~ Vietnam and 'the left' ~
Scenario
During the Vietnam War, the peace-movement supported the Communists, who were in fact fighting for their own freedom, though of course not on terms acceptable to the U.S. The support provided by ‘the left’ for what they saw as the legitimate pursuit of freedom was used by the mainstream media to two ends: 1) to push ‘the left’ even further to the left on the political spectrum, thereby de-legitimizing them, and 2) to simultaneously make the U.S. ‘cause’ seem all the more just. How did the media do this?
Interpretation
Answering this question necessarily requires passing judgment on the media itself, what you believe its functions to be, and whose interest you believe it serves, for example. So I’ll start by saying that the Jeffersonian ideal attributed to the press, that of serving as a counterbalance to the government’s actions, (1) is just that, an ideal. Chomsky has debunked this myth in his classic work, Manufacturing Consent, in which he shows that the media are driven by factors more immediate and pressing than the pursuit of an ideal, namely profit, which has a profound effect on what the media do and how they do it. The media are an all-important part of the process in the regimentation of the public mind, a task that becomes more and more necessary the freer a society becomes.
In looking at this particular scenario, one interpretation is that by advocating support for the Communists, the media could use this is a way to change the concept of ‘the left’ held in the public mind. Without looking at the realities of U.S. involvement in Vietnam (a topic not readily dealt with in the mainstream media), the average American would likely have trouble understanding why someone would want to support ‘the enemy’. That takes too much effort. Much easier is to jump to the conclusion that those who support the enemy must be unpatriotic, un-American, at which point it becomes an issue of nationalism, that dangerous territory wherein passions flare and reason goes up in smoke. In addition, presenting the situation in such a light serves to further de-legitimize the whole concept held in the public mind of ‘the left’ itself, making it all the easier to dismiss their perspectives as extreme and unworthy of consideration, in effect pushing them over the edge and outside the range of acceptable opinion on the topic.
At the same time, there is a corollary effect which took place. De-legitimizing the left had the simultaneous effect of legitimizing acceptable opinion on the issue, bringing into sharper focus the idea that the U.S. cause in Vietnam was a just one. Though doves and hawks may have disagreed about the extent of military force used and the sacrifices that American soldiers were called on to make, the underlying assumption was that despite the disagreements on particulars, the fundamental U.S. approach was correct, that according to the rhetoric of its foreign policy, the U.S. had an obligation to defend the free world from the spread of Communism, a view which still holds to this day.
This scenario is Chomskyian in that the actions of those on the left, despite whether or not one believes that their cause was just, served to strengthen the party line. And it was the mainstream media that made such a reversal possible…
In sum, this scenario lends credence to the idea that it is the media that provides the dominant framework for the discussion of issues made public in this country, thus contributing to the regimentation of the public mind, in which ‘free’ thought and freedom of expression must be contained within acceptable boundaries, a necessary condition of ‘democracy’ as defined by those in whose interest the media serves…
~ Suvian Quilmann
(1) see Chomsky, Deterring Democracy, chapter 12, “Force and Opinion”.
During the Vietnam War, the peace-movement supported the Communists, who were in fact fighting for their own freedom, though of course not on terms acceptable to the U.S. The support provided by ‘the left’ for what they saw as the legitimate pursuit of freedom was used by the mainstream media to two ends: 1) to push ‘the left’ even further to the left on the political spectrum, thereby de-legitimizing them, and 2) to simultaneously make the U.S. ‘cause’ seem all the more just. How did the media do this?
Interpretation
Answering this question necessarily requires passing judgment on the media itself, what you believe its functions to be, and whose interest you believe it serves, for example. So I’ll start by saying that the Jeffersonian ideal attributed to the press, that of serving as a counterbalance to the government’s actions, (1) is just that, an ideal. Chomsky has debunked this myth in his classic work, Manufacturing Consent, in which he shows that the media are driven by factors more immediate and pressing than the pursuit of an ideal, namely profit, which has a profound effect on what the media do and how they do it. The media are an all-important part of the process in the regimentation of the public mind, a task that becomes more and more necessary the freer a society becomes.
In looking at this particular scenario, one interpretation is that by advocating support for the Communists, the media could use this is a way to change the concept of ‘the left’ held in the public mind. Without looking at the realities of U.S. involvement in Vietnam (a topic not readily dealt with in the mainstream media), the average American would likely have trouble understanding why someone would want to support ‘the enemy’. That takes too much effort. Much easier is to jump to the conclusion that those who support the enemy must be unpatriotic, un-American, at which point it becomes an issue of nationalism, that dangerous territory wherein passions flare and reason goes up in smoke. In addition, presenting the situation in such a light serves to further de-legitimize the whole concept held in the public mind of ‘the left’ itself, making it all the easier to dismiss their perspectives as extreme and unworthy of consideration, in effect pushing them over the edge and outside the range of acceptable opinion on the topic.
At the same time, there is a corollary effect which took place. De-legitimizing the left had the simultaneous effect of legitimizing acceptable opinion on the issue, bringing into sharper focus the idea that the U.S. cause in Vietnam was a just one. Though doves and hawks may have disagreed about the extent of military force used and the sacrifices that American soldiers were called on to make, the underlying assumption was that despite the disagreements on particulars, the fundamental U.S. approach was correct, that according to the rhetoric of its foreign policy, the U.S. had an obligation to defend the free world from the spread of Communism, a view which still holds to this day.
This scenario is Chomskyian in that the actions of those on the left, despite whether or not one believes that their cause was just, served to strengthen the party line. And it was the mainstream media that made such a reversal possible…
In sum, this scenario lends credence to the idea that it is the media that provides the dominant framework for the discussion of issues made public in this country, thus contributing to the regimentation of the public mind, in which ‘free’ thought and freedom of expression must be contained within acceptable boundaries, a necessary condition of ‘democracy’ as defined by those in whose interest the media serves…
~ Suvian Quilmann
(1) see Chomsky, Deterring Democracy, chapter 12, “Force and Opinion”.
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