24

 

Trust is the key to survival. And by trust, I mean getting out of the way and letting me do what I need to do.

I've learnt a lot from Jack Bauer (more here)... back in the States a group of us would regularly watch 24, and all of us were knowledgeable, intuitive classical liberals/libertarians. Obviously correlation doesn't imply causation, however it's intriguing to associate the two: is 24 pro-freedom?

Matt McCaffrey expresses his own view in no uncertain terms, in an article at the Mises Institute:

The show calls to mind the brilliant propaganda films of Leni Riefenstahl.

Strewth! So how can I enjoy 24? Am I a hypocrite? Firstly lets appreciate it for what it is: ficticious, entertaining television. Consequently we can forgive the unrealistic protagonist (an omnisicient, benevolent hero), because it's incredulous to believe that Jack is supposed to embody anyone.

And not only that but Charlie Brooker (by far the wittiest, most brilliant TV critic there is) is scathing:

In short, 24 has become a spiralling, undisciplined caricature of itself: The Naked Gun with blood-curdling paranoia in place of jokes. This is no longer a knockabout drama serial. It's mad crypto fascist horror. You can still laugh at it, of course. But only just.

This mildly racist critique (apparently Wayne Palmer = R Kelly) thinks that any portrayal of the pitfalls of racial profiling is undone by the steady stream of Middle Eastern terrorists. But it's simply not true that 24 looks to Arabs as their source of fundamentalism: the "baddies" of Season 4 were Chinese, and Season 5 it was an alliance between Chechens and Americans. As the story traced the acts of terrorism to Jack Bauer's own father, 24 spreads out the guilt widely.

The show is dinstinctly American, and provides an attention to constitutionalism that is desperately needed. Some of the debates between Tom Lennox and Karen Hayes have been majestic, but it goes beyond simplistic dualism and demonstrates in action two distinctly radical views: that bureaucracy is a major constraint on effective action; and corruption is inherently tied to high political office.

I think it's far too simplistic to characterise 24 as either being sycophantic homage to government agents; or a neo-con sponsored defense of torture. My claim is that 24 is a complex paradox, where the only bottom line is that it's quality television. As TIME said:

24's ideology--Jack Bauerism, if you will--is not so much in between left and right as it is outside them, impatient with both A.C.L.U. niceties and Bushian moral absolutes