These days it is somewhat difficult to pin down what exactly we mean when we say "right-wing" or "conservative." In America, at least, this difficulty has arisen because the contemporary right-wing has largely abandoned the small-government conservatism of Goldwater in favor of what blogger
Glenn Greenwald calls "authoritarian cultism"--a blind allegiance to the executive and an expansion of the federal government over citizens' civil liberties.
However, there is one transhistorical component (not in a spooky, Hegelian sense but as a statement of historical fact) that remains a plank of right-wing thought:
that ordinary people should not have the same right to express themselves as the cultural elite. This critique goes as far back as Socrates and Plato, who faulted the Athenian democracy for giving voice to the
banausoi: less-educated members of the
demos who worked in manual labor or craftsmanship. These people, the "refuse" of society, did not have the time or rational capacity to contribute to politics, or so went the elitist trope of Socrates, Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, Thucydides--indeed, most of the extant and widely-read Greek literature. Not only should they not be involved in the political process, but their cultural practices--the theater, popular song, etc--corrupted the polity as a whole and undermined the stability of elite rule. Thus Plato in the
Republic bans all but the most militaristic and harmonious
mousike and prescribes a "one man, one job" rule in order to prevent
polupragmosune, or "meddling," to the benefit of the aristocracy.
This line of thought is in full view for all to see in today's
Weekly Standard. In an article titled
"Web 2.0" by Andrew Keen, a "veteran Silicon Valley entrepreneur and digital media critic," the author takes up the right-wing cause against the rising tide of democratic internet use. Keen begins by equating the "internet revolution" with the "grand utopian movements" of Revolutionary France, Communist Russia, and the counter-cultural 60s. He discusses a meeting he had with an internet entrepeneur:
The entrepreneur, like me a Silicon Valley veteran, was pitching me his latest start-up: a technology platform that creates easy-to-use software tools for online communities to publish weblogs, digital movies, and music. It is technology that enables anyone with a computer to become an author, a film director, or a musician. This Web 2.0 dream is Socrates's nightmare: technology that arms every citizen with the means to be an opinionated artist or writer.
Looks like the masses are getting all uppity again! They want their avenues of self expression and creative thought! Didn't we teach them that only the cultural vanguard has the time and education for such things?
Keen cites some of the buzzwords of the new digital era, which he finds "more militant and absurd" than the first dot.com boom:
Empowering citizen media, radically democratize, smash elitism, content redistribution, authentic community . . . . This sociological jargon, once the preserve of the hippie counterculture, has now become the lexicon of new media capitalism.
And here I thought that under capitalism, standards of living would rise and the lower and middle classes would be afforded the opportunity to enjoy the fruits of their leisure: personal expression, hobbies, pasttimes, the ability to associate with one another and propagate their ideas. I think that this is largely true, and has occurred to a wonderful degree, but Keen wants to cling to reactionary
normative claims about
whom should be allowed to participate in
what forms of culture.
After stating that the "ideological outcome may be trouble for all of us," Keen seeks to refine what exactly that ideological says:
SO WHAT, exactly, is the Web 2.0 movement? As an ideology, it is based upon a series of ethical assumptions about media, culture, and technology. It worships the creative amateur: the self-taught filmmaker, the dorm-room musician, the unpublished writer. It suggests that everyone--even the most poorly educated and inarticulate amongst us--can and should use digital media to express and realize themselves. Web 2.0 "empowers" our creativity, it "democratizes" media, it "levels the playing field" between experts and amateurs. The enemy of Web 2.0 is "elitist" traditional media.
I have highlighted the selected text to show the extent to which Keen is fighting an elitist ideological battle. Keen's own response to the Web 2.0 movement must be the obverse of that statement: namely, that the poorly educated and inarticulate should
not be encouraged to express and realize themselves, for this "meddling" might pollute or contaminate our standards and traditional values.
