Words and worship

A brief note here on a topic that’s been in the news lately – namely, the news. Or, more specifically, the so-called ‘legacy media’ such as national newspapers and television. And, alongside that, declining literacy and book-reading, which is obviously of great personal concern to me as the author of a recently published book, as well as a watcher of historical change. Also, religion.

Let me explain.

Benedict Anderson’s book Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism (1983) is a touchstone work on, well, nationalism, that religion of modern times. One of his arguments is that literate publics reading national newspapers, of the kind that emerged in the nineteenth century, helped to create a shared sense of purpose and joint understanding, forging a national community out of people who had no ‘real’ community with each other of the face-to-face sort. Later, national television stations served the same function. These, along with sacred sites of the political centre (like the tomb of the unknown soldier, the Capitol or the White House) help generate the nation as a collective entity. It’s not necessary for citizens to agree with everything they encounter in the media, or to like incumbent governments. But it probably is necessary for these media and symbols of rule to set the terms, to largely define the universe of community narrative for most people, if nation-states of the modern form are to endure.

If that’s so, then various recent events suggest the nation-state’s days may be numbered. If we take the case of the USA, the President’s lawsuit against the venerable New York Times doesn’t bode well. Presidents and newspapers of record need to be jointly defining the political universe, not locked in multi-billion-dollar battles. Keener students of US history than me might correct me if this is wrong, but as I understand it the last president or would-be president who sued a newspaper was Theodore Roosevelt’s case against Michigan’s The Iron Ore in 1913. Apparently he won, receiving six cents.

Meanwhile, I read somewhere on Substack (I read quite a bit of stuff on Substack) that the legacy media is commanding less and less of people’s attention compared to platforms like, er, Substack (see?) The context of the piece was the kerfuffle a few weeks ago about Jimmy Kimmel’s ABC show being pulled after his remarks about the Charlie Kirk murder (sorry, I can’t find the ...