The BBC is panicking at the public’s rejection of its Left-liberal arrogance
The patronising world view of the broadcast media has been smashed, and may never recover
This is nearly over – this weird disconnect between what most of us understand as reality and the world as seen through the eyes of an all-pervasive Authority that was apparently appointed (although we never knew by whom) to establish the limits of public discourse. The crisis of confidence at the BBC – and make no mistake, it is a full-blown, all-alarmbells-ringing, catastrophic crisis – is probably the most visible sign of the shift, but it is much bigger than this.
So bear with me: I promise that the whole column is not going to be about the BBC, even though it is easily the most infuriating and useful exemplar of the problem.
But no, what could be about to implode is not just the sublime, unlimited self-regard of the broadcasters. It is nothing less than the whole interlocking set of preconceptions so embedded in the consciousness of those who decide what it is acceptable to think that they must ignore or traduce anything that contradicts them.
Of course, self-doubt should have begun with the Brexit referendum result, but that scarcely slowed them down: if a majority of the country were benighted bigots then it was up to the enlightened ones to lead them out of the darkness. Or to bully them out of it. And believe it or not, a good many of the Enlightened actually believed they had succeeded in this – hence the demand for a second referendum that would allow the masses to repent of their ignorance.
Then came the general election, which was, in effect, a second referendum. And that was the end. You could hear the sound of an edifice falling to the ground and smashing into pieces as you watched the television coverage of this cataclysm. It was such a resounding and utterly unexpected repudiation not just of the mindset of the BBC but of virtually all of the broadcast media – and the cultural circles in which their denizens travel – that it will probably be a generation before they recover. If they ever recover.
Indeed, we must hope that the vainglorious arrogance never does return. What we want is not another set of sacred tenets that can be enforced with monolithic certainty, but humility: a genuinely liberal regard for differing opinions. But you know all this. Everybody knows it – except, apparently, the broadcast executives who are now running around in crazy circles like ants whose nest has been demolished.
Presumably this sense of mission to enforce a moral doctrine and prescribe its rules to a grateful nation emerged from the post-war period when rationing and rebuilding dominated the country’s priorities. The most charitable interpretation of this phenomenon is that it began as a belief that it was the duty owed by the educated classes to British working people who had endured terrible deprivations and danger.
If you listen to the patronising tone of the many public information pronouncements of the time, this is what you hear: we are going to create a new future with better housing, a fairer distribution of resources, staterun services and comprehensive health and welfare provision. You must trust our judgment in all things: we know better than you what is needed. Which is pretty much exactly the tone that the political descendants of those public policy managers adopt today, only now they are talking about climate change, multiculturalism, economic globalisation and gender identity.
Arguably, a good many of the solutions that the Enlightened Benefactors imposed on society even in that earlier incarnation were wrong-headed or dangerously skewed by the political fashions of the time. Were vast council estates really a social improvement on the old Victorian terraces, which might have been renovated rather than demolished? Were rationing and the nationalising of public services actually ways of ensuring fairness, or just a handicap to economic recovery?
But at least back then it was plausible to claim that most people in the country bought into those beliefs. The trauma of the war had created a genuine sense of national unanimity. There had probably never been such widespread agreement on priorities and so much willingness to make sacrifices for the general good. If the specific programmes were questionable, they would be challenged only by a small and rather unpopular minority of sceptics.
Needless to say, that is not the case with the doctrines being enforced by the great unidentifiable Authority now. Even if you accept that climate change is a fact, you might want to see less shrill alarmism and more attention paid to possible solutions that do not involve pauperising the developing world. (The BBC recently put Sir David Attenborough’s announcement of imminent climate crisis at the top of its main news bulletins. With great respect to the saintly Sir David, something that he says is not the most important news story of any day.)
You may welcome migrants of all colours and backgrounds, and have limitless compassion for the disabled, without wishing to see classic literary texts rewritten and programme presentation rotas designed to ensure their visibility. You may sympathise with the problems of sexual minorities, but be disturbed by the proportion of attention that is devoted to their demands. In other words, you may be angry and frustrated by the implicit assumption that you and your reservations are beyond the pale.
I am sure it is not an accident that adversaries of the official enlightened wisdom are only invited to participate in broadcast debate under the most loaded and disadvantaged circumstances, to be set against a solid phalanx of the upholders of Virtue – which is why so many of us have given up trying. It is really rather difficult to argue with people who think you don’t have a right to exist (quite literally, in the case of Israel).
But the truth has finally hit. To adapt a notorious Corbynism, we are the many and they are the few, and it is time we were given our proper place in respectable conversation.
What we want is not another set of sacred tenets which can be enforced with monolithic certainty, but humility: a genuinely liberal regard for differing opinions