Monday, September 7, 2009
The Clarity Project, Part 3: An Information Age Assault On America
Some years ago, science fiction writer Marc Stiegler, in his novel David's Sling, delineated the new strategy that would characterize Information Age warfare: take out the other side's information-processing nodes first. It's a brilliant insight, well worthy of applause...and with a slight modification, just as applicable to political combat as it is to flying-lead warfare.
If a complex web of information gathering, processing, and distribution nodes is vital to the smooth functioning of a purposive organization, the destruction of any of those nodes will impede it. The complete destruction of all the nodes of any of those three categories will kill it.
Of course, in (nonviolent) political interplay, all the strokes are informational:
- Propositions about rights and justice;
- Evidence and conjectures about the consequences of various public policies;
- Statements about particular persons, their abilities, backgrounds, characters, and agendas.
Therefore, if one side can destroy or invalidate some aspect of the other side's information-handling mechanisms that feed the above conduits of exchange, the former has gained a significant advantage over the latter. In our time, the Left has mounted assaults upon all three.
"Rights" and "justice" have been under attack for centuries, of course, but only recently -- about the last forty years -- have we seen the complete perversion of these concepts in service to a political agenda. The deliberate conflation of rights with desires and the replacement of justice by "social justice" in the attempt to make group entitlements a matter of "rights" have introduced such confusion into our discourse that we can no longer be sure we understand one another when those topics are introduced.
As for the consequences of public policies and proposed policies, there's a campaign of deception in progress as we speak, disputing (and sometimes concealing) the evidence about the destruction wrought by socialist measures. This is most visible in the health-care-reform debate, but it's also a factor in discussions of environmental protection, the quality of life of our poorest citizens, the effectiveness and costliness of "public" education, and other venues. You'd almost think someone wants to rehabilitate the Soviet Union and Maoist Red China. More important to current Americans, to the extent such campaigns succeed, they mislead persons into supporting policy proposals that will function to their (and everyone else's) detriment.
Third, attacking the messenger with vicious smears is now a favorite stroke on the Left. He who succeeds in unearthing and articulating the facts leftists are so desperate to conceal can expect to become the target of a campaign of calumny like nothing he's ever known. Glenn Beck isn't the only one, of course; just the currently most visible target. Every major voice on the Right that's succeeded in damaging Leftist nostrums or personalities with simple, objective reportage has come under the crosshairs. Some, such as Sarah Palin, Ezra Levant, Mark Steyn, and Kathy Shaidle, have suffered grievous financial loss even as they've been exonerated.
Persons with a functioning moral sense could never lower themselves to such tactics. Only one who believes that his Cause trumps all other considerations, moral or practical, could do it...which is a perfect description of the modern leftist.
But give them credit for grasping the essence of Information Age combat: First, target the information-processing nodes. Among other things, success at that can immunize one against any consequences of subsequent failure. As G. Harry Stine once observed, you can get away with anything if you can alter the System swiftly enough that it fails to recognize your transgression.
We of the pro-freedom Right must get much, much better at defending our information web. We generally succeed in exonerating our messengers when they're attacked, but at this time it takes longer, and costs more, than it should. As for the evidence about the failures of the Omnipotent State, the key roadblocks are in the media and the schools, especially our academies of "higher learning." Finally, a relentless counterattack in defense of key political and moral terms is critical; all other considerations pale before that need. To communicate, we must have words with agreed-upon public meanings, consistent in application wherever and whenever they're used.
It's time for the Right to get in step with the Information Age.
