Robert George: We Should Treat the Entertainment Industry the Way We Treat Polluters
The constitutional scholar and director of the Madison Program at Princeton, Robert P. George, just posted a particularly provocative comment on Facebook. As you'll see, Robby's comment raises, and very definitely takes sides in, one of the permanent disputes in conservatism: liberty versus morality, or freedom from coercion versus the freedom to live in a decent society. To quote him:
Let me see if I've got this straight. The suits in the entertainment industry massively enrich themselves by marketing Lady Gaga to eleven year old girls, and we're supposed show that we're worldly, urbane, sophisticated people who haven't the slightest concern about conduct like this. Then we're shocked--shocked!--by drug use, provocative dressing, foul language, lewd conduct, meanness, and sexual promiscuity by tweens and young teens. Please count me among the simple, backward, unsophsticated hicks and rubes who think we should hold the entertainment business accountable the way we hold the tobacco industry and environmental polluters accountable.
Since "the way we hold the tobacco industry and environmental polluters accountable" is by way of laws, regulations, and fines--that is, by way of government coercion--Robby is calling here, if I'm reading him correctly, for expanding the government's power over the music industry, television, and Hollywood.
Rob Long? Good people of the Ricochetti? What think?
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Comments:
Jun '10
Re: Robert George: We Should Treat the Entertainment Industry the Way We Treat Polluters
Professor George's assessment of the problematic state of the culture is objectively true.
There are lines that should not be crossed. As a society, we should be able to punish those who produce child porn, and the worst kind of pornography.The problem, of course, is where to draw lines.
In her memoir, the great English mystery novelist P. D. James, described a panel she was part of where one of the subjects was pornography. Some of her writing colleagues spoke in favor of no censorship of any kind. James made it clear that any civilized society must set some lines:
I believe George goes too far, but there is a line.
Jun '10
Re: Robert George: We Should Treat the Entertainment Industry the Way We Treat Polluters
If we live long enough, we'll probably all be living under sharia law, and it won't matter. Maybe there's an acceptable middle-ground.
May '10
Re: Robert George: We Should Treat the Entertainment Industry the Way We Treat Polluters
One thing to keep in mind: the alternatives aren't federal regulation and no regulation.
The TV industry can regulate itself, for instance. Also, we can both shrink he federal government and strengthen the role of "intermediary institutions", like states, towns, and churches.
One reason TV used to be so much less awash in filth is that the Catholic Church wielded a huge moral influence.
Further, there's a difference between restricting and outlawing.
We believe in "ordered liberty," not libertinism, right?
Sep '12
Re: Robert George: We Should Treat the Entertainment Industry the Way We Treat Polluters
I'll start taking concerned parents seriously when they finally get around to programing the V-chips that have been in their televisions for the last fifteen years.
Dec '10
Re: Robert George: We Should Treat the Entertainment Industry the Way We Treat Polluters
It would surely be just deserts if the fools in Hollywood were to die upon a cross of their own manufacture.
However, no matter how sweet and juicy a piece of justice that would be, I simply cannot countenance the idea that govt should regulate entertainment of any sort.
If you find environmental law and entertainment law to be out of sync, I suggest that we harmonize to the LESS onerous standard and reap the economic boon that would result.
Fight the culture war if you must, but do it in the manner of guerrillas the world over. Hide in the weeds, take their high value targets first, and do it on the cheap (with private money).
Collusion with govt is what got us here in the first place.
Dec '10
Re: Robert George: We Should Treat the Entertainment Industry the Way We Treat Polluters
We? You got a mouse in your pocket there?
I believe in liberty.
If you want to regulate what your kids watch, THEN DO THAT. You don't need any more power or assistance than you already wield over your kids.
Regulate your family as you see fit.
Leave the rest of us alone.
Jun '10
Re: Robert George: We Should Treat the Entertainment Industry the Way We Treat Polluters
katievs:
Further, there's a difference between restricting and outlawing.
We believe in "ordered liberty," not libertinism, right? · 6 minutes ago
Put me in the "ordered liberty" column.
