#20: a journalist's apology
Time Spent is a series of letters exploring how and why we should we read the news, among other ways to spend time. I’m also working on a book about this. You can subscribe here if you’re new. And get in touch with me here or by replying.
Good morning,
The most common and useful criticism I have so far received from prospective readers, buyers and publishers of How to Read the News is, “I’m actually already much happier having cut the news out of my life, so I don’t know that I need anyone to tell me how to read it, because I don’t want to read it at all.”
Which, for those who feel wholly committed to rejecting the news, is a valid argument.
Personally, I believe there is a greater majority of us who have not been able to make such a commitment yet, and I don’t believe we should wholly reject the news, ever, so I’m pressing on.
However, I understand where such rejection is coming from, and there is something to learn from the impulse to reject an entire profession. That’s what this letter is about.
Be it bad journalism (or in many cases, badly presented journalism) or some other offensive industry (like perhaps inhumane animal breeding or farming or broken policing or a narrow-minded education system or a shady corporate conglomerate), how does one, when on the inside, deal with the lesser parts of one’s profession? How do we identify, acknowledge, apologize for, and rectify them (or at least assuage our shame about them) as insiders?
A Mathematician’s Apology
I’ve thus started to look to writers who have grappled with this question in their own professions (and I’m very open to recommendations if you have them) and landed this week on A Mathematician’s Apology by G. H. Hardy, written in 1940.
Hardy was one of the greatest number theorists of the 20th century and at 62, penned the book (really just an extended essay), which is a somewhat self-conscious defense of his life’s work. In it he celebrates the beauty of pure mathematics—math for math’s sake—as opposed to applied mathematics, which lent itself to simplicity and war. And this debate continues on.
The book has long been heralded as a beautiful look into the mind of a mathematician and a concise, poignant reflection on why we do the work we do.
A few of Hardy’s beliefs
On age: Mathematics is best studied by younger scholars; in math, the older one is, the less they have to offer, thus he is writing about the profession, instead of doing it.
On the ego: Good work is not done by entirely humble men; a little egotism is inevitable. The driving forces behind all things that helped humanity were curiosity, pride and ambition and this is not something to be ashamed of; in fact, one who claims to be driven by contributing to humanity isn’t telling the truth.
On why we do the work we do: Few people can do anything really well, so if one has an inkling of true talent, they should be prepared to sacrifice everything to make full use of their potential. Or, put more humbly, most people can’t do anything well, so they do what comes their way.
On beauty: A mathematician is a maker of patterns (just like a painter or poet) and those patterns must be beautiful; in fact, because they are made of ideas, they last longer than words do.
It’s a beautiful read and I haven’t even touched upon the math itself, so I do recommend it if you’re interested in math.
On apologizing for his work
But aside from the curious reflections on work, in sum, Hardy explains that his primary interest in math is a creative one (unlike the utility of elementary, applied mathematics, which is the basis of much of how we organize society and other sciences), and therefore, nothing he has done has been particularly useful or harmful. It’s evident that this is his way of separating himself from the math that informs war:
There is one comforting conclusions which is easy for a real mathematician. Real mathematics has no effects on war. No one has yet discovered any warlike purpose to be served by the theory of numbers or relativity, and it seems very unlikely that anyone will do so for many years. It is true that there are branches of applied mathematics, such as ballistics and aerodynamics, which have been developed deliberately for war and demand a quite elaborate technique: it is perhaps hard to call them ‘trivial’, but none of them has any claim to rank as ‘real’. They are indeed repulsively ugly and intolerably dull; even Littlewood could not make ballistics respectable, and if he could not who can? So a real mathematician has his conscience clear; there is nothing to be set against any value his work may have; mathematics is, as I said at Oxford, a ‘harmless and innocent’ occupation. The trivial mathematics, on the other hand, has many applications in war. The gunnery experts and aeroplane designers, for example, could not do their work without it. And the general effect of these applications is plain: mathematics facilitates (if not so obviously as physics or chemistry) modern, scientific, ‘total’ war.
And in the end, he doesn’t have much to apologize for:
I have never done anything ‘useful’. No discovery of mine has made, or is likely to make, directly or indirectly, for good or ill, the least difference to the amenity of the world. I have helped to train other mathematicians, but mathematicians of the same kind as myself, and their work has been, so far at any rate as I have helped them to it, as useless as my own. Judged by all practical standards, the value of my mathematical life is nil; and outside mathematics it is trivial anyhow. I have just one chance of escaping a verdict of complete triviality, that I may be judged to have created something worth creating. And that I have created is undeniable: the question is about its value.
This is what was most interesting to me.
A journalist’s apology
I think, deep down, perhaps only subconsciously, so many journalists make a similar argument to themselves as Hardy did. I’ve had conversations with plenty who would admit it, myself included.
We separate ourselves from the worst of journalism’s effects by splintering our profession into a magnificent array of shattered of glass:
“We are not ‘the media’,” we say. “We are small cogs within bigger cogs and none of us work in harmony. There are the networks and the papers and the tabloids and the bloggers and the fear-mongerers and the on-air entertainers masquerading as journalists, and the users-generating-content, sometimes verified, and the nonprofit news networks and local papers and the freelancers and the public radio people and the podcasters, and none of us are entirely responsible for what news is and how it impacts society.
“We (and by we I mean that subset of us who are self-conscious about the reputation and impact of the media at all) are just curious writers and reporters and photographers trying to piece together a career on an unsteady road that’s experiencing as much financial upheaval on the inside as it is wreaking on the outside.”
“And what about the groundbreaking investigations that are changing policy, and the documentaries that have exposed truth like never before, and the unprecedented interactive visualizations that have become possible in this digital age, and little-known local reporters maintaining a steady watch on local justice, and the broad-minded analyzers of culture who are deftly explaining this rapidly changing world to us all through longform?” we point out.
“That’s the truth we hold to power. That’s what we are aspiring toward and protecting and praising,” we tell ourselves. “That’s our art.”
All these sides of the media exist, of course. But reading Hardy’s apology left me feeling so aware of how easy it is to do the mental gymnastics to disassociate ourselves from some of darker impacts that our professions end up having on society. And while I understand why, I wonder: whose responsibility does it then become to pick up the pieces and rebuild trust, especially with those who see (and reject) our professions as a singular whole?
Jihii