Propaganda, Innocence, and the Law

Glorification of splendid underdogs is nothing other than glorification of the splendid system that makes them so. Adorno, Minima Moralia

I Dehumanizing the victims of wars.

It is no shock that political leaders describe domestic and foreign casualties of war differently. When Americans died on September 11th, the president said “America was targeted for attack because we're the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world. And no one will keep that light from shining.” Yet when forty civilians were killed in a wedding party in Afghanistan by American bombs, military spokesmen will alternately claim that “this may just be normal, typical militant propaganda,” or at best “if innocent people were killed in this operation, we apologize and express our condolences.” The propagandists are preying upon our implicit values – the value of “innocent” life compared to the lives of “soldiers,” “militants,” or “combatants.” While we may believe that journalists should counter the propaganda impulse, more often media companies, serving their own interests, contribute to it.

II Definition of terms

When a professor writes that the employees of international investment firms, working in service of an unjust economic system, may bear some responsibility when that system is attacked, public opinion turns on him. But when the Air and Space Museum plans an exhibit of the Enola Gay that includes artifacts showing the destructive power of atomic bombs (such as a melted lunchbox) the director is forced to resign – acknowledging the human impact of Hiroshima on the Washington Mall is politically unacceptable. The political acts are made possible by a shared social distaste in killing those who are branded with innocence (of what? The war, climate change, the airstrike, a job, being born in a certain country?).

Orwell adequately debunked the social belief, writing of intentional civilian bombing, which in his day killed those too old to evacuate, that “I can’t feel that war is ‘humanized’ by being confined to the slaughter of the young and becomes ‘barbarous’ when the old get killed as well.” Positing that some people (young, old, male, female) are more deserving of life than others necessarily involves pretending that their counterparts are more deserving of death. The political shill relies on our believing two things we would hesitate to say out loud: that it is better to kill guilty people than innocent people, and that it is better to kill men than women and children. The social belief allows the propaganda to function and flourish – if we accepted that a napalm raid on the ‘right’ village was just as much of an atrocity as the raid on the ‘wrong’ village, there would be no incentive for the powerful to convince us that our enemies bomb children and we bomb only soldiers.

III The Role of Journalism

Journalists expect themselves to view authority skeptically; while reporters will quote the palaver from official spokesmen, they will rarely stoop themselves to categorizing wartime dead as “innocents” (though “civilians” still usually passes muster). But just as the self-assured volunteer who contributes to a 30,000 word Wikipedia article on a trivial topic unknowingly debases other subjects left to whither as stubs, the choice of coverage by media companies expresses and promotes a bias more insidious than that of the political propaganda machines, because it is not so easy to see, and not so easy to debunk.

A) A simple example

In the period before the 1991 Gulf War, networks were alive with stories of the abuse of the Kurdish minority in northern Iraq. Sadam Hussein was murdering the Kurds, one of many atrocities that television news was pleased to cover. When the war was over and an “autonomous region” was established in Kurdish Iraq, media coverage of the Kurds (still slaughtered wholesale, only now in Turkey instead of Iraq), faded to the back pages of the international sections, when it was presented at all. Most reporting on the Kurdish-Turkish conflict reported that the KLA, freedom fighters against Saddam, were terrorists in Turkey, prompting Steve Tesich to write that “Whether or not your death is newsworthy depends upon who is killing you.” (Arts and Leisure, Tesich).

B) Rationale

Of course, it would be unreasonable to believe that the promotional departments of General Electric, Viacom, or Disney would act in ways that are destructive to the corporate interests, and it is therefore not surprising to see, for example, that torture conducted by countries that provide these companies inexpensive labor (India, China) receives far less coverage than abuses in nations that do not (Pakistan, Iraq). When South Korea, after a decade of corruption scandals, creates an innovative anti-corruption program, there is not a blip on the news in the West – just as there was not a blip on the corruption scandals that created it; the market for Disney films in Soeul will not be bolstered by an ABC investigative report. The most astute reports on genocides from regions bereft of economic engines usually describe principally the lack of coverage itself, bearing titles such as “Borneo Backwater's Clashes Draw Little Notice.” As Adorno noted, the very attempt to critique the problem is itself used to support the condition complained of.

IV The Lawyer’s Role

The lawyer, of course, may be as hemmed in as any reporter. He may represent a company that relies on social assumptions in order to profit, he may work at such a company, or he may simply be restrained from showing the truth behind a story by the Kabuki theatre of the rules of evidence and procedure. But he or she remains an individual for all that, and can remember that many views and opinions are not expressed explicitly but much in a much more subtle way – through choices of what to say and what to leave out. The astute lawyer can see what has been left out in his opponent’s case as well, and can learn to treat the views offered by others very carefully, to stop and ask what may be behind a seemingly simple proposition.

-- AndrewCase - 13 Apr 2009