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Tetro Kornbluth
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« Reply #75 on: October 28, 2007, 06:02:19 PM »

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In a way that's right but modern 'idols' tend to be a bit more abstract. For example every town in Ireland once had a local priest and a great deal of mythology grew up around the powers of local priests (often in the most rural areas this was combined with alot of old Gaelic mysticism, just showing that the Celtic religions never quite died they just started worshipping crosses instead.) of course there were figure heads like the Pope, The Archbishop, etc but until the invention of mass communication the Pope was directly irrelevant to the lives of Irish people he was just the guy (who no-one knew what he looked like; now that's a sobering thought.) who was in Rome who told the other guys who were Cardinal who told the Archibishops etc what to do. Nowadays I think nearly everyone (at least in my age group; so excluding Vincent Browne) knows what Paris Hilton looks like but actually know her as a person? How do you "know" a person anyway?

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True; but even more than other nations perhaps because of our location and history we tend to blame solely external sources like the OMG TEH BRITS!!111

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I'm sorry if I don't get misery porn? Personally I don't think our culture is a great state is so many of the communitariat seem to be to sexually arouse themselves with the idea of a economic recession. Do we really hate ourselves that much? Or is this just the smugly educated upper middle class folks who become leading journalists (usually writing articles in the Sindo about how awful consumerism is why discussing their latest pair of Manolos.)

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No doubt; but that won't happen, why? The idea of liberal Democracy is routed in the notion of an active and educated (often self-educated) citizenship. Now admittely alot of these ideas belong to the age of the Printing press and the Enlightment (Books of course the best medium to express Political ideas, but how many people in Ireland are aliterate - can read but don't?) but I don't believe we can have a Democracy or anything similiar without out. Otherwise we are just giving more power than an already morally bankrupt political class.

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True; but we are probing deeper than pure economics here (thus "pseudo-science") why is the level of demand like it is.

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No or not quite and here is the problem; I realize the contradiction here alas as why that is beyond my meagre talents aswell to truly explain.

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Because understanding it is an intregal part of understanding the country in which I was born and raised into?

Also I don't believe much is holding Irish society actually together; in this I agree with the most conservative and reactionary Catholics while it's replaced a series of values which are always rooted locally and "in the soil" so the speak most of the new values (of course this is a sweeping statement, like all sociology, In Offaly I met a middle-aged women who criticized the people I was staying with because they did their laundry on a sunday.) are dependant on high levels of disposable income and foreign investment (Both "Visible" and "invisible" like tourism), and even those don't seem to be effective given the level of self-destruction we see in Irish society (Binge Drinking, et al not that binge drinking wasn't a problem "back in the day", That culture was destroyed by it's contradictions.. so will this one.) What will happen once the money goes away? Then what we will have?

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True. But all Media has an in-built "message" which goes beyond what is obvious. Advertising to take the easy example hidden message is that all life's problems are simply solved and can be resolved in a matter of minutes; no thought, no nuance, no emotion just the robotism of "buying stuff". The Irish Times is full of information which seems to exist outside of space and time - for example can one really understand anything about the Middle-east crisis without at least a knowledge of it's history, all newspapers give the perception that information is a daily occurance which exists outside of human context (ie. There are these things called days and what happens on one day doesn't effect what happens on another.) Okay again this is a generalization, but my point is the media is effecting how we think; which then creates the enviornment to what we think. Of course in reality there is nothing we can do about that if 1 million people quite like owning and watching their TVs.

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It's unnatural for an Irish story to end happily. It never does.

Personally there is alot to be grateful for; but I can't help feel there is both a nasty masochistic and anti-intellectual streaks in Irish society (to begin with).
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« Reply #76 on: October 29, 2007, 08:13:02 AM »

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In a way that's right but modern 'idols' tend to be a bit more abstract. For example every town in Ireland once had a local priest and a great deal of mythology grew up around the powers of local priests (often in the most rural areas this was combined with alot of old Gaelic mysticism, just showing that the Celtic religions never quite died they just started worshipping crosses instead.) of course there were figure heads like the Pope, The Archbishop, etc but until the invention of mass communication the Pope was directly irrelevant to the lives of Irish people he was just the guy (who no-one knew what he looked like; now that's a sobering thought.) who was in Rome who told the other guys who were Cardinal who told the Archibishops etc what to do. Nowadays I think nearly everyone (at least in my age group; so excluding Vincent Browne) knows what Paris Hilton looks like but actually know her as a person? How do you "know" a person anyway?

Ah, but they don't need (or necessarily want) to 'know' her as a person - they want to know what she's wearing; who's she seeing; etc. The 'real' person is irrelevant - appearance is everything.
 
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True; but even more than other nations perhaps because of our location and history we tend to blame solely external sources like the OMG TEH BRITS!!111

I haven't travelled enough to comment on how other nations deal with such things - but I must say while I've met and know people who are remarkably prejudiced against 'the Brits', they're a very distinct minority. I simply don't buy the idea that there is a general and irrational blaming of 'the Brits' regarding relevant Irish problems today.

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I'm sorry if I don't get misery porn? Personally I don't think our culture is a great state is so many of the communitariat seem to be to sexually arouse themselves with the idea of a economic recession. Do we really hate ourselves that much? Or is this just the smugly educated upper middle class folks who become leading journalists (usually writing articles in the Sindo about how awful consumerism is why discussing their latest pair of Manolos.)

I don't think that economic commentators are hoping for a recession or are downtalking the economy just for the sake of it...whether looking at exchequer returns or projected growth figures (particularly in construction) it seems clear (and generally expected) that we are facing an economic slowdown. Just how much the economy will slow down is up in the air - it could lead to a period of stable, if relatively low, growth or it could lead to a very serious economic shock.

