My Take | Lessons from great philosophers on how to read the news
Beyond mere facts, the news media have always been about providing or manipulating their contexts to constrain how you think and lead you to the conclusions they want you to reach
I read the newspapers with lively interest. It is seldom that they are absolutely, point-blank wrong. That is the popular belief, but those who are in the know can usually discern an embryo of truth, a little grit of fact, like the core of a pearl, round which have been deposited the delicate layers of ornament.
– Scoop, Evelyn Waugh
As a lifelong student of philosophy and a news hack, I have occasionally fancied writing something more substantial than a mere column on the attitudes of the great philosophers on journalism. Note to self: A yawner, no doubt, so forget about it. Well, here we go, another column today, fish wrapper tomorrow.
It’s well-known to some people that Soren Kierkegaard and Arthur Schopenhauer despised journalists. However, the former, a Danish existentialist, was more lenient in his judgment, as he at least acknowledged that the business occasionally produced a few talented writers, though never enough to counter the army of relentlessly untalented and vicious ones. Yours truly would no doubt have been put in the second, much larger category, and sure, why not? I have long ago made peace with an otherwise very disappointing career.
Schopenhauer, a great hater, was much more severe. He wrote somewhere: “Journalists are like dogs, whenever anything moves they begin to bark.”
As a dog lover, I think that’s insulting to the canine species. But he was on the money, or almost. I would add that when nothing moves, we hacks generate some movement just so we can bark.
