JOLLY DAYS

BBC, Misunderstanding A Society

Ideology is a toxin that defeats thinking, common sense, education and any native intelligence. Once infected by the addictive adrenalin rush of excess (very different than truly righteous passion) few emerge from the cocksure chrysalis free of bitterness. In an unusually difficult hat trick, a former current affairs BBC staffer recounts being a joiner, blind to the bias of his tribe, and finally emerging sane. The hat trick is that he doesn't slam the positive values of liberalism, veering to another extreme, but has attained clarity and perspective:

… the starting point is the realisation that there have always been two principal ways of misunderstanding a society: by looking down on it from above and by looking up at it from below. In other words, by identifying with institutions or by identifying with individuals.

To look down on society from above, from the point of view of the ruling groups, the institutions, is to see the dangers of the organism splitting apart – the individual components shooting off in different directions until everything dissolves into anarchy.

To look up at society from below, from the point of view of the lowest group, the governed, is to see the dangers of the organism growing ever more rigid and oppressive until it fossilises into a monolithic tyranny.

Those who see society in this way are preoccupied with the need for liberty, equality, self-expression, representation, freedom of speech and action and worship, and the rights of the individual. The reason for the popularity of these misunderstandings is that both views are correct as far as they go and both sets of dangers are real, but there is no “right” point of view.

The most you can ever say is that sometimes society is in danger from too much authority and uniformity and sometimes from too much freedom and variety.

His describes his BBC tribe:

“We belonged instead to a dispersed 'metropolitan media arts graduate' tribe. We met over coffee, lunch, drinks and dinner to reinforce our views on the evils of apartheid, nuclear deterrence, capital punishment, the British Empire, big business, advertising, public relations, the royal family, the defence budget – it’s a wonder we ever got home.”

At the end he admits that if he went back to the BBC he would probably be re-infected by the bias, reflecting a depth of understanding about himself and the workings of groups. There are many in the US that could use a dose of such bracing circumspection.