Cafe-philo/media

Monday we went to that very French institutuion, a cafe-philosophy meeting. This one was at the Brasserie Felix Faure (once again just a walk away):



"Toute la variété et tout le savoir-faire d'une grande brasserie... La clientèle, essentiellement niçoise ... Dans cette immense brasserie au style très parisien, on sert en continu jusqu'à tard le soir."

http://www.fra.cityvox.fr/restaurants_nice/brasserie-felix-faure_52028/Profil-Lieu

The subject was: The influence of the media - just like so many seminars I've run in the past, except that this was in French of course.

At first I thought I probably wouldn't contribute, but after a while couldn't resist, especially when one guy seemed to be arguing that we were all aware of media manipulation and little influenced by them now.

US Media and Iraq

I said that of course the media have an effect, e.g. the majority of Americans believing that Iraq was involved in 9/11, because the US media, afraid of being seen as unpatriotic, merely echoed the insinuations of the Bush gang. On the other hand, as Chomsky has pointed out, there is scope for optimism. Despite years of pro-market propaganda most Americans still want some kind of national health service.

I also added that it was misleading to speak of the media in a general way; they were very diverse, especially now with the internet, when we could read on-the-spot blogs from people in places like Iraq.

More misunderstanding of objectivity

When "objectivity" came up I had to make the points that it wasn't equivalent to absolute truth (and hence supposedly unobtainable), rather it is a process, the use of the kind of techniques employed in science for getting at the truth, which was sometimes very evident - Iraq is a disaster now.

Nor is it "balance" - see the earlier post on cultural differences and Fisk on this subject. Sometimes the truth is very clearly on one side - and opinions should not be treated equally when some are clearly absurd - e.g. that Iraq was a threat to us - even most of its neighbours didn't feel threatened. See also the earlier post's reference to Martha Gellhorn's experience of the liberation of Dachau - the Nazis clearly were bad guys.

I also had to disagree with another ex-lecturer who claimed that even his own benign teaching had been manipulation. This is just a misuse of the word; to be honest with people is not to manipulate them, even if one has an effect on them, especially when, as some of my ex-students have been kind enough to say, I encouraged them to think for themselves.

"Personne ne peut philosopher a notre place ... elle est une dimension constitutive de l'existence humaine."

Andre Comte-Sponville, Presentations de la Philosophie, p.13

Unfortuntely the democractic procedure of voting on suggestions for the next topic (mine was: "Why are French intellectuals right-wing?" - based on a recent piece in Le Nouvel Observateur) led to the choice of: "What is the difference between philosophy, science and religion?" As another ex-lecturer remarked to me: "That should take a few weeks."