Time to rediscover the lost art of the television debate

PRESENT TENSE:FEW INTELLECTUALS inspire such devotion as Noam Chomsky. Watching the esteemed MIT linguistics professor deliver a wide-ranging talk at the RDS last Monday, it was easy to understand why. 

Speaking for more than an hour, he offered an in-depth analysis of the world’s current ills, showing off his huge breadth of knowledge, ranging from Edward Bernays and the birth of western propaganda models to the complex tribal interactions of Pakistan, from the difficulty of achieving healthcare reform in the US to the democratic deficit that is increasingly evident in developed countries. It was predictably dense, for sure, and all the more enjoyable for it

After this performance, he headed over to RTÉ to appear on The Frontlinewith Pat Kenny. He covered some of the same topics, but, hostage to the question and answer format of TV, he had only a short time to outline the issues. He had to summarise where he had earlier provided historical context, and was forced to move on to the next question before fully explaining his point.

The reason his “fans” are so admiring is not just that Chomsky’s world view confirms and explains their own, but that his work offers genuinely complex material in a relatively accessible form. His talks and articles are content-rich, in a world where content is increasingly stripped down and condensed. A little more than 10 minutes in conversation with Kenny isn’t an ideal vehicle for delivering such theories. Almost inevitably the result was disappointing.

The Chomsky interview followed a lengthy studio discussion about the recent behaviour of the unions. People spoke, other people contradicted them, audience members fumed, Pat got spikey. You know that aphorism about all heat and no light? It was a bit like that.

Both segments confirmed the limitations of live television when it comes to examining complex issues in detail. Perhaps Chomsky doesn’t really suit television. In person, considered pauses neatly punctuate his gently-paced speech, while on the screen they just seem ponderous. But more than that, Chomsky deals in units of thought larger than live television is comfortable dealing with.

Complexity, almost by definition, doesn’t reduce well – somewhere along the way, it loses its, well, complexity. And television, especially live television, has to reduce everything. It is this, as much as the unpalatability of his views, that contributes to Chomsky’s marginalisation by the mainstream US media.

The night after Chomsky appeared on The Frontline, Prime Timedevoted the entire episode to Nama, about as complicated and urgent an issue as the country is likely to face for a very long time. First, a report on the workings of Nama did an excellent job of explaining the basics; then, a live studio discussion. Again, opposing viewpoints were pitched against one another, and again the issues became clouded by the discussion. Did Michael McGrath have a better grasp on of the figures? What was Peter Mathews about to say when Mark Little told him to hurry it up?

Of course, these conversations have a value. They can be informative and they offer a crucial forum for challenging weak policies and ideas. But the dynamic of the live debate quickly teaches participants that facts, and indeed logic, are less important than disrupting your opponent. Cutting them off and disparaging their remarks is a better strategy than actually building an argument of one's own. In televised debates, flawed reasoning has room to hide behind ad hominemattacks and strawman arguments.

An obvious example was the appearance of the BNP's Nick Griffin on Question Timelast month. Certainly, Griffin's political ideology was easily exposed as odious and discriminatory, but it wasn't the braying of the mob that did that, it was Griffin himself. Nobody else had a chance to offer a thorough critique of the BNP – there just wasn't time.

Part of the problem is that conversation itself isn’t best suited to conveying dense information. Unlike an article or an essay, conversations don’t lend themselves to structured reasoning, because a lot of the content of conversation is taken up with, well, chat. It’s a spontaneous back and forth, encouraging reactive rather than considered arguments.

Yet it doesn't have to be this way. The modern, adversarial television debate has changed considerably since the early days of Firing Line, the long-running US talkshow hosted by the late Wiliam F Buckley. One of his most famous encounters was with a young Chomsky, when the two ideologically opposed intellectuals went toe-to-toe on Vietnam in 1969. The pair palpably disliked one another, but it is revelatory now for the expansive nature of the conversation. Sure, Buckley's trademark unctuous manner and snide barbs were on display, but he allowed Chomsky plenty of room to explain his absolutist position on foreign aggression, and forced him to defend his theories. That tradition seems to have been lost somewhere along the evolutionary timeline of talk TV, but if ever it needed to be rediscovered, it's now.