in the sense of complete license. Rights have limits. I cannot us my right to property to harm another. My right to property ends where another’s right to live begins. In the same way the right to speech ends where the right to human dignity begins. It is true that people have no right to freedom of speech, but the government has no right to decide issues of truth and falsehood for us, because of that the freedom of speech within certain bounds is implicit: the government cannot decide what we should or shouldn’t hear, therefore we are free to speak our minds and hear all opinions. This is a sound conclusion.