I received a strange coupling of DVDs (via Tesco DVD Rental) on Wednesday. The first was a long feature-length documentary from 1992 about Noam Chomsky, the noted linguist, cognitive scientist and political activist, titled Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media. The second DVD was rather a surprise as I was expecting the 1982 feature film Brimstone & Treacle and instead received the original 1976 BBC Television Play of the same title. It was a mistake, but I am glad the mistake happened.

The two pieces fit together rather nicely. A large section of the Chomsky documentary is concerned with protecting freedom of speech, and the original BBC version of Dennis Potter's script of Brimstone & Treacle was banned from broadcast by the BBC for over a decade, only being dragged out of the vaults in 1987 to be shown as part of a season of Potter plays. [There's more...]

Noam Chomsky

I have admired Noam Chomsky for a long time both for his work in linguistics, having read a few books on that subject in the past, and perhaps more so for his long commitment to reveal the truth about how the world works, earning him quite a reputation as a thorn in the flesh for those in power, whether politicians or CEOs. Without doubt any society needs people like Chomsky to keep those people who are in power alert that others are watching them.

Manufacturing Consent was named after one of Chomsky's books in which he explored how the media, whether print, radio, television (and now internet, though this was written prior to the growth of the net), is used in order to influence opinion or satiate the population in order that it can turn a blind eye to what is really going on.

How does this work? Well at its most straightforward just remember that most news conduits are owned by big companies. Think of The Times, The Sun, Sky News all owned by News Corporation, run by Rupert Murdoch. Most of us know that when we read a newspaper or watch the news we are probably not getting the whole story, and that there will be inevitable biases. We know The Times, The Mail or The Telegraph are more conservative rags, and The Guardian and The Independent more left-leaning. We know that there are biases there politically. But perhaps we are not aware of the more subtle pressures that exist from the main funders of our news - the advertisers. And the advertisers that really count are the big companies who are willing to pay large sums of money for space in the papers. And they want these papers to sell to the people most likely to purchase their goods, and thus there exists a pressure to tailor the message to suit. The same applies to TV news.

Even the BBC, which you would hope would be above the pressure from advertisers, is not immune as it has to keep the government sweet as its funding comes from the State via the license fee.

Chomsky posits that the incredible media attention and coverage of sporting events, and thus the promotion of tribal allegiances to one team over another, is a way in which we are kept busy pondering on such details as which footballer is moving to what team, what the lap times of Ferrari are in the second practise session, and on the yardage of the Dallas Cowboys running back, instead of spending out time and attention on grappling with the intricacies and details of how the world is. We settle for the easy option that is fed into our living rooms in bite-size chunks, or for a complete distraction rather than with the reality that actually affects our lives and the lives of those around this globe.

What all this means is that you tend to just hear the same basic messages over and over again. A kind of 'common narrative' about what is going on in the world, and you rarely hear dissenting voices. It is much easier in the sound-bite culture of current affairs news to simply feed the 'common narrative' with suitable quotes as you just need a sentence that affirms what we already know. The newscasters do not want opposing views unless they can be voiced in 20 seconds.

What made this interesting to me was that I saw all this first hand prior to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in May. With respect to the case of Scott Rennie, and the coverage that took place in the media prior to the Assembly meeting it was clear that many of the journalists already had the story in their minds made up as to what was going on within the church and about the positions of the different voices in the debate. There was some pressure to satisfy the clichèd caricatures they drew which I tried to clarify for them. From my point of view my position was on numerous occasions described as being one that ignored the Bible, for instance, or that said 'everything goes'. 

Neither of these are correct, but in order to explain why these caricatures were incorrect meant having to spend time explaining why one can accepting the equal ministry of a gay or lesbian person while maintaining the Scripture as authoritative in one's life. It would mean describing principles of biblical interpretation. It would mean exploring how a Christian ethic is constructed, and exploring the nature of the relationship between love and the law. Funnily enough, in a 20 second soundbite you can't do that.

Watching Chomsky being interviewed and getting a little ratty with the interviewer who was not interested in hearing why Chomsky said what he did and just wanted to get the soundbite, I could understand all too well the frustration.

Also, as someone who has edited a number of publications, I have experienced the often unspoken pressure to tailor the contents of a publication to satisfy those who have bought advertising space in it. Indeed this is something that the Church of Scotland magazine, Life and Work, always has a tension over - which came up at this year's General Assembly also.