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No doubt; but that won't happen, why? The idea of liberal Democracy is routed in the notion of an active and educated (often self-educated) citizenship. Now admittely alot of these ideas belong to the age of the Printing press and the Enlightment (Books of course the best medium to express Political ideas, but how many people in Ireland are aliterate - can read but don't?) but I don't believe we can have a Democracy or anything similiar without out. Otherwise we are just giving more power than an already morally bankrupt political class.

Are books the best medium to express political ideas? What's wrong with the internet; TV; newspapers; and film?

On why the public in disinterested...politics is perceived as dull; irrelevant to their day-to-day lives (at least people are relatively content with the performance of government); and something which they can't do anything about anyway - so why bother. (Not that I agree, of course, but I think this is a reflection of a common belief.)

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True; but we are probing deeper than pure economics here (thus "pseudo-science") why is the level of demand like it is.


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No or not quite and here is the problem; I realize the contradiction here alas as why that is beyond my meagre talents aswell to truly explain.

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Because understanding it is an intregal part of understanding the country in which I was born and raised into?

I'm not sure a country can be understood - or maybe I don't understand what you mean by to understand a country in this context.

It's hard enough to understand another individual nevermind such a large collective of them.

Also I don't believe much is holding Irish society actually together; in this I agree with the most conservative and reactionary Catholics while it's replaced a series of values which are always rooted locally and "in the soil" so the speak most of the new values (of course this is a sweeping statement, like all sociology, In Offaly I met a middle-aged women who criticized the people I was staying with because they did their laundry on a sunday.) are dependant on high levels of disposable income and foreign investment (Both "Visible" and "invisible" like tourism), and even those don't seem to be effective given the level of self-destruction we see in Irish society (Binge Drinking, et al not that binge drinking wasn't a problem "back in the day", That culture was destroyed by it's contradictions.. so will this one.) What will happen once the money goes away? Then what we will have?

Whose pessimistic about the economy now? Wink

To deal with your substantive point though, I don't know what would be left. What have we got now?

While I find many aspects of Irish youth culture to be not to my particular tastes...and binge drinking ranks highly here...I do think that it's part of a fairly normal subversive youth culture which tends to self-destructive activities (despite a belief in their own indestructability). I don't think this is particular to Ireland at all.

If the money was to disappear, we'd adapt - though it may be difficult. It's simply part of the human condition to indulge oneself when possible; just like our ability to adapt to new circumstances.
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« Reply #77 on: October 29, 2007, 08:13:47 AM »


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True. But all Media has an in-built "message" which goes beyond what is obvious. Advertising to take the easy example hidden message is that all life's problems are simply solved and can be resolved in a matter of minutes; no thought, no nuance, no emotion just the robotism of "buying stuff". The Irish Times is full of information which seems to exist outside of space and time - for example can one really understand anything about the Middle-east crisis without at least a knowledge of it's history, all newspapers give the perception that information is a daily occurance which exists outside of human context (ie. There are these things called days and what happens on one day doesn't effect what happens on another.) Okay again this is a generalization, but my point is the media is effecting how we think; which then creates the enviornment to what we think. Of course in reality there is nothing we can do about that if 1 million people quite like owning and watching their TVs.

I think you're being mighty hard on newspapers here. If people want a backstory they can look it up, if The Irish Times was to provide a background piece on Northern Ireland and Iraq and Israel in every edition, there'd be no room left to print any actual news. They have to assume a certain level of knowledge on the part of the reader. The reader can always consult other sources to find this background detail anyway.

And no-body can convey any significant amount of information on ongoing media stories such as those mentioned above without eventually giving away their own stance, this isn't the same as telling the audience how/what to think. And even if they were simply telling people what to think, people are free to reject the message and the messanger.

And there's nothing inherently wrong with TV. Just like books and newpapers and every other form of media, there's good quality content and bad quality content. Is there anything wrong with learning about the ideas of Mill or the history of the Flight of the Earls or whatever from TV instead of from a book. Surely both are subject to similar potential pitfalls?

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It's unnatural for an Irish story to end happily. It never does.

Personally there is alot to be grateful for; but I can't help feel there is both a nasty masochistic and anti-intellectual streaks in Irish society (to begin with).

Seriously, you're very pessimistic on this.
(And it's hardly just Irish society that has a dark side.)
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« Reply #78 on: October 29, 2007, 08:26:28 AM »

FTR, I'm enjoying this fireside chat Smiley
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Tetro Kornbluth
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« Reply #79 on: October 29, 2007, 08:46:16 AM »

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Perhaps it's only a communitariat thing. But I notice this in Irish society and not just in Irish society but in Western society aswell (but as this thread is dealing solely with Ireland...). Alot of what is defined as modern "liberalism" seems to be dominated by a nasty streak of self-hatred and while alot of what is "Conservatism" is anti-intellectual. (See Fianna Fail, The Republicans, etc.)

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Oh no doubt about that, I'm showing it's not in the nature of a newspaper to do so. Which is the problem. Are you familiar with "The Medium is the Message" (Which is kind of central to my thesis here)?

(I'm not bothered to write out a whole Thesis here plus I suck at explaining such ideas, I leave this up to wiki whose article is actually fairly good: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Medium_is_the_Message. Each Medium has a certain nature, not just Oral or Visual or Typographic but there is certain things one can do with certain mediums that are just not feasible with others (for various reasons) and within certain periods one Medium tends to be more dominate over the other to give an example for where I stole this thesis in the 1850s the Lincoln-Douglas Debates on slavery lasted seven hours consisting of only three speeches (Proposition-Opposition and Prop Rebuttal) by the two politicians, yet it was quite clear from the records that these were widely tended events from across the population. Imagine doing a seven hour debate on Television? Or on the Internet; which is replacing TV as the "dominant" technology? Nah. Attention Span is one thing, meaning that each seperate medium is part of our enviorment and shapes the way we think, etc.)

