THE PARATROOPERS' PARADOX

A paradox: An apparently contradictory proposition that may nevertheless be true.
The paradox: The first amendment cannot save itself without destroying itself.

Our Orwellian­Huxleyan circumstance is the crucible in which the paratroopers' paradox is formed. The eighteenth­century first amendment, with its emphasis on serious public discourse and its adherence to an anticensorial maxim, can no longer coexist with the self­indulgent bent of a mass entertainment culture. In order to protect this traditional vision, the first amendment must be recast to distinguish between old and new forms of media. ¹³⁵ But, once the government is empowered to regulate expression on commercial television, the old first­amendment specter of censorial oppression resurfaces. First­amendment protection collapses into first­amendment tyranny.

Yet, to preserve the conditions for self­defined liberty and to promote the corollary anticensorial idea, the modern first amendment must be recast to protect all forms of media without distinction. But unleashing the drives for self­amusement and for commercial corporate gains, the electronic first amendment debases the values of meaningful public discourse, effective dissent, and collective decision making, all in the service of a new mass culture. First­amendment liberty collapses into first­amendment triviality.

With an eye to avoiding the paradox, the natural desire is to navigate the first amendment between the Orwellian Scylla and Huxleyan Charybdis. Such compromise seeks to preserve the ideals of the traditional vision while averting censorship, and to concede the reign of the modern vision while stemming triviality. Yielding to two media masters may have unsettling consequences. To be effectual, elevated public discourse must survive and flourish on a leveling commercial medium wed to pleasure. First­amendment compromise collapses into first­amendment ineffectiveness.

As the careful reader may have already gleaned, ¹³⁶ this summary of the paradox sets the stage for our critique of the three scenarios sketched in Part III. The classical scenario invites tyranny, the modern scenario embraces triviality, and the reformist scenario endures ineffectiveness ­­ to understand this is to cross the Rubicon. ¹³⁷ We have, then, only to jump?