Lies with Long Legs. Prodosh Aich

the public? Are they allowed to utter their opinion in public? And even if they were permitted to do so, could they express anything publicly, which would contradict the interests of their “masters”? And are there means to educate and to enlighten the “common people”? How does it happen? Through „media“? Who are the owners of „media“? Do these owners also have specific and particular interests? Do the „media“ publish everything? Are they able and willing to do that? Do they select items? According to which criteria? And so on, and so forth.

      There seem to be endless questions. In practice, we have detected that there are many different kinds of questions. In theory we all know about that. And in practice we have learnt to identify questions that lead to knowledge and questions that distract from knowledge. An eye–opening practice indeed. We have learnt gradually to put precise questions. We have frequently consulted reference books, whenever the stock of our own memory was exhausted. Later we have started to wonder, how are reference books actually compiled? Who determines the catchwords? Are there also omissions? Why? According to which criteria? Does publisher want to earn money only? Does the publisher also have his own ideas about morality and values? Does he combine these with money making? How does he know that he has listed all important catchwords? How can he be sure? Whom does he call for consultations? Researchers? Scientists? Do they also have their own ideas about moral? Would there be reference books without scientists, without scholars? Are we back to the elite?

      For two reasons we have spent time on “reference sources”. Whenever we do not know something, we turn to references, get an answer and feel “informed”. We accept it. We are convinced. We do not have any alternatives. Very seldom do we ask: who has written down all that? From where and how do the authors of the texts obtain the information? Have their writings also been edited, revised, patched, shortened? Why is there more than one “source of reference”?

      The second reason is even more serious. Since when had there been demands for references? How did it develop? Do “reference sources” also exclude some keywords? Isn’t it that all media“ always have limited space for publication? Isn’t there that all important cost–benefit–ratio to consider? Are there other reasons also to exclude keywords and thereby also fields of knowledge? Was the first publisher of a “reference” conscious of the fact that he was also standardising the answers to key questions? Thus ultimately standardising them too? The exemplary battle against the “references” in the “internet” is quite tough. The publishers of the printed “references” accuse the “internet” publishers that they take short cuts and shorten explanations in order to compete. We are led to believe that these criticising publishers are more concerned about our knowledge than about their profits. Have they not fought exactly in the same manner to win the market? The “war” reports should not divert our minds from the consequences of standardisation by “reference sources”. Standardisation? Standardisation or exclusion of fields of knowledge?

      Who are the writers of sellable texts for the publishers? And where do they get their knowledge? Knowledge? Aren’t we back to the elite? What if they are wrong? If their sources were inadequate? If they are deliberately misleading us? What is going to happen with those excluded areas of knowledge? Is it not common knowledge that all sorts of short-lived stories are presented to us which then vanish into thin air in next to no time? The Germans may very well remember the gentlemen Kanther, Koch and Kohl and the many tricks of financing political parties in a “representative democracy” or we all may remember Viet Nam, Iraq, Somalia, and Kosovo. Don’t we hear daily from the political elite and other namesakes that they are constantly “occupying” topics and “selling” ideas to us? Are they ashamed of doing this, just a little bit? Do we have even the slightest indication, in spite of the growing number of “talk shows”, that the elite in any country, elite in any field, are inhibited while they talk of “selling” ideas? Is there anything today which can not be bought?

      No one will deny that after the invention of the script, after this first big leap in the area of communication, a lot of changes have taken place. There is diversity with a quantitative growth of „media“ on a high technological level. But do we also possess measuring or verification rods in order to judge, whether the variety and increased number of the „media“ do transport more „information“? Or do they deliver the same “information” in many different wrappings? We should all be able to recall also cases of “disinformation”, of misleading information, provided our memory has not been damaged already by the “freedoms” within the “information and media society”. We shall not embarrass Germans or Europeans reminding them of their illegal practices of financing political parties or of corruption. We shall not ask how often their top hundred-odd celebrities became victims of slips in their memory (black-outs) whenever their illegal activities were exposed and they were publicly asked to explain.

      We may not even discuss, for example, the reaction of Roman Herzog on television while holding the high office of President of the Federal Constitutional Court in Germany. As we may recall the public disclosure by the obnoxious right wing extremist Dr. Gerhard Frey, Chairman and Financier of the Neo–Nazi–Party (DVU) immediately after Professor Theodor Maunz, the most celebrated German expert in Constitutional Law, expired. Both had been clandestinely meeting every week to discuss the legal constitutional fights of DVU against the German democratic government. Roman Herzog told the reporter that he almost exploded on hearing the news. The reporter didn’t ask any further questions during that television report. Did the reporter know that Dr. Roman Herzog had been an academic assistant to the same Professor Theodor Maunz, already as a young senior law student and later became his colleague for many years? Did the reporter know that the most used commentary of the German “Grundgesetz” (Constitution) carries the names Maunz-Herzog as authors and that all constitutional experts in the Federal Republic of Germany still keep Theodor Maunz in high esteem? How many top „media“ people know that Theodor Maunz was also one of the most renowned constitutional experts in Adolf Hitler’s “Third Reich”? He contributed to the establishment of the primacy of the “Fuehrer–Prinzip” (principle of absolute leadership) overriding the Constitution. Despite all this, one of the top German reporters was content with that hypocritical reaction of Roman Herzog posing on television that he “was about to explode” on getting the news of Maunz meeting the Chairman and Financier of the Neo–Nazi–Party (DVU). Assuming that the reporter did not know much about the “Mr. Hyde” side of Dr. Maunz, shouldn’t he have at least enquired, tried to find out whether Roman Herzog was still fit to continue as the topmost Watchman of the Constitution, since he had miserably failed to detect the real political conviction of his mentor and colleague, Theodor Maunz, for so many years? Naturally no public pressure was put on Roman Herzog, the uppermost guardian and protector of the Constitution of the new German Republic. We won’t know whether there would have been public pressure against Herzog if all facts were made public. Anyway. Roman Herzog himself left this high office soon. Voluntarily. Only to become the President of the Federal Republic of Germany. No, we do not wish to raise all these issues. They are so out of date. Who would be interested in chronicles like these?

      But we have to raise a few more questions in the context of „might-media-manipulation“. What is the correlation between the expansion of „media“ and the progressive decrease of our memory? Should we overlook the monotony every morning, when we see the same kind of headlines in our dailies despite the diversification of media institutions? Can we just ignore the disappointment that more media did not lead to more detailed and varied information and news? Just accept it that all newspapers, magazines, the radio and television are fed by the same agencies, same sources? But then, if all “eaters” are cutting their share from the same cake – advertisement budgets or multinational corporations – where could any alternate programmers with a different and fresh line of thinking come from? Why would anyone risk veering away from the status quo in the media? No wonder that the “Guinness-principle” holds – more rapid, more thrilling, more entertaining and better in technical quality. All that counts is the ratio of consumers. Is there a demand for complicated historical background of events? Are such (hi)stories also entertaining? And, are we not addicted to entertainment? Entertainment does not need memory. Memory only burdens. Don’t we spend enough time already on our fight to overcome the travails and tedium of daily life?

      We