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Well quite alot of things actually an average sized book is likely to contain much more information than a TV show of average length. Plus with Television there is a need to "enforce" imagination by choosing actors, sets, etc while in the book it would all be on the printed page. This may seem irrelevant at first, but given that one is surrounded by mediums all the time and
that there is always a tendenancy to preference even very young; (A Child watches how much ads by the time they turn 18? In the hundreds of Thousands iirc) which can influence on how   
you think
. A book and a TV show have such inbuilt assumptions in them which even if you don't accept what is in front of you as "fact" can clearly warp you perception on a historical event.

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Exactly. But I don't see why is this particularly a good thing. (Not that it is bad either; just a
value of "society".)

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Oh, now? Of course very few people blame the Brits now, much more fashionable is the Roman Catholic Church or De Valera or whatever. When I mentioned the Brits I merely referring to about 50 years old pre-Troubles, such as the Euphoria of Nationalism which engulfed in Ireland in 1966 50 years after 1916 with all that rhetoric which would be impossible now. But that doesn't mean we have matured, just shifted to a different side of the same cube.

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Oh no doubt that we may be heading into slightly dangerous waters (though I doubt it will be as bad as the 1980s. At the very worst, the early 70s) I referring to the reaction of certain commentators towards the possibility, both "Conservative" or "Liberal" who seem to can't wait for it to get started and try to portray the possibilities as in a dramatic and over-the-top way as possible. (As our Melodrama-disguised-as-Politics show "Prime Time" shows.)

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See Above.

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In other words, they feel it is abstract from their lives and bears no relation to the "real world" but is rather a media event. Which of course is why so little change is going to be forthcoming, even reluctant acceptance of "reality" will mean "reality" is accepted and so on.

Interesting to note though that voting has gone down since the Economic boom while there are some obvious reasons for this (The Tribunal relevations being one of them) it's quite curious to note that people seemingly had more faith in politicians in the 1980s when Turnout was above 80% and emigration for many may have felt that high.

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A country is an abstract idea which becomes a reality through its laws, its borders, its government, etc. When you grow up one of the first indicators of identity you have in the Modern world is your nationality; I think I learned that I was Irish when I was two, this may seem normal but is only a relatively recent invention dating back to the Enlightment. (And In Ireland's case, the National Revival movement of the 19th Century) So in order to adapt to being "Irish" you sub(?)conciousnessly adopt some notions of Irish which may pick up, of course it's hardly the only personal influence but there are notions of "Irishness" out there and even though we may not be aware of them it effects our identity at some level or another. One can't really be a 'united' nation without some kind of unifying culture, which is why a United Ireland was a true impossibility in the 1920s (or at least a peaceful one) but more likely now, though still a long bit away.
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Tetro Kornbluth
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« Reply #80 on: October 29, 2007, 08:50:24 AM »

FTR, I'm enjoying this fireside chat Smiley

Cool. Nice to see an intruder. Smiley
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Jas
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« Reply #81 on: October 29, 2007, 09:03:54 AM »

FTR, I'm enjoying this fireside chat Smiley

Feel free to join in. Smiley
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afleitch
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« Reply #82 on: October 29, 2007, 11:09:42 AM »

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I wouldn't say liberals (of the US type, not the classical liberal type) are self-hating. They are self gratifying; seeking to soothe their conscience through idealistic posturing rather than seek a rational solution. The 'intellectual' liberal left are effective at closing down debate and then indulging itself on a self-defeating, post-communist, anti-American and anti-western ideological binge in which they would rather wallow in cultural relativism and false equivalencies than tackle the reality of society around them (not that it ever is 'around' them; they themselves are literally distant from the problems they claim to understand and the people they claim to represent)

Alot of conservatives hate intellectualism (or arguments grounded in it) because they see the intellectuals as liberals! Theres a mutual distrust. However it runs much deeper than that. Conservative opposition to gay adoption for example is based non on a 'just cause' but a 'just 'cos' rationale. There's nothing out there, at least put out there by great men of their field to suggest there is anything positive or negative (or, better 'beneficial' or 'unbeneficial' about it. But those great men are in themselves 'intellectuals' and not to be trusted (even if they are the only people who know what the hell they are talking about) - so conservatives can often retreat into populist territory. Of course many don't and increasingly more chose not to which is only a bonus.


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From a small 'n' Scottish nationalist looking in, historically 'anti-British' feeling blinded succesive governments for a good forty years, which is unfortunate as things weren't that bad to begin with. You were not an emerging third world nation with white majority rule, you didn't live under the Raj, you had full representation within the Commons and were treated pretty much the same as any other Home Nation.

My papa, my mothers father was of Irish immigrant stock and he would be the first to never make us forget that. But he also fought in WW2 and he could never quite forgive 'The Emergency'; the indifference (verging on the unsympathetic) response by the Irish government during WW2. You were, technically, still a Dominion but unlike distant countries like Canada, Australia, New Zealand who had nothing to gain and everything to loose, rather that 'small nations like Ireland do not and cannot assume a role as defenders of just causes except their own...existence of our own people comes before all other considerations.' What utter sh-t Smiley Of course I am aware that there were internal divisions and opposing sides (again) in WW2, two opposing foreign batallions Spanish Civil War and the 40,000 Irish who joined British batallions etc. It's certainly not a charge against the people, but against the government. Thankfully times have moved on and the occasional 'whitewash' over that era in history has been rightfully scrubbed off.


