I'd like to start, if I may, with the story of the Paisley snail. On the evening of the 26th of August, 1928, May Donoghue took a train from Glasgow to the town of Paisley, seven miles east of the city, and there at the Wellmeadow Café, she had a Scots ice cream float, a mix of ice cream and ginger beer bought for her by a friend. The ginger beer came in a brown, opaque bottle labeled "D. Stevenson, Glen Lane, Paisley." She drank some of the ice cream float, but as the remaining ginger beer was poured into her tumbler, a decomposed snail floated to the surface of her glass. Three days later, she was admitted to the Glasgow Royal Infirmary and diagnosed with severe gastroenteritis and shock.
Če smem, bi začel z zgodbo o polžu iz Paisleya. 26. avgusta 1928 zvečer se je May Donoghue z vlakom odpeljala iz Glasgowa v Paisley, sedem milj vzhodno od mesta. Tam je v kavarni Wellmeadow naročila škotski sladoledov napitek mešanico sladoleda in ingverjevega piva, ki ji ga je plačal prijatelj. Ingverjevo pivo je bilo v temno rjavi steklenici z oznako "D. Stevenson, Glen Lane, Paisley." Popila je nekaj napitka, a ko so ji v kozarec dolili preostalo pivo, je na površje splaval razpadajoč polž. Čez tri dni so jo sprejeli v bolnišnico v Glasgowu in ugotovili, da ima resen gastroenteritis ter da je v šoku.
The case of Donoghue vs. Stevenson that followed set a very important legal precedent: Stevenson, the manufacturer of the ginger beer, was held to have a clear duty of care towards May Donoghue, even though there was no contract between them, and, indeed, she hadn't even bought the drink. One of the judges, Lord Atkin, described it like this: You must take care to avoid acts or omissions which you can reasonably foresee would be likely to injure your neighbor. Indeed, one wonders that without a duty of care, how many people would have had to suffer from gastroenteritis before Stevenson eventually went out of business.
Primer Donoghue proti Stevensonu, ki je sledil, je postavil pomemben pravni precedens: Proizvajalec ingverjevega piva Stevenson je imel jasno dolžnost skrbnega ravnanja do May Donoghue, čeprav med njima ni bilo pogodbe in čeprav ni sama niti kupila pijače. Lord Atkin, eden od sodnikov, je zadevo opisal tako: Izogibati se morate dejanjem ali njihovi opustitvi, če lahko razumno predvidevate, da bi to lahko poškodovalo drugega. Če bi ta dolžnost ne obstajala, se sprašujem, koliko bi jih še zbolelo, preden bi Stevenson izgubil posel.
Now please hang on to that Paisley snail story, because it's an important principle. Last year, the Hansard Society, a nonpartisan charity which seeks to strengthen parliamentary democracy and encourage greater public involvement in politics published, alongside their annual audit of political engagement, an additional section devoted entirely to politics and the media. Here are a couple of rather depressing observations from that survey. Tabloid newspapers do not appear to advance the political citizenship of their readers, relative even to those who read no newspapers whatsoever. Tabloid-only readers are twice as likely to agree with a negative view of politics than readers of no newspapers. They're not just less politically engaged. They are consuming media that reinforces their negative evaluation of politics, thereby contributing to a fatalistic and cynical attitude to democracy and their own role within it. Little wonder that the report concluded that in this respect, the press, particularly the tabloids, appear not to be living up to the importance of their role in our democracy.
Ohranite zgodbo o polžu v mislih, saj vsebuje pomembno načelo. Lani je dobrodelna organizacija, Hansard Society, ki si prizadeva za boljšo parlamentarno demokracijo ter spodbuja vključevanje javnosti v politiko, poleg letnega poročila objavila tudi posebno poglavje o politiki in medijih. Tule je nekaj depresivnih izsledkov te raziskave. Tabloidi ne pomagajo graditi političnega državljanstva med bralci, pravzaprav je še slabše kot med tistimi, ki sploh ne berejo časopisov. Bralci izključno tabloidov bodo dvakrat bolj verjetno imeli negativno mnenje o politiki, kot ne-bralci časopisov. Ne samo, da so manj politično angažirani. Berejo medije, ki krepijo njihov negativen pogled na politiko, s čimer spodbujajo fatalističen in ciničen odnos do demokracije in njihove vloge v njej. Nič čudnega, da je poročilo ugotovilo, da v tem smislu tisk, posebej tabloidi, ne upravičujejo svoje vloge glede njihovega pomena za demokracijo.
