<underfire> chaos, illusions and the search for meaning

[Der Derian, James]

Hi Loretta et al

 

Sorry about the delayed response, but I've found it hard, time- and
head-wise, to step back into this interpretive community after spending
the last week shooting the return of the 1/25th Marines (New England
reservists who spent the last 7 months in one of more dangerous places
on the planet, Al Anbar province), whom we've been filming for the last
year as part of a documentary, 'The Culture of War' (some outtakes
attached).  Getting up close to the war machine has its dangers (I've
seen many an embed go native), but it also has its virtues (hearing a
two-star general tell you where he'd like to stick all the neocons).
And you do get a more variegated view of war, certainly more than the
NYTimes, but also more than I've recently been scanning in these online
exchanges.  

 

So my first intervention goes after a para that I suspect Loretta
purposely (and provocatively) made 'target-rich':

 

Young unemployed Americans, from poor and middle class areas, are
joining the army because they have no other way to earn a living (see
the stats from www.nationalpriorities.com
<http://www.nationalpriorities.com/> ). They are the soldiers who fight
in Iraq. Secularization has been replaced by a rising tide of 'cheap
spirituality' from New Age gurus to Christian fundamentalism. Islam, a
solid monotheistic religion, is on the rise everywhere in the West with
numbers of converts increasing in all European countries. Advance in
communication and technology, in particular the internet, foster
physical isolation, people do not socialized as they did before, thus
the idea to gather en masse to demonstrate against the establishment is
not so appealing as it was in the past. Attitude towards politics is
marked by disillusion, politicians are all corrupted, opposition is lead
by comedians (see Michael Moore) as if politics was a joke, people who
are unable to project an alternative strategy, to put have a vision of
how the future should be. 

 

If it were only so simple.  To be sure socio-economics play a role, an
important role, in why people join the army and other military services.
But in my interviews with soldiers and marines, the break is about even
in why they joined up:  between seeking opportunity and, for want of a
better work, 'meaning' for/in their life.  Patriotism figures, but in a
minor key to the main song I heard:  my life is messed up, my country
needs me, and the military offers a solution to the problem.  Perhaps
'cheap' spirituality, satire, and reality TV aren't cutting it in the
meaning department.  But as someone who always thought
counter-simulations were a better (faster) political tactic than (but
not to the exclusion of) 'truth-telling', and since I'd rather stock up
and deploy weapons of mass whimsy and mass online swarming now rather
than wait for that ever-pending moment of mass opposition, I much prefer
my John Stewart to Noam Chomsky (pace Hugo the Exorcist). 

 

VTY

JDD

 

James Der Derian

Director, Global Security Program

Professor of International Studies (Research)

Watson Institute for International Studies

Brown University Box 1970

111 Thayer Street

Providence, RI 02912

Voice 401 863-1814

Fax 401 863-1270

 

________________________________

From: underfire-bounces at underfire.eyebeam.org
[mailto:underfire-bounces at underfire.eyebeam.org] On Behalf Of Loretta
Napoleoni
Sent: Wednesday, November 01, 2006 5:16 AM
To: underfire at underfire.eyebeam.org
Subject: Re: <underfire> chaos and illusions, generation,and a
comparison with the anti-Viet Nam movement

 

I would like to draw the attention to a major issue, why the war in Iraq
and in Afghanistan, which is clearly an un-just, illegal war, a war
which is costing US taxpayer $380,000 per extra minute, has not
generated an opposition movement similar to the one triggered by the
Viet Nam war?

 

The most common answer is there are no sufficient body bags coming back
home. Modern war technology makes it possible for the military to avoid
a large number of casualties. Soldiers wear a body armor which protects
their vital organs, so we do not have so many deaths but we have a
phenomenal number of injuries, some permanent. Body bags are also no
publicized, the media does not show them coming home; it does not show
the funerals, the parents and the loved ones crying. 

The other argument is the national draft. Young people do not feel
threaten by the war because they are not at risk of ending up fighting. 