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And it's language, skin colour, religion etc if we want to discrad poltiical correctness and be completely honest. :/

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What is ironic is that, politically the last time Ireland was united was under British Rule/Part of the United Kingdom.
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Tetro Kornbluth
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« Reply #83 on: October 29, 2007, 01:21:40 PM »

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Some of what you say is true; though I guess it depends on how you define "liberalism" and "Conservatism" as those words seem to shift meaning every decade or so. (Margaret Thatcher would probably have been in the Liberal party; if she lived in the 19th Century.) I would say no doubt since Reagan though in the United States what has become known as Conservatism has a very, very strong Anti-Intellectual streak, as does most forms of conservatism as it is it's desire to maintain the "Status Quo".

For Example two of the last four American presidents were men who appeared to be of very unsound mind, Bush and Reagan both Conservatives (If you accept that it was all an act; then it was a very popular and effective act. What does that mean?) as they described themselves both played towards certain soundbites like "Family Values" or "With us or against us" and of course draconian civil liberty legislation like the PATRIOT Act all these things show what I mean   
by "Anti-Intellectualism":
1) Bush and Reagan both elected in part because they played to a prejudice against "Elitist Liberals" - usually College educated people who did not speak in the accent of Ordinary folks, they played characters as if out films, actually one of them was an actor, their entire persona was based on Television, which is by defintion a non-Intellectual medium (not that I think Television is bad; I'm just stating what it is) They portrayed themselves as against the "Elite" being liberals who "hated America", by playing this up they were attracted the Anti-intellectual vote and help spread that ideology across America. Hell alot of modern day Republican values are based on such a thing. (Creationism, anyone?)

2) These men then defined the language by soundbites to attack any who disagreed; so If I oppose Bush "I hate America", if I believe in Gay Marriage "I am part of the Homosexual agenda" and so on. In a way conservatives are winning the "Culture war" in that they defining the language of debate in many quarters (though I still find it hard to believe that anyone can say "Homosexual agenda" without laughing) of the country; what's happened though is that "liberals" are winning the war of ideas to the future leaders of the country by their own language, "Human Rights", "Freedom", "Equality", etc.

As for the "Liberals" it again depends on how you use that word; here I define it as how "liberal" is often used in media circles even though I admit I define myself as "Liberal" (Personally I think we need new words). Alot of this self-hate is described was based around enviormentalism which is often a neo-puritianism rather than Race issues; though I admit it may be prelevant there it's not something I pay much attention to. A core of Enviormental movement's core ideology (That is how the Enviormental movement wants to be seen; not the idea of Global warming itself) is:
1) Due to the evil corrupt forces of (always) 'Western' man (this is often disguised as "Capitalism") the earth is being raped and destroyed.
2) Therefore we must forego our traditional culture and we deserve it for our evil ways (again "Capitalism" or "Imperialism")
3) Often then there is a proviso about how other "civilisations" lived in harmony with nature - none of them 'western' o\c, but were destroyed by the evil forces of western man (Often embodied by "The Corporations".)

This is then often then put under a cloud of "intellectualism" which tries to justify this prejudice; but often comes across being smug and self-gratifying, as you say.

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We gave some very under-the-counter support to the Allies. Despite De Valera signing Hitler's condolences book.

Btw, we were not a dominion in 1939 - we lost dominion status in 1937 - we were still a member of the Commonwealth but in reality a Republic in all but name.

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No, only if people 'defining' the nation and the National "quality" decide those are important. But often that's the case. For the past 60 years in Britain there has been a move away from what "Britishness" is partly due to "Multiculturalism". Of course the problem of Multiculturalism is that it can't be seen as a one way process.

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Ireland's never been United under "native" rule, unless you count the Rule of high king Brian Boru (1002-1014); but he was really more of a weak Feudal type monarch in an island with no sense of central authority; that idea came from the British.
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« Reply #84 on: October 29, 2007, 04:08:29 PM »

FTR, I'm enjoying this fireside chat Smiley

OMG I'm an intruder.
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« Reply #85 on: October 29, 2007, 04:27:08 PM »

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Oh no doubt about that, I'm showing it's not in the nature of a newspaper to do so. Which is the problem. Are you familiar with "The Medium is the Message" (Which is kind of central to my thesis here)?

(I'm not bothered to write out a whole Thesis here plus I suck at explaining such ideas, I leave this up to wiki whose article is actually fairly good: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Medium_is_the_Message. Each Medium has a certain nature, not just Oral or Visual or Typographic but there is certain things one can do with certain mediums that are just not feasible with others (for various reasons) and within certain periods one Medium tends to be more dominate over the other to give an example for where I stole this thesis in the 1850s the Lincoln-Douglas Debates on slavery lasted seven hours consisting of only three speeches (Proposition-Opposition and Prop Rebuttal) by the two politicians, yet it was quite clear from the records that these were widely tended events from across the population. Imagine doing a seven hour debate on Television? Or on the Internet; which is replacing TV as the "dominant" technology? Nah. Attention Span is one thing, meaning that each seperate medium is part of our enviorment and shapes the way we think, etc.)

While all that may be true, I don't think that this offers any truth to the idea than any particular medium is any better than any other.

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Well quite alot of things actually an average sized book is likely to contain much more information than a TV show of average length.

Not necessarily. But even if it this is true, that's no guide to quality; nor to which communicates more effectively. I think that the author/producer is more important than the medium.

Plus with Television there is a need to "enforce" imagination by choosing actors, sets, etc while in the book it would all be on the printed page.

I don't grant the premise that in a book all the information is on the page - nor do I feel that the use of 'enforced imagination' on TV/through visual media is necessarily a bad thing.

This may seem irrelevant at first, but given that one is surrounded by mediums all the time and that there is always a tendenancy to preference even very young; (A Child watches how much ads by the time they turn 18? In the hundreds of Thousands iirc) which can influence on how you think. A book and a TV show have such inbuilt assumptions in them which even if you don't accept what is in front of you as "fact" can clearly warp you perception on a historical event.

