5GW: The War on Confusion

His tongue was framed to music,
And his hand was armed with skill,
His face was the mould of beauty,
And his heart the throne of will.

(Ralph Waldo Emerson, Power.)

Whereas we might say that a 4GW world requires a “War on Terror,” we should recognize that a 5GW world requires a “War on Confusion.”

Insofar as terror is the primary button contestants in any 4GW conflict wish to push – it is so easily available, indeed more available now than ever before thanks to the proliferation of various “super-empowerments,” and it is so easily recognizable since the targets themselves publicize their fears through the conduct of 4GW strategies (Us v Them); thus, triggering reflexive responses to induce a fight-or-flight reaction has truly become child’s play for adults on a broad, complex playing field – the War on Terror cannot ever be forsaken, even in a 5GW world, although our methods for fighting it may be improved.

Leaving aside the choice of flight, those who choose to fight the War on Terror presently fall into one of three main camps on a case-by-case basis if not always on a universal basis:

1. Those who would rattle a larger sabre – in some cases, employ a larger sabre – in order to produce a much greater fear in their opponents which, one hopes, will cause those opponents to choose flight or at least not to fight and thus remove terror from the equation.
2. Those who, though rattling and perhaps using a larger sabre when necessary, would create “safe space” for larger numbers of peoples in order to remove terror from the equation; ideally, those who would continue to use terror (see: #1 above) would come to see that terror is no longer efficacious.
3. Those who find the best method to be the utter destruction of their opponents, thus defending against further terror by removing those opponents who would use terror as a leveraging mechanism. (During operations, these may often appear to fall into #1 or #2 above.)

As these three camps come into conflict, equilibriums are found between competing camps of competing factions; the War on Terror is never won although it may occasionally and very briefly appear to be postponed. The reason for this is the fact that those in each camp, #1 through #3, presuppose an adversary.  The War on Terror is not a war against a specific opponent but a war against terror itself.  Insofar as an adversary can be imagined, terror remains potential, the button producing it remains available, and, whether actively fought or latent in remission, the War on Terror continues.  It might be said, and rightly said, that #1 through #3 above are 4GW methods for fighting other 4GW foes; and, that anyone fighting in the style of 4GW continuously advertises, by delineating an Us v. Them, a terror button too tempting for potential foes to resist pushing. The delineation of an Us v. Them is certain to create foes, simply because those living under that paradigm will act on that paradigm; Us v. Them is a performative.

This 4GW v. 4GW dynamic is pervasive in our contemporary world, especially as societies, cultures, ideologies, religions – globalized or localized, widely recognized or idiosyncratic, ancient or relatively new, it makes no difference – and so forth come into daily contact on a seemingly never-ending basis.  It is as Arherring recently described it when considering WikiLeaks and issues relating to transparency:

The bottom line is that information, raw information, is endlessly mutable. Everything you believe about what you observe depends upon all of the preconceptions you carry in your personal orientative baggage. If you want to believe something, even in the face of evidence against its truth, you will find a justification to go on believing it. That mechanism is hard-wired into our brains. Without a context (and sometimes even with context), you will create a context for what you observe.

<snip>

It is fundamental in a 5GW world to realize that nothing is inherently neutral. All actors have agendas, bias, preconceptions and will strive to promote their point-of-view over all others.

(“Wikileaks: The Uncertainty of Transparency in a 5GW World,” Arherring, Red Herrings, 12-9-2010.)

In his post, Arherring signaled (though perhaps unwittingly) the confusion we have about the concept of transparency.  For some, the type of mass ejection of raw data into the world being provided by WikiLeaks is the height, breadth, wealth, and culmination of transparency as an operative feature for our world.  This is the concept of transparency Arherring attacks; without context, or even with context, such raw data can be viewed variously by individuals who on the one hand cannot view all that data simultaneously and who on the other hand have an internal and limited context for organizing and understanding the raw data that they are able to view.  Without using the term, Arherring describes a Utopian view of transparency in which it is hoped – nay, believed – that the mere existence of unlimited raw data defines transparency and will lead to a much better, more “open” world without conflict.

