Too much direct democracy is not a good thing. My Brit peeps who watched the X Factor over the weekend will agree. Judge Simon Cowell, also of American Idol, opted not to save a talented singer and deferred to the public vote. As a result, the tone deaf twin of John and Edward (“Jedward”) from Dublin marched into the next round. Anger against Cowell has pushed the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall out of the headlines. If only PM Gordon Brown could get behind popular feelings on this issue...
Whatever Simon’s motivation, it can certainly be said that there is a manic reliance on polls nowadays. The rash of gay marriage referenda all over the US are a classic example of democracy on steroids. These exercises outsource critical political decision making to crude, public opinion. Should matters of fundamental rights ever be left to a majority vote? In hindsight, not many of us would say that desegregation in the US, for example, ought to have been put to a ballot.
Freedom of the press is my other bug bear today. All accept that it is a sacred pillar in every democracy. Its importance however, has created hideous monsters. Who dares to criticise the press? Owners of media are the new “Dons.” Political lore has it that both Tony Blair and Bill Clinton had to negotiate a detente with conservative media magnate Rupert Murdoch, in order to prevail as centre-left candidates. Obama is trying unsuccessfully to freeze out rabid, Birther-loving Fox News, owned by Murdoch. London is completely Murdoch-ized, from Sky News to the London Lite. Gordon Brown’s Labour party does not stand a fighting chance, as far as one can imagine.
I believe that it is possible to slip from hyper-democracy into sheer lunacy (Enter Jedward, the aforementioned talent-free twin). What a travesty it would be if those two end up winning the X Factor!
In the name of free speech, I declare that I am suspicious of the state of the so-called free press. There is agenda setting, based on who owns what, that is making democracy feel like oligarchy. Perchance, does Rupert Murdoch have anything to do with the X Factor?
Murdoch doesn't own the London Lite. Indeed, he stopped circulation of his free paper "The London Paper" to gear up for a concerted campaign against any type of free news, including via the web. Having successfully instituted a subscription for The Wall Street Journal, Murdoch has said that by the middle of next year NONE of his news sites will allow free access to news. All well and good, who wants to read The Sun anyway, right?
ReplyDeleteExcept he's simultaneously pushing for the BBC News website to be radically downsized. His heir, James Murdoch has not been at all shy in denouncing the BBC and calling for it to be everythign from part privatised to completely eliminated.
Meanwhile, they both contiune to insist that the Press Complaints Commission remains independent and free from official scrutiny (which is another one of the reasons that Murdoch press is always so anti-quango).
But let's leave aside the hypocritical and duplicitous Murdoch clan for now and digress to the wonder of Jedward. We're finally getting the belly laugh performances that we missed out on due to the debacle of the live audience auditions. This will be an excellent lesson to Simon Cowell, who will now know that in order to send through at least one genuine recording artist those auditions must be closed and a capella. Right now, this season hangs on one note: two completely talentless but energetic teenagers. If they leave so do the audiences, because Lloyd, Stacey, Jamie, Joe and revoltingly smug posh-boy Danyl just aren't good enough tp keep us entertained.
More Murdoch madness: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/10/murdoch-beck-was-right-ob_n_351959.html
ReplyDeleteAnother comment on the X-Factor: I wonder how well 'democratic' voting per mobile phone bodes for innovation in music. Do the public always vote for crowd-pleasing sounds from the past and hardly ever for progressive music that will rule the future? If I think about the last few performances in the X-Factor, I am afraid there is not much innovative music there.
ReplyDeleteFor lack of a better example, think about The Beatles in the very early 1960s before they became really big. Would the public have voted them in?
Leona Lewis is enormously successful commercially, but is her music (rather: the music that other people write for her) in any way pushing the boundaries?
I guess it boils down to the old question: Democracy, or Tyranny of the Majority?
Dennis