-John Muir
"So extraordinary is Nature with her choicest treasures, spending plant beauty as she spends sunshine, pouring it forth into land and sea, garden and desert. And so the beauty of lilies falls on angels and men, bears and squirrels, wolves and sheep, birds and bees." -John Muir
Comments
An Enemy of the People addresses a number of interesting issues, even if they're not always the ones that its readers- or adaptor- assumes them to be. One of these is the corruption of the press... a timely topic if ever there was one. In the play, the members of the fourth estate are almost farcical in their flip-flopping over the contaminated spa water issue. At first they are gung-ho to support Dr. Stockmann's cause, agreeing to publish his report in the local paper. Their concern is less about the water and more about having a (proverbial) stick to beat the mayor with, but whatever their motivation, they're willing to give him a platform to air his research and concerns. After, however, a visit from the mayor (Stockmann's brother) a few reservations creep into their thinking; if the spa goes under as a result of Dr. Stockmann's report, the town's economy will suffer greatly, resulting in the town newspaper also suffering. And if they've alienated the mayor and other members of the local government by opposing them on this issue, they will get no help from them in dealing with the resulting financial difficulties. So the paper refuses to publish Dr. Stockmann's article, instead printing an address by Mayor Pete extolling the safety and health benefits of the spa waters. At the acrimonious town meeting the paper's publisher, Aslaksen, is appointed to chair the meeting as a supposedly neutral party, which is a laugh. When he sees which way the winds are blowing, Aslaksen joins with the angry crowd in whipping up sentiment against Dr. Stockmann; it is he who suggests labelling the doctor "an enemy of the people". When next we see the intrepid newspapermen, they are visiting Stockmann at his now besieged family home. Having heard about his father-in-law buying up the spa's stocks, they assume he conspired with Kiil to tank the stock price so they could buy them on the cheap and that he now stands to make a fortune. With this in mind, they tell the doctor that they will throw the weight of the paper behind his cause as long as he promises to support the paper financially, compensating them for loss of revenue in the resulting scandal. When a disgusted Stockmann throws them out on their ears, they change their tunes once again. In the words of Sir Winston Churchill, "Anyone can rat, but it takes a certain amount of ingenuity to re-rat." Ideally, a free press will hold the feet of politicians- all politicians- to the flames, scrutinizing their actions and calling them out when necessary, regardless of political affiliations. Practically, this rarely holds true. As in the case here, oft time the consideration which sways the press to favour a certain political side is enlightened self-interest- in short, money. Here in Canada, we're stuck with a public broadcaster which gets the majority of its funding from the government, and it shows. Of course, this also gives them the liberty to follow their natural inclinations, which are always left-leaning. The left wing bias of the Canadian press reveals itself in many ways: in what they choose to report and how they present it, and also what they choose not to report on, or under report. One example: during the 2019 election, both the Liberal and Conservative parties used clips from the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) in campaign ads. The CBC sued the Conservative Party, claiming copyright infringement but had no problem with the Liberals using clips from their programming. The case was eventually dismissed by a judge as the ads were very obviously fair use, but while the case was ongoing- during the election campaign- the ads had to be taken down, so... mission accomplished. I would find this utter lack of principle rather amusing except for a few points, one of which being that, as a taxpayer, I'm forced to fund these shameless hacks. Also, it's one thing for the press to be biased- very obviously so- but the fact that they deny it at every turn, claiming to be impartial (not unlike Aslaksen), just adds insult to injury. They must know that everyone can see what they're doing but, thanks to unlimited government funds, they don't have to care- or produce quality programming for that matter. Last I heard, only about 3.9% of the Canadian population watches the CBC. Because it's crap. Unfortunately though, 100% of us have no choice but to shell out for it. Returning to my original point, the worst thing about this is that, if the press deliberately looks the other way when their "side" is engaged in questionable practices, the people are ill served. One only has to look at the Trudeau government to see where this lack of accountability has lead: ethics violation after ethics violation, corruption and incompetence, serious matters which would have brought down a Conservative government- deservedly so. Heck, no conservative would even have survived Trudeau's blackface incidents (there were, apparently, several) but here we are. Whether the bias is caused by monetary considerations or is ideological in nature- or both- the result is the same: an uneven playing field where strikes are mostly called on one side. This is what we have in An Enemy Of The People: the press serving their own interests and thereby only giving space in their paper to one side of the water issue. Ideally, they would have printed Dr. Stockmann's research as well as Mayor Pete's rebuttal, and let them duke it out in the public arena, figuratively speaking. But by uncritically printing the mayor's words without allowing for dissent, they've implied that there was no other legitimate side to the issue, thus denying the local population the ability to make an informed decision about the spa. They might still make the wrong decision, but at least they'd be doing it with all the information to hand. Which brings us to another issue: the strengths and failings of democracy and the will of the people. I'll discuss this in my final post on An Enemy of the People. Related Posts: “Those who say that children must not be frightened may mean two things. They may mean (1) that we must not do anything likely to give the child those haunting, disabling, pathological fears against which ordinary courage is helpless: in fact, phobias. His mind must, if possible, be kept clear of things he can’t bear to think of. Or they may mean (2) that we must try to keep out of his mind the knowledge that he is born into a world of death, violence, wounds, adventure, heroism and cowardice, good and evil. If they mean the first I agree with them: but not if they mean the second. The second would indeed be to give children a false impression and feed them on escapism in the bad sense. There is something ludicrous in the idea of so educating a generation which is born to the…atomic bomb. Since it is so likely that they will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker.” ― C.S. Lewis |
About MeI'm a lover of good books, classic movies, and well-written shows (as well as some pretty cheesy ones, to be completely honest). Categories
All
Archives
March 2024
Fun SitesOdds & Ends |