Now I doubt if anyone in this room would seriously challenge that view. But if Hansard are right, and they usually are, then we've got a very serious problem on our hands, and it's one that I'd like to spend the next 10 minutes focusing upon.
Dvomim, da bo kdo med vami resno izzval to mnenje. A če ima Hansard prav, in ponavadi ima, potem je to velik problem, na katerega se bom osredotočil v naslednjih desetih minutah.
Since the Paisley snail, and especially over the past decade or so, a great deal of thinking has been developed around the notion of a duty of care as it relates to a number of aspects of civil society. Generally a duty of care arises when one individual or a group of individuals undertakes an activity which has the potential to cause harm to another, either physically, mentally or economically. This is principally focused on obvious areas, such as our empathetic response to children and young people, to our service personnel, and to the elderly and infirm. It is seldom, if ever, extended to equally important arguments around the fragility of our present system of government, to the notion that honesty, accuracy and impartiality are fundamental to the process of building and embedding an informed, participatory democracy. And the more you think about it, the stranger that is.
Od časa polža iz Paisleya ter posebej v zadnjem desetletju se je razmišljanje o dolžnosti skrbnega ravnanja precej razvilo, saj je povezano s številnimi vidiki civilne družbe. V splošnem dolžnost skrbnega ravnanja nastane, ko posameznik ali skupina izvaja določen akt, ki bi lahko drugim naredil škodo, fizično, duševno ali gospodarsko. To se nanaša predvsem na očitne zadeve, denimo empatičen odnos do otrok in mladine, do uslužbencev, starejših in nemočnih. Redko, če sploh, se razširi na prav tako pomembne razprave o ranljivosti trenutnega sistema vladanja, v smislu, da so poštenje, točnost in nepristranskost ključne za gradnjo in utrditev jasne participatorne demokracije. Bolj ko razmišljate o tem, bolj čudno postaja.
A couple of years ago, I had the pleasure of opening a brand new school in the northeast of England. It had been renamed by its pupils as Academy 360. As I walked through their impressive, glass-covered atrium, in front of me, emblazoned on the wall in letters of fire was Marcus Aurelius's famous injunction: If it's not true, don't say it; if it's not right, don't do it. The head teacher saw me staring at it, and he said, "Oh, that's our school motto." On the train back to London, I couldn't get it out of my mind. I kept thinking, can it really have taken us over 2,000 years to come to terms with that simple notion as being our minimum expectation of each other? Isn't it time that we develop this concept of a duty of care and extended it to include a care for our shared but increasingly endangered democratic values? After all, the absence of a duty of care within many professions can all too easily amount to accusations of negligence, and that being the case, can we be really comfortable with the thought that we're in effect being negligent in respect of the health of our own societies and the values that necessarily underpin them? Could anyone honestly suggest, on the evidence, that the same media which Hansard so roundly condemned have taken sufficient care to avoid behaving in ways which they could reasonably have foreseen would be likely to undermine or even damage our inherently fragile democratic settlement.
Pred nekaj leti sem imel čast otvoriti čisto novo šolo na severovzhodu Anglije. Učenci so jo preimenovali v Akademijo 360. Ko sem šel skozi občudovanja vreden stekleni atrij, sem pred seboj v zidu videl, z ognjenimi črkami, vgraviran znan opomin Marka Avrelija: Če ni res, tega ne govori, če ni prav, tega ne stori. Ravnatelj je videl, da gledam tja, in dejal je: "Oh, to je moto naše šole." Na vlaku nazaj proti Londonu mi to ni dalo miru. Smo res potrebovali več kot 2000 let, da smo sprejeli, da je to enostavno načelo tisto najmanj, kar pričakujemo drug od drugega? Mar ni čas, da razvijemo koncept dolžnosti skrbnega ravnanja ter ga razširimo na skrb za skupne, a vse bolj ogrožene demokratične vrednote? Odsotnost dolžnosti skrbnega ravnanja v mnogih poklicih prehitro pripelje do obtožb zanemarjanja, v tem primeru - ali res lahko kar sprejmemo misel, da v bistvu zanemarjamo zdravje lastne družbe ter vrednot, na katerih temelji? Lahko kdo pošteno potrdi, z dokazi, da se isti mediji, ki jih je Hansard tako odkrito obsodil, dovolj skrbno izogibajo obnašanju, za katerega lahko predvidijo, da bi utegnilo spodkopati ali celo poškodovati našo krhko demokratično ureditev.
