Friday, August 29, 2003

Mini essay on terrorism Posted here Friday, August 29, 2003 at 10:33:26 PM     The problems in the discussion about US policy in the face of 911 and Iraq seem to me to be being approached with normal language and sentence structure, as though things are understandable and capable of being dealt with by the range of responses that have always worked for us. I doubt it.   The following is more poetic, like a collage, purposefully avoiding premature coherence. Kundera says in his Art of the Novel that the progress from Cervantes (moving into an incomprehensible world with old values) to Kafka and his total inability to go out at all, is the arc of the west   Which are you personally in favor of supporting?   Islam Christianity the West Modernity Communities leading by tech innovation Free markets More equal distribution of outcomes within and among countries patriotism separation of church and state spiritual guidance of governance abandoning the messy present for tradition abandoning the messy present for the perfectible future   This is just to point out that each of us carries a fairly unique mix of these, and even in a  group such as this one, the mix varies, and is full of conflict, not just between us but within each of us.   The response is terrorism civil war sectarian struggles within religions militarism loss of civil rights unsupportable increase in security expenses reengagement in democratic politics focus on private life increasingly inadequate press world events as entertainment (death and sex)   In our fragmentation and lack of focus, we get more hysterical and depressed. Our reactions are more primitive and lack coherence. Being for power is unacceptable and being against has no alternative to propose. Leadership thus tries to lead despite our immobility.   Terrorism is the result of numerous forces: alienation, cultural humiliation, poverty of one's society (if not oneself), revenge in reaction to violence real or imagined.   The US reaction, toughen up, is understandable but totally contrary to psychology. It only helps opposition solidify its identity.   The European reaction, denial, while avoiding escalating violence, allows the negative economic and cultural forces to continue and increase their damage.   The West, i think, starting perhaps with the crusades, started an escalating version of the mess and furthered it with world exploitation in a series of rising and collapsing empires: Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, English, United States. The current world situation is a result of those risings and collapses.   Does the West (European civilizion and its American outreach) have the capacity to respond diplomatically and humanly to the world, or are we, in our fragmentation, impossibly far from being able to act on our own values, preferring sub maximizations - that is, we deal with our accountants and lawyers to help earn more, keep more, pay less tax, and keep looking for angles, deals, safety?   I would accept the tensions within religions as dangerous, providing we are able to see that science, and western individuality are also in a religious war with each other. We cannot say that THEY are in a religious struggle but WE are not. We are, each of us, swamped by internal contradictions that are surfacing because the mainstream has reached the delta and spreads itself out into many rivulets and lose energy.   We are in an entropic civilization, we have lost any strange attractor to give us coherence. It is all fascinating, and very dangerous.   Population increase keeps destabilizing any arrangement. Kundera wrote The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by which he meant that as each of us has in our lifetime moved from being one in two billion, to one in six billion, our personal self, the weight (as good a measure as GNP) is the quotient. We become lighter and lighter, insignificant, without impact, local culture and relationships are increasingly impossible, we are swamped by large forces. There are no niches, no interstices. Life on my little island is a romantic fantasy that only works for the rich who can afford the good views, or the social security retired who can live in the cheap places (they are fine), but younger people cannot even afford $500 a month in rent with no income.   Right now we have to face the issue: should the US back out of Iraq, or should we move forward, including the use of nuclear tactical weapons, and taking on Pakistan?   If keeping the Whitehouse hinges on such decisions, which way will decisions go?   Please take this in the spirit of Grand Rounds, where the house staff gathers to deal as a team with the most difficult patients, laying out all the x-rays, lab results, reports from the nurses and social workers, and start with the mess, and then think, what can happen, and what could make a difference?   Besides, we live here. ********