Vol. 4 No. 5 (September 2005)
Uncommon Denominator
The Newsletter of the Commonweal Institute
www.commonwealinstitute.org
"I can conceive
of no better service in the
-- Walt Whitman, "Democracy in the
CONTENTS
Talking
Points: Eyes in the skies II
Wit and Wisdom: The ultimate in gas mileage
Quoted! Dopey and Grumpy
Eye on the Right: Conservative sentimentalism
Featured Article: Che
Guevara, capitalist tool
Happenings: Electoral reform news
Endorsements: Anna Eshoo
Get Involved: Spread the word; become a
contributor
In the new cartographies
of surveillance, the maps one looks at are less important than the spatial data
systems that store and integrate facts about where we live and work. Location
is a powerful key for relating disparate databanks and unearthing information
about possessions, spending habits, and an assortment of behaviors and
preferences, real or imagined. What's more, these electronic maps are becoming
increasingly detailed and timely, if not more reliable. What gets into the
system as well as who can use the data and for what purposes makes privacy in
mapping a key concern of anyone who fills out surveys, owns a home, or
registers a car or firearm.
The key difference, it
should be noted, between what Monmonier has described
and what we confront today is that surveillance has become democratized, or at
least decentralized. All it takes is a personal computer and an internet
connection, and a person can visually zoom in to just about any place on the
globe: the Kremlin, a Hawaiian beach, their neighbor's backyard. Although it's
still not possible to track individual people in real-time, in coming years the
power of this technology to make us all more visible is certain to increase. That's
in the nature of technology -- or, more accurately, of the people who design
it.
Whether or not we think that there should be laws regulating such technology,
we should agree that its potential for harm is real. There are both tangible
and intangible negatives to continuing to break down the walls of privacy
separating individuals from their fellow human beings -- and it is the
intangible ones that are particularly disturbing. Tangibly, surveillance
technology opens the door wider for various kinds of financial, professional,
and even physical abuse. When there are fewer and fewer places where we can
rest free from the eye of a camera; when our actions not only in banks but in
parking lots and outdoor cafes can be monitored; when one practically has to go
into a closet to pick one's nose -- then we should fear for our safety.
But that's precisely where the intangible, insidious effects of widespread
surveillance technology enter in. Perhaps we will cease being jealous of
our own privacy and guarding it vigilantly. As these technologies are made
friendlier and friendlier, what is at stake is our sense of privacy itself.
In other words, it seems possible that what we will lose is actually the fear
of our loss of privacy, and that we will be gently reconciled to the idea that
there's no space that's truly our own.
It's simply a fact of our day and age that we've grown more and more
comfortable with turning over our private information to corporations, in a way
that we never would to government -- at least not yet.
So the growing access we enjoy to satellite imaging software represents a
logical extension of what we have already gotten used to. And the satellites --
brought to us courteous of both our government and our major corporations --
come to seem like just helpful assistants, or guardians watching over us. They
have been brought into the American home like a new friend of the family.
One has only to read "What Is a
Satellite? (Satellite Technology for Young People)," put out by the
Boeing Satellite Development Center, to see how a potentially scary technology
is being softened and made nice for public consumption. "A
satellite," Boeing explains, "is something that goes around and
around a larger something, like the earth or another planet. Some satellites
are natural, like the moon, which is a natural satellite of the earth. Other
satellites are made by scientists and technologists to go around the earth and
do certain jobs." Note especially how the technology is made to seem less
threatening by its association with natural satellites. In addition:
"Satellites do many things for people. Their most important job is helping
people communicate with other people, wherever they are in the world." They
are humanity's faithful helpers. And they don't bring us out of contact with
each other, but help to strengthen human community.
Certain problems can be addressed through legislation: limiting the maximum
resolution of consumer-available satellite imagery; prohibiting the sale or
transfer of images; and restricting the coordination of mapping or surveillance
technology with the gathering or distribution of personal data. But the
deeper threat cannot be legislated away. That threat is to our commitment to
the integrity and sanctity of personal space. It can only be addressed by a
sustained and passionate defense of the right to privacy and of the places that
we hallow with our presence.
After all, there are other troubling technologies on the horizon that will pose
new challenges. If you think retail surveillance is a problem, wait until
robotics come into their own.
WIT AND WISDOM
"President Bush spoke with the Amish. He didn't want to, but it was the
only group he could find that wasn't upset about the high price of gas."
