Cults, Media and Single-Track Thinking

Cults, Media and Single-Track Thinking

By Éric Bouzou (enquiry, December 2008 to February 2009)

A certain number of intellectuals have made a critical analysis of the mass media. Their work and their perspectives allow us to understand better how the public debates organised on these media function. After citing some of these authors, we offer several comments and criticisms of the programme Les infiltrés dealing with the theme of the cults, broadcast on France 2 on 17 December 2008.

Single-track thinking in the media

The programme Les infiltrés (France 2 - 17 December 2008) - The CICNS’s invitation

The programme Les infiltrés (France 2 - 17 December 2008) - Commentary

The programme Les infiltrés (France 2 - 17 December 2008) - Follow-up

Various comments on hidden-camera investigation methods

Single-track thinking in the media

Noam Chomsky (Manufacturing Consent, Vintage, CICNS translation)

“The mass media are used as a system for communicating messages and symbols to the general population. Their function is to amuse, to entertain and to inform, and to inculcate in individuals the values, beliefs and codes of conduct that will allow them to integrate into the institutional structures of society. In a world where wealth is concentrated and is the site of major conflicts between interest groups, fulfilling this role demands the use of systematic propaganda”.

Peter Watkins

”(…) The Monoform has become the only language used for editing and structuring cinema films, television programmes, television news, serials, soap operas, comedies, reality shows… - as well as most documentaries, practically all subject to the rigid codes and standards that come directly from Hollywood cinema. The result is a form of language characterised by: fragmented space, repetitive rhythms, a perpetually moving camera, rapid and jerky editing, a bombardment of dense and aggressive sounds, and a lack of silence or of spaces for reflection.

(…) This silence is also reinforced by the reluctance (to put it mildly…) of the contemporary educational system to discuss the nature of the AVMM (Audio-Visual Mass Media) in critical terms, and more particularly to analyse the impact the Monoform can have. It would even seem that most of today’s teachers are barely conscious of, or even concerned by, this impact”.

Pierre Bourdieu

“There is an implicit philosophy in the heads of television people, which makes it impossible for a figure like Bourdieu (but there are masses of others) to be listened to for more than thirty seconds by an ordinary citizen, and yet it is false”.

“Every channel equips itself with a little pseudo-critical programme that brings in a bit of audience, but on condition, obviously, of touching nothing (…) Nine times out of ten, professional ethics is hot air; it is what journalists tell themselves to give themselves a good conscience”.

The programme Les infiltrés (France 2 - 17 December 2008) - The CICNS’s invitation

The CICNS is regularly contacted to take part in “debates” on the question of dérives sectaires (see our review of the programme “Ça se discute”). Recently, France 2 contacted our association to take part in the debate in the framework of the programme “Les infiltrés”, presented by David Pujadas and scheduled for 17 December 2008. Let us recall that the principle of this programme is to use a hidden camera to detect reprehensible conduct or, at any rate, to give the impression that it is. We declined this offer because the programme is not live and the panel presented at the time of contact did not guarantee respect for the adversarial principle, two conditions that seem to us indispensable for allowing a quality exchange on this sensitive subject. The France 2 contact nevertheless stated that she had made contact with academics to provide the counter-argument. When we suggested to her that she also bring in people happy to belong to spiritual minorities, her embarrassed answer was: “No, that’s not easy to find”. The CICNS, which meets these minorities in the course of its work, can testify that it is easy to find such people.

The programme’s announcement on the France 2 site specified: “David Pujadas welcomes onto his set victims, former followers, but also a representative of the authorities in charge of the fight against the cults”. The presence of contrary opinions was not mentioned, and the journalist in charge of this announcement seemed moreover to be unaware that in France there is, in theory, no “representative of the authorities in charge of fighting the cults” but rather of fighting “dérives sectaires”. Was this blunder of ill omen, at first sight, in reality the mark of a salutary lucidity about the hypocrisy of the public authorities, who try to legitimise their “fight against the cults” by renaming it the “fight against dérives sectaires”? Let us wager rather that it was indeed journalistic ignorance, a confusion, it is true, systematically maintained by the executive power (the deputies in charge of the cult question being on this point less hypocritical, but is that a quality when it comes to stigmatising?). The MIVILUDES declares that it is interested only in dérives sectaires, believing perhaps that it can erase (but does it really wish to?) 25 years of rumours about the dangerousness of many spiritual minorities called “cults”. Its concrete action and the recent statements of its president demonstrate that most of the time this is nothing but a smokescreen.

