If NPR is the champion of the individual mind and sensibility against society and the state, then I’m the queen of England. NPR IS society and (more importantly) the state.“The artist...becomes the last champion of the individual mind and sensibility against an intrusive society and an officious state”
SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.Society is not the same thing as government - not at all. At least, not assuming that freedom exists.Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise. Common Sense
“Society is not the same thing as government”
I never said it was. If I implied it, that’s because they are on a certain level inseperable. But that’s not my main point. What I want to get across is that the sort of mindset currently governing NPR and the state alike—let’s call it the NPR mindset (i.e. contemporary American moderate leftism—also happens to be immensely culturally influential.
This is not to say the government itself, to say nothing of NPR itself, is the source of said influence. Government is of course ubiquitous, stretching way beyond its just limits. In some cases, for instance via the schools, it almost seems our society’s most important institution, more important to some even than family. But that, again, is not the main point. The main point is that the very same mindset behind the state is also dominates NPR, journalism in general, all forms of popular culture (music, tv, movies, fashion, advertising), high culture (the visual arts [painting, sculpture, architecture], literature, fine music [opera, etc.]), academia, corporate culture, charitable organizations and foundations, mainline churches, unions, and so on. Basically, every single institution responsible for diffusing ideas—that is, the intellectual community—is controlled by the NPR mindset.
That’s what I was getting at by saying NPR is society. Obviously, though, countless other mindsets permeate culture. This is especially true on the internet. One big alternate mindset, which according to its political aspect we might term conservatism, has its various cultural tentacles: in talk radio, cable news, think tanks, and so forth. From there you could go down the list, from libertarians and hardcore environmentalists to commies and anarchists to white supremacists and black nationalists.
So, yes, the NPR mindset is not society itself. However, counting government with nearly the entire mainstream non-internet intellectual world, it’s still pretty damn close.