Dec '10
Re: Robert George: We Should Treat the Entertainment Industry the Way We Treat Polluters
Sir,
If you cannot use the internet without "stumbling" upon pornography of some sort, I suggest that you find a younger person to teach you how to do it properly, because right now you are doing it wrong.
I use the internet for several hours every day, and I do not see smut of any sort unless I actively seek it out.
It's idiotic to demand new "controls" on something because you can't figure out how to use the controls that already exist.
Jun '10
Re: Robert George: We Should Treat the Entertainment Industry the Way We Treat Polluters
CoolHand
We? You got a mouse in your pocket there?
I believe in liberty.
If you want to regulate what your kids watch, THEN DO THAT. You don't need any more power or assistance than you already wield over your kids.
Regulate your family as you see fit.
Leave the rest of us alone.
The day that virtue becomes counter-cultural in America, then even you might be horrified at the result.
Sep '12
Re: Robert George: We Should Treat the Entertainment Industry the Way We Treat Polluters
New to Ricochet (hooray!), and I would say here that if conservatives and traditionalists alike want to combat the Kultursmog, the way do it is through our own entertainment: Literature, films, music, and other works that are truer, more beautiful, and more compelling than anything produced by the guttersnipes of popular entertainment.
This sort of transformation happens slowly, but it'll happen surely if we're persistent. It worked for the Alinskyites. Why can't it work for us?
We need our own Gramscian "long march through the institutions," not a panicked response that cries out to government. Rob Long writes intelligent comedy for TBS; Andrew Klavan crafts thrilling tales for many a reader. And that's just the beginning! Who knows how much road there's left to travel?
Mar '11
Re: Robert George: We Should Treat the Entertainment Industry the Way We Treat Polluters
katievs:
The TV industry can regulate itself, for instance. Also, we can both shrink he federal government and strengthen the role of "intermediary institutions", like states, towns, and churches.
The entertainment industry can certainly regulate itself, the question is what incentives will prod it to do so. I think public outrage, boycotts, etc are somewhere between ineffective and useless on that scale. The only incentive Hollywood responds to is the loss of box office receipts, advertising dollars, CD/MP3 sales, etc. - in other words, the money that comes from each individual.
As long as the kid wants to buy a Lady Gaga MP3 and the parents don't forbid it, no amount of community pressure will solve the problem. The church might be useful in supporting parents' childrearing, but even that is a weak influence.
Jun '10
Re: Robert George: We Should Treat the Entertainment Industry the Way We Treat Polluters
CoolHand
Sir,
If you cannot use the internet without "stumbling" upon pornography of some sort, I suggest that you find a younger person to teach you how to do it properly, because right now you are doing it wrong.
I use the internet for several hours every day, and I do not see smut of any sort unless I actively seek it out.
It's idiotic to demand new "controls" on something because you can't figure out how to use the controls that already exist.
You can avoid it because you're not ten years old, and you know which ad clicks are not wise to pursue. You know that 69 is not just any number.
May '10
Re: Robert George: We Should Treat the Entertainment Industry the Way We Treat Polluters
CoolHand
We? You got a mouse in your pocket there?
I believe in liberty.
If you want to regulate what your kids watch, THEN DO THAT. You don't need any more power or assistance than you already wield over your kids.
Regulate your family as you see fit.
Leave the rest of us alone.
By "we", I meant to refer to Burke and Kirk conservatives such as self and (I believe) Peter, not everyone at Ricochet, not libertarians and anarchists like Fred.
The libertarian ideal seems to me utterly naive and impractical. Real liberty requires order. "Confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law." (Ring a bell?)
There is such a thing as the common good.
If my husband and I decided to build a bunker and live off whatever we can grow in New Hampshire, we could maybe succeed in protecting our kids from the aggressions of the shameless. But I wouldn't imagine we were living liberty like our forefathers envisioned it. I also would think I was raising them well to cope in this world.
Liberty without moral judgment is a complete illusion.
