roundtable: Re: MAP memo re: "spectrum fl...

roundtable: Re: MAP memo re: "spectrum fl...

Re: MAP memo re: "spectrum fl...

RznDemoPM@aol.com
Tue, 23 May 1995 20:09:15 -0400 

Date: Tue, 23 May 1995 20:09:15 -0400
From: RznDemoPM@aol.com
Message-Id: <950523200909_9785142@aol.com>
To: roundtable@cni.org
Subject: Re: MAP memo re: "spectrum fl...


Matt York writes:
> 
> Television is not vulgar because people are vulgar; it is vulgar because
> people are similar in their  prurient interests and sharply differentiated 
> in the civilized concerns. 
> 
> Consequently watching TV is, for the most part, a mindless activity that
> rarely enhances the quality of the viewers life. The philosopher, George
> Gilder agrees as he writes in his book "Life After Television" ...

Calling George Gilder a philosopher is certainly evidence that one has 
first hand experience with mindless activity--but not the conceptual 
framework and critical distance to rise above it. Matt may just not be 
very familiar with Gilder's history, but it should be pretty obvious 
he's no philosopher--and he's coming from a very different place than 
Markey is--though his rhetoric tries to hide the fact. 

Ogilopoly is bad.  So is the unfettered marketplace--not least because 
it leads unfailingly to an end-state of ogilopoly.  Any effort to 
restain ogilopoly--which I fully support--should be based on more 
solid ground than the self-interest of small-time entreprenuers who 
(not-so-secretely) dream of being the next Rockeffeller or the next 
Rupert Murdoch, while shaking their fists at the originals.  Gilder is 
simply a cheerleader for such transparent hypocrites.  Well-intentioned 
small producers who see more to him than that are likely to end up doing 
a lot of dirty work for their more mercenary bretheran.

Television is vulgar because capitalism is vulgar.  And both give 
vulgarity a bad name.  

After all, vulgar, from its etymological roots, means nothing more 
than popular.  In a properly structured environment, the popular can 
be spectacularly transcendental.  Consider, for instance, the history 
of popular music, which--enabled by its relatively cheap economics-- 
periodically breaks free of the marketeers and renews itself in 
astonishing new ways.  Consider just the single example of Frank 
Zappa--what similar figure in film or video is so widely known & 
influential? Contrast this with the more capital-intensive alternatives, 
with their tightly held distribution channels.  

Spectrum is a public resource.  Nobody should be making money off it 
without a substantial portion being redirected to finance nonprofit 
activity.  After all, the essence of all cultural expression comes from 
outside the marketplace.  If it were an entity possesed of enlightened 
self-interest, the marketplace itself would agree. Preserving space 
outside the marketplace is essential for nurturing the sources of 
culture expression that the marketplace of tommorrow will exploit.

Paul Rosenberg
Reason & Democracy
<rzndemopm@aol.com>

[CNI Home Page]