MAIRE Geoghegan Quinn's decision to end her political career on the issue of privacy, and in doing so to draw our attention to the ominous dangers of the changing nature of journalism, might have been an important moment. But I fear we are much too far advanced down the road she has made visible.
And so it is important to find some other explanation for what she has done: she is over sensitive and probably anticipated difficulties in being re elected. The spokesmen for the powerful interests in the signal cabins and counting houses, of our society instantly began to insinuate what had been decided should be the ultimate response to her decision.
In a few months we will remember Maire Geoghegan Quinn as the woman who couldn't stand the heat. And then we will move on to the next victim, until all those of discretion, decency and independent thought have been rendered silent or removed from the public arena. It is all going according to plan.
In the past week, there has been much discussion of the "public interest", and the difficult decisions which media have to make before publishing information of a private nature about a public figure. An image has been created of editorial conferences as scenes of unmitigated, almost anguished, debate on the ethics of disclosure. This is a sick joke.
We have heard senior journalists holding forth about the connection between the publication of, the story about Mrs Geoghegan Quinn's son and, the long standing cultural imperative in Irish society that we "make the family connection". In other words, what has happened was simply an extension of the culture of the corner shop.
But the events of recent weeks are symptomatic of two modern and inter connected phenomena: the use of celebrities as commodities and the convergence of cultural power. The first is a tool in the execution of the second. A mass media society creates celebrity (and politicians are now celebrities, even more than they are politicians) in order to feed off it. The glib way of putting this is to say that media build people up to knock them down, but this conceals a more interesting aspect.
In fact, media build people up to create new commodities. Once someone becomes well known, everything about them becomes tradeable. Every twitch, tear and tremor can be packaged and sold. The beneficiaries are primarily the owners of the media, who hold the franchise on such commodities.
BEING well known is to have power of a sort, which inevitably poses a potential threat to those who wish to control the means of defining phenomena. There would be little point, from the perspective of the would be emperor of thought, in winning control of the channels of communication simply to leave them open on an unrestricted basis to all comers.
There is therefore a degree of tension between the media's desire to trade in the various commodities associated with celebrity - invasion, invective etc. - and the need of the puppet masters to encourage certain forms of thought while discouraging others. Due to the competitive pressures within the media marketplace, the impulse of media operators is increasingly to be indiscriminate, while that of the controllers is to punish and reward in accordance with a larger intention. Within this, however, there is plenty of room for manoeuvre.
Media operators frequently have agendas of their own, and it is sometimes in the interest of media controllers to make examples of individuals who, while not posing any threat at that moment, exist within an area which is still independent of the would be emperors of thought. In other words, it is useful that, from time to time, individuals be made examples of.
This is largely the explanation for what journalists present as ethical dilemmas: the dichotomy, is usually not between what is "right" or "wrong", but between what the puppet master will regard as helpful, what he will regard as unhelpful and what he will regard, with contented indifference, as simply a useful way of making his power visible.
"Celebrities" who say things within the approved range of thought are celebrated; those who say things that are disapproved of are excoriated; and those who try to combine celebrity with saying as little as possible are used for target practice. Reputations, credibility and privacy are held hostage at the pleasure of the emperor.
IN all the talk of the past week, the name of Dr A.J.F. O'Reilly has hardly been mentioned. And yet, Dr O'Reilly owns and controls the newspapers in which Mrs Geoghegan Quinn's family difficulty was made public. Why is this? Rather obviously, it is because to draw attention to this would fall into the category of thought crime, and would be punished accordingly.
What happened to Mrs Geoghegan Quinn was a random kneecapping, but anyone who would highlight its true significance would come under sustained sniper fire. Dr O'Reilly is the emperor of emperor, the pope of popes. And this new papacy holds this society in its grip as surely as Rome ever did. As we know, it is not necessary that the pontiff picks up a telephone to ensure that putative opponents be denounced from the pulpit on a Sunday by some wizened curate.
A couple of years ago I appeared on an RTE current affairs programme with two senior politicians, one from Fine Gael, the other from Fianna Fail, to talk about Dr O'Reilly's dominance of the Irish newspaper industry. In the hospitality room, before the programme, these two eminent politicians were huddled together discussing how anything they might have to say would be viewed in Independent House.
After the programme, in which I made some critical comments about Dr O'Reilly's newspapers, both of them giggled nervously and told me I was a desperate man to be saying things like that. They knew I was for kneecapping. And sure enough, for 18 months afterwards I was kicked from Abbey Street to Terenure on at least a weekly basis - unencumbered, incidentally, by offers of support from either the political or media arenas.
Maire Geoghegan Quinn's decision to quit politics is a watershed in Irish public life, and not just for the obvious reasons. When a woman with an odds on chance of becoming Taoiseach decides she has no power to protect herself and her family, it is time to reflect on the meaning of power. In the early days of the convergence of power around Dr O'Reilly, politicians turned a blind eye or made approving noises about the virtues of enterprise.
Now, it appears, the situation is beyond remedy, since it is easier, and more sensible, for a senior politician to throw in the towel than to take on the true source of power in this society. And it is easier for the rest of us to explain this in terms of the temperament of that politician than face the truth she has exposed. {CORRECTION} 97012400104