I know that Chomsky is onto something very important here with regard to what is reported and what is not. One of his test cases was to compare the reportage of the Cambodian genocide by Pol Pot with the genocide that took place in East Timor when Indonesia invaded. Members at St Andrew's may remember the visit many years ago of a young chap, Amorin Vieira, who told us of his experiences of life in East Timor, and of how many in his family had been killed under the oppression they faced from the 1970s on.

The comparison in press coverage in the USA of these two contemporaneous events was clear. There was virtually no coverage of what happened in East Timor, and collosal coverage of what took place in Cambodia. Now this begs questions. And Chomsky reminds us that Western companies in the USA, Canada, Britain etc were supplying the arms that the Indonesian government was using to oppress the Timorese. Whereas the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia received their weapons from the Soviet Union. There is a lot more subtlelty here but the politics and corporate interests involved undoubtedly seem to have influenced the way the press covered the events at the time. Reporting accurately would have upset the 'common narrative', and so the truth lost out to the propaganda.

Chomsky warns us that we need to be very careful about what we listen to and read. We need to be aware of the biases of those who proffer 'the truth' to us. And we need to be very dubious about any attempts to control what we are allowed to watch, read or listen to. Censorship is a dangerous path towards totalitarianism. 

Free Speech

Chomsky has always been a strong advocate for the principle of the freedom of speech. He admits that while he is highly critical of the policies of the USA, both home and foreign, he nonetheless sees the US as one of the best places to live. In other countries to dissent against the government is to risk arrest, persecution, torture, even death. That is very unlikely to happen in the West (though tragically in the light of the War on Terror and the institutionalisation of torture by Western countries led by the USA it has been more likely in the last seven years than it was in the 90s). Instead it is how our minds are more subtlely coerced that we need to be aware of as we are fed propaganda instead of truth. Last night I was watching Gordon Brown trying to wrangle his way out of admitting that there are not enough British helicopters in Afghanistan to support the British troops there and I saw exactly this feeding of propaganda instead of clear truth-telling.

When our leaders, whether political or corporate, are incapable of truth-telling and can only speak in propaganda terms, then it is even more essential that we have freedom of speech to challenge all those who take power. When that freedom is taken away then who determines who can speak and who cannot? Very quickly this censorial path leads to a far less subtle propaganda when dissenting voices to the 'common wisdom' are refused space to speak or the ability to speak, to the point of being arrested. Watching the documentary from 1992 I was intrigued as to what Chomsky would make of the spate of political and activist blogs and websites now available to all with an internet connection. This freedom of speech is a step on from what was available when the documentary was made. And you see the incredible power of the internet in freeing speech when you see the lengths that Iran and China have gone to in order to clamp down on the internet in the face of the people uprising when they see a non-legitimate authority wielding power over them.

Chomsky got himself into some bother in his defence of free speech when he defended the right of Robert Faurisson to speak on an exceedingly controversial topic: denial of the holocaust and the existence of Nazi gas chambers. 

Always, Chomsky's point was to defend the right of Faurisson to speak his ideas without fear of arrest. And it was after Faurisson was arrested in France that Chomsky signed a petition demanding his release. It was nothing to do with Faurisson's views, which were frankly wrong, and Chomsky admitted that personally he felt that in denying the holocaust one lost one's humanity. But the principle of free speech is so important that even in such a case it must be upheld.

I remember at Uni in London back in the late 80s / early 90s there was considerable unrest by the Student Union over the local offices of the BNP (I think it was, though it may have been some other similar group!). Many were campaigning to have the office closed down because of the BNP's racist, homophobic and illiberal views towards others. I will always remember the wisdom of one of my friends then who refused to sign the petition. His basic argument was for the freedom of speech, and that it would surely be better to know where they were based to keep things in the open rather than push it underground. 

Dennis Potter

Which leads me to the second DVD I watched last night from the pen of the author and playwright, Dennis Potter. Brimstone & Treacle was banned from broadcast despite having been commissioned by the BBC as part of a series of plays. Two weeks before it was transmitted the Head of TV Programming, Alasdair Milne, decided to can it. He wrote in a letter to Dennis Potter that the work "was brilliantly written and made, but nauseating".

