{"id":9390,"date":"2023-03-14T10:03:13","date_gmt":"2023-03-14T10:03:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/?p=9390"},"modified":"2023-03-21T10:41:35","modified_gmt":"2023-03-21T10:41:35","slug":"objectivity-and-values-a-brief-comment-on-the-gary-lineker-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/objectivity-and-values-a-brief-comment-on-the-gary-lineker-controversy\/","title":{"rendered":"Objectivity and values: a brief comment on the Gary Lineker \u2018controversy\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On 7th<\/sup> March, the former England football Captain and BBC Match of the Day presenter Gary Lineker <\/a>made the following remark about the Conservative Government\u2019s \u2018Stop the Boats\u2019 campaign:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018There is no huge influx.<\/a> We take far fewer refugees than other major European countries. This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s\u2026\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a response, Lineker found himself in deep political water.  Conservative critics claimed that he had broken BBC impartiality rules. \u2018Lineker must go\u2019 they cried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This whole controversy presents us with some interesting philosophical questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First,  what do we mean by impartiality?  The Oxford English Dictionary<\/em> defines impartiality as \u2018A democratic ethical principle that official judgements and reports should be based on objective and relevant criteria, without bias or prejudice\u2026\u2019 But this presents a philosophical problem.  For,  given the complex asymmetries of power  characteristic of our social world,  it may be impossible not to take a side. Indeed, Paulo Freire (1985) summed this point up neatly when he wrote: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Washing one’s hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral. \u2018<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, what do we mean be \u2018objective and relevant criteria\u2019? The BBC Impartiality Guidelines <\/a>state that \u2018Opinion should be clearly distinguished from fact\u2019 (Section 4.3.6)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is based on a type of common-sense assumption that a clear demarcation can be made between fact and value. But such a demarcation is at best philosophically problematic. It is the case that such a common-sense view can find some collaboration in the history of philosophy \u2013 particularly in the writings of the Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume. In his A Treatise on Human Nature<\/em> (1739), Hume warned against a tendency to move from statements of \u2018is\u2019 to statements of \u2018ought\u2019, that is factual statements about how the world is to value-based statements about how it ought (or ought not) to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I do think Hume\u2019s words can be a useful corrective to a form of lazy thinking in which we jump to make pronouncements of value as though these are simple remarks about states of affairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this is not what Lineker is doing. To begin with, taken simply as statements of fact, it seems that Lineker\u2019s tweet is persuasive. Relative to other European countries, it simply is false to suggest that the UK is experiencing a \u2018huge influx\u2019 of asylum seekers. Figures from the House of Common\u2019s library <\/a>make this clear. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, we have a Government and Home Office which is at best cavalier with the truth \u2013 concerned more with whipping up public anxiety through fighting the culture wars than finding evidence based solutions to complex geopolitical issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, the BBC distinction between opinion and fact seems to consider opinion as merely<\/em> subjective.  But values can be more analytically robust than such an account suggests. It can at least be argued that the incorporation of certain forms of value judgement into our analysis provides us with a greater sense of objective understanding. The philosopher Roy Bhaskar (1994) cites an example from the work of the Oxford philosopher Isaiah Berlin. Consider the following four statements of events in Germany under the rule of the Nazis:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. The country was de-populated.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Millions of people died.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Millions of people were killed.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. Millions of people were murdered.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Not only is the fourth statement more evaluative, it is also more complete at a descriptive level. And we would be rightly concerned about the \u2018objectivity\u2019 of the person referring to this as a case of \u2018de-population\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    To return to our example.  Is it not the case that Lineker\u2019s use of evaluative language and historical comparison is more objective than the partial words of the Home Secretary?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    And does not the Holocaust survivor Joan Salter\u2019s view that the Home Secretary\u2019s <\/a>language on refugees is similar to the language used to justify the murder of her family, at least provide support to the accuracy of Lineker\u2019s words? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    David Bates is Professor of Contemporary Political Thought & Director of Research and Enterprise in the School of Law, Policing and Social Sciences.<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Professor David Bates discusses a recent dispute between Gary Lineker and the BBC following the former footballer\u2019s tweet about the Government\u2019s immigration policy. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":151654,"featured_media":9406,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[290,41,3902,1357],"tags":[2557,4794,2529,4790,4798,3826,3193,1805],"class_list":["post-9390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media","category-politics","category-research","category-society","tag-conservative-party","tag-controvery","tag-football","tag-gary-lineker","tag-ggovernment","tag-holocaust","tag-tories","tag-twitter"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"authorName":"Emma Grafton-Williams","featuredImage":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/437\/2023\/03\/shutterstock_2254812113.jpg","postExcerpt":"Professor David Bates discusses a recent dispute between Gary Lineker and the BBC following the former footballer\u2019s tweet about the Government\u2019s immigration policy. ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/151654"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9390"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9474,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9390\/revisions\/9474"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/expertcomment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}