Example?

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In other words, they feel it is abstract from their lives and bears no relation to the "real world" but is rather a media event. Which of course is why so little change is going to be forthcoming, even reluctant acceptance of "reality" will mean "reality" is accepted and so on.

Interesting to note though that voting has gone down since the Economic boom while there are some obvious reasons for this (The Tribunal relevations being one of them) it's quite curious to note that people seemingly had more faith in politicians in the 1980s when Turnout was above 80% and emigration for many may have felt that high.

I disagree with your reasoning on turnout - I think it has more to do with general economic conditions than confidence or otherwise in the political class. At the lowest common denominator of my view here: when times are bad, people turn out for change, when times are good, people don't care.

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A country is an abstract idea which becomes a reality through its laws, its borders, its government, etc. When you grow up one of the first indicators of identity you have in the Modern world is your nationality; I think I learned that I was Irish when I was two, this may seem normal but is only a relatively recent invention dating back to the Enlightment. (And In Ireland's case, the National Revival movement of the 19th Century) So in order to adapt to being "Irish" you sub(?)conciousnessly adopt some notions of Irish which may pick up, of course it's hardly the only personal influence but there are notions of "Irishness" out there and even though we may not be aware of them it effects our identity at some level or another. One can't really be a 'united' nation without some kind of unifying culture, which is why a United Ireland was a true impossibility in the 1920s (or at least a peaceful one) but more likely now, though still a long bit away.

I'd never considered before when I first thought of myself as Irish - frankly I've no idea when this idea first became apparant to me. And on thinking about it now, I have no idea what it means to be Irish.
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« Reply #86 on: October 29, 2007, 04:49:45 PM »

Of course very few people blame the Brits now, much more fashionable is the Roman Catholic Church or De Valera or whatever. When I mentioned the Brits I merely referring to about 50 years old pre-Troubles, such as the Euphoria of Nationalism which engulfed in Ireland in 1966 50 years after 1916 with all that rhetoric which would be impossible now. But that doesn't mean we have matured, just shifted to a different side of the same cube.

From a small 'n' Scottish nationalist looking in, historically 'anti-British' feeling blinded succesive governments for a good forty years, which is unfortunate as things weren't that bad to begin with. You were not an emerging third world nation with white majority rule, you didn't live under the Raj, you had full representation within the Commons and were treated pretty much the same as any other Home Nation.

I would question whether or not had a famine of similar proportions occured elsewhere on these islands, that it would have been effectively ignored in Westminster.
In no other country of the Union had the vast proportion of the population been severely restricted in its civil and political rights to the same extent.

My papa, my mothers father was of Irish immigrant stock and he would be the first to never make us forget that. But he also fought in WW2 and he could never quite forgive 'The Emergency'; the indifference (verging on the unsympathetic) response by the Irish government during WW2. You were, technically, still a Dominion but unlike distant countries like Canada, Australia, New Zealand who had nothing to gain and everything to loose, rather that 'small nations like Ireland do not and cannot assume a role as defenders of just causes except their own...existence of our own people comes before all other considerations.' What utter sh-t Smiley Of course I am aware that there were internal divisions and opposing sides (again) in WW2, two opposing foreign batallions Spanish Civil War and the 40,000 Irish who joined British batallions etc. It's certainly not a charge against the people, but against the government. Thankfully times have moved on and the occasional 'whitewash' over that era in history has been rightfully scrubbed off.

Most of the membership of the then Irish government had actually fought the forces of Britain only a few years previously. They had also fought in a civil war because of the conditions imposed by Britain in the Treaty negotiations. Also, Ireland was also just emerging from a very serious and debilitating tariff war with Britain.

Involving our minute armed forces (some 14,000) would have made absolutely no difference to the war effort and the people of Ireland would have suffered terribly from German bombings. As it was the signing up of some 40,000 citizens to the British army and the significant emigration to bulk up the British work force was much more beneficial to both Ireland and Britain than actually signing up to the Allies ever could have been.

Going to war against Germany, on the side of Britain, because of the invasion of Poland really didn't make sense at the time.
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Tetro Kornbluth
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« Reply #87 on: October 29, 2007, 04:54:18 PM »

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Better? No. But some mediums are better at conveying different things than others; you can't make an abstract arguement over Television and if you watching two guys arguing abstractly isn't very "Televisual".

Look at TV news; most of the imagery shown on TV news is when you come down to it, meaningless - only vaguely related to what they are talking about. But it is there because no-one will see two newsreaders just talk to the screen for 25 minutes.

Plus here it should be pointed out the nature of Television tends to need biggish budgets to produce programs, so needs to dominated by financial interests or the Goverment. The same can't be said of book reading; though it's increasingly becoming true of the publishing industry.

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Somewhat; the medium shapes the world which the producer\director\author is limited to. Obviously who's in creative charge matters and for that matter, whether the 'content' is profitable is also important. Sadly.

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I never said it was. (Though it may be if children are over-exposed; but the psychological evidence is inconclusive iirc. I have to ask; why do Children TV-violence so attractive? why are most video games violent? etc. There are reasons for this; something innate in human nature perhaps (that great cop out arguement) or perhaps it is something "programmed" into it. Since the invention of film pretty much continously the "barrier" has been moved, though Hollywood tried to retard it for a while (due to the influence of Ultra-Catholic groups AAMOF until the 1960s) does suggest the need for sensation to increase profit, or what? God knows; I'm just putting ideas out. Most of them probably wrong.)

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Put a three years old in front of a TV show for children (like Balamory or something) and there's your example.

