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Thought crime | Media | The Guardian
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Apr 30, 1:11pm
1 review
•http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2003/...
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From the page: "In 1964 the BBC broadcast Conversations for Tomorrow, a discussion programme with JB Priestley, Isaiah Berlin and AJ Ayer. Berlin and Ayer were probably the best-known intellectuals in Britain at the time and both were at the height of their careers.
The programme was everything that today's TV executives object to. It was very blokey: three middle-aged men talking round a table. It was old-fashioned, even then: all port and cigars, suits and plummy accents. And it was very excluding; the whole atmosphere oozed senior common room.
But - and here's the rub - it still makes fascinating viewing 40 years on. Ayer and Berlin thought and talked at unbelievable speed, leaving Priestley in their wake, like a hopeless teacher trying to run a lesson with two high-octane sixth formers. Licence payers were certainly getting their money's worth.
The contrast with today's television is revealing. When was the last time you saw the equivalents of Berlin and Ayer on television? It's not that they don't exist. There is no shortage of interesting philosophers, scientists, historians and cultural critics. Just listen to Start the Week or In Our Time on Radio 4, read the review sections of any broadsheet or peer through the piles of bestselling new books on consciousness, Darwinism or the second world war.
There is a considerable audience for exciting ideas discussed by top thinkers. It's not the viewers who have lost interest, but the TV executives. But why? Whatever happened to intellectuals on television? "
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