I have begun my annual re-watch of the wonder of the universe that is ‘The West Wing.’ There are only a few TV shows that really capture my imagination, but this one is so intelligent and meaty and makes you want to learn more and do more that it is (in my opinion) worth the time spent watching.
If you have never watched this phenomenon then, firstly, shame on you and, secondly, get thee onto Amazon and buy the whole series. (and be careful of season 2 episode 22, ‘Two Cathedrals,’ as it will spoil you, and no TV will ever live up to it again)
A week or so ago I hit Episode 9 of season 1, called ‘The Short List,’ first broadcast in 1999. It is oddly prophetic:
The last few months’ news has been flooded by issues surrounding privacy, from Wikileaks to Phone Hacking and now Superinjunctions, and the arguments rage on.
Yesterdays Guardian Editorial [i] asked a serious question: Who, even a week ago, could have predicted a constitutional crisis between parliament and courts provoked by a footballer who played away?
There is discussion regarding article 12 of the human rights act which states that, ‘No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks,’ and how article 8 of the same act (Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law) can be enforced in a digital age.
Polly Toynbee in her EXCELLENT ‘Comment is Free’ article yesterday [ii] explores the relationship between the media and the law, making the statement that, “The Human Rights Act, with its occasionally contradictory right to free speech and right to privacy, was drafted with strong press involvement, ensuring the privacy clause was precisely in line with the press code that is written by editors and ratified by the Press Complaints Commission. If the PCC were not a spineless industry body that turned a blind eye to practices like phone-hacking, privacy would be protected, since its own code says: "Everyone has a right to his or her private and family life, home, health and correspondence including digital communications."”
Last night Mr Justice Eady refused to overturn said Injunction, even though the person who had taken the injunction out had been named in virtually every media outlet known to man. Why? Because the “Press Complaints Commission's code guarantees exactly the same rights to privacy as the European convention and the HRA, unless there is a clear public interest in intrusion. The "public interest" includes the exposure of crime or misdemeanours. It's not obvious that an errant footballer clears that hurdle.” [iii]
The legal wranglings surrounding this issue absolutely fascinate me, and the potential ramifications there may be for social media useage and the policing of these methods of connection and communication concern me – especially the instant method of output that is Twitter. In fact, Dan Gilmore in his article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/24/twitter-ryan-giggs-social-media even suggests that there may need to be a ‘delay’ imposed on Twitter Feeds, scanning output for potentially libellous or illegal information sharing. This article has, incidentally, been ridiculed widely across – you’ve guessed it – Twitter.
But, whilst I am fascinated very much by the above mentioned issues, I think the thing that fascinates me and concerns me the most is - what fuels our NEED to share this kind of information, or indeed KNOW this kind of information in the first place? The Legal brains will fight out the boundaries surrounding breaches of human rights and the legalities of information sharing, but the core societal issues go much deeper.
(n.b. It goes without saying that there are important distinctions, both legally and morally, between what is ‘in the public interest’ and what is Gossip/Salacious Rumour Mongering, and the WikiLeaks scandal served to perfectly highlight the treacherous ground that lies ‘tween the two.)
I guess my question is, ‘Why are we so very interested?’
My Twitter Feed and Facebook News Feed have been saturated over the last few days with comments, jokes and opinions about said Footballer, most of which (in my opinion) would NEVER be said to his face if the commenters happened to know him or any of the parties involved. There have been comments that ranged from the frivolous to the downright mean and bitchy, and all from people that – again, in my opinion - should know to behave better than that.
It is no great revelation or social commentary to say that we live in a world of Celebrity. ‘Reality’ Television has taken over our screens – thankfully the debacle that was ‘Big Brother’ has left us, but the space that was occupied by that show seems to have been filled with a myriad of others. (It reminds me of the passage in Matthew 12 when Jesus is talking about an Evil Spirit that leaves and then returns bringing 7 more with it! Ha!)
A cursory ‘Googling’ of the phrase ‘What percentage of TV is reality TV’ brought up figures from various sources citing that approx 40% of our TV is now ‘reality’ based.
I acknowledge that a part of our current overwhelming obsession with celebrity may be fuelled by ‘information overload.’ I mean, even if you are the most disinterested person in the world when it comes to the lives and affairs of Celebrities or Pseudo Celebrities you cannot fail to be exposed to the goings on of this shady and nefarious world – my earlier comment regarding my Twitter Feed and Facebook exposure serves to highlight this.
But, aside from the fuel that media so willingly provides to stoke the fire of the obsession with the ‘other’, I would contend that there is still an underlying pathology which needs addressing, of which recent events are merely the symptom.
When did life become so boring and dull that the ‘other’ became such an object of fascination?
When did we become so couch bound and dis-attached from the sheer heady reality of the fact that WE are living and breathing and are invited into this huge adventure that is called life?
When did we begin to substitute living for the mind-numbing occupation of merely watching others live?
Henry David Thoreau made the wonderful and profound statement, ‘As if you could ‘kill time’ without injuring eternity.’
I wonder what would happen if all the hours spent watching other people live were actually lived? What would that look like? What books would we read, what people would we meet, what adventures would we go on, what mistakes would we make, what things would we learn?
Mark Twain is said to have made the comment, ‘Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the things you did.’ I worry that there will be an entire raft of people who, when asked twenty years from now, ‘what did you do,’ will be able to speak eloquently about what they have learned about the lives and activity of others, but have very little to say about the life they have lived themselves.
In fact, I think that maybe the debate that needs to happen, once all of the Legal Wrangling is done with is this:
The Right to Privacy
vs
The Need for People to Get Their Own Lives
Because, just maybe, when we stop viewing the lives of others as more interesting than our own and actually LIVE to the full ourselves, the need to intrude into the private lives of others will no longer be an issue.
Repeat after me:
‘Real life is better than Reality T.V.’
‘Real life is better than Reality T.V.’
‘Real life is better than Reality T.V.’
‘Real life is better than Reality T.V.’
‘Real life is better than Reality T.V.’
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