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There is some element of that; but it doesn't explain everything - why for example are turnouts for referenda lower than they were nor is this is a particularly historical trend - In most European countries (and America) that I think off the turnout has being going down over the past 20 years almost in a straight line and that's nothing to do with the nation's economic performance.

I suggest the distance between Irish Politicans and the "People" is greater than it was before; though obviously alot greater than in most countries. This is contributing to the lower turnouts, that and the other factors we've mentioned.

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Beats me what it means. But to put things on a superficial level we both support Irish sports teams for example even though our personal connection with the team is very tenuous (non-existant in anything but the flag in most cases) so we must identify ourselves with "Irishness" on some level.
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« Reply #88 on: October 29, 2007, 05:07:41 PM »

Look at TV news; most of the imagery shown on TV news is when you come down to it, meaningless - only vaguely related to what they are talking about. But it is there because no-one will see two newsreaders just talk to the screen for 25 minutes.

Yes. But so what?

Plus here it should be pointed out the nature of Television tends to need biggish budgets to produce programs, so needs to dominated by financial interests or the Goverment. The same can't be said of book reading; though it's increasingly becoming true of the publishing industry.

Just about all forms of mass media are subject to financial considerations - whether that be with regard to production expenditure or profit expectations - so I don't really grant the premise that TV come off worse than Books for this reason.

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I never said it was. (Though it may be if children are over-exposed; but the psychological evidence is inconclusive iirc. I have to ask; why do Children TV-violence so attractive? why are most video games violent? etc. There are reasons for this; something innate in human nature perhaps (that great cop out arguement) or perhaps it is something "programmed" into it.

The TV and video games are simply responding to the aggression that seems to be widely inherent in young males. I don't think they created this aggression, merely they respond and cater to it (not that this is a good thing).

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Put a three years old in front of a TV show for children (like Balamory or something) and there's your example.

*laughs* well as someome who spent such formative years infront of Thomas the Tank Engine and whatnot, I might not be able to give an objective opinion on this. Smiley

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There is some element of that; but it doesn't explain everything - why for example are turnouts for referenda lower than they were nor is this is a particularly historical trend - In most European countries (and America) that I think off the turnout has being going down over the past 20 years almost in a straight line and that's nothing to do with the nation's economic performance.

I suggest the distance between Irish Politicans and the "People" is greater than it was before; though obviously alot greater than in most countries. This is contributing to the lower turnouts, that and the other factors we've mentioned.

I think I'll need to look at the turnout figures of the various referenda and elections before commenting further on this point.
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« Reply #89 on: October 29, 2007, 05:32:28 PM »

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Shows my comments that some mediums have "innate" natures which leads towards certain things above others. You are not going to see a 7 hour debate on the TV like the Lincoln-Douglas debates, no?

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The important word there is "mass". I wasn't neccesarily thinking of the "mass" really. But no objections there.

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Probably.

But then again it is a very human trait to see it's cultural attributes as being the "most human". For example we westerners don't eat insects; even though logically there is no reason we shouldn't (Actually some are nutrious) yet because of it this whenever we someone eat an insect on TV or in a book or etc it is meant to show they are "out of the boundaries" of society or in more recent times, for our own peculiar amusement (Reality TV: Could that concept even have been thought up in 1950? By Aldous Huxley maybe, but normal Television producers (if there any were at the time)?

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Ah yes and for me it was Christopher Crocodile. Actually I misread my own post; I was meant to show how Television can impact on how people think and how this can be most effective if put at a early age. And yet going back to what I said earlier about insects; and how these cultural prejudices are more effective when thought of as "human". (The Ancient Greeks thought themselves more human than non-Greeks; yet there are certain aspects of their society which we would not consider human in any way. Especially Spartan society.) So making an Objective judgement is probably impossible; in the way you can't make a judgement on how you learned not to eat insects.

Anyway to give the classical historical example, the spread of Printing and the Reformation, by creating books at a much faster rate then which was previously possible with written manuscripts it allowed a much closer study of the bible by scholars then was previously possible; this created a scenario where ideas could spread very quickly (by the standards of the Middle ages) and so once a "heretic" could get around to questioning the hierarchy the hierarchy could not react to suppress it as it had before to previous reformers like Jan Huss. This spread of ideas meant many people rethink their relationship with the Roman Catholic hierarchy. The form of this idea was the printed book; based generally on logical arguement (or at least books considered valid arguements) and the written word; which led to an interpitation not previously possible with only an elite class of Scribs and the Roman Catholic hierachy and it's papal bulls. The only reason the Reformation 'worked' in Germany, England, Scotland and not in most other countries was due to Political reasons.

In other words the book created new possibilities to criticize the world people were living in and by doing so created a scenario where in order for ideas to be taken seriously one needed to trained in the "book style" of thought) or for that matter, just to read ideas at all (and of course here we go into reading as purely a leisure pursuit) and then after generations we have a new way of thinking, which pretty much continued up until the 19th or 20th Century depending on which media ecologist you talk to.

People were trained to accept books from an early age and how to read them (Which is a much more difficult thing than it seems..) and thus needed to be intregrated into this way of thinking. The same is true now; except the mediums are so much different. Plus most modern (or postmodernist) literature isn't even written in the classical "book Style" with lineal narrative which leads from one thing to another (The phrase "I don't follow" comes to mean "I don't understand".) most of these books don't tell "stories" in the classical sense and this is mainly due to the influence of other media. Or in other words, What a 19th century book version of Family Guy look like?
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« Reply #90 on: November 02, 2007, 11:22:33 AM »

Sorry didn't reply sooner. Been really busy. Anyway...

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Shows my comments that some mediums have "innate" natures which leads towards certain things above others. You are not going to see a 7 hour debate on the TV like the Lincoln-Douglas debates, no?

