Targeting the symptoms

If technology is causing the problem, then the solution is not more technology. But the global corporate machine establishes the rules of engagement, so all problems are essentially ones of implementation—literally a result of not having the right implements.

If global warming is being caused by too much industrial CO2, then the industrial process needs to be retooled in a way that leads to a slower increase in CO2 production. (And where retooling would cut too deeply into the corporate bottom line, propagandists stand at the ready with bullshit ideas like "clean coal.")

If bees die because of exposure to plants that have been genetically modified to produce their own pesticide, then we need to modify the plants further so they don’t need bees.

If factory agriculture leads to nutritionally deficient food, then we need to consume artificial supplements. If consuming factory farmed and genetically modified food causes cancer, then obviously we need to develop better cancer treatments.

And when the human psyche begins to buckle under the pressure of its industrialized burden, we have supportive "emotional technologies" such as psychotherapy, 12-step programs, and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.

When we catch a cold virus, it is the symptoms that we are most concerned with. The coughing, sneezing, fever, and physical discomfort are how we know we are infected. But the symptoms are not produced by the virus, they are produced by the body in response to the virus. The symptoms are the body’s natural defenses—and a sign of a healthy immune system. Increased mucus production is the body’s way of removing virus-infected tissues from throat and nasal passages to the stomach where they can be destroyed by digestive acids. Fever is the body’s attempt to overheat the temperature-sensitive virus. Commercial cold treatments target the symptoms and not the virus itself. Ironically, over the counter cold medication, by reducing the symptoms, actually works in favor of the virus by interfering with the body’s natural defenses.

Two things that we should take from this: first, that the true target might not be what we think it is, and in order to see this it is necessary to look below the surface; second, that if we don’t look below the surface we run the risk that the most obvious "treatment" might actually make things worse in the long run. 

Power carries an additional risk. The power to alleviate a few of the surface symptoms can mislead us into thinking that we understand the problem. Because we can devise a technological solution to a problem does not mean that the problem was caused by the lack of appropriate technology any more than headaches are caused by a lack of aspirin.

Anarchy, authenticity, and the technology of authority

As a rebuttal to those who would insist that some form of government is necessary, that we need systems of authority and coercive control, I would ask two questions: first, what, exactly, do we need these systems of authority for? And second, who is “we”? 

Systems of authority are necessary requisites for any technology beyond simple tools and crafts. Authority is necessary for any technology that involves division of labor and specialized knowledge—at a bare (and rare) minimum to serve a coordinating function, and usually to impose “divisions” of labor that force some people into undesirable stations—somebody has to work in the mines.  So without highly oppressive systems of authority underwritten by lethal coercion, we could never have computers or automobiles or professional sports. 

But, and here’s the clincher, since most of our goals and purposes are—through reverse adaptation—being generated by technology itself, without authority and the technological order that it supports, individuals would be left to our own devices (both literally and figuratively). Authentically human motives and goals would emerge as the only motives and goals possible.  

In other words, our perceived needs for the technological systems that require coercive authority and control are generated by the systems themselves; remove the systems and our needs for them evaporate.  

And In regards to the “who is we” rebuttal: when people say such things as “we need government” they are referring to an abstraction, an imagined collective humanity. This “we” does not exist.  Instead, there are real concrete individuals who have real concrete needs as individuals. Some of the needs of one individual are the same as the needs of other individuals. But, once again, the majority of the specific needs that are in play at any given time are needs that have been generated as a function of life embedded in the technological order. Remove authority, and the technological order evaporates along with these needs. 

So it is true that we (the abstract human collective) “need” systems of authority as long as we (individual people) continue to pursue purposes generated by those same systems of authority. Which is to say that we (both collectively and as individuals) really don’t need these systems of authority. If anything, the systems of authority need for us to continue to act as if we need them. 

A reversion to the base-anarchy of our pre-domestication past seems to me to be the only option if the goal is to live an authentically human life. And any goal that is inconsistent with authentic human living is not an authentic human goal. Unfortunately, any attempt to promote the proliferation of authentic humanity, however modest, is sure to engage the protective defenses of the technological order. 

So, at least at some level, the problem is well defined.

Corporate cheerleaders, technophiles, and Stockholm syndrome

Stockholm syndrome is most often linked with hostage situations, but it can be applied to just about any abusive relationship. It is a non-diagnostic term for paradoxical situations in which victims not merely comply with their abuser(s), but actually idealize them and identify with them—frequently beyond the point of disengagement.

When viewed as a natural mammalian defense reaction, as an evolved adaptive coping strategy, the paradox disappears.

Mammalian responses to threat follow a predictable pattern depending on the nature and proximity of the threat. For distant or mild threats, the first defense is avoidance. If the threat is more proximal, the animal engages in "attentive immobility" where it freezes in order to better assess what to do about the situation. The next step is active withdrawal (running away). If withdrawal is not possible or unlikely to be successful in the situation, the animal engages in aggressive defense (fighting). If fighting is not possible (when the opponent has a clear and present advantage), the animal engages in appeasement behavior. Finally, as a last resort, the animal engages in "tonic immobility," freezing in an attempt to confuse the predator.    

Stockholm syndrome happens in "traumatic entrapment" situations that are perceived to be well beyond the fleeing or fighting stage but not yet to a terminal stage that would call for tonic immobility, and so appeasement becomes the relevant choice. Appeasement behavior causes cognitive dissonance (treating an aggressor nicely does not make sense given the victim’s true feelings about the aggressor), and in order to make sense of their own appeasement behavior, the victim comes to believe that they must really be on the side of the abuser.

Psychologists have identified four conditions that need to be present in order to produce Stockholm syndrome:

1. perceived threat to one’s physical or psychological survival at the hands of an abuser(s)
2. perceived small kindnesses from the abuser to the victim
3. isolation from perspectives other than those of the abuser
4. the inescapability of the situation

Notice how easily these conditions can be applied to life under the thumb of the global corporate machine.

1. Perceived threat: it is not just our personal physical and psychological survival that is under direct threat, but the survival of the entire biosphere
2. Small kindness: the corporate world gives us polio vaccines, iPhones, and professional sports even as it rapes us
3. Isolation of perspective: corporate media provides the only valid perspective
4. Inescapability: industrial civilization has become the air we breathe, and the corporate machine has the power and demonstrated will to use overwhelming lethal force against any and all who would resist

We should pity those civilization apologists who promote the status quo, those who want to appease their captors, those who argue that the corporate rapists really have our best interests at heart, those who believe that mass technology is our lifeline, those who claim that industrial civilization is our salvation. Their cheerleading is a symptom of Stockholm syndrome. Their pleading appeasement today will become silent immobility tomorrow.  

We are all victims of traumatic entrapment. We are all corporate hostages. But a few of us still refuse to abandon the urge to fight back.

The department of homeland obscurity

A news item about how the Department of Homeland Security has spent 1.4 billion dollars to "investigate" US citizens and has done absolutely nothing to prevent "terrorism."

Yeah, no shit?

Cue George W: "See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."

Or maybe we should cue Joseph Goebbels.

Let’s be clear about this. The DHS has never had anything to do with protecting US citizens (or anyone else) from terrorism (or anything else). It was designed from the beginning to fortify the corporate machine’s control and keep the masses in line—another tool to buttress the planet-draining status quo and keep the Gates, the Ellisons, the Buffetts, the Kochs, the Waltons, the Bezos, the Adelsons and their bloated-asses perched at the top and protected from the rest of us turtles getting squeezed at the bottom of the stack.