Book review: Philip Hammond Media, War and Postmodernity | London - 2007 |

Media, War and Postmodernity is an ambitious work in which Philip Hammond explores the link between rising numbers of military engagements overseas and the demise of social cohesion or clarity of purpose at home. In essence, the thesis is that the latter drive the former, but as a consequence fighting war - including the so-called global war on terror - has been turned into a shallow media spectacle, unable to address either the causes of conflict or to provide any redeeming sense of moral mission and direction.

Where Hammond's argument is at its most persuasive is when he is dealing with specific events, particularly his examination of the responses to 9/11. Here he shows how those who presumed those attacks might somehow restore belief in politics were both deluded and ultimately to be disappointed.

In fact, a sense of real life imitating art prevailed as the surreal, déja vu sensation of passively watching the Twin Towers collapsing on television was the dominant experience of the times. It is this feeling of inauthenticity - a disembodied attitude of incredulity towards events - that he defines as post-modern. For Hammond, as for many of the authors he cites, the cause of this was the gradual disengagement of ordinary people from the world of politics through a process of defeat and diminishment on the one hand and, more problematically for now, self-denial as to their role in and potential for shaping the world. Less encumbered by class conflict than at any time since it first emerged, the elite today are nevertheless unable to articulate a project for society. But power without purpose is meaningless and random, so politics has dissolved into an uninspiring management process, driven by image or emotion.

Exactly!! Yesterday's discussion with Professor in journalism Jeroen Smit, University of Amsterdam, made the same argument. A lack of vision or target on the horizon so more people understand where all the decisions, or lack thereof, leads to an ultimate goal in five, ten or fifteen years. Politicians have been immersed in too many crisis and have failed in solutions. Their answer lies in hiring more PR advisors to sell stupid plans to the public. Media have failed in their task to ask the tough questions, as they prefer to stay friendly with key politicians, afraid to be cut from future interviews or call in the Q&A press briefing.

Now that cabinet Rutte IV has tanked in the latest polls and protests are everywhere through the Netherlands, finally reporters and journalists are doing a 180 degrees and ride the wave of unrest. Stupidity all around, the younger generation lacking personal historical experience.

'Sapere aude'