roundtable: Promoting a Good Society

roundtable: Promoting a Good Society

Promoting a Good Society

Vigdor Schreibman - FINS (fins@access.digex.net)
Fri, 28 Jul 1995 17:51:29 -0400 (EDT) 

Date: Fri, 28 Jul 1995 17:51:29 -0400 (EDT)
From: Vigdor Schreibman - FINS <fins@access.digex.net>
To: Vigdor Schreibman - FINS <fins@access.digex.net>
Subject: Promoting a Good Society
Message-Id: <Pine.SUN.3.91.950728174546.11007F-100000@access1.digex.net>


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FINS: Communicating the Emerging Philosophy of The Information Age       
FEDERAL INFORMATION NEWS SYNDICATE                    
Vol III, Issue No. 15 (116 lines)                           July 31, 1995
    
     
                  READ THIS ISSUE OF FINS TO CONSIDER:      
                                                             
                *   Regulation of sexual speech
                                          
                *   Transforming the broadcast system
    
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CLOSING THE "VALUES-GAP":
Promoting a Good Society
By Vigdor Schreibman

   Proposals are flying fast and furious to assert control over telecommun-
ications both by wire and broadcast. We have the famous Exon amendment now
included as title IV of the "Telecommunications Competition and Deregulation
Act of 1995 [S. 652], approved by the Senate June 15, 1995.  That Act would
make it a crime for anyone to engage in "obscene, harassing, and wrongful
utilization of telecommunications facilities." We have the Conrad amendment
now included in title V of the same Act, which would facilitate parental
choice in television by requiring television manufacturers to install the
so-called "V-chips or choice chips" in TV sets so parents could easily
block violent programming.

   We also have the findings by numerous public and private institutions
during the past two decades, recognized by the Senate in secs. 502 and 702
of the Act, indicating the "irrefutable connection" between the amount of
violence depicted in the television programming watched by children and
increased aggressive behavior by children and teenager.  Despite all of
these proposals and pronouncements, the one group primarily responsible
for the moral and social disintegration of America--what Sen. Bob Dole
hypocritically called the "nightmares of depravity" in his speech to the 
entertainment industry at Los Angeles last June--has remained untouchable.

   What we do not have is any concrete action in the field of telecommun-
ications, which is designed to affirmative foster the "good society" that
goes to the core of the democratic mission.  Nor is there any serious
action by any of the persons who run our government, which is designed to
overcome the utilization of the great broadcast spectrum for programming
based on gratuitous violence and exploitive sex.

   Indeed, multibillion dollar windfall profits are anticipated to be 
made from the legislation sponsored by Sen. Dole, which would authorize 
massive national consolidation of television and radio broadcasters. 
Investors have already started bidding up the offering price of the stock 
for CBS, for example, to double its current value.

   Whatever the form and outward pretext, all of such actions are about
human control and the exercise of power.  An excellent primer on such matters
was the last great work written by the French philosopher Michel Faucault,
I The History of Sexuality (Pantheon ed. 1978)

   Meanwhile, there is great anger over crime in America.  Justice system
expenditures reached $74.2 billion in 1990, without satisfactory restraint
on crime.  At the same time, there is lacking the most significant potential
restraint on crime, namely, "morality, enforced by individual conscience, or
social rebuke ...," according to James Q Wilson, professor of management
and public policy at UCLA, and authority on crime in America.

   Moral restraint--on the wreckless behavior by corporations, and on the
criminal conduct of social deviants--are crucial attributes of the "good
society." Tragically, Americans are increasingly constrained from the
pursuit of that goal, with an enlarged spirit of undisciplined freedom and
a "culture of aggression" promoted by the mass media.

   Broadcasters utilize the broadcast spectrum to disseminate their
"nightmares of depravity." The spectrum is owned by the American people
and turned over to the industry free-of-charge to serve their self-interests
at the expense of society-at-large.  Nevertheless, there is no serious
impediment under the Constitution or Laws of the United States prohibiting
affirmative action in this preeminent field of communications.

   The exiting situation arises under an ill-defined regulatory scheme
governed by a standard that requires service in the "public interest," but
includes no accountable definition of that standard beyond by the morality
of the marketplace.  The whole scheme operates in striking defiance of the
American people who are overwhelmingly opposed (97%) to the programming
based on gratuitous violence and exploitive sex offered by broadcasters,
according to a public opinion poll carried out by USA Today, June 2-4, 1995.

   The television model of marketplace morality has been a proven disaster.
Moreover, censorship is not at issue here.  On the contrary, the FCC, and
Congress have every power and right to begin immediately, to radically
transform the broadcasting system. Explicit and accountable standards must
be established, with the full and fair participation of the people at all
community levels, to sustain the avowed purpose of maintaining the control
of the United States over all the channels of communications by wire and
radio, "for the maximum benefit of all the people of the United States."
I have explored those issues more in detail elsewhere [V. Schreibman, 1987].
The important point that needs to be stressed here is that once those
standards are established the FCC should be prohibited from automatically
renewing any broadcast license held by a person who has not shown themselves
to be strictly committed to fulfilling their fiduciary duties to the public. 
    
  Given half a chance the American people can yet redeem the ancient
promise of democracy in America.  But they cannot be expected to move toward
that goal constrained by the depraved morality of the television marketplace.

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