Allan Siegel: Chaos and Illusions
There is so many useful important threads to follow here and I kept wondering where to start or jump-in. So...
Michael Goldhaber has stated the following:
“We see and are directly affected by suffering because it is so much more central our own humanity than killing is. Statesmen only barely are beginning to understand this. One thing the Internet has already done is enlarge this contact with “the other side.” I don’t see any easy way for this trend to stop. Nor do I believe that anywhere in the world where such images are available they will not have effect.
This new form of war is entirely opposite of that that prevailed in WWII, where entire cities were demolished to make a point. There was not good war reporting in Japan, for instance, so the allies felt justified in fire-bombing Tokyo, heavily bombing other cities, and then using A-bombs against Hiroshima and, three days later, Nagasaki, just to make a point that might affect the Japanese war cabinet. Today such destruction would be seen immediately throughout the world, and the onus of evil would fall on the bombers, at least mostly.”
I am not so sure that today’s new form of war is so different than the past. The technology has changed (its glamor increased?), the destructiveness more targeted or contained but, “when push comes to shove” the number of recent examples of rampant destructiveness employed simply “to make a point” are quite plentiful.
Furthermore, I am not so sure that statesmen today have evolved from where they were 50 years ago or a hundred. Statesmen both in the past and in the present have shown themselves to be quite capable of obfuscating the truth when it suits their ‘higher calling’ of needing to achieve goals not easily grasped by the ‘common folk.’ And, what we can easily see is the consistent lack of transparency by statesmen when it comes to articulating clear political objectives. Truth is not even on the table.
The abundance of information (and disinformation) on television and the internet about the bombing of Lebanon did little to deter an institutionally organized act of terror. In fact the “representational fog” that now engulfs ‘the other/s” has tipped the discursive balance of power towards those most able to render ‘the enemy’ as: at best invisible, certainly ignominious and hopefully evil incarnate.
There has been a consistency of this kind of dualistic rhetoric since the advent of the Cold War. The ‘us’ and ‘them’ kind of mentality that so easily seeps through the American political landscape. And, sorry to say, this kind of binary attitude is just as prevalent on the Left (side A) as on the Right (side B). It is not so much that this descriptive language tarnishes but rather that - in its own depressing way - it renders discourse ineffectual, impotent. How sad (even with all those blogs out there) and how symptomatic of the devolution of the journalistic public sphere that in the U.S. so many people still think (somewhat desperately) of the NY Times as the singular focal point for ‘informed’ news and information.
So, jumping ahead here, the language which we utilize (draw upon) to comprehend ‘this violence’ or ‘these conflicts’ is very much shaped (and distorted) by individual and institutional (corporate, religious or governmental) biases that are very much rooted in OUR vision of the world and OUR priorities etc.. These different groupings represent what Edward Said called communities of interpretation.
One approach (obviously widespread in many corners of the globe) is simply that evil (in whatever form) must be vanquished. This is simplistic but attractive to many. Another approach is cloaked in the ‘higher values’ of the Enlightenment which, with diminished traction, somehow manages to persevere. (One of the primary illusions of liberalism is that it promotes as false sense of engagement with ‘important issues’ yet relies on political mechanisms gilded with a moral self-righteousness). More realistically, to approach events or people outside ideological frameworks that are slowly imploding is quite difficult. Perhaps, from wherever our vantage point, this is because we are struggling to find a new vocabulary and forms of action (activity). The tentativeness of this process is compounded by what seems to be both an abundance of information and, as Loretta has stated, an equal surplus of illusions.
At times it feels as if I am stuck within one of those conundrums of post-modernity where the past is suspect, the future uncertain and the present damn uncomfortable. The steps to extricate oneself from this predicament are awkward (maybe ineffectual) but necessary. They arise from evolving paradigms that are both descriptively and theoretically innovative.
> Allan Siegel
Michael Goldhaber has stated the following:
“We see and are directly affected by suffering because it is so much more central our own humanity than killing is. Statesmen only barely are beginning to understand this. One thing the Internet has already done is enlarge this contact with “the other side.” I don’t see any easy way for this trend to stop. Nor do I believe that anywhere in the world where such images are available they will not have effect.
This new form of war is entirely opposite of that that prevailed in WWII, where entire cities were demolished to make a point. There was not good war reporting in Japan, for instance, so the allies felt justified in fire-bombing Tokyo, heavily bombing other cities, and then using A-bombs against Hiroshima and, three days later, Nagasaki, just to make a point that might affect the Japanese war cabinet. Today such destruction would be seen immediately throughout the world, and the onus of evil would fall on the bombers, at least mostly.”
I am not so sure that today’s new form of war is so different than the past. The technology has changed (its glamor increased?), the destructiveness more targeted or contained but, “when push comes to shove” the number of recent examples of rampant destructiveness employed simply “to make a point” are quite plentiful.
Furthermore, I am not so sure that statesmen today have evolved from where they were 50 years ago or a hundred. Statesmen both in the past and in the present have shown themselves to be quite capable of obfuscating the truth when it suits their ‘higher calling’ of needing to achieve goals not easily grasped by the ‘common folk.’ And, what we can easily see is the consistent lack of transparency by statesmen when it comes to articulating clear political objectives. Truth is not even on the table.
The abundance of information (and disinformation) on television and the internet about the bombing of Lebanon did little to deter an institutionally organized act of terror. In fact the “representational fog” that now engulfs ‘the other/s” has tipped the discursive balance of power towards those most able to render ‘the enemy’ as: at best invisible, certainly ignominious and hopefully evil incarnate.
There has been a consistency of this kind of dualistic rhetoric since the advent of the Cold War. The ‘us’ and ‘them’ kind of mentality that so easily seeps through the American political landscape. And, sorry to say, this kind of binary attitude is just as prevalent on the Left (side A) as on the Right (side B). It is not so much that this descriptive language tarnishes but rather that - in its own depressing way - it renders discourse ineffectual, impotent. How sad (even with all those blogs out there) and how symptomatic of the devolution of the journalistic public sphere that in the U.S. so many people still think (somewhat desperately) of the NY Times as the singular focal point for ‘informed’ news and information.
So, jumping ahead here, the language which we utilize (draw upon) to comprehend ‘this violence’ or ‘these conflicts’ is very much shaped (and distorted) by individual and institutional (corporate, religious or governmental) biases that are very much rooted in OUR vision of the world and OUR priorities etc.. These different groupings represent what Edward Said called communities of interpretation.
One approach (obviously widespread in many corners of the globe) is simply that evil (in whatever form) must be vanquished. This is simplistic but attractive to many. Another approach is cloaked in the ‘higher values’ of the Enlightenment which, with diminished traction, somehow manages to persevere. (One of the primary illusions of liberalism is that it promotes as false sense of engagement with ‘important issues’ yet relies on political mechanisms gilded with a moral self-righteousness). More realistically, to approach events or people outside ideological frameworks that are slowly imploding is quite difficult. Perhaps, from wherever our vantage point, this is because we are struggling to find a new vocabulary and forms of action (activity). The tentativeness of this process is compounded by what seems to be both an abundance of information and, as Loretta has stated, an equal surplus of illusions.
At times it feels as if I am stuck within one of those conundrums of post-modernity where the past is suspect, the future uncertain and the present damn uncomfortable. The steps to extricate oneself from this predicament are awkward (maybe ineffectual) but necessary. They arise from evolving paradigms that are both descriptively and theoretically innovative.
> Allan Siegel