In a programme on the cults, one counts on average three promoters of the anti-cult discourse for one contributor proposing an alternative reflection. This edition of “Les infiltrés” respected that ratio, since the guests were, on the anti-cult side: Georges Fenech, president of the MIVILUDES, Catherine Picard, president of the UNADFI, Jean-Pierre Jougla, a lawyer close to the UNADFI, Claudine Delpech, president of the AFSI (Alert to Induced False Memories), Nicolas Jaquette, a former Jehovah’s Witness, and Alain Stoffen, a former Scientologist. On the alternative-reflection side: Nathalie Luca and Raphaël Liogier. These two sociologists intervened only in the second part of the debate, for an undetermined reason, that is, ten minutes out of an hour of exchanges.

The discussion that followed the hidden-camera report illustrates the difficulty of expressing oneself in a context of single-track thinking. This type of situation has been very well described by Noam Chomsky in his study of the media (see in particular Pierre Carles’s documentary “Enfin pris”, in which Pierre Bourdieu offers an analysis of the media; an extract from the documentary illustrates the argument of Noam Chomsky who, though he does not take up the question of the cults, describes a generic principle).

In a context of single-track thinking, it is very simple to reach the audience with short sentences or insinuations that fall within that single-track thinking, for example: “The cults are a social scourge” (or, more hypocritically, “Dérives sectaires are a social scourge”). In France, the acceptance of such a statement, acquired by dint of repetition, in no way implies that it is a “truth”. In this instance, sociologically and legally, the assertion “The cults are a social scourge” is false (the fear manufactured around the cults, on the other hand, seems to be becoming a social scourge). Furthermore, the terms “cults” and “social scourge” are extremely vague and open to comment but, curiously, once put together and after incessant hammering, they end up taking on meaning and speaking directly to our unconscious.

Conversely, if a protagonist declares: “The cults are a non-problem” (as did Emmanuelle Mignon, Nicolas Sarkozy’s former chief of staff), he collides with what has been artificially constructed as common sense. He is liable to trigger visceral reactions and will from then on be summoned to explain himself, which is not in itself a problem. However, explaining a position that departs from the single-track thinking demands development, and the media generally do not give the time for it. Any exposition of thought that exceeds one minute (an optimistic figure) is interrupted to give the floor to another protagonist or to zap to another idea (the forthcoming third part of our documentary “120 minutes for spiritual freedom” will take up the role of the media extensively).

A work of rebalancing is to be done by the media, whose growing power today demands an acute consciousness of their responsibility. But they would first have to not themselves adhere exclusively to the single-track thinking on the question of the cults. The information presented by our association can help them broaden their point of view. There is no doubt that if they consult it, they will find a profusion of high-quality and enthusiastic interlocutors ready to take part in constructive debates.

The programme Les infiltrés (France 2 - 17 December 2008) - Commentary

The report in this edition of “Les infiltrés” on the cults showed journalists (with hidden cameras) inside the Raël group, with a member of the Kryeon movement, and with a therapist of whom the extract shown seems to indicate that she induces false memories in her patients (the “induced false memories” thesis).

It should be noted that in the course of two previous programmes in the series (concerning retirement homes and the celebrity press), a representative of the infiltrated organisation had been invited onto the set. During the programme on illegal labour, no business owner using illegal labour was present on the set, for understandable reasons. We may on the other hand wonder about the absence of Raëlian witnesses or Kryeon followers in this programme: did they refuse to take part, or are the cults considered “uninvitable”?

The CICNS has expressed its position on the victims of “dérives sectaires”. It is not a matter for us of ignoring certain troubling facts set out in the report, notably on induced false memories (read our article on this subject), but of underlining that the amalgam consisting in denouncing one abuse in order to condemn all such paths is a way of ostracising the people who “step out of the mould” while claiming to protect victims, who moreover express, as Madame Picard rightly noted, a real demand which must be taken into account. The answers given to these demands (through beliefs or alternative therapies) must fall within the framework of the law and respect a certain number of criteria that ought to be debated democratically; we are far from that. This is what Raphaël Liogier summed up well by saying that the notion of “public order” could easily transform itself into “moral order”. The non-acceptance of ideas considered outlandish was also illustrated when David Pujadas, incredulous, asked the question: “Do the Raëlians, and Raël himself, really believe in extraterrestrials?” Need one recall that the whole of humanity (including many rationalists) associated itself with the costly project of an American probe, Voyager, and that a recording on a golden disc was sent towards hypothetical inhabitants of the universe? Tolerance towards ideas out of the ordinary cannot be an option in a democratic State.

