Integrity Porn
Pornography is generated cynically and consumed obsessively because it gratifies a compelling urge to see reflected in the outside world the extreme intensity of inner fantasy. For many it is addictive, self perpetuating because it cannot still the urge by fulfilling the need it pretends to address. This is not to say that it does not please, only that it never deeply satisfies. As in other addictions, one wants more of that which acts as a substitute until the use of the substitute becomes evidence that real satisfaction is in fact impossible, and settling seems like the best possible result.
While persons moved by the often exploitive depiction of sexual acts, for example, often make and watch sexual pornography, even that kind of porn is not in the end only about sex. It is consciously and unconsciously about power: power over another, submission, and the danger that loss of control, obsession, compulsion, and addiction represent. It may have helpful consequences as well. I am merely pointing out what it does. I will moralize down below.
In the culture in general, the term "porn" has come to refer as well to any obsessively consumed media product designed for consumption by a special interest group. Gardening Porn, for instance, might refer to planting videos, seeding shot from many angles and with endless commentary rendered with manic enthusiasm.
I would like to propose a new category which I will call Integrity Porn. By no means beginning with, but definitely moved front and center by The West Wing television series, #IntegrityPorn is that genre of media product which targets those desperate to participate vicariously in the reassuring sense that, even under exaggerated and unrelenting pressure, leadership can be altruistic and mighty at the same time. The Madam Secretary franchise is an even better example of integrity porn, as it reproduces the formula with fewer variations, provides tidy TV-length resolutions to extremely complex issues, proposing to the civic imagination that being smart, principled, and warm-hearted is not only possible, but that it is the key to instant success in politically fraught situations.
#TrueConfession time. I am a consumer of Integrity porn. I watch these shows, the opposite of but not antidote to emotional and physical violence porn like House of Cards and Game of Thrones. I return to them, in part, because of the voluble sigh of relief uttered deep within my psyche, hammered by an unremitting real world frenzy of cruelty and the violence of realpolitik unfettered by good sense of any kind. Porn can provides a necessary respite from inner tension wrought of frustration that can rise to the level of suffering. I wish to draw to my own attention, however, and that of my fellow consumers the cost of the consumption transaction.
The cost of and problem with any kind of porn is at least two-fold: porn opens the door through which exploitation enters and is normalized, as it provides a simplistic, comforting anesthetic. As I consume integrity porn, the fantasy of leaders goverened by the Golden Rule depresses the essential search for the complex understanding based on direct experience which leads to authentic individual action, a force which can actually change the real world for the better. I vent my frustration vicariously, but I do not act to change the circumstances which cause it. What if, instead of compensatory fantasy, I insist on little pauses to remind myself of this dynamic--not a Thou Shalt Not but a "hang on a second" that allows for enough stillness that reflection becomes possible?
If pornography is generated cynically and consumed obsessively because it gratifies a compelling urge to see reflected in the outside world the extreme intensity of inner fantasy, what does that suggest about the fountain of #Trumporn we see ejaculated from and upon Twitter every day? What does the fact that we click to consume it every day, perhaps many times a day, say about us and about "journalism outlets" (3) who have struggled endlessly with tabloidism that not only "favours stories of a sensational or even fictitious nature over serious news" but offers this "news" as though it were a "compressed portion of drugs, chemicals...compressed into a tablet." (4) To what end am I injesting and regurgitating this professionally processed, regurgitation provoking (whether re-Tweeting in agreement of disagreement), attention dominating drug?
I pause. I rememeber that I choose much of what I put in my mind and mouth. It is my life being spent each moment. Choices have an inescapable moral dimension. Will I choose to spend time in an activity with modest expectations which, nevertheless, incrementaly advances the kind of daily world that is, in fact, more soul satisfying? I might even promise myself and others to do this as an exercise which sharpens my attention and willpower, leads to habits of taking responsibility for my choices, and acts as a commitment to integrity and coherence. I choose a commitment to action that is nonviolent because it is based on direct knowledge of how harm is caused and prevented, and effective because it is learned through practice. This feels a bit like learning a martial art, which is very different from vicarious participation in a media ritual that comforts and gives the relaxing sense that there is somebody out there taking care of business with integrity.
Gardening porn seldom gets your hands dirty. Sexual pornography might get me off, so to speak, but it doesn't get me off the hook of my hunger for real relationships. It cannot bring the feeling of sustainable personal power and reassurance that being chosen by an equal partner can bring. Integrity porn, whether obvious fictional or packaged as a candidate "debate", might release the pressure valve of panic at the degradation of civil society but it sure doesn't get the homeless housed, honest commerce encouraged, the sick cared for, justice done, or guarantee a sane foreign policy. Only you and I together can do that when our vision is clear and our purpose and power are shared--only when we make sure the system works, especially for those whose lifelong cries for honest representation and authentic public service are silenced by the blare of #egojaculations.
2. Image Credit https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ron_Jeremy,_Stormy_Daniels_at_Ron_Jeremy%27s_Birthday_Party_3.jpg
3. Are "journalism outlets" where you buy the cheapest, often damaged, remainders of journalism?
4. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tabloid
5. Original @BDWC modification of https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Casa_Rosso_Sex_Show_Amsterdam_Daniel_D._Teoli_Jr..jpg and https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/President_Trump_is_joined_by_Vice_President_Pence_for_an_Executive_Order_signing_%2833803971533%29_%282%29.jpg
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