Vignettes

I think one would be hard-pressed to find a single government that hasn’t, at least at some time, tried to influence public opinion. It might even be an unavoidable aspect of statecraft, or even  its very core, but the manner in which it’s exercised these days bothers me  nonetheless. Especially after coming across the British website Fake Charities, that monitors state-sponsored charities and… non-governmental organizations, and living in a country that is bombarded with propaganda from a multitude of official bodies ministries, public NGOs, charities covering almost every imaginable aspect of life — from health issues (tobacco, alcohol, fats, sugar…), private consumption (climate-friendly, environmentally-friendly), personal and moral issues (stress, domestic violence, prostitution) to politics –with helpful suggestions, information and admonitions.

Do we really need this? Are we adults?

Information campaigns are just about any politician’s favorite tool. Our country is obsessed with public opinion (or a civilization?), so it’s only natural that journalists obsess with surveys and politicians call for information campaigns, but it’s also rather strange in that it reflects a very lmost convoluted concept of our res publica*, where participants in the public debate — citizens — discuss what citizens think and ought to think, while pretending to be outside of the system itself.

Punditry & Self-Awareness
While social sciences have, to some degree, abandoned the idea of a neutral vantage point, some sort of ideological perch from which the disaffected researcher could gaze  upon the body politic, this stance is affected by pundits and commentators every week, if not every night, as they explain, contextualize and pontificate on the political process. In turn, politicians exist in their own sphere of existence where they attempt to communicate their stances in a mock-oblivious (“Oh I never the read the polls…” / “Well, [X commentator]‘s opinions are really his own..), yet intensely self-aware way. It’s sort of like trying to speak clearly and coherently while hearing your own echo with a delay. It’s a constant flow of feedback, which makes for circumspect politics. It’s strange to watch. I’m sure it isn’t new, but with 24 hour news flow, focus groups and the eternal need to present a certain persona, it’s striking.

The Public Opinion of Public Opinion
This divide between Public Opinion, or The Public, and politicians, news media and the state, can be puzzling. Calls for public opinion on some issue to change, for instance. Since we have an intensely self-aware public debate, always introspective, we sometimes come across cases where politicians, elected by the people, are called by publically funded opinion-shapers to change the public opinion he’s supposed to reflect. A newspaper orders a poll on some issue, the public fails to live up to the standards of liberal propriety expected of it, and politicians spring into action calling for public opinion — even the majority opinion — to change. Or members of the general public will ask politicians to run an anti-smoking campaign for their own sake … (or not actually for their own sake; people who call for Action To Be Taken usually don’t mean themselves, “the common good” or “to protect Mrs. Jensen”,  disregarding the fact that their voice is one of the million voices of the general public pouring into YouTube-comments, letters to the editor, surveys ). It’s as if we’ve become so circumspect that we’re staring into our own backs, criticizing people who don’t look you in the eye, calling for a campaign.

I’d love some simpler politics. Where the State isn’t the prime motor in shaping public opinion, but where public opinion, exercised in referenda and through the election of politicians with actual policy proposals, shapes the actions of the state. In a democratic monarchy such as our own, public bodies shouldn’t spend the public’s money to convince people what opinions to have.

This summer, the Prime Minister’s Office  spent 5 mill. DKK (=671 000 EUR/ 1 mill. USD) on a campaign (based on this British sketch) promoting a constitutional amendment to abolish male-preference primogeniture in the royal family. It was a shameless propaganda campaign, and I’m surprised there’s been any backlash to it, since the government spends millions promoting gender equality and all sorts of other things with impunity — but a national campaign from the ministry telling the citizens how to vote in an upcoming referundum was crossing the line, I guess.

At least there is a line.

Today’s state propaganda is out of hand. If you can’t trust the citizen’s to have the right opinions, how can you allow them to vote?

To be honest, I’m divided on the matter. I have trouble imagining or even wanting a totally value-neutral state, and I can recognize that there is a case for public health information, or maybe for security-issues. But public information campaigns tend to reflect a kind of patronizing Nanny Statism that I think we’re better off without, even if it means sacrificing a 5% reduction in smoking.

[*By which I mean the various media fora in which various public actors interact through action and commentary, deciding, criticizing and evaluating policy and the state of affairs.]