Oh?

I was thinking about Oprah Winfrey. While considering her impact on the world I got to thinking about the concepts of power, influence and integrity. Now, I don't have a thorough knowledge of Oprah's life and career but for my purposes here I feel that my limited understanding of the subject will suffice. So no further research necessary and none desired. I can remember watching Oprah with my sister after school when I was a kid. I found it mostly enjoyable. During the tenth season, Paul Simon's “Ten Years” was used as the opening theme music. I always looked forward to that. My sister and I would jokingly sing along. The show held no special place in my heart. I didn't watch it religiously, but when I did I usually enjoyed it. As I got older I watched it less and less. It rarely interested me and often annoyed me. In the past decade or more I've only seen a handful of episodes. I disagreed with certain recurring aspects of the show that I noticed. The exploitation of tragedy, grief and mental health issues. The celebration of excess and consumerism. The steady stream of charlatans who parade through, preying on the desperate with their systems of clever signifiers and straight talk designed to help us finally get our lives in order. The presence of the show is undeniable. It's wide reaching and highly influential. Despite my criticisms, the message put out by Oprah seems to be, in general, a positive one. As an African-American woman, Oprah Winfrey has not simply proven herself capable of competing in a world dominated by white males but has managed to conquer and dictate new rules for that world. Throughout her career she has continued to advance a position of compassion and acceptance. She has served as a model and advocate for the empowerment of victims of discrimination. She has used her position of influence to take a moral stance and attempt to have a positive impact on society. She is also a very rich celebrity, who most likely obtained her level of fame and influence, to some degree, by being ruthless and stepping over many others along the way.

Last year, I read Robert Greene's book “The 48 Laws of Power”, in which he lays out a set of rules for obtaining and maintaining social and political power. It draws on works such as Niccolo Machiavelli's “The Prince” and Sun Tzu's “The Art of War”, and uses historical examples to illustrate the accuracy and effectiveness of these ideas. I found it to be comically evil, and also a bit frightening, as I'm aware of how seductive these ideas are to a large portion of the population, evidenced by the book's popularity. Here is a small sample of some of the “laws” that Greene explores:

• Get others to do the work for you, but always take the credit.
• Learn to keep people dependent on you.
• Keep others in suspended terror: cultivate an air of unpredictability.
• Play on people's need to believe to create a cult-like following.
• Disdain things you cannot have: Ignoring them is the best revenge. 

In our society, beyond the suggestion of democracy there is the reality of the cold, dehumanized strategy of an amoral game. Contained within its exclusive discourse are rules just like the ones listed above. Conviction is a weighty burden on anyone who should try climbing the ranks of this system. We see these kinds of laws quickly and organically assert themselves in reality game shows like Survivor, those little mirrors of the American dream. Now, I'm not suggesting that everyone who has reached high levels of social and political influence is completely devoid of morals. I don't believe that all acts of political goodwill are just strategic facades. I think the ambition that leads many to enter into this game comes from a mostly moral place, the belief that one has something of value to offer society and that society will, in turn, have something to offer them. If that belief is strong enough one will easily make compromises on their integrity to see it realized, and no matter how selfless the end goal, ambition is inherently self-centered. For many, power itself is the end goal, and for others it becomes that over time. To what degree, however, is positive social evolution possible from within the machinations of this system? Can challenging, progressive ideas survive it's corrupting nature?

Now, I know Oprah is a flawed example of this. She's far from radical or revolutionary. The truth is, I was just thinking about Oprah and it triggered this string of thoughts, but Oprah is perfect in some ways, in that, within the sphere of show business she's almost a caricature of power and influence. Her audience is diverse and wide reaching. She's an expertly marketed brand with an enormous cult-like following. Many would argue that, through the ways she has chosen to exercise this influence, someone like Oprah is essential to the persistence of our society's power dynamics. Her acts, no matter how well intended, simply create a pacifying illusion of progress. Oprah is the opiate of the masses. The ultimate extension of this line of thought is that the only honest progress is full-scale revolution, a concept that doesn’t even register on the radar of the vast majority of our society, and I don’t imagine that it will be put there by a bunch of fractured schools of all-or-nothing idealism, each with its own exclusive discourse. And I don’t want to dismiss idealism. It’s highly important. Ideals are essential to the pursuit a better world, whatever one views that to be. Skepticism, criticism, and moral integrity are indispensable tools that everyone should carry, but the danger lies in that these tools can easily turn into cynicism or smug conceit that is counter-productive and exists only to serve itself in a sort of academic or cultural elitism. I suppose the essence of the question I'm trying to get at actually is idealism. What is the ideal way to affect change? Can the integrity of an idea be maintained if one attempts to escape the loop of preaching to the choir and appeal to a broader audience? Can one escape moral corruption if they choose to compromise and negotiate with the powers that be? Is revolution the only answer, and if so, what exactly lies at the end of that revolutionary rainbow? How do we measure improvement?

I think I've gone on long enough. I'm not sure if I said anything. I may have gotten a bit messy and unfocused. If I learned anything a few evenings ago while having drinks with Greg and Jamil it's that the mere mention of Oprah's name can spark hours of heated debate, and in the end you may be left wondering “What did Oprah have to do with any of this?”