Now there will be those who will argue that this could all too easily drift into a form of censorship, albeit self-censorship, but I don't buy that argument. It has to be possible to balance freedom of expression with wider moral and social responsibilities.
Seveda bodo nekateri trdili, da to lahko hitro zdrsne v cenzuro, četudi samocenzuro, a ta argument zame ne zdrži. Mora biti mogoče uravnotežiti svobodo izražanja s širšo moralno in družbeno odgovornostjo.
Let me explain why by taking the example from my own career as a filmmaker. Throughout that career, I never accepted that a filmmaker should set about putting their own work outside or above what he or she believed to be a decent set of values for their own life, their own family, and the future of the society in which we all live. I'd go further. A responsible filmmaker should never devalue their work to a point at which it becomes less than true to the world they themselves wish to inhabit. As I see it, filmmakers, journalists, even bloggers are all required to face up to the social expectations that come with combining the intrinsic power of their medium with their well-honed professional skills. Obviously this is not a mandated duty, but for the gifted filmmaker and the responsible journalist or even blogger, it strikes me as being utterly inescapable.
Naj pojasnim z lastnim primerom iz svoje kariere filmarja. Ves ta čas nisem nikoli sprejel, da bi filmarji svoje delo postavljali izven ali iznad lastnega dostojnega seta vrednot o svojem življenju, svoji družini ter prihodnosti družbe, v kateri živimo. Še več. Odgovoren filmar ne bi nikoli razvrednotil svojega dela do te mere, da bi postalo manj kot zvesto svetu, v katerem sam želi živeti. Filmarji, novinarji, celo blogerji morajo spoštovati družbena pričakovanja, ki pridejo z močjo njihovega medija v kombinaciji z njihovimi strokovnimi veščinami. Seveda ta dolžnost ni napisana, a je za nadarjenega filmarja in odgovornega novinarja ali celo blogerja po moje povsem neizogibna.
We should always remember that our notion of individual freedom and its partner, creative freedom, is comparatively new in the history of Western ideas, and for that reason, it's often undervalued and can be very quickly undermined. It's a prize easily lost, and once lost, once surrendered, it can prove very, very hard to reclaim. And its first line of defense has to be our own standards, not those enforced on us by a censor or legislation, our own standards and our own integrity. Our integrity as we deal with those with whom we work and our own standards as we operate within society. And these standards of ours need to be all of a piece with a sustainable social agenda. They're part of a collective responsibility, the responsibility of the artist or the journalist to deal with the world as it really is, and this, in turn, must go hand in hand with the responsibility of those governing society to also face up to that world, and not to be tempted to misappropriate the causes of its ills. Yet, as has become strikingly clear over the last couple of years, such responsibility has to a very great extent been abrogated by large sections of the media. And as a consequence, across the Western world, the over-simplistic policies of the parties of protest and their appeal to a largely disillusioned, older demographic, along with the apathy and obsession with the trivial that typifies at least some of the young, taken together, these and other similarly contemporary aberrations are threatening to squeeze the life out of active, informed debate and engagement, and I stress active.
Moramo se zavedati, da je naša predstava o svobodi posameznika in o ustvarjalni svobodi v zgodovini zahodne ideje precej nova, zato je pogosto podcenjena in se jo hitro lahko spodkoplje. Je nagrada, ki hitro izgine in ko je izgubljena, predana, jo je zelo težko dobiti nazaj. Prva obrambna črta morajo biti naši lastni standardi, ne tisti, ki jih določi cenzor ali zakon, lastni standardi in lastna integriteta. Naša integriteta, ko delamo z drugimi in naši standardi, ko delujemo v družbi. Ti naši standardi morajo biti del trajnostne družbene agende. So del kolektivne odgovornosti, odgovornosti umetnika ali novinarja, da pokaže svet, kakršen je, to pa mora iti z roko v roki z odgovornostjo tistih, ki vodijo družbo, da se soočijo s tem svetom ter nimajo skušnjav, da bi napačno identificirali vzroke za njegove težave. A v zadnjih letih je postalo osupljivo jasno, da je velik del medijev v veliki meri zaobšel to odgovornost. Posledično po vsem zahodnem svetu poenostavljeni pristopi strank k protestu in pozivi predvsem razočaranim starejšim ljudem, skupaj z apatijo in obsedenostjo s trivialnim, značilno za vsaj del mladine, vse skupaj, ti in podobni moderni odkloni grozijo, da bodo uničili aktivno, informirano razpravo in aktivnost, poudarjam aktivnost.
