Comments on: 24

By: abb1

abb1 — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 09:04:34 +0000

“24” is of course neither liberal or conservative, but it is patriotic. To a true left winger, this makes it “conservative”.

But isn’t patriotism (being a weak form of nationalism) a conservative concept? Liberalism is usually associated with cosmopolitanism.

As far as these shows ‘annihilating’ some arguments – c’mon, they are basically modern comic strips; their ability to make a serious argument is obviously very-very limited.

By: ejh

ejh — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 08:40:39 +0000

Sometimes torture is wrong, sometimes it is the only way to avoid a greater evil

In which circumstances would this be? Would they not be circumstances which are largely fictional?

By: Terry

Terry — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 07:51:55 +0000

“But the one thing you’re overlooking is that Jack spends quite
a lot of time fighting the so called “right wing” political
evil-doers too.”

Jack Bauer, the hero of 24 regularly tortures people. You’re saying that’s ok because he fights right-wing vil-doers??

The idea that a show that promotes and glamorizes torture is ok so long as it isn’t racist, sexist or too right-wing is just soooo disgusting.

By: Clif

Clif — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 20:41:07 +0000

“24” is of course neither liberal or conservative, but it is patriotic. To a true left winger, this makes it “conservative”. But in America it is considered “conservative” because our hero employs torture. Sometimes torture is wrong, sometimes it is the only way to avoid a greater evil. I was a huge fan of “La Femme Nikita”, an earlier product of the same writers. “Nikita” would not kill in cold blood. But as a result many innocents were annihilated and the terrorists got stronger, conducting more missions and so forth. “24” and “LFN” force us to confront the kinds of situations that real decisionmakers face. “24” annihilates the arguments of the dogmatic (“torture is always wrong no matter what” and “all POWs should be given taxpayer paid court appointed attorneys and $4 million court trials before interrogation if their attorney says so”).

By: Sk

Sk — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 11:47:30 +0000

“It would be a good bargain, if the reality-based liberal community could strike it: in exchange for liberal control of actually existing institutions and policy-making,”

But you’ve already got that: you’ve got the press, you’ve got academia, you’ve got the teachers’ union, as well as other unions. You’ve got Hollywood and the music industry. You’ve even got Congress.

No surprise, though-they’re all a bunch of moral degenerates.

By: Katherine

Katherine — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 11:09:24 +0000

I have just finishing sitting through the two last series of Alias. In a similar way it has a very odd combination of “we’re the good guys and it is therefore necessary for us to beat bad people up in order to get answers” with “the bad guys do nasty torture against good people and are thus bad”. This is mixed up with more developed (and not subplot) feminism thread.

Interesting combo, but less likely to be debated because, I guess, Alias was less popular than 24.

By: brooksfoe

brooksfoe — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 07:54:46 +0000

Not terribly surprisingly since Tyne Daly appears not in Dirty Harry but in The Enforcer.

Doh. Serves me right for channel-surfing.

By: Tom T.

Tom T. — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 03:24:51 +0000

John H, I think you ought to watch more of the show. Thus far this season on 24: (1) the mass detention of Muslims has been shown to be ineffective, misguided, and counterproductive; (2) an effort to torture a confession from a suspected double agent has been shown to be ineffective, misguided, and counterproductive; (3) the (clearly virtuous) President has embraced a policy of achieving peace through dialogue with former terrorists; (4) the warmongering vice-president has been acknowledged as crazy and dangerous for his plan to make a unilateral strike against a Middle East nation as putative retaliation for the apparently unrelated nuclear strike by this season’s terror group. Moreover, the supposedly “omnicompetent” agency has failed to prevent a nuclear strike on US territory, has been hamstrung by internal resistance to point (3) above, and, like every season, is shot through with leaks and spies.

By: sara

sara — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 02:58:27 +0000

24 would be more amusing if American soldiers didn't feel encouraged by it to make like Jack Bauer. Without the encouragement of at least some of their superiors. For those who find the above source ironic (it's late even on this side of the water, so I am too tired to find the primary), another.

By: Ronald

Ronald — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 00:18:43 +0000

But the one thing you’re overlooking is that Jack spends quite a lot of time fighting the so called
“right wing” political evil-doers too. The entire second half of season 2 is about Jack trying to prevent an unnecessary war in the middle east and take down an evil oil tycoon (The terrorist threat was completely resolved halfway through). And then last season he was directly trying to stop the evil repub president Charles Logan from carrying out his plans. He even tortured Logan’s top aide and put a gun to the presidents head on seperate occasions.

The thing is there is alot of overlap between the political and terror fighting spheres. So much so that a recurring plot device is that the war hawks in the government actually set the terror cells in motion but then lose control of them. (they always have a secret agent inside the terrorist cell that is ordered to stop the bad guys at the right moment but he always gets made and executed) again see seasons 2 and 5.

I really don’t buy that the CTU action stuff is right wing in the first place. The bad guys do just as much if not more torturing than the good guys (Many times Jack himself is on the recieving end of it.) There have been a few occasions where completely innocent people get tortured and when the torturing doesn’t get correct info out of the bad guys. And do you honestly think that any Republicans would sacrifice themselves the way Jack does to save American lives?

By: radek

radek — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 22:58:12 +0000

Aside from 2) I don’t see anything particularly authortierian on that list.

By: marc sobel

marc sobel — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 22:24:24 +0000

I didn’t start watching 24 and after it had been around for a couple of years, got the DVD’s from netflix, watched the first three shows and sent them back. It was clearly (to me) advancing an authoritarian agenda in that:
1) you can’t trust anyone
2) you can do whatever you want as long as you think it is right
3) violence is justified and normal
4) government is corrupt
5) people are corrupt
6) the world is out to get you.

This seemed to be a show that like JFK convinced a lot of people that there was a plot to kill Kennedy, intends to make people afraid and suspicious, just right for the GWOT.

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 20:28:52 +0000

I always thought 24 was there just to provide a convenient shorthand for reductio ad absurdum for us MTV generation.

By: abb1

abb1 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 18:53:11 +0000

Non-interventionism means liberalism? I wish.

By: robert the red

robert the red — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 17:53:53 +0000

There is another, plot-structural reason for the “liberalism” (e.g., hands-off attitude) of the international scale action. If the terrorism plot could be resolved by forceful international action of some kind, then the plot would have to shift focus away from Jack. The whole terrorist scenarios are carefully constructed so that only Jack can save the nation—no amount of bombing-the-bejeesus out of some foreign country can help. This means non-interventionism on the international scale is required, and that means “liberalism”.