True, but in this day and age, who would want to see a straight 7 hour debate either in person, on TV, or via any particular medium? The media respond to demand - if long political debates topped the ratings I've no doubt we'd see more of them.

In other words the book created new possibilities to criticize the world people were living in and by doing so created a scenario where in order for ideas to be taken seriously one needed to trained in the "book style" of thought) or for that matter, just to read ideas at all (and of course here we go into reading as purely a leisure pursuit) and then after generations we have a new way of thinking, which pretty much continued up until the 19th or 20th Century depending on which media ecologist you talk to.

People were trained to accept books from an early age and how to read them (Which is a much more difficult thing than it seems..) and thus needed to be intregrated into this way of thinking. The same is true now; except the mediums are so much different. Plus most modern (or postmodernist) literature isn't even written in the classical "book Style" with lineal narrative which leads from one thing to another (The phrase "I don't follow" comes to mean "I don't understand".) most of these books don't tell "stories" in the classical sense and this is mainly due to the influence of other media. Or in other words, What a 19th century book version of Family Guy look like?

I follow what you're saying about media modes influencing how we perceive the world around us, and I think it has some validity. But what of it? Particularly in this age when we have more choice than ever over the form of media with which we choose to engage with.
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« Reply #91 on: November 02, 2007, 11:39:42 AM »

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Been the Opposite. Hah.

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Exactly. The point is that the idea of a 7 hour political debate has grown absurd due to the nature of the media around us - back in the 19th Century the most advanced form of media was 'print' (or might have been telegraphy by that point, Unsure on exactly date. Even if it was, it wasn't advanced enough at this stage to make too big a difference.) and if you look at most 19th Century novels they tend to be alot bigger than today's, with a lineal (or near-lineal) narrative and with a use of language which now often tends to strike us moderns as ponderous (even in the "penny dreadfuls") this was due to the nature of the medium and society at the time where there was often alot of free time, at least for those with a high level of education and with far less distractions than today so of course book reading became the media of choice and in order to fill time long plots were necessary, the use of lineal narrative shows how these people had a sense of order in the universe with one event following the other and the language gives an insight on how well read most of these readers would have been (remember, I'm talking mainly about the Upper classes here.)

So it should no surprise that very long forms of debate took off, the nature of book reading at the time lead to a very different state of mind (sometimes simply known as "Attention Span" but it's more than that) which made the idea of a seven hour long debate not uncommon. The Episodic nature of television (especially in a free market enviornment), the fractured and anonymous nature of the Internet, the Impersonality of most modern Music medium (let's not forget up until the 30s iirc in order to hear music at all you pretty much needed to go to the performers.) leads to a great different form of how the human mind processes information.

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Ah, a good question. And an answer I'm too sure of tbh. I think I used this show how to society can be 'controlled' so to speak by conditions which go outside the very nature of politics. This is a tendency among many people especially polly junkies like us to see society's affairs being mainly dominated by decisions politicians do or don't make; this is probably down to the way history is taught in schools as focused mainly political events. In reality I tend to see Politicans as the servants of the wider society; whose shape is partially dominated by media (Would Bertie Ahern have been elected to Anything in the 19th Century; after all most of his appeal seems to come from "ordinary North Dublin man - ness" something could not have been communicated back then at all. The same is actually true of George W Bush or Ronald Reagan in America. Could imagine those three in a serious seven hour debate?)
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« Reply #92 on: November 02, 2007, 11:44:54 AM »

The Irish Times published their first post-election poll in today's edition. As usual tnsMRBI, the pollster. tnsMRBI were by far the most accurate of the polling companies prior to the election. The poll was conducted on Monday and Tuesday, sample 1000, MoE 3%.

Further issues since those mentioned at the last poll:
  • Massive pay rise put through for senior civil servants and politicians - Bertie Ahern now earns (IIRC) twice what Gordon Brown does
  • House prices fall for the 7th month in a row
  • Legal recognition of same-sex couples makes Dáil agenda
  • Controversy over 2 solicitors who defrauded clients and banks out of obscene sums of money emerged


I've included the last tnsMRBI poll (which was before the election); the Election result; and the last poll (SBP/RedC, last week) so thee can contrast and compare as thee liketh...

21 May24 May28 Sept2 Nov
tnsMRBIElectionRedCtnsMRBI
Fianna Fáil4141.63933
Fine Gael2727.32731
Labour1010.11015
Green64.775
Sinn Féin96.987
PD22.722
Other76.677

Just like 5 years ago, tnsMRBI measure FF taking a big hit post-election. Last time it took just about 4 years for them to recover. FG and Labour register very well. Greens take a slight hit. PDs still showing only vague signs of life.

Noticably, Bertie has taken a big rate to his satisfaction rating. Brian Cowen (Tánaiste, Min. for Finance, FF, Laois-Offaly) rated for the first time rated higher.
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« Reply #93 on: November 02, 2007, 11:47:54 AM »

That poll is not surprising. That 9% FF has lost were the people who swung towards them heavily on election day, the previous undecideds. Also unsurprising is that Green support has fallen quite a bit in Dublin but is compensated by a rise in the rest of the country.

Of course doing a poll now is totally pointless, unless on the unlikely event that John Gormley will decide to pull out (which he won't). Also I wonder if those results were ever to repeated whether Fine Gael would end up being the largest party?
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« Reply #94 on: November 02, 2007, 12:00:12 PM »


The good people at NUIM are clearly now cracking the whips hard enough!

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Ah, a good question. And an answer I'm too sure of tbh. I think I used this show how to society can be 'controlled' so to speak by conditions which go outside the very nature of politics.

Ah, but I don't really agree that the media controls society. I think that society controls the media moreso than vice versa.