The most ardent of libertarians might argue that Donoghue v. Stevenson should have been thrown out of court and that Stevenson would eventually have gone out of business if he'd continued to sell ginger beer with snails in it. But most of us, I think, accept some small role for the state to enforce a duty of care, and the key word here is reasonable. Judges must ask, did they take reasonable care and could they have reasonably foreseen the consequences of their actions? Far from signifying overbearing state power, it's that small common sense test of reasonableness that I'd like us to apply to those in the media who, after all, set the tone and the content for much of our democratic discourse.
Najbolj zavzeti libertarci bodo rekli, da bi sodišče moralo zavreči primer Donoghue proti Stevensonu ter da bi Stevenson sčasoma izgubil posel, če bi še naprej prodajal pivo s polži. A večina med nami verjetno sprejema razumno vlogo države pri uresničevanju dolžnosti skrbnega ravnanja, poudarek je na "razumno". Sodnik se mora vprašati, ali so ustrezno poskrbeli in razumno predvideli posledice svojih dejanj. To ne pomeni prevlade države, je pa majhen skupni test razumnosti, za katerega bi rad, da bi se nanašal na medije, ki dajejo ton in vsebino večini naše demokratične razprave.
Democracy, in order to work, requires that reasonable men and women take the time to understand and debate difficult, sometimes complex issues, and they do so in an atmosphere which strives for the type of understanding that leads to, if not agreement, then at least a productive and workable compromise. Politics is about choices, and within those choices, politics is about priorities. It's about reconciling conflicting preferences wherever and whenever possibly based on fact. But if the facts themselves are distorted, the resolutions are likely only to create further conflict, with all the stresses and strains on society that inevitably follow. The media have to decide: Do they see their role as being to inflame or to inform? Because in the end, it comes down to a combination of trust and leadership.
Če hoče demokracija delovati, morajo razumni možje in žene razumeti in razpravljati o včasih težkih, kompleksnih stvareh in to počnejo v atmosferi, ki ima za cilj razumevanje, ki vodi do sporazuma ali pa vsaj do produktivnega, delujočega kompromisa. Politika so izbire in med njimi gre za prioritete. Treba je uskladiti nasprotujoče si izbire, kjerkoli in kadarkoli mogoče na podlagi dejstev. A če so dejstva izkrivljena, bodo dogovori verjetno le še povečali konflikt, sledil pa mu bo pritisk na družbo. Mediji se morajo odločiti: je njihova vloga razvnemati ali informirati? Konec koncev vedno pridemo do kombinacije zaupanja in vodenja.
Fifty years ago this week, President John F. Kennedy made two epoch-making speeches, the first on disarmament and the second on civil rights. The first led almost immediately to the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and the second led to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, both of which represented giant leaps forward. Democracy, well-led and well-informed, can achieve very great things, but there's a precondition. We have to trust that those making those decisions are acting in the best interest not of themselves but of the whole of the people. We need factually-based options, clearly laid out, not those of a few powerful and potentially manipulative corporations pursuing their own frequently narrow agendas, but accurate, unprejudiced information with which to make our own judgments. If we want to provide decent, fulfilling lives for our children and our children's children, we need to exercise to the very greatest degree possible that duty of care for a vibrant, and hopefully a lasting, democracy. Thank you very much for listening to me. (Applause)
Pred 50 leti je predsednik John F. Kenedy imel dva epska govora, enega o razoroževanju in drugega o državljanskih pravicah. Prvi je skoraj takoj vodil v Pogodbo o prepovedi jedrskih poskusov, drugi je leta 1964 vodil v Zakon o državljanskih pravicah, oba sta bila velika skoka naprej. Dobro vodena in dobro informirana demokracija lahko doseže veličastne stvari, a obstaja predpogoj. Zaupati moramo tistim, ki odločajo, da ne delujejo v svojem interesu, pač pa v interesu vseh ljudi. Potrebujemo na dejstvih utemeljena mnenja, jasno razdelana, ne tista peščice močnih in potencialno manipulativnih korporacij, ki sledijo svojim pogosto ozkim ciljem, temveč točne, nepristranske informacije, ki nam bodo pomagale sprejemati odločitve. Če želimo svojim otrokom in vnukom zagotoviti dostojno, polno življenje, moramo v največji možni meri izvajati dolžnost skrbnega ravnanja, za živahno in upam, trajno, demokracijo. Hvala lepa, da ste me poslušali. (aplavz)