Raphaël Liogier added: “When one generalises and when one operates a little too much on fantasy, forgetting the democratic principle of the adversarial process (…), one can undermine human rights, a certain number of public liberties (…). It is possible to act more effectively by being more targeted and generalising less”. A technique of generalisation that G. Fenech could not restrain himself from using. From the start of the discussion, criticising the procedure of induced false memories, he specified: “according to the National Council of the Order of Physicians, there are about 3,000 titled doctors who are said to engage in this kind of psychotherapy, in this kind of technique”, thereby implicitly blacklisting all these practitioners without their being able to reply.

Nathalie Luca, for her part, proposed that the MIVILUDES use the work of researchers and have the spiritual minorities take part in the discussion, as other European countries do. For Georges Fenech, the researchers’ work as “theoreticians” does not fall within his mission: “I am not as intelligent and brilliant as they are (…) My only work, mine, is not to do university studies, it is to denounce what disturbs public order, what is an infraction of the law, what is a danger to public health (…) and to fight against everything that is contrary to the interests of individuals and of society; let each do his own work”. Which puts an end to any hope (insofar as we had any left) of seeing an approach of knowledge adopted at the MIVILUDES.

All the participants agreed on the fact that dérives sectaires must be fought. Which did not prevent David Pujadas from explicitly asking Raphaël Liogier whether Raël, Scientology, the Jehovah’s Witnesses and induced false memories were real cults. The notion of “cults dangerous to public order” developed by Raphaël Liogier, in the very short time allotted, does not however seem to us constructive in the French context.

Yes, everyone agrees, the CICNS included, that abuses (whatever they may be, and supposing it is possible to define them) should be dealt with within the framework of the law. However, the method used is at issue and ought to be seriously reconsidered by all, for it discriminates against a large part of the population while claiming to protect another.

The programme Les infiltrés (France 2 - 17 December 2008) - Follow-up

The programme “Les infiltrés”, decried within the journalistic profession itself because of its investigation methods (infiltrations and hidden cameras), justified itself in the introduction to its latest edition (28 January 2009) in the form of a “follow-up”.

It congratulated itself notably that since its programme on “the cults” and the report on “induced false memories”, the MIVILUDES had received about a hundred letters written by “families broken” by “these same gurus” and that, “faced with the multitude of testimonies”, it was setting up jointly with the Ministry of Health a “technical support group” comprising doctors, police officers and gendarmes charged with “detecting such abuses”.

It seems too early to judge the relevance and validity of the theory of “induced false memories” that the MIVILUDES uses to justify casting suspicion on many psychotherapeutic practices, when the said theory is barely developing in France and when in the United States, where it was born some fifteen years ago, it still has no recognition either from the medical profession or from the scientific community as a whole.

That it is put forward by the media and the MIVILUDES is a bias we have already underlined.

Nor do we prejudge the authenticity of the testimonies received by the MIVILUDES, but it must be observed that “Les Infiltrés”, for their part, do so with an indecent haste by grouping this hundred or so letters under the label “families broken by gurus”, when it seems, according to Georges Fenech himself, president of the MIVILUDES, that only some of these files will be investigated and that we are still far, of course, from seeing a conviction.

Beyond the evaluation of the various therapeutic methods, it is a matter for the CICNS of bringing to light, from this example, a dubious method characteristic of the anti-cult action. This method consists in “crying wolf”, then waiting for the inevitable echoes of the cry that has just been uttered: more or less opportunistic complaints, hateful expressions of an ancestral phobia, and also, unfailingly, testimonies of the beast’s appearance in the most improbable situations. In the growing fear, it is then easy to justify an all-out hunt.

Let us imagine a hidden-camera report which traps, for example, a salesman in the act of hoodwinking a customer, followed by an announcement of the existence of a State body in charge of helping and supporting the victims of salesmen’s abuses. It is a safe bet that it is well over a hundred letters demanding justice, rightly or wrongly, that the said body would receive in the following days. Would that suffice to justify the existence of the said body, or again the derogations from the journalists’ charter constituted by the use of false identities and hidden cameras to unmask the “dangerous salesmen”?

We regularly receive, in error (so difficult is it for most Internet users to imagine that a site which speaks of “cults” is not anti-cult), letters demanding justice against a “cult”. The following example shows how opportunistic these manifestations can be. (Full transcription, uncorrected):

urgent thank you

Hello

Is a will in favour of a cult valid.?

We have a distant case around us, the non-direct heirs not knowing what to do…”

thank you for your reply and your help

do you have a legal text?

Cordially

The number of cult accusations in divorce proceedings, whose explosion followed the publication of the first parliamentary enquiry report on the cults in 1995, is another example. According to the lawyers who have observed the phenomenon, these accusations are said to have rarely been taken seriously by the courts, but they will undoubtedly have contributed to maintaining the amalgam between spirituality and criminality that the word cult provokes.