 

I believe that this is a simplistic answer. For sure the public display
of death soldiers and the draft was an incentive in the 1970s to
demonstrate against the war, but there are other important factors which
lead to the mass anti-war demonstration. 

 

In Generations, culture and society, June Edmunds and Bryan S. Turner
(OUP, Buckingham, 2002) gives the following definition of generation:

a collection of people born at the same time who as a result of a major
event (war etc) develops a collective consciousness which results in
social change. An active generation changes the society in which they
live.

A passive generation accepts a given culture.

This characterisation of generations must be challenged, and understood
as an outcome of changes in the projections of mass media. Indeed, there
is passivity, but there is much evidence to suggest the simplicity of
political news, the complexity of modern issues and the narrow bracket
of debate allowed in the mainstream media have fed this passivity.

 

The 1960s generation was an active generation. 

In the 1960s and most of the 1970s, poverty in the US was falling and
the US middle class was getting a larger share of the GDP. People were
overall satisfied with their life and had great hopes for the future.
Against this background Post war generation (sixties generation) was
shaped by the Cold War, the rise of communism, the rise of consumerism
and the sexual revolution. This led to them becoming very active and
prompting secularization, the women's movement and a move towards global
economy including a more technological and service orientated workforce.
They were the first "global generation" because of advances in
communication technology.

Sixties generation was characterized by anti-establishment movements eg.
The civil rights movement, feminism and the anti-war campaign.

Changes in attitude towards sexuality, race, divorce and the family
combined with changes in attitude towards religion were also a feature
of the period. Theses were in opposition to the oppression of the 1950s.

Divisions occurred between the sixties generation and its predecessor to
a great extent as a result of the sixties opposition to the Vietnam War
and their condemnation of the Cold War politics that had produced
McCarthyism. This was exacerbated by a rapid increase in the number of
university students which led to student activism and youth movements.

Youth movements were characterized by the role of popular culture which
spread through rock music and film, the widespread nature of these
commodities made the first mass culture.

The media played a major role in promoting the 1960s generation
revolution and in exposing the faults of the establishment. One could
say that the mainstream media was antiestablishment. Who can forget Dan
Rather standing in the Viet Nam jungle accusing the US army to use napal
against the viet cong? 

 

The present generation is a passive generation.

Income inequality is rising, poverty is rising and the middle class is
struggling to make ends meet because of massive debts and job
insecurity. Young unemployed Americans, from poor and middle class
areas, are joining the army because they have no other way to earn a
living (see the stats from www.nationalpriorities.com
<http://www.nationalpriorities.com/> ). They are the soldiers who fight
in Iraq. Secularization has been replaced by a rising tide of 'cheap
spirituality' from New Age gurus to Christian fundamentalism. Islam, a
solid monotheistic religion, is on the rise everywhere in the West with
numbers of converts increasing in all European countries. Advance in
communication and technology, in particular the internet, foster
physical isolation, people do not socialized as they did before, thus
the idea to gather en masse to demonstrate against the establishment is
not so appealing as it was in the past. Attitude towards politics is
marked by disillusion, politicians are all corrupted, opposition is lead
by comedians (see Michael Moore) as if politics was a joke, people who
are unable to project an alternative strategy, to put have a vision of
how the future should be. 

The media is responsible for the passivity of the present generation. It
has avoided presenting the truth about terrorism and Bush war against
terror but it has also glamorized the life of the super rich, the so
called celebrities, and fed reader and viewers with a high dosage of
junk reality shows. 

 

Middle and Poor America is becoming a media addict, dreaming to win the
lottery and join the life of the super rich and while waiting for such
destiny to unfold, watching (voyeuristically) realities shows which
publicized the personal tragedies of people belonging to their social
class. Can you be more passive than that?

 

Loretta Napoleoni

 

 

 

 

________________________________

From: underfire-bounces at underfire.eyebeam.org
[mailto:underfire-bounces at underfire.eyebeam.org] On Behalf Of Allan
Siegel
Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2006 6:30 PM
To: underfire at underfire.eyebeam.org
Subject: <underfire> 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 glamour 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

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