Individualism, Collectivism, and News

by Gerard Emershaw

Bill Maher, host of HBO's “Real Time,” recently ranted about how the individualized nature of the internet and of modern culture in general has caused Americans to lose their sense of commonality. According to Maher, “as a culture, we don't have enough in common anymore.” Maher explains:

And that's because the Internet, which was supposed to unite the world, has become too adept at serving us personalized content. Do you know what I saw on Yahoo's front page this morning? No, you don't, because mine isn't the same as yours. People get news feed now that just spit back customized stories based on what we've clicked on in the past. So I for example, might see a lot of stories about -- pot, American history and, of course, Christian mingle. Whereas Ted Nugent just gets ads for Prozac and bullets.

Maher goes on to attack a new Facebook app called 'Paper,' which is a personalized online paper:

And boy, does it make you stupider. 'Paper' tracks the news you're interested in and gives you more of that and less of everything else, never burdening you with contradictory information or telling you anything new. That's what makes it 'news.' But only seeing the stuff that already confirms the opinions you already have isn't news—it's Fox News. The reason so many Americans, for example, think climate change is a hoax is that their only source for science news is Glenn Beck, Fox and Matt Drudge, the cracker trifecta.

Newspapers may be old-fashioned, but here's what we're losing if you never see one; they are trying to tell you what's actually important, not just what's important to you. You may not read the whole paper but you at least see headlines, making you aware that something's going on outside of your micro-targeted world of fashion or music or wiccans or zombies or whatever you're in to.

Maher, the progressive firebrand, demonstrates the typical collectivist notion that human beings are not capable of making important decisions on their own. Not the masses at least. Elites like Bill Maher are perfectly capable of determining on their own what is important. Presumably Bill Maher believes that he is capable of deciding what news stories are important to cover on “Real Time.” What makes him so special? Why can he decide yet the vast majority of his fellow Americans are stupid and need a newspaper owned by some mainstream corporatist entity—presumably a progressive newspaper such as The New York Times.

It is obvious that Maher believes that the stupid American masses—especially stupid Americans who dare think for themselves rather than accept progressive dogmas—must be spoon-fed what he perceives to be “the truth.” His climate change example is instructive here. Despite evidence that climate change is debatable at best and dubious at worst, Maher insists that all Americans should be indoctrinated with climate change hysteria.

If the individual is not capable of deciding how he or she wishes to have news content customized, then who should decide? What makes Maher qualified to decide instead of Beck, Drudge, or Fox? But really, what makes any of them qualified to make such a decision?

The individual is the best judge of what news content he or she wishes to read. In some cases this may lead to a biased diet of news content and opinion that narrowly fits one's political leanings. However, human beings possess a natural right to liberty, and this means that there is a right to be narrow-minded.

The loss of commonality in American culture is not due to the internet providing the opportunity for individualized news or entertainment. Such customization should lead to a greater richness in which individuals have a greater diversity to share with others. The true division in contemporary American society is due to the elites who control special interests—political parties, corporations, unions, PACs, etc.—attempting to divide and conquer the American public. Such entities can only gain power over the people if the people are brainwashed into believing their preferred dogmas. Rival collectivist entities set the American people against each other, creating division. The mainstream collectivist powers that be would prefer that they were the only players in the news arena. Alternative news sources threaten the typical collectivist right-left paradigm and threaten to break the stranglehold that these mainstream sources and their corporatist puppet masters have over what is perceived as “reality.”