The Media Today

by Daryl Dominic Tan



In this day and age, you have various factions of hipsters; music hipsters, film hipsters, fashion hipsters. The first point I would like to address here before I go on is the very definition of the term "Hipster". I would define the term "hipster" to simply mean someone who religiously follows the latest trends and fashion, though ironically it should be stated that hipsters in the past were much more of the opposite, instead basing their belief systems on divergent rather than mainstream ideas. Today, this form of "modern hipsterism" for lack of better words has encroached into the arena of politics. These hipsters, the focal point in this post, are mostly young, and their lack of understanding represents the very real and existing threat to the fundamental concepts of liberty and rights in today’s world, concepts that used to mean something in the past but have had their meanings tainted and warped as of recent times. Their source of information, energy and lifeblood? The media of course.

The media is like a sharp knife. Professor Joseph Raz likened the rule of law to that same sharp knife. The sharpness of a knife says nothing as to the use to which the knife may be put: beneficial surgery or murder. Applying this analogy, We can see that the media is a tool for promoting truth as is very much the opposite - a machine utilized by the government to promote false truths and rest the proverbial woollen cloths over our eyes to keep us sedated through false “security”.

Throughout the 20th century, we were taught erroneously to believe that Nazism and Fascism were antithetical to Socialism and Communism. Journalists, being spurred on by their employers, would wrestle with their creative faculties to churn out trendy and fashionable theories and false analyses of what the latest political trend was, and whether it was in tandem with the particular prevailing political morality of the time . The results would then be force fed to the general public through various forms of the media; the news, the radio, the television, film, etc. The truth, however, has been distorted, and as brilliantly pointed out by F.A. Hayek in his seminal work ‘The Road to Serfdom’, labels tells us only one thing, that all these tyrannical forms of government are merely the outcomes of the same tendencies: a desire to arrogate increasing power to a centralized authority (and with no end in sight).

The important thing to realize here is that is no longer about being Republican or Democrat, right or left, or Liberal or Conservative, these labels are merely illusory distractions to keep us satisfied with the same sort of system that the autocrats in power desire to keep in place - a bureaucratic system of government in which a bunch of washed out hacks decide what the future of its citizens should look like. All these forms of governmental systems only want power at the expense of your individual liberty. However, as F.A. Hayek again rightly surmised, "Rulers lack something that ruled individuals do not: knowledge of the subjects’ own particular circumstances". Are we merely pawns at the disposal of the chess player, represented by none other than the state? It must come to be realized, that there is only one war; and it isn’t partisan at all - it is between big government policies and small government policies. It is as simple as that.

When journalists continue to distract us by shedding light on the hypothetical Republican who is trying to introduce legislation to ban the teaching of sciences in public schools or promote the unity of church and state, and in the process telling us to support a more Democratic agenda because of how ridiculous a particular Republican looks, we fail to see the real relevancy which is being deliberately hidden from our scope. We fail to rationalize our thoughts and see the truth, which is simply that big government policies – as policies alone – be they Republican or Democrat, or “liberal” or “conservative” - inevitably eradicate civil liberties, not personal or partisan ideologies. In being content with the options presented as being the only choices available, we are in fact limiting our decisions to very unsatisfactory governmental systems.

The media has even taught us what to be, what to support, what to like, and has also taught us not to use the analytical faculties of our own minds to discern what is right on our own accord. One great example is the NSA Whistleblowing fiasco; I have never seen such blatant hypocrisy in my life until I had observed the reaction to the Edward Snowden saga. Under George W Bush’s PATRIOT act which gave undue authority to the government to illegally wiretap its citizens without any warrant whatsoever under the pretext of national security, gargantuan proportions of citizens cried out in injustice. Under Obama’s administration and likely because of how decorated his reputation is thanks to the media - with superstars like Robert De Niro, Bruce Springsteen and Bono from U2 constantly being given attention for publicly supporting his campaigns - majority of the public has decided to turn a blind eye, and it's probably not because they feel what he is doing is right, but merely rather because Obama is the one in power - that charming smiling African-American man who represents all minorities in this country..“Must be doin’ the right thing” they mutter to themselves.

The state has brilliantly twisted the function and purpose of the media. It has been warped into an all-out indoctrinating apparatus and only a handful of honest and legitimate media sources and individuals (I have to give mention to the wonderful Glenn Greenwald here) have retained the fortitude and courage to make a difference by disseminating the truth in the face of adverse hostilities from the “politically correct” and “politically hip” camps.