 

Skepticism as Defense

The argument against the Utopian view of transparency is an argument for a type of skepticism.  A different concept of transparency may be required, in which the point of transparency is to become a transparent eyeball:

In the woods, is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years.  In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, — no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, — my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, — all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all…

(Emerson, from Nature)

Overlooking Emerson’s habitual metaphysical-romantic approach to much of what he wrote, we might say that the more pragmatic take-away from this passage is simply that Nature, that is the World, has always presented an incalculable array and set of raw data; and that, more data, via WikiLeaks or any other source, is really no addition.  What the Utopian Transparencists mean when they refer to the data “added” by actors such as WikiLeaks or any number of agencies and processes shunting data into the public view is simply:  previously unobserved data that has now been made available for the individual eyes of more actors; data “added” to the observational niches of more people.  This data already existed, in one form or another.  Transparency, then, for the Utopians describes a type of pathway between that data and the individual observers. From the most Utopian point of view, that pathway must be sufficiently broad to reach all potential observers.

From a more metaphysical although still pragmatic approach, the take-away from Emerson’s passage, when considered in tandem with Arherring’s blog post, is that transparency, far from being in the eye of the beholder – thus, rather than being defined as more raw data captured by the eye of the beholder –  requires not only a consideration of raw data but also the existence of an eye of a type capable of interacting with that raw data in, for lack of better terminology, a meaningful way.  In other words, the limited internal context, or ego, must not only be taken into account but also largely de-throned.   Whereas the ego may create meaning from a limited interaction with all the available raw data, the existence of a vast array of raw data which go unobserved has a bearing on the truth of any given observation beyond the meaning the individual ego can create from its limited access to that raw data..

 

 

 

[The below is, er, raw data still to be rewritten/incorporated for the conclusion, as I continue to revise, rewrite, expand, and so forth….]

 

Gentlemen, I make you my compliments. I do not wish to exaggerate, but you are at the headstreams of what might well be a mighty fertilizing and a health-giving river.

It would certainly be a grand convenience for us all to be able to move freely about the world—as we shall be able to do more freely than ever known before as the science of the world develops—to be able to move freely about the world and to find everywhere a medium, albeit primitive, of intercourse and understanding.

Might it not also be an advantage to many races and an aid to the building-up of our new structure for preserving peace?

All these are great possibilities, and I say, let us go into this together. Let us have another Boston Tea Party about it.

Let us go forward, as with other matters, other measures, similar in aim and effect. Let us go forward in malice to none and with good-will to all.

Such plans offer far better prizes than taking away other people's provinces or land, or grinding them down in exploitation. The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.

It would, of course, Mr. President, be lamentable if those who are charged with the duty of leading great nations forward in this grievous and obstinate war were to allow their minds and energies to be diverted from making the plans to achieve our righteous purposes without needless prolongation of slaughter and destruction.

Nevertheless, we are also bound, so far as life and strength allow and without prejudice to our dominating military task, to look ahead to those days which will surely come, when we shall have finally beaten down Satan under our feet and find ourselves with other great Allies at once the masters and the servants of the future.

(Winston Churchill, from “A Common Tongue Basis for Common Citizenship,” delivered at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., September 6, 1943)

 

Compare the bolded statement in Churchill’s speech, along with the general drift of the portion of the speech quoted, with my tweet made in the throes of trying to understand the WikiLeaks conundrum.  There are two main camps of 5GW theorists, or at the very least two general approaches to issues relating to the conduct of 5GW:

1. Those who view the 4GW v. 4GW state of affairs as largely never-ending and world-system-wide; thus, given the constant and everlasting memetic combat and one-upmanship, and given the egotistical – we might say, the ego-inspired or ego-centric – interpretation of context, and given the complexity of the & all context, the 5GW effector will, as Arherring said in his post, “spoon feed information to a target that is intended, by design, to trigger a specific context for that information in the mind of a target in order to cause that target to act (or not act) in a particular manner.”  The 4GW v. 4GW world, most likely with the aid of Utopian Transparencists, will provide a playing field, or battlefield, ripe for such manipulation of actors.
2. Those who view the 4GW v. 4GW state of affairs as a problem to be overcome – not necessarily removed – rather than as an opportunity or ideal battlefield for advancing personal agendas through the use of 5GW.

(To be continued…)