MAD SCIENTISTS

I invented media studies. Well, I and thousands of other so-called academics. And my part was small. But visible. One of the first proposals for an undergraduate degree in media studies (1972) – I ‘designed’ some courses for it.

I was part of a group of people who wanted the media to be studied seriously not only by researchers, but also by students, and eventually everyone.

When I was 16, for our English Ordinary Level we worked through page by page the little text book by FR Leavis called Culture and Environment. Published in the 1930s, it was still a text in some classes in 1960. Leavis approached advertising and other forms of mass media from a position of cultural elitism based on the study of literature, especially English Literature. In 1919 Leavis was one of the first generation of students to study Eng Lit at Cambridge, which had only been established in 1917. Leavis is still considered by many who claim to know much about these things one of the most important cultural critics of modern times. Among other things, he promoted almost before anyone else the importance of TS Eliot

Leavis was opposed to industrialisation, mass production, commercially driven mass communications, and scientism. He did not consider ‘science’ to be a humanising study, but rather one that only had very specific technical purposes. Though agnostic, Leavis was deeply influenced by his Protestant background, and had a faith in ‘life’.

Another elitist, the poet TS Eliot also contributed to the idea of studying the media as way of defending against its corrupting influences on language and culture.

Eliot was deeply religious, his poetry reflecting his erudite studies in both Eastern and Western traditions, ultimately culminating in his membership of an Anglo-Catholic Church of England communion.

The next generation of intellectuals in this tradition reacted against the elitism, anti-science, anti-industrialisation and the pro-faith of Leavis and Eliot. The key figure being Raymond Williams, who was pro-scientism, pro democratic-socialism/Marxism, and atheist. Though his stance was anti-elitist – one of his early essays is titled Culture is Ordinary – his writing is never easy to read, and later became so obscure as to put off many intellectuals, let alone non-intellectuals.

Williams and most of the others who created the foundations and later the actual study of the media, were mainly atheist and pro-scientism.

So it was that when they studied ‘media stereotypes’, they assumed that the ‘mad scientist’ stereotype in popular media from Dr Frankenstein to Dr Moreau, Professor Felix Hoenniker. and Dr. No, was largely false – a kind of narrative device to create an interesting ‘bad guy’.

Since the covid-scandal revelations, the curtain has been, for me, lifted. I started to see how the majority of ‘medical scientists’ were either mad or bad, and then moved on to ‘weapons’ scientists’, then to the whole array of scientists who claim knowledge of everything from the beginning of the universe to why we love.

And most of them are, it seems to me, at a guess, both mad and potentially extremely dangerous for a variety of reasons, many of which can be put down to the fact that they are only capable of very narrow- focus, convergent-style thinking (only those questions for which we can give one right answer are worth attempting to answer), and a religious-style belief in ‘science’ (which does not exist) and ‘scientific methods’ as the most important ways, or only ways, to the truth. In fact, these methods are extremely depersonalised, lack social awareness, and can be used effectively by sociopaths and psychopaths to manipulate the measurable world and other people to their own egoic advantage without any accurate sense of social responsibility before they hurt the world and no sense of guilt after they hurt the world.

Wikipedia, known for its pro-establishment bias, has more than 90 examples of ‘scientists’ performing terrible experiments on ordinary people, often large numbers, and not informing them beforehand that they ar doing this. These experiments often resulted in death or life-long disabilities for far too many innocent people. I have not bothered to look for a more accurate count of these experiments in the independent media because it would be even more horrific, and I have had enough horror in my life already.

For me, this uncovering of a most unpleasant truth was very difficult, as I had respected ‘science’ and even, when an adolescent, wanted to be a scientist of some kind (anything from a nuclear physicist to an anthropologist or psychologist.). I had been not only psychologically dependent on the institution I saw as ‘science’ but also on other institutions, such as law, medicine, education and scholarship.

I see in these institutions of civilisation now, at their core, a profound perversion of the most important impulses we have that lead us to behave well, to live good and beautiful lives, and to apprehend, enhance and even ‘create, collectively and with full participation, beauty in the world, the universe or even more.

Hinc illae lacrimae, but also an anger that I cannot use against this new world we have created that has given so much pain to so many. My sister once said to us that we are all in pain but do not realise it. But what she did not say was that that was why we had so much anger and violence underneath. `Some find a target for their anger and violence in themselves. And when they decide to harm or kill themselves, a great peace and calmness overtakes them. A young lawyer saw our son run towards her on London Bridge, and suddenly leap over the low wall into the Thames. The look on his face she said was calm and determined. She said that he did not frighten her at all as he ran towards her, that she knew he was not intending to hurt her. I think our son found peace of a kind, “leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills.”