Analysis 1

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"Censory Perception": Book II of Plato 's Republic and Pacino's Speech in Michael Mann's The Insider 

In Plato’s The Republic, he outlines a construct for what he deems to be the best society in the wake of reconstructing a people after a war. At the heart of his consideration of such a new civilization is the concept of truth and how it is represented to the public; Plato sets up how the poets’ truth is to be censored. Plato's The Republic is still poignant today, as in Michael Mann’s movie The Insider, one of the central themes in which the story draws tragedy deals with the concept of censorship and the ethics that are involved. In the clip, Al Pacino’s character, big time television producer Lowel, quarrels with the CBS corporation to air a version of the most controversial anti-tobacco interview in U.S. history—Lowel’s source, Jeffrey Wigand, had been working for a major tobacco company when he stumbled onto evidence which suggested that his tobacco company, among others, deceitfully put addictive chemicals in cigarettes, which have been scientifically proven to be toxic to the human body.This clip from The Insider meshes nicely with Plato’s concept of censorship of the poet’s truth, and the problem of what truth is and how it should be conveyed, in his The Republic. 

 

Al Pacino’s character, Lowel, is essentially explaining why his primary insider, Wigand, will not be completely and truthfully represented on the airing of his show, and makes an important assertion regarding the representation of truth. Lowel says, “And Jeffrey Wigand, whose out on a limb—does he go on television and tell the truth? Yes. Is it newsworthy? Yes. Are we going to air it? Of course not. Why? Because he’s not telling the truth? No—because he is telling the truth; that’s why we’re not going to air it. And the more truth he tells, the worse it gets” (Mann, 3:12). This speaks to the idea of censorship of the bad traits of the Gods in book two of Plato’s The Republic. When Plato says that, “founders need to know the patterns on which poets are to compose their stories, and form which they must not be allowed to deviate, but they don’t need to compose the stories themselves” (Plato 17), he makes the point that what ever class is the ruling class, the class of people whose duty it is to guard the imagined city in this case, has the duty to censor the stories of the poets; poets are the conveyers of values and truth. This raises an interesting problem though—the founders, or the ruling class, according to Plato, don't convey the truth, the poets do; the founders or rulers, the ones who decide what truth is best for the masses, essentially censor what the poets tell the people. Similarly, in Mann’s The Insider clip, Pacino’s character, Lowel, makes a statement on this same problem. His role as newsman is superseded by his corporation, CBS’, CEO ruling class; that is to say, that Lowel’s bosses at the top decide what truth his show is to convey to the public, for their means (money), not for his (explicit truth to the public). Lowel’s speech, thus, demarks the innate problem in censorship which Plato hasn’t considered—what if the poet, knowing he is censored by the founders or the guardians or the Philosopher-Kings, sides with ultimate and absolute truth despite his status? In Plato’s day, the poet would probably be killed, but in contemporary America, this concept of censorship is paramount. 

 

Towards the end of the clip, of his corporation’s CEO’s making a decision to cut his segment, leaving out crucial information on his issue from the public, Lowel says, “these people are putting the whole reason for doing what we do on the line” (Mann, 3:51). Aside Plato’s assertion, “god is not the cause of everything, but only of good” (Plato 19), Lowel’s observation on his status as a newsman versus his abdication of rights and power to his superior business man in the corporate headquarters of CBS, sheds new light on an old Platonic concept. Lowel implies that his goal in his role as newsman is to, as objectively as possible, convey the truth of the news to the public with his television segment, while his superiors, the business men who control the money and therefore his content, forget the very reason they hired people like Lowel. This highlights the issue that although the ruling class, the deciders of how truth should be conveyed to the public, are really forgetting the point of the poet, or the newsman; in censoring and choosing their own truth, these people in power undermine the very purpose of the poet and newsman in themselves—undeniable and frank truthfulness.
 

Not only does Plato define God as good, he says that God is not the cause of everything. Aside Plato's characterization of God, Lowel’s assertion gains new meaning. In Lowel’s world, God, or the inspiration for his truth, is symbolized by the CBS corporation. Lowel's  bosses perceive that truth lies in money, and in money only. When Lowel defines himself as a  producer and newsman, and not a businessman, he is fighting an uphill battle; to Lowel, his bosses are like Plato's conception of God because they have the final say on what he airs-- they have the final say on how the truth is represented to the public. In addition, Plato’s conception of God implies that God is relative—that every people thinks their God to be good by definition and that, perhaps, while He isn’t the cause of everything, He should be taken out of the equation when dealing with moral relativism. This is at the heart of The Insider clip. Lowel’s morality, his God, his goodness, is unadulterated truth to the public; the corporation’s God, and goodness, is money on the other hand. It depends whose side you’re on.
 

Works Cited

Classical Literary Criticism. Trans. T.S. Dorsch and Penelope Murray. London: Penguin Books, 2004. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIjpP-XngKA