-- Jay Leno
QUOTED!
"That Americans would somehow in a color-affected way decide who to help
and who not to help -- I just don't believe it." -- Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, during a visit to La-La Land, even as
Congressional conservatives plan $13 billion in further cuts to Medicaid,
poverty assistance, and food stamps: programs that are particularly important
to African American families
"We finally cleaned up public housing in
Baker later claimed that he was misquoted, and that what hereally
meant was that he has long supported improved public housing. The Journal
has stood by its reporting.
EYE ON THE RIGHT
On September 2, as he spoke to reporters about the devastation along the Gulf
Coast wreaked by Hurricane Katrina, President Bush deflected criticism of the
administration's response to the crisis, and then said: "Now we're going
[to the region] to offer comfort to the people."
This may or may not have been an offhand comment, or a sincere one, but it
hinted at a characteristic impulse of American conservatism: the impulse to
sentimentalize in response to pressing civic problems, to practice a politics
of the heart rather than of the head. That's not only or always true of
conservatives, of course, but there's an interesting history to right-wing
sentimentalism that deserves special consideration.
First, there's nothing wrong with feeling sympathy for those who have suffered
some calamity or persecution. The Uncommon Denominator is not opposed to
people comforting other people. Comfort is good. But that's not quite the
point. The problem is not only that sentimentalism -- an emphasis on the
emotional side of issues -- can be faked, but that even when genuine it is a
poor substitute for effective action, proactively and forethoughtfully
undertaken. Moreover, sentimentalism serves to stifle a clear-eyed and
hard-headed analysis of what the problems actually are, and works to position that
analytical approach as offensively "political," as in "this is
not the time to play politics with tragedy." Sentimentalism, or the
nostrum of compassion, becomes dangerous insofar as it anaesthetizes or
neutralizes the critical and rational faculties. And sentimental feelings,
finally, are short-lived. Remember the outpouring of emotion after the
In short, sentimentalism can distract attention from the hard business of
taking tangible, practical steps to solving the problems that present
themselves. That's one of the major lessons of the Enlightenment, but -- like
too many other lessons of the great flowering of Western rationalism -- that lesson
seems to be getting lost nowadays.
Political sentimentalism has deep connections to the religious or the
fundamentalist mindset. But not always: Witness the efforts of American
evangelicals (whether or not one agrees with their approach) to influence
policy in
The best American example of this mindset may be Harriet Beecher Stowe's
best-selling antislavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). Stowe's millennialist view of the evils of slavery made some room
for specific political issues, such as the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, but
mainly it called upon Americans to feel sympathy for slaves -- perhaps, even,
to offer them comfort. One passage in particular is worth quoting at length:
There is one thing that
every individual can do, -- they can see to it that they
feel right. An atmosphere of sympathetic influence encircles every human
being; and the man or woman who feels strongly, healthily and justly, on
the great interests of humanity, is a constant benefactor to the human race.
See, then, to your sympathies in this matter! Are they in harmony with the
sympathies of Christ? or are they swayed and perverted
by the sophistries of worldly policy? (original
emphasis)
There's
the rub: not just the insistence that heart-religion will change the world, but
the denigration of politics (the "sophistries of worldly policy") as
an appropriate response to political problems.
The fact that Stowe wanted both to upend a racist social institution (in
current parlance, a "liberal" position) and to promote the values of
domesticity and Christianity (a "conservative" position) points up
the complexity of American political sentimentalism. The use of emotional words
and images has run across the political spectrum, in many different contexts,
from Victorian temperance literature to "Where Have All the Flowers
Gone?" to Ronald Reagan's eulogy for the astronauts of the shuttle
Challenger. To identify a "conservative sentimentalism," then, it
is better not to consider the question in terms of specific issues such as
worker's rights or abortion, but in terms of the function of emotional
language.
In that sense, conservative sentimentalism would seem to serve two main
purposes. First, it calls us back to a previous state of society, one presumably
better than our own, less corrupt and less complicated. The conservative
strain of thought habitually looks to a bygone golden age: the third
generation of Puritans to their grandparents, the Southern agrarians to a
pre-capitalist economy, the Pat Buchananites to the
1950s. The word is nostalgia, and nostalgia, as Don DeLillo
reminds us in White Noise, "is a product of dissatisfaction and
rage. It's a settling of grievances between the present and the past. The more
powerful the nostalgia, the closer you come to violence."