A proverb says: When one wants to drown one’s dog, one says it has rabies… But there would still have to be a declared epidemic.

The designation “cult” is a galloping epidemic, and still current. Some thirty years earlier, it concerned only a few spiritual minorities, but it spreads year by year through all the so-called alternative milieux. Its mode of transmission is said to be principally hertzian, but propagation is also said to occur orally, through the press, through administrative channels…

We think that a minimum of ethical precautions in the journalistic profession, together with the public’s application of a certain hygiene of life (a varied and balanced diet of information, daily exercise of the critical spirit…), could mark a halt, if not a regression, of this social psychosis.

In the meantime, we advise everyone, as preventive and curative treatment, to acquaint themselves with the CICNS’s two documentaries.

Various comments on hidden-camera investigation methods

In an article in L’Express, Marion Festraëts evokes “the investigation programmes” in which “television prides itself on filming where it hurts”. Laurent Richard, creator of Les Infiltrés, declares there that the “hidden cam” is a “procedure as old as information itself”. But “The principle is not without danger. Paul Moreira is thus wary of stolen images, restricting their use to the minimum: ‘In France there reigns a culture of secrecy and opacity which sometimes makes recourse to the concealed camera pertinent, the journalist admits. But one can only do investigation by being loyal with people. The enquiry is more important than all the images one might bring back on hidden camera: one must beware of the fascination they exert, of the voyeurism they induce.’ Not counting the risks that weigh on those who consent to speak: ‘For me, it is unacceptable that a person should lose their job or suffer pressure because they were willing to testify, Moreira insists. I have no scruple about cutting such sequences.’ Bernard Nicolas acknowledges it: ‘One poses oneself fewer ethical problems when dealing with bad guys.’”.

Extract from Le Figaro

(…) “Les infiltrés” are indeed making noise even before their intrusion into the schedules. At issue: the very concept of this new magazine, made using hidden cameras and presented by David Pujadas. And above all the way of obtaining them: the falsification of identity.

“The use of the hidden camera is in no way a first, any more than the falsification of identity, argues Guylaine Loquet, deputy director of the newsroom at Capa, which produces the magazine. The images obtained serve to denounce a situation, a system, but absolutely do not have the aim of attacking particular persons or companies”

Seven editions are for the moment scheduled. With the rumour going around that an infiltration attempt is under way in the celebrity magazines, all the interns are now looked upon as possible moles… Quite an atmosphere. The only certainty: the second edition will be devoted to undeclared work. For the rest, there is talk of a plunge inside a cult and another into the heart of the false-papers networks…

Extract from: Le Post

(…) What will they answer me? That these are complicated subjects where only the use of a hidden camera makes it possible to film what malicious actors (cults, false papers, abusers of the elderly…) want to conceal, and that there are no other means of carrying the camera into the wound. Fine, let us grant it.

One will accept this kind of argument when the treatment thus administered is the same for everyone. So let the procedure be generalised to all the actors of public life, let hidden cameras be multiplied and let Pujadas, for example (and at random), be asked to carry one into the wings of the political programmes where he is given the opportunity to question the President of the Republic. I wager the result will be most fascinating.

I can already see the title of that exceptional edition of “Les Infiltrés”: “In the wings of the cult of the Élysée”, or again: “Two hours with the guru of the Faubourg Saint-Honoré”.

Jean-Michel Apathie (RTL blog)

“What are the values journalism conveys? Sincerity, since it falls to it to establish facts. Honesty, since it falls to it to investigate disrespect for social rules and laws. Transparency, since it reveals and brings to light. How can one attain these objectives, sincerity, honesty and transparency, by choosing to exercise one’s profession using lies, dishonesty and concealment?

One will answer, an old, old, old classic, that the end can justify the means. In another register, that is how, since the dawn of time, dictators and profiteers have freed themselves from moral codes. The former say to the people: you do not live free, but you live in security. A negation of the values and philosophy that raise men above their mortal condition. The profiteers, for their part, accommodate themselves to the transgression of laws by pleading the creation of wealth. That is to place materialism and venality above effort and perseverance.

What a strange idea, what a singular project, to want to place journalism in this perspective. Informing would be so important that the means of achieving it would be secondary. That reasoning is deadly for journalism. A journalism without values would quickly become a profession without morality. If the principle of the goal begins to win out over the observance of means, then the breach would be open for all means to become legitimate for attaining the goal.

It is in this sense that the project of ‘Les Infiltrés’ cannot be acceptable to those who have chosen the profession of journalism. If it were to see the light of day and settle durably into the French landscape, it would then be, even if it met with success, an immense defeat for all the journalists of this country”.