This is a tendency among many people especially polly junkies like us to see society's affairs being mainly dominated by decisions politicians do or don't make; this is probably down to the way history is taught in schools as focused mainly political events. In reality I tend to see Politicans as the servants of the wider society; whose shape is partially dominated by media

I tend to think that the decision making process isn't as linear as media influences society influences politican or some other permutation thereof. I think it's more fluid than that with each element influencing every other one.

(Would Bertie Ahern have been elected to Anything in the 19th Century; after all most of his appeal seems to come from "ordinary North Dublin man - ness" something could not have been communicated back then at all.

Well, in the early 19th century, Berite wouldn't have been elected for reasons of limited franchise extension. And in th latter half, all that would matter would have been getting the right nomination - communicating with the ordinary man wouldn't have mattered a great deal.

The same is actually true of George W Bush or Ronald Reagan in America. Could imagine those three in a serious seven hour debate?)

No, but then I can't imagine anyone in a 7 hour debate. Frankly, i'd consider it a rather inneffective form. If it takes 7 hours to clarify the divergent positions then there has been a breakdown somewhere.
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« Reply #95 on: November 02, 2007, 12:06:54 PM »

That poll is not surprising. That 9% FF has lost were the people who swung towards them heavily on election day, the previous undecideds. Also unsurprising is that Green support has fallen quite a bit in Dublin but is compensated by a rise in the rest of the country.

Not surprising that they're down, but 9% is an awful lot. And given that not much has changed in the alternative, it's quite a shift.

Of course doing a poll now is totally pointless, unless on the unlikely event that John Gormley will decide to pull out (which he won't). Also I wonder if those results were ever to repeated whether Fine Gael would end up being the largest party?

Yes, probably. With Labour's vote up almost 50% and presuming similar to normal FG-Lab transfering and vice versa, FG should overtake FF, Labour should top even 1992 and the two together should be close to 100 TDs.
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« Reply #96 on: November 02, 2007, 12:17:10 PM »

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Nah, this is doing f' all reading week.

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It's really both. A sort of reproductive process. The media shapes the people (as children) who will eventually shape the media

Aswell as being reproductive it also tends to be a static one, at least in a television society (which is still the main media in Ireland; certainly of those over a certain age. That and Newspapers) as demand is shaped by people's perceptions, individual culture, etc while perceptions and individual culture are often shaped by this demand (in the media).

Now here of course I'm not saying that Mediums that the only process driving change in society; but in this society Individuals are less likely to have an impact on it by themselves as Television requires a 'mass'. Though with the rest of the Internet this will be changing. (Though probably fracturing; but it's really still too early to really judge.)

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Of course not. See above. Especially now that our politicians are probably the first generation of those you have known the medium of TV pretty much all their lives.

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Now you are just being pedantic.

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From the Lincoln-Douglas record it would (surprisingly enough) need the participants to have major skills in rhetoric and arguement but also significant knowledge of the debate and the facts (And the history of the issue would be very important in the Slavery debate) in itself, what we now is an exchange of vapid soundbites not actual knowledge. Which obviously harms democracy.
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« Reply #97 on: November 02, 2007, 12:30:00 PM »

As I was bored I decided to use a uniform swing to see what would happen in Dublin south (which hopefully will have nothing to do with by 2012) by those results using 2007 as a basis and amusing the same candidates:

FF 32.6
FG 31
LAB 15.3
GP 11.4
PD 5.9
SF 3.1
OTH 0.7

A couple of things are note, Liz O'Donnell (PD) has retired from politics and won't be candidate at the next election. With that unless Fiona O'Malley decides to run probably finishes off PD chances here (in a constituency where if they functioned at all they would have at least one seat) - where those votes would go to is hard to tell actually as there is a tendenancy for whenever the PD to do well for FG to do badly so there is a clearly of correlation of sorts. There are also rumours that Seamus Brennan will be retiring in 2012 and that would take a good amount off the FF vote. In order for FF to get two seats in this scenario they would need O'Donell Votes and Green transfers. Which would be interesting to note.

But still early, early days.
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« Reply #98 on: November 02, 2007, 12:31:59 PM »

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It's really both. A sort of reproductive process. The media shapes the people (as children) who will eventually shape the media

Aswell as being reproductive it also tends to be a static one, at least in a television society (which is still the main media in Ireland; certainly of those over a certain age. That and Newspapers) as demand is shaped by people's perceptions, individual culture, etc while perceptions and individual culture are often shaped by this demand (in the media).

Now here of course I'm not saying that Mediums that the only process driving change in society; but in this society Individuals are less likely to have an impact on it by themselves as Television requires a 'mass'. Though with the rest of the Internet this will be changing. (Though probably fracturing; but it's really still too early to really judge.)

Surely the ongoing (and indeed past) changes in media is evidence that it is undergoing a constant process of change and experimentation.

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Of course not. See above. Especially now that our politicians are probably the first generation of those you have known the medium of TV pretty much all their lives.

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Now you are just being pedantic.

Welcome to the Atlas Forum Wink

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From the Lincoln-Douglas record it would (surprisingly enough) need the participants to have major skills in rhetoric and arguement but also significant knowledge of the debate and the facts (And the history of the issue would be very important in the Slavery debate) in itself, what we now is an exchange of vapid soundbites not actual knowledge. Which obviously harms democracy.

Well, how harmful it is depends on how you define democracy. Obviously under your earlier expressed conception this is very true.

Again though, if the people want high level and informed political debate, I'm sure they'd get it - in that sense I do belive the media can be very democratic.
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« Reply #99 on: November 02, 2007, 12:35:58 PM »

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Sort of. But you make it out to be some sort of concious decision making rather than something which actually shapes how people think and thus how they make decisions.

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Oh no doubt. I'm just trying to explain why they don't.
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