Jacques Derrida, The Gift of Death, and Jan Patocka, Heretical Essays, discuss the interior witness, the all-seeing unseen from which arises responsibility. As does the self, Culture requires a witness, a seeing eye which holds out for the conscience to see to what the Collective is complicit. The founders of the United States understood that without the un-blinkered vision of a Press there can be no accountability. Without an education of the People as to the issues of government there can be no Democracy.
Without honest and discerning witnesses how can we see? I mention here the reason for putting Cronkite in the company of Estemirova and Politkovskaya… Who presently among the media has his courage and his integrity? I am referring, of course, to his 1968 editorial on Vietnam.
Currently We, Western Culture, refrain from criticality, from hierarchy. “The World is Flat.” The audience, we all are audience – passive voyeurs waiting for our personal fifteen minutes (where do I sign up, facebook, twitter? who are my “friends”, my “fans”, who watches me?) … the audience is “free” to choose, without commentary or external valuation. We do not take responsibility for what is performed, We watch and there is no distinction between fiction and life. Our emotions, our actions are as stimulated by Harry Potter; as by Darfur; as by Rwanda; as by The Simple Life; as by Brad and Angelina; as by… it is all the same, We, the Culture, make no distinction, only individual choices. Entertainment is the opiate of the masses. As a voice we are divided, dispersed, removed, solitary, thus lacking critical mass.
The role of the witness is subverted. With a million choices, a million clicks, a million channels, a billion-plus seeking the attention of the Audience, how can the witness be heard?
How do We take responsibility? How We do justice? What is Our ethic?
Hugh Thompson, Jr.
Stephen Biko
Mahatma Gandhi
Natalia Estemirova, Anna Politkovskaya
Jan Patocka
Walter Cronkite
Foreign Policy
Martin Luther King, Jr
Holocaust Resistance
Walter Cronkite (Youtube)
Enough (project to end genocide)
Glenn Thompson, Jr., Glenn Andreotta,
Lawrence Colburn
Ann Frank
For using entertainment to an end:
Stephen Colbert
Jon Stewart
et.al.
3 comments:
I think our "super-ego" has been hijacked. The part of our psyche that used to play the role of the "conscience" dealing with matters of right-or-wrong is now only concerned with conformity. Most can not stand up for "what is right" because their super-ego/inner-judge is consumed with fitting in. The big boys who run the world (government, media, culture?) will push anyone who makes waves into oblivion. How do we fight for something we've already lost? We need to make it "cool" to be contrary. Jon Stewart's on the right path.
d'accord!! We're on the same page.
hi there, sorry it took me so long to receive your comment on my blog.
I went to CIA, this is Brandi Smart- while I never had the pleasure of having you as a teacher, I did have Tucker- who was one of my favorite teachers there.
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