Saturday, August 29, 2009
"You must have some ideas"
The interviewer is a complete boob, but this is otherwise a memorable appearance on what I'm sure is an entirely forgettable talk show.
Edit: After watching the interview again, I have to remark that this interviewer is actually out-and-out scum. In fact, he is part of the problem!
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how is he a "boob"? the guy has a super slow, super french delivery... that "boob" was recognizing his audience and voicing their thoughts, trying to keep them on the channel, at least... remember this is a debate between the interviewed and the audience, not the interviewer. the interviewer should not be read with a bias himself, but he has an obligation to his audience... the more he mirrors the general public, the more effective the interview. you have to step out of your emotional judgmental bias. i doubt his goal anyway is to entertain someone who talks about communism all the time. im glad he wasn't sucking the guys dick the whole interview cuz thatd do nothing to flex the simple public's minds. but yes, the "problem" would be popular capitalist belief... so the interviewer is indeed the "scum", or as id say, appropriate.
ReplyDeleteI'm not looking for "entertainment" and I wouldn't feel any more satisfied if he had transparently pandered to my sensibilities, either. I frankly don't see how he is enacting his "obligation to his audience" by seizing on the most superficial details of Badiou's work and attempting on that basis to discredit the latter's entire philosophy and the communist hypothesis itself. The problem with his interviewing style is precisely that he seems to claim to represent some "silent majority" with his questions, or to "mirror the general public," when in fact he's merely constructing with his questions a certain idea of a general consensus of opinion. The reason I take issue with this interviewer has to do with HIS "emotional judgmental bias." He's clearly uninterested in actually addressing the ideas in Badiou's work; indeed, he can't generally seem to get beyond the stumbling block of his own distaste for the very idea of communism. His engagement with Badiou's thought ends at his understanding that it is "communist" (or that it is somehow "anti-Semitic" due to his christening Sarkozy "the Rat Man"). It seems like a decent enough policy for any interviewer to actually take an active interest in the subject he is interviewing, rather than set him up as a straw man whom one can readily
ReplyDeleteinsult as "out of touch" because of his failure to adapt to the "pragmatic" requirements of living in the "real world." The truth is that Badiou accounts for these questions of so-called pragmatism, and the always tendentious democratic "consensus" that provides a leader with a "mandate" to rule as he pleases. So if it is true, as he claims, that he's been reading Badiou's work, then he must merely have skimmed until he found the passages or phrases that contradicted what he is sure is the truth, in order that he might present to his interviewee the criticisms of his "absurd" ideas that he is sure the latter has never heard, and he must have overlooked those passages in which Badiou addresses quite powerfully the ideas of democratic laws of counting (the unassailable 55% majority) that the interviewer is sure are ironclad, and even of the very "fear of Sarkozy" that the latter claims Badiou is trying to engender. In fact, the book they are primarily discussing (The Meaning of Sarkozy) is precisely a book written against this fear of Sarkozy. In short, my problem with this interview is that the interviewer is sucking his own dick: he is manifestly uninterested in his subject and totally consumed by his project of discrediting leftism or any emancipatory politics. And anyhow, isn't the great ideological fiction on which all these reactionary talk shows pivot the idea that they are merely "representing public opinion"? The truth of the matter is that shows like these seek themselves to generate public opinion - they disseminate ideas and ask their audience to repeat them back in order to prove that, "You see? We merely represent our audience." Of course the fears at the base of the kind of ideas that shows like these deal in are real, but are people like Glenn Beck really doing anyone any good by deliberately misinforming people already frightened by the idea of losing what little they have (or losing some of the great deal that they've hoarded), thereby shoring up these fears and encouraging people in their conviction that there's nothing more they need to know than the little that assures them of the truth of their fears?
ReplyDeleteI apologize for the poor quality of the prose in the above comment. I was feeling rather ill when I wrote it.
ReplyDeleteFUCK YA your own words. wonderful yes i agree, everyone has their own slants and yes the interviewer is indeed a symbol of the problem to your communist solution. his questions were a systematic representation of how he wanted his audience to listen, yes. but here i go:
ReplyDelete"but do you, to put it bluntly, want to overthrow the system as it currently works in the rich western democracies?"
this is a fucking loaded question, right? "as it currently works"? without making the direct claim that the system need not be changed, he focuses on painting Badiou as the robin hood anarchist. there is so much bullshit that came out of that guys mouth, but lets use this for now. we could focus on how it is a way for the media to manipulate public opinion, yes. but taking a step back from such bias, it accurately portrays the real conflict. this would then be a perfect opportunity for Badiou to address how lame the question is, and why it represents the problem communism faces as a possible solution. truth is most people do feel the way the interviewer feels, and to appeal to someone you must understand their perspective. you can talk philosophy all day, but sometimes that can just be a game of focus and semantics, and to get anything done you need to address the real problem. most people only really listen when they can find it in themselves to agree. so you must face the bullshit to destroy it. thats why i loved how Badiou set to distinguish the difference between history and concept. but perhaps some things are so deeply ingrained it may be impossible. people like badiou are up against one of the most stubborn of all debates.
but in case you were wondering, ive always felt the interviewer is a fucking twat
life is just full of up-your-sleeve manipulation ;)
please dont apologize... i dont wanna feel like i ever have to apologize for that sort of thing. the pressure would give me acid reflux or something
ReplyDelete