Oprah Winfrey has come to Australia, preceded by a planeload of audience for her Sydney Opera House programs. The style of her shows forms an interesting contrast with WikiLeaks, which holds up such a telling mirror to so many aspects of our culture. Winfrey's style is confessional in therapeutic mode. The style of WikiLeaks also confessional, but in a heroic mode.
The heart of Oprah's programs lies in her interviews with celebrities and ordinary Americans. Many have shaming stories to tell of their past. She has a gift for empathy, encouraging her interlocutors to speak openly of their experiences and of their feelings. Unlike most television hosts, she is also generous in revealing occasionally stories of her own past and her struggles.
Those interviewed go away cleansed of their sins, assured that they are good and loveable, and able to make a new start, forgetful of the consequences of what they have done.
Confession is ultimately about reconciliation. In Oprah's case the reconciliation is of the individual with the consumer society. The symbols of the beneficence of that society are everywhere to be seen. A book included in Oprah's Book Club can be expected to make a mint for author and publisher. One Oprah audience is taken to explore the resorts of Australia; another, to the last man and woman, receive Oldsmobiles.
Singers and actors who appear on the show find their careers take off. Disgraced politicians forgiven on the show return to political life. All touched by the program are offered the gift of a moment of celebrity, a transfiguration of the ordinary that can also be cashed in for more lasting and tangible gifts.
Where reconciliation is effective it affirms the value of both parties involved. Oprah reassures the viewer that the United States consumer society and its underpinnings are healthy and benign. It rewards candid sinners, showers its sectaries with gifts, including the most precious gift of celebrity.
It displays its compassion in forgiveness and also in promoting beneficence to the poor who live in less blessed societies, like Africa. The show declares those who live in the United States under its free enterprise system to be indeed blessed.
This is very different from the world of WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks is about convicting the faithless of their sins and imposing a penance that will lead to reconciliation.
It echoes the rite of reconciliation open to Christians who had denied Christ during times of persecution by sacrificing