Lecture: Screening Thought - The Media's Philosophical Problem at ICA

Lecture: Screening Thought - The Media's Philosophical Problem at ICA

05 May, 2011
by: Tom Jeffreys

A talk by Slovenian philosopher, Slavoj Žižek, proves entertaining, but ultimately disappointing for Tom Jeffreys.

One need only recall the appalling treatment meted out to Jacques Derrida, when obituaries of the French philosopher were published across a range of mainstream media outlets, to be aware that complex thoughts and newspapers seldom mix. Apart from the Guardian – who enlisted devout Derrideans Derek Attridge and Thomas Baldwin to write the obituary – much of the coverage was at best misinformed, and at worst wilfully misleading. The Economist was particularly savage, malicious and lazy in its research.

But why? Why is difficult philosophical thought so frequently shunned or pilloried in the mainstream press? This, supposedly, is the topic of a discussion taking place at the ICA, between everyone's favourite Slovenian philosopher, Slavoj Žižek, and Paul A Taylor, author of Žižek and The Media. The problems, however, are manifold – most obviously that we never even get close to answering the question. Or even asking it.

Things kick off in fine style with an amusing YouTube clip of shiny, permatanned US TV presenter Barry Nolan continually interrupting the shaggily bearded Žižek; we then have an intro of sorts from Taylor, who mainly just seems chippy that Radio 4 didn't offer him a radio show; and then it's on to Žižek, who is passionate, entertaining, extremely funny, and periodically capable of penetrating insight.

Žižek covers all manner of different topics, from Bond girls to dating agencies, Libya to Brassed Off, Ralph Fiennes to masturbating men from Montenegro. He criticises the ICA's high-brow film programme, praises the last two seasons of 24, touches regularly on Hegel and Marx, and describes Ronald Regan as the “first post-Oedipal president”.

But rarely do we ever move beyond a superficial joke-heavy and anecdotal discussion of the media. The main issue, it seems, is that 'the media' simplify, caricature, and generally avoid direct discussion of philosophical issues. The result though is that the media champions some issues, whilst ignoring others – thereby, Žižek argues, simply reinforcing existing ideological systems of meaning. But on the other hand, as Žižek points out, “it [alternative thought] is there. But somehow we don't channel it, it doesn't connect.”

This apparent contradiction is surely fairly obviously resolved: 'the media' is a ludicrously broad term that encompasses everything from James Bond films to specialist yachting magazines, Murdoch-run newspapers to websites such as Spoonfed. And so any attempt to analyse the media will fail a priori if it continues to treat it as a singular, monolithic entity.

By definition, 'mainstream' media must appeal to the layman, must address issues in terms recognisable to those who don't necessarily know much about the topic at hand. Of course, this leads to frustrating simplifications, but that is the nature of information dissemination in the modern age. The more frustrating thing is that here, with even the great Slavoj Žižek for company, we're still not learning anything new.

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Tom Jeffreys