Dec '10
Re: Robert George: We Should Treat the Entertainment Industry the Way We Treat Polluters
THIS!!!
The answer to speech you don't like is always MORE SPEECH.
The idea that a virtuous society is one where some agreed upon set of rules about "polite" speech is rigidly enforced upon all is, to be quite frank, idiocy of the highest order.
You want to know what a society like that looks like? Go have a look at Saudi Arabia or maybe Iran. North Korea probably meets that mark too.
The basic problem that all the so-cons in this thread want to combat, is the moral degradation of the individual people that make up "society".
However, the flaw in their logic is the belief that people can be changed internally (their "moral compass" reset) by making them go through certain motions externally (by forcing them to behave according to a set of "morally superior" laws or rules).
This is doomed to fail as surely as Communism was.
You cannot affect positive change on the interior by beating on the exterior.
Mar '11
Re: Robert George: We Should Treat the Entertainment Industry the Way We Treat Polluters
Ultimately, the only solution is to start ignoring them completely and to quit spending money on them and quit watching them to deny them ad revenue. Rob Long is going to hate this, but I'm beginning to come to the conclusion that even when we spend money on "good" TV and movies with (possible) conservative themes... say the Nolan Batman movies... we're still subsidizing things like Brokeback Mountain indirectly. I've now come to the point where the only thing I watch are old classic movies on TCM and the occasional documentary on the Military Channel. And if it would cripple Hollywood, I'd give those up too. Last month, my household ditched HBO/Skinamax, and may be cutting our package even further. Save money AND hurting the cashflow of the left is a two-birds, one-stone deal I think we could all get behind.
Dec '10
Re: Robert George: We Should Treat the Entertainment Industry the Way We Treat Polluters
Mel Foil
You can avoid it because you're not ten years old, and you know which ad clicks are not wise to pursue. You know that 69 is not just any number.
No, I can avoid those ad clicks because I use the FireFox browser with the AdBlock and NoScript add-ons installed. No ads. No pop-ups. Ever.
You could too, if you took the time to proactively find the controls you wish for so desperately.
This is not a problem that requires any kind of governmental intervention.
What it requires is for you to take the time to educate yourself and then apply that knowledge to yield the end result you desire.
Mar '11
Re: Robert George: We Should Treat the Entertainment Industry the Way We Treat Polluters
This is what County, Cities, and States did, even before the founding of this nation. They were called decency laws.
Nov '11
Re: Robert George: We Should Treat the Entertainment Industry the Way We Treat Polluters
katievs
By "we", I meant to refer to Burke and Kirk conservatives such as self and (I believe) Peter, not everyone at Ricochet, not libertarians and anarchists like Fred.
The libertarian ideal seems to me utterly naive and impractical. Real liberty requires order. "Confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law." (Ring a bell?)
Thereissuch a thing as the common good.
If my husband and I decided to build a bunker and live off whatever we can grow in New Hampshire, we could maybe succeed in protecting our kids from the aggressions of the shameless. But I wouldn't imagine we were living liberty like our forefathers envisioned it. I also would think I was raising them well to cope in this world.
Liberty without moral judgment is a complete illusion. · 6 minutes ago
Libertarian ideals are not impractical, only libertarian strawmen.
Jun '10
Re: Robert George: We Should Treat the Entertainment Industry the Way We Treat Polluters
I'm old. I remember when kids finding a Playboy magazine sticking out of an overflowing dumpster was like standing at the Gates of Hell and deciding whether to take a quick peek inside. I think I like that extreme better. These days, 12-year-old boys know porn stars by name.
Edited on September 20, 2012 at 8:47pmMar '11
Re: Robert George: We Should Treat the Entertainment Industry the Way We Treat Polluters
katievs
Liberty without moral judgment is a complete illusion. · 17 minutes ago
More to the point, liberty without moral judgement inevitably leads to decadence, which ends in destruction. Worse, what usually replaces it after that destruction isn't liberty but some form of tyranny.
It's good to have you back, Katie.