I have an alarm on my phone that is set for 6:28pm every Monday and Friday. If I’m at home, my instant response is to ask Alexa to “Play Radio 4”.

Except that these days I check the schedules first. Clue and Just a Minute are still there in pride of place on Mondays. But what has happened to Friday?

Take Friday’s News Quiz for example. The latest host has turned a marvellous institution into an extension of his own stand-up routine, but I still give it a go. But over the last few episodes the material has become so weak. And cruel. How dare they poke fun at Kier, Sue and Angela when they are only a matter of weeks into their ten-year mission! Give them a break.

*

And then I hold up the mirror. When I was marvelling at the latest put-down of Johnson, Truss, Braverman et al earlier in the year, others were feeling just like I do now. Defund the leftist BBC!

Political comedy is cruel by its very nature. But can it only be funny if I share the politics of the comedian? I miss Jeremy Hardy’s [RIP] unhinged rants but the equally brilliant Simon Evans pushes the wrong buttons. Foul!

*

“For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear.”*1

*

Comedy is.. just comedy. Mark Steel is another favourite, with incredible eye for detail, but he takes no prisoners. Ian Hislop has spent a career exposing hypocrisy and then relentlessly thrusting it into the spotlight. Geniuses, all of them.

Those who see more deeply into the human condition have always been able to spot when something significant is happening under the surface that most of us have missed. Comedians, authors, playwrights – so many gifted communicators who notice a story and then have the determination to find a way to serve it back to us so we can’t ignore it. But why do we miss such important detail?

*

I don’t need to remind you of the way algorithms, bots and echo chambers feed our biases and prejudices. In 1985 Neil Postman wrote a vitally important book, the introduction to which is worth reproducing in full:

“We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn’t, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.

But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell’s dark vision, there was another – slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy.

As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us.

This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.”*2

*

Paul’s warning to Timothy was heavily tinged with disappointment and pain. Demas had deserted him ‘because he loved this world’, and other companions had simply moved on to other places. Luke remained, but Paul longed for Mark and Timothy’s additional comfort as he smarted at the way both himself and his message had been roundly rejected.

I feel for Paul in ways I’d not been able to in my youth. The sad fact is that, as the very latest research has shown, evidence will rarely persuade someone who is personally invested in the promises of a lie that is fulfilling an inner need.*3

*

The fascinating conclusion of the article I have just referenced is that, whereas many people will double down on their commitment to a false conspiracy theory when faced with a human trying to win them back to rationality, a specially programmed AI chatbot might be more successful.

It seems the reason an AI chatbot might be better at keeping an open conversation going than a human is because chatbots have no ego to protect, and therefore no need to be right. A chatbot isn’t playing for laughs and a regular slot on a panel show. Neither does it get exasperated or feel terrified that a loved one is disappearing down a deep and dark rabbit hole. Chatbots just are.

Which, I suppose, is a perfect definition of Listening Well.

*1 2 Timothy 4:3.

*2 Neil Postman – Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. 1985.

*3 Costello, Pennycook & Rand – Durably reducing conspiracy beliefs through dialogues with AI.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adq1814?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Image credit: Eleanor Smith free image via pixabay.com