Blue State Bluenoses

Julian Sanchez | January 25, 2005

The latest in a long line of victory-through-capitulation suggestions for besieged Democrats comes from David Callahan, author of the execrable The Cheating Culture. If liberals really wanted to steal the right's culture war thunder, says Callahan, they would "complain about market capitalism run amok, about the public interest subverted, and about moral decline. They would understand that it is time for liberals to go after Hollywood." That means ramping up Liebermanesque rhetoric about the "toxic" values of the entertainment industry, from violence and sexism to the "Darwinian" competitiveness of reality shows.

Of course, Callahan has the highest regard for free speech: "Steering clear of anything that smacks of censorship," he writes, "[Democrats] should demand more aggressive voluntary steps by Hollywood to clean up its act." But as the incongruous combination of "demand" and "voluntary" suggests, it's hard to imagine acquiescence with such "demands" being driven by anything but fear of legislation. And Callahan soon thereafter urges that we begin " a revival of the regulatory vision behind the founding of the Federal Communications Commission in 1934--namely, that broadcasters must serve the public interest in exchange for access to the airwaves." Hey, David? You're smacking.

When he calls for "alternatives to market-controlled culture," Callahan is expressing a desire for some other values—his, naturally—to control culture. Of course, the market is a way of allowing values, as expressed through billions of dispersed consumption decisions, to control culture, even if the values people profess publicly sometimes differ from those they reveal at the box office or with their remote controls. And you can smile and brandish your ACLU card as much as you like in an effort to "get past the issue of free speech," but if you want to displace their values with your values, to create "alternatives" to the production of culture that's responsive to consumer demand, you're going to end up relying on either regulation or the threat of it.

Comments

Agammamon|1.25.05 @ 1:07PM|#

Obviously the wrong place to post this but the Reason Express bit about the green laser robbery is contradicted by the article linked to. The article says it was a *red* laser.

gaius marius|1.25.05 @ 1:26PM|#

Of course, the market is a way of allowing values, as expressed through billions of dispersed consumption decisions, to control culture, even if the values people profess publicly sometimes differ from those they reveal at the box office or with their remote controls.

and when the values of the people are a genocidal rage, mr sanchez, should we simply allow them to be expressed?

i agree with you entirely about the market responding to the morals (or lack thereof) in the demos. the question is whether or not that is an unmitigated, unquestionable good. all bible-thumping aside (whether your bible is the bible or "atlas shrugged") it clearly isn't.

the idea of restraint by law for those times when we do not restrain ourselves is *entirely* lockean -- his concept is liberty, yes, but in proprietous measure. i for one truly wish that we could be trusted not to hang ourselves with the plebiscitarian rope we're given, but history shows that wishing for the mob to moderate itself is a stupid hope.

regulation is surely no substitute for popular moral restraint. government is almost built to abuse such power, i'm sure we agree. but i've yet to see the satisfactory substitute for regulation when individual emancipation undertakes to void common morality.

|1.25.05 @ 1:41PM|#

gaius,

If the values of the people are genocidal rage, I'm sure they won't need to find expression on TV to have an impact. As I recall, the most famous example of genocide took place without any help from TV.

Broadcast media are indeed very powerful, but without help from other sources on the ground, they don't do much to change attitudes. If they could, the pro-life movement would have withered and died decades ago.

|1.25.05 @ 2:11PM|#

crimethink,

Many elements of roadcast media support the anti-abortion movement; for example, Sunday morning ministers, preachers, priests, etc. Then there are of course the videotapes, radio programs (e.g., the homophobe Dobson), etc. Christians have always got to make themselves out to be poor, pitiful "victims."

|1.25.05 @ 2:18PM|#

"regulation is surely no substitute for popular moral restraint. government is almost built to abuse such power, i'm sure we agree. but i've yet to see the satisfactory substitute for regulation when individual emancipation undertakes to void common morality."

You're surely not the first one to ponder this quandry. Hence federalism, that whole "life, liberty, property" thing, etc., etc. The idea is that "common morality" among the whole of this country extends no further than those things enumerated in the Constitution. Beyond that, there is no interstate "common morality"; instead, it is meant to be intrastate, localized moral structures. Toss is individual guarantees, via the BoR, that trump the desires of individual state governments, and you have a pretty good system, given that it's not horrifically abused. For example, if one state's "common morality" includes the abridgement of freedom of speech or religion, then that section of their common morality is not valid.

Transfer this over to your concerns about "genocidal rage", and it all falls back to the idea of the right to be free from harm from others. Instead of trying to find an independent "alternative" to regulation (as you suggest), the system seeks to restrain regulation to a scant few protections (based on the principles of god-given rights: life, liberty and property).

You have mistaken what the quandry really is; instead of needing to find an alternative to regulation, we need to return to the spirit and the word of the Constitutional Republic. This means 50 separate experiments in "representative democracy", with certain protections provided by the central state, for all citizens, regardless of their state of residence. We need to trim back the federal government's reach to adhere to Constitutional limits. It's not a black-and-white matter of "either regulation or "________". It's a matter of returning to strictly enumerated regulation, which allows, at the very least, 50 different "common moralities".

And thus, the only common morality that all citizens in all 50 states must share are the god-given right to life, liberty and property.

|1.25.05 @ 2:41PM|#

crimethink,

I have to ask, when was the last time someone chose to have an abortion on a network TV show? From what little I see of network TV, it can't be very common.

|1.25.05 @ 2:59PM|#

If Democrats believe the only values people care about are those being pushed by the Religious Right, then they deserve to lose.

Compassion for the poor is a value. Responsibility to your community is a value. Ethical stewardship of the earth is a value. "People who work hard and play by the rules shouldn't live in poverty" is a statement of values. As a matter of fact all of the above are much more widely shared values in thsi country than "Homosexuals should be pariahs, their intimate lives treated as crimes, and their families denied all legal recognition."

|1.25.05 @ 3:33PM|#

This would be the final step to transform liberals from the fun guys with all the weed I used to hang out with to embittered snarky old farts. I say go for it guys!

|1.25.05 @ 4:48PM|#

So joe

Do I understand correctly, it's not the imposition of values on other people that's wrong?

As long as your values are the right ones it's fine to impose them on others, eh?

Phil|1.25.05 @ 9:13PM|#

I don't see where joe implied anything even close to that. What he said was that, even if the Democrats are going to concede that politics and elections are going to be about "values," they shouldn't let the Republicans define which values, and certainly not so narrowly as to be limited to gays, profanity and movie violence.

|1.26.05 @ 1:46AM|#

....when was the last time someone chose to have an abortion on a network TV show? - G.G.

It isn't that network TV seems to always show a woman or girl with an inconvenient pregnancy choosing to wait until the fetus becomes (sic) a baby, but that the issue is always presented in the frame preferred by the "pro-choice" world view. Maybe there are some shows where Cindy Lou gets knocked up and she and her family don't even consider killing the zygote, but I've never been a fan of 7th Heaven or Touched By An Angel. (Och, but that Roma Downey - A chailin alainn!)

As for "progressives" and quashing free expression and association, they don't have such a sterling record, going back to the vile excesses of President Wilson, the various drives to "clean up" the cities, The Anti-Saloon League, W. J. Bryan etc. Lefty repression is nothing new.

Kevin

|1.26.05 @ 12:21PM|#

Don't be hard on joe, he's had a long weekend trying to find batteries for his pocket warmers.