Re: Titanism and Modern War

[Gary Kern <gkern@alumni.Princeton.EDU>]

> 
> >One thing or two in add (Baudrillard already said the main about the Gulf war)
> >Ninety per cent americans ignore where is Serbia and a fortiori where is Kosovo.
> >What about the sens of the gallups. The medias tell us and them a cartoonist story,
> >a comic strip with a very dangerous wolf on one hand, and a lot of miserable and
> >gentle people on the other. The bomber agents of unconscious titans enjoy to be
> >part of a giant video game. The serbian people who contest with a target on them
> >are imho objective jungerians.
> >It' a pity for a computer pro to see the use of such sophisticated machine guns.
> >Unfortunately I'm not the richard of Wilflingen.
> 
> Richard,
> 
> This was not exactly what I was thinking
> when I asked the question. My question
> was more directed toward the problem
> of mechanised war of WWI and trying to
> relate it to the high technology of the
> Modern Military Revolution. The next
> step of development seems to be
> Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, so one can
> even avoid human losses.

> Bertil Haggman
***************************************
Apropos of the war on Serbia, I would like to propose a concept that
strikes me as consistent with EJ's writings on Titanism and
desinvolture.  It is the concept of two wrongs.  For the last two
decades, perhaps longer, I have found that debate in the USA proceeds on
the basis of two sides missing or distorting the essence of the issue. 
Slogans, political positions, life-styles attach to both sides, assume
fixed oppositions (like left & right, Democratic & Republican) and
meaningful contextual interpretation without strict adherence to one
side or the other goes begging, or perhaps gets buried in publications I
do not see.  So with the abortion issue, so with Monica, so with Serbia.

In my view, the high-tech bombing of Serbia marks (or consolidates) a
new stage in history as significant as the bombing of Hiroshima. 
America is demonstrating to the world that all countries are defenseless
against it.  You may have anti-aircraft arsenals supplied by Russia, the
erstwhile enemy of the USA with the highest level of development, and
you will be helpless:  it's like shooting fish in a barrel.  The US
military can barely contain its glee: it is justifying its past budgets,
won against liberal critics, to liberals and conservatives alike; it is
testing its weapons, developed for an SF war against a superpower that
now has dropped to the level of an African country; it is informing the
world that US technology is king, can scramble all your information and
shoot rockets down your chimney and up your tailpipe.  This military
might is not political in the sense of parties; it is raw power, world
dominance available to the American government, whichever party is in.

Milosevich, of course, is a monster.  That makes the war a holy one. 
But whether American strategy brings about a desirable solution or
exacerbates the problem or leaves an area of the world in rubble and
misery for decades to come does not matter to the Titans.  Since the
home population watches the war on TV, the picture can be switched next
week to another front, and the rubble can be left behind for those in
distant places on the ground.  Last week Osama ben Laden threatened the
peace and security of the world; the USA bombed two countries, killed
people in an attempt to stop this terrible threat.  Now Osama is
forgotten and Milosevich takes his place.  Saddam is held in reserve as
a reliable bogeyman.  Khadaffi has gotten the message and cooperated
with the Lockerbie inquiry.  The TV attention-span is short and
manipulable.  The main thing is not to bring the entertainment too close
to reality with pictures of US body bags; unmanned aircraft is the
perfect solution.

For the individual:  two wrongs.  The distant despots and the homegrown
Titans.  Public discussion must be simplified, entertainment must go on,
the choice for you is to study history and culture, renounce yourself to
the situation, walk in the woods.  Desinvolture.

So EJ has a lot to teach us.  I think what we can project for the near
future is an increased SF development--the continuing entrance into our
lives of devices and procedures once thought to belong to
science-fiction:  a universal ID & credit card with DNA or retinal scan
properties and with a data bank of all your personal info; monitoring
and surveillance by every sensory means run by the Titans or their
bureaucrats; pacification of the public by universal round-the-clock
entertainment (we already have it, but it will advance); genetic
engineering, drug culture and so on.  But I don't think it will be quite
like Orwell's Big Brother.  More like Zaparoni & Co, who must answer to
stockholders and who run only part of the show.  The government will
have the military and the databanks, the Zaparoni-Spielbergs will have
the entertainment industries, the bureaucracies will have the services
and penalties, the fat cats will get fatter and fatter.  The individual
will shrink into a well-serviced and well-entertained ant who should
beware stepping out of line.

GK

PS/A news report on Friday announced that Bill Gates has become the
world's first "centibillionaire"--one-hundred billion dollars.  Let's
see, that's $100,000,000,000.  At this rate he'll add one more digit by
the year 2004 and become a trillionaire.  He then will have earned
1,000,000 times my lifetime income.  That gives him a bit more say in
the world than I.  Time for me to walk the dogs.