WHEN THE DIALECTIC FALTERS
broadcasting balances raises deeper issues than the public realises
LAST week The Spectator published an attack on myself and others who favour balance in public sector broadcasting. The views of the author, a media bureaucrat, were predictable and I propose to ignore them. But the issue is more fundamental than most people realise and this is a good opportunity to make two points which have not been discussed. I have never thought that balance in broadcasting is primarily about party politics. The politicians can look after themselves and indeed the Gov- ernment has just tabled an amendment to the Broadcasting Bill to do just that. What really concerns me is our culture and our democracy. As a historian I have become increasingly fascinated by the perennial culture conflict, at its sharpest in advanced societies, between radicals and conserva- tives: between, that is, those who believe the world can be reshaped by their own unaided intelligence and those who distrust reason in isolation and think it should be anchored in prescriptive wisdom, natural law and other restraints. This conflict is conducted mainly in books but powerful echoes are to be found on the stage, in music, in art and architecture and not least in public life itself. What is absorbing is to follow the generational swings in national (and also international) culture, in which first radicals, then conservatives, get the upper hand, and especially the way in which the balance is tipped by the shift of a great writer from one camp to the other — Coleridge and Victor Hugo are excellent examples, in different directions. The rich- ness and variety, and indeed the advance, of our culture depend upon the continua- tion of this conflict, which is deeply rooted in human nature. If you believe in the Hegelian dialectic, this is an example of its powerful spirit in action.
There are times when the violent convul- sion of politics inhibit the dialectic com- pletely. For over 70 years, 1917-90, Rus- sian culture, one of the richest we possess, has been interred beneath a monolithic state philosophy, and it will be very excit- ing to observe the resumption of the conflict, there and in Eastern Europe, during the next decade: this is where, I suspect, we shall be finding our great European writers, musicians and artists around the year 2000. But in some cases the conflict is not so much inhibited com- pletely as distorted and so rendered less creative by a malign historical force. I believe this is happening today in Britain as a result of the rapid growth of public sector culture. This sector includes the subsidised theatre, national and local, the public galleries, other recipients of public money but above all the broadcasting duopoly, that is the BBC, financed by a poll tax, and ITV, with its privileged access to television advertising. Public sector culture or PSC scarcely existed before 1914; it is now the dominant element in our cultural life, for not only can writers and artists pursue their entire careers within it, but the power its privileged financial position bestows gives it a predominant influence on the way our culture is heading. More important, until now it has controlled the broadcasting element completely. The long-term impact of television on our national culture cannot yet be fully measured — 40 years is too short a testing-span — but it clearly has been, and is, enormous.
Now the striking thing about PSC is that it has, almost from the start of its grand career, but increasingly over the last quarter-century, fallen completely into the hands of one arm of the dialectic. It forms a cultural community of liberal-radicals which is self-contained, self-perpetuating, endogenous, self-monitoring and, I would add, remarkably self-congratulatory. De- spite all the horrifying experience of the Rut officer, I have no intention of appear- ing on Wogan.' present century it retains a belief in the perfectibility of Man and the possibility of Utopian solutions for all its ills. It assumes the purpose of individual existence is the satisfaction of appetites, provided this is consistent with communal harmony, and that the function of government and socie- ty is to promote hedonism. This broad philosophical framework, I hasten to add, is encrusted with all the familiar barnacles of Left-liberal prejudice on such matters as sex, race, violence, politics, war and peace, art and religion. But the important fact about it is that it represents only one side of the argument about the nature, purpose and destiny of Man. The other side, with its acceptance of evil, its pessimistic assess- ment of human nature, its denial that positivism and humanism are enough, its recognition of forces external to Man as the ultimate mechanism of redemption, is never put, or is treated as the eccentric views of a tiny, isolated minority. As a result, the dialectic has virtually ceased to function within the PSC. Young writers are obliged to accept the guidelines of its philosophy or are denied access to it completely. It is still just possible for them to establish themselves and survive within the private culture sector, but it becomes more difficult every year as the radical orthodoxy, extending its existing bases in the PSC and the universities, captures further positions of power, such as the new literary prize-system. In time, the cultural dialectic will cease to function at all, and our culture will become sterile in consequ- ence. I suspect this is already happening.
Members of Parliament, both Lords and Commons, would be unwise to concern themselves directly with the long-term future of our culture. But by insisting on a reasonable balance in duopoly broadcast- ing they will be tackling the aspect of the problem which is directly their responsibil- ity as legislators. They will also be striking a blow for democratic control. The people who determine the output of our PSC and impose their philosophy and prejudices on it form a small, arrogant, inbred and remarkably intolerant group of people, who do not accept that opinions outside their orthodoxy have any legitimacy. They are unrepresentative of the nation as a whole and are proud of it: they consider themselves able to consitute the Cultural Nation in the same way as the ruling landed class once saw itself as the Political Nation. Their most contemptuous term of abuse is 'populist'. Such people will always be around: that is part of the dialectic. But they must not rule the roost without challenge. It is the duty of Parliament to ensure that in culture as in politics the Real Nation's views are heard, especially where it is paying, through the BBC poll tax or the award of legal privilege, for the whole show. Forcing the PSC mandarins to sub- mit to the principle of balance is the simplest way to remind them that they are our servants not our masters.
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