If it seems unclear as to
why Keen feels this way, here is a sampling of his reasoning:
The consequences of Web 2.0 are inherently dangerous for the vitality of culture and the arts. Its empowering promises play upon that legacy of the '60s--the creeping narcissism that Christopher Lasch described so presciently, with its obsessive focus on the realization of the self.
Another word for narcissism is "personalization." Web 2.0 technology personalizes culture so that it reflects ourselves rather than the world around us. Blogs personalize media content so that all we read are our own thoughts. Online stores personalize our preferences, thus feeding back to us our own taste. Google personalizes searches so that all we see are advertisements for products and services we already use.
Instead of Mozart, Van Gogh, or Hitchcock, all we get with the Web 2.0 revolution is more of ourselves.
I can understand the fear of the "culture of narcissism" and the unreflective contentment with one's own thoughts and values. In this way Keen is similar to the Jeremiahs of the Frankfurt School, who decried the vulgar mass media "Culture Industry" of advertisements, B movies, and popular songs which reified the commodity fetish and kept ordinary people enraptured with petty baubles . Yet the difference is that Horkheimer and Adorno saw the Culture Industry as an extension of capital, whereas Keen thinks capitalism--or, more accurately, elitist monopoly--is the last vanguard of "true art" like Mozart, Van Gogh, and Hitchcock. His points about narcissism and vulgarization are effectively negated by his critique of the "realization of the self." His message is clear: "You are unable to realize yourself on your own, so let us (the wise, the educated, the artistic) realize you
for you." Now, which are we more afraid of? The
possibility, one alternative out of many, that democratization will lead to insularity and vulgarity, or the
necessity of an ideology that states that identity formation is best left to the elite?
Keen's critique is not only cultural, but economic: the internet is decreasing revenues and punishing stockholders of mainstream media production.
Traditional "elitist" media is being destroyed by digital technologies. Newspapers are in freefall. Network television, the modern equivalent of the dinosaur, is being shaken by TiVo's overnight annihilation of the 30-second commercial. The iPod is undermining the multibillion dollar music industry. Meanwhile, digital piracy, enabled by Silicon Valley hardware and justified by Silicon Valley intellectual property communists such as Larry Lessig, is draining revenue from established artists, movie studios, newspapers, record labels, and song writers.
The classical capitalist answer to this phenomenon should be: So what? Popular culture is decreasing demands for certain industries--let those industries acclimatize or perish. The biggest objection to Keen's critique is that the problem he describes is not a matter of greater
socialization, for their is no state apparatus at work behind these changes, but
popularization. He is not a capitalist but a corporate and cultural monopolist. His hypocrisy is apparent in these lines: "The purpose of our media and culture industries--beyond the obvious need to make money and entertain people--is to discover, nurture, and reward elite talent."
Yes, reward those that have connections, money, and a foot in the door of the existing monopolies. Keen neglects to mention that many musical acts have gained an audience through the mass culture of the internet before landing themselves an exclusive record contract with one of the major labels. Record label talent scouts used to have to search the market themselves, and their eventual choices reflected not necessarily the talent or popularity of a group but the ability of the label to mold the band into a marketable and easily digestible product. Now they are often forced to accept bands as they are, due to their already existing following on the internet. This leads to a more diversified market, and I fail to see how that is a bad thing.
Keen ends on a particularly prophetic note, with a call for an elite "authoritative voice":
Without an elite mainstream media, we will lose our memory for things learnt, read, experienced, or heard. The cultural consequences of this are dire, requiring the authoritative voice of at least an Allan Bloom, if not an Oswald Spengler. But here in Silicon Valley, on the brink of the Web 2.0 epoch, there no longer are any Blooms or Spenglers. All we have is the great seduction of citizen media, democratized content and authentic online communities. And weblogs, of course. Millions and millions of blogs.
To which I can only respond, riding high on my belief in egalitarian communication, democratization of culture, and the right of every individual to express him- or herself, "Hell yes."
