Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night

Brian YS Wong October 31, 2024 22:40

“Do not go gentle into that good night.
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

One of my favourite poems of all time is Dylan Thomas’ “Do not go gentle into that good night.” Yet the reasons for my preference of it are perhaps more anodyne and peculiar than most – I enjoy the sound-scape of the poem: the way it mobilises monosyllabic or two-syllable words in emphatically imploring – or instructing – the intended audience (his father? Ageing elders trying to make their lives count? Politicians and poets? The public? Poets?) to carpet diem; the expressive deployment of repetition and rhymes to enunciate and underscore particular juxtapositions; the almost evocative appeal to “my father”, so intimate and so personable a phrase. These literary flourishes may be hard to spot, but they work in their subtle and miraculous ways, in conveying an ambiguous yet strong message: “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Whose light? Whose rage? And what, really, is precipitating the dying?

Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post, blocked his newspaper’s endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris for president. Since the news broke, a tidal wave of cancellations from long-standing subscribers, as well as resignations of columnists, has taken to the platform. The former amounted to over 8% of the paper’s paid circulation. Their complaint? That Bezos’ move effectively was complicit in the empowerment of fascism – a blatant failure to call out and oppose the egregious, heinous actions of Donald J Trump, a deplorable character who is cavorting his way to the White House – again.

If their argument were sound, I would find myself agreeing wholeheartedly with them – after all, democracy dies in darkness. All it takes for free men to become serfs, is for them to give up on their desire for freedom. To go gently into that dark, ever-lasting night would be a grave mistake, yet appears to be one that Bezos, in the eyes of his detractors, has opted for – privileging his own business interests, or so they claim, over his commitment to principles of free speech. Trump, as a Machiavellian, almost cartoonish buffoon, must be opposed at all costs.

Yet does the argument hold? There are two assumptions worth unpacking.

The first, and most imminently agreeable, is the starting premise that WashPo has the right – even if not a duty – to take a public stance on affairs of significant national importance. Bezos subtly seeks to put pressure on this; in an op-ed titled “The hard truth: Americans don’t trust the news media”, he argued that “We must be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but we are failing on the second requirement. Most people believe the media is biased.” The implication is simple: in endorsing a particular president, WashPo is undermining its perceived credibility in the eyes of those who would have otherwise found it worth reading, picking up, and contemplating.

Yet this assertion gives rise to two challenges: firstly, there are many propositions newspapers should firmly stand by, whether it be in their editorials or even other externally facing communications, even if so doing could undermine their credibility in the eyes of a key constituent. As organs of public interest and apparatus with the capacity to shape and influence political outcomes (this is a given fact, as opposed to some hard-earned and intentionally devised roles), newspapers should openly reject and debunk false information and propaganda set forth by hostile regimes and unaccountable third-parties; condemn factually verifiable claims of female genitalia mutilation or genocide, and hold accountable individuals in position of power. Doing so would undermine these papers’ perceived credibilities in the eyes of vested, skewed interests who have skin in the game of preventing the truth from being exposed. Yet so what? The newspaper has no duty to please all who consume and read it.

Secondly, it remains deeply unclear if there would be individuals who would find WashPo credible as a result of Bezos’ withholding the paper’s endorsement – who would not have otherwise done so. Liberals are likely to view WashPo too conservative, and conservatives would castigate it as too liberal – given the social media and echo chamber-fuelled polarisation that stands today. The marginal subset of individuals who would, beyond posting the cursory post congratulating Bezos for taking a stance, in fact endorse and opt to openly back WashPo, does not appear to be all that quantitatively significant. Indeed, in terms of sheer numbers and the ‘voting with subscriptions’ phenomenon that has emerged subsequently, it appears that the decision made very little business sense, too, given the proclivities and attitudes of many long-standing, hitherto fiercely loyal WashPo subscribers.

Yet there is a second assumption underpinning the “case for endorsement” that we should scrutinise and problematicise more thoroughly. Indeed, this is where I am inclined to concur with Bezos, “Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election.” Long-standing WashPo readers, given their revealed preferences, are likely to have long made up their minds, months in advance of this election; voters who decide at the eleventh hour would more likely be swayed by the economy, their neighbour, their workplace, their friends, than a newspaper that they may or may not read. Just as the “perception of non-independence” is unlikely to be cultivated overnight, individuals don’t make up their minds based on what they read on a paper.

And thus, in this incredibly marginal tradeoff between a slight increase in “perception of non-independence” in a small population, and a very slight shift to the electoral needle amongst an equally small population, both Bezos and his staff appear to have reasonable grounds to stand by and defend. With that said, it is well worth noting that if Non-Independence is genuinely viewed as inimical to (his) WashPo principles, perhaps Bezos should consider abolishing its editorial page altogether, and require the paper to hire equal numbers of “liberal” and “conservative” journalists, assuming quantifiability and measurability.

Fundamentally, what’s most tragic about this fiasco, isn’t so much the possible erosion of press independence by Bezos, or the undue politicisation of a paper by its journalists and columnists (are the latter not supposed to be political by design?). The tragedy lies with the fact that it has diverted the public attention away from the deeply repugnant and appallingly inconsistent policy platform of Donald Trump – one propelled by his erratic, schizophrenic egocentrism alone. Away from the fact that Trump has received endorsements from some of the wealthiest or most influential technology billionaires in the country – including the Man Himself.

The good night has already begun.

Brian YS Wong

Assistant Professor, HKU