Potter was furious at this censorship and curtailing of his ability to speak through the medium in which he was most comfortable. Without doubt the play was controversial. It was a kind of religious parable or fable on good and evil, on religiosity, good intentions and secrets, but one of the transformational moments in the play was the rape of a young woman (Patricia) suffering from brain damage. The rapist was a young man, Martin Taylor; a demonic figure posing as angelic in order to win favour with Patricia's mother and father. Not exactly Sunday School material, granted. And yet the play raises fascinating ethical questions from an author who often used religious imagery, while also deeply critical of religious hypocrisy.

Ultimately the main characters find truth and healing as the brain damaged young woman awakes from her damaged stage, as the guilt-ridden sexually-repressed father confronts his guilt and the sincere simple faith of the mother is rewarded. Yet these goods come from the utter evil of a young man who comes into their lives. One can see a story about how God can still bring an ultimate good even out of the most despicable and ungodly of acts, and about the gullibility of some to hear the message they want to hear (i.e. the 'common narrative' mentioned earlier) without critique, leading to unintended but devastating consequences. There is a twist in the tale too, right at the end which forces you to think again about what has taken place, but I won't tell you what in case you want to see it for yourselves.

Ah, lots more to say on this as it is a fascinating play, but this post is getting very long!

After watching the play I did wonder why it was banned for over a decade. Sure it is contentious and uncomfortable, but sometimes in order to grapple with what is going on around us, we need to be stirred out of our comfortable seats and forced to think about what is happening. Brimstone & Treacle certainly encourages you to do that and to question the authority structures around us - particularly those claiming religious power. A particularly disturbing scene for me was watching the demonic figure leading the mother in prayer and taking on the mantle of a revival preacher at one stage. Yet the mother is taken in completely by the performance.

This may seem odd, coming from a minister in a church, but I think it is entirely right for every Christian to think for themselves, because I think the relationship that you or I have with Jesus is something that we work out for ourselves, albeit within the framework of a loving community in which our growing relationship with God finds expression in our relationships with others. It is not for me, as the minister, to do it for you. I am not a priest interceding with God on your behalf. As a minister my desire is to encourage others to seek their authentic relationship with God themselves and supported by all in this church family. That is not to indulge in power games (putting myself forward as the ultimate authority and gatekeeper to God), but rather to express the radical truth of Christian living as a community of faith. We're all in it together. Our ability to speak freely about this is vital.

I think one of the reasons I like Chomsky so much is because I see in his drive to help others develop their enquiring minds (with respect to what is going on in their countries and in the world at large) a similar motivation to that which I feel as a Christian minister to encourage us to think about our faith and the object of our faith, God as known to us in Jesus Christ, and how our faith in Jesus works itself out in our communities.

I like it when my faith is tested and pushed, when it is forced to get into the mud and dirt to work out what it means to be one of God's children, loved by him and called to love others in his name, even those who ridicule and mock (sometimes from within the church itself). This is why I think any moves to protect Christianity (or any other religions) from critique are ultimately a bad idea. In the last week we have seen this happen in the Republic of Ireland where it is now technically possible to be arrested and charged for saying something that someone else might take as blasphemy. This is a denial of free speech, and either highly repressive if it is actually applied or completely unworkable and thus just a dumb meaningless law. I don't know about you, but my faith is up to the challenge of a bit of name-calling.

As a last thought, I was also struck, when listening to Chomsky, a Jew, speaking, that what drove his polical activism was very much the same gospel ethic that Jesus espoused for those who sought to follow him. It was an ethic that does not seek to reward those in power, but rather to encourage an equality of all people, with the weakest members of society being afforded special concern: the first shall be last, and the last first.

Oh dear, I have gone on far too long. If you have made it this far, you deserve a consolation prize! So here is a wee pep talk to keep you going.

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Comments (2)

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Steven Preston said:

	Hard work holidays! Your holiday viewing/reading provides the rest of us with plenty to think about and on top of preparing next week's sermon for St Andrews as your holiday continues! My little brain is in danger of overheating
	report abuse vote down vote up

July 18, 2009
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Liz Crumlish said:

	Thought provoking Worth wading through your post to get to the pep talk!
	report abuse vote down vote up

July 17, 2009 | url
Votes: +0

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