The second main purpose of conservative sentimentalism, as suggested already,
is to enable people to believe that simply by "feeling right" they
will be making a difference. It substitutes emotional identification for
rational action, and thus tends to divert attention from politics. Crucially,
this closely links sentimentalism to calls for "unity," as in
"the country must be unified during this time of trial." Let's all
feel together, and let's repose our faith in the leader who seems most fully to
express our feelings. The troubling potential of such unity -- and
increasingly its intended effect -- is to plaster over the real conflicts and
inequities that society should confront.
When Bill Clinton said "I feel your pain," as maudlin as that sounds,
he had actually thought through the situation carefully, and would back up the
sentiment with an understanding of the forces and structures that contributed
to causing the pain in the first place. To be an effective leader is to be
analytical first and emotive second, to identify the best course of action
early and to pursue it resolutely. Unfortunately, many conservatives today
seem to regard the analytical mindset as somehow elitist, as something for
the liberal intelligentsia, not for the hearty folks of the rest of the country
who feel their way to the truth of things. (And here it bears repeating
-- and repeating and repeating -- that true elitism has to do with applying
power in ways that help the already elite, and that it does not have to do with
pastimes or food or any of the other cultural "markers" we hear
about.) It may sound funny coming from this source, but whatever happened to
the old-fashioned brand of conservatism that prided itself on solving problems
and getting things done and not settling for nonsense? Almost
something to be nostalgic for.
So where does analysis lead in the case of Hurricane Katrina? Above all, what
the storm has revealed, to those who care to exercise their rational faculties,
is that we had better learn to start living in concert with nature, not in
opposition to it, because nature will always be more powerful than us. It's
not good enough to feel sorry for the people of
FEATURED ARTICLE
The following is an excerpt from Alvaro Vargas Llosa's "The Killing Machine: Che
Guevara, from Communist Firebrand to Capitalist Brand," which appeared
in the July 11, 2005, issue of The New Republic.
"Che Guevara, who did so much (or was it so little?) to destroy capitalism, is now a quintessential capitalist
brand. His likeness adorns mugs, hoodies, lighters,
key chains, wallets, baseball caps, toques, bandannas, tank tops, club shirts,
couture bags, denim jeans, herbal tea, and of course those omnipresent T-shirts
with the photograph, taken by Alberto Korda, of the
socialist heartthrob in his beret during the early years of the revolution, as Che happened to walk into the photographer's viewfinder-and
into the image that, thirty-eight years after his death, is still the logo of
revolutionary (or is it capitalist?) chic. Sean O'Hagan claimed in The Observer
that there is even a soap powder with the slogan 'Che
washes whiter.' ….
"The metamorphosis of Che Guevara into a
capitalist brand is not new, but the brand has been enjoying a revival of
late-an especially remarkable revival, since it comes years after the political
and ideological collapse of all that Guevara represented. This windfall is owed
substantially to The Motorcycle Diaries, the film produced by Robert Redford
and directed by Walter Salles. (It is one of three
major motion pictures on Che either made or in the
process of being made in the last two years; the other two have been directed
by Josh Evans and Steven Soderbergh.) Beautifully
shot against landscapes that have clearly eluded the eroding effects of
polluting capitalism, the film shows the young man on a voyage of
self-discovery as his budding social conscience encounters social and economic
exploitation-laying the ground for a New Wave re-invention of the man whom
Sartre once called the most complete human being of our era.
Click here to read
the whole article.
HAPPENINGS
Election reform report -- The Election Assessment Project, a
professional effort to evaluate American electoral procedures and recommend
improvements, has issued a preliminary report that draws extensively on
Commonweal Institute research and commentary. The Election
Assessment Hearing report, which cites CI co-founder Katherine Forrest 27
times, offers an array of findings and recommendations, concluding that
"left uncorrected, broken election processes can undermine confidence not
just in the election processes - they can undermine confidence in the
government processes themselves."
Op-ed published -- The Oakland Tribune published an editorial
essay by Commonweal Institute President Leonard Salle on Sept. 22. The essay,
titled "Both Parties Must Protect Integrity of Vote," calls attention
to persistent problems in the conduct of American elections. It reads, in its entirety:
"Since the 2000 election, those who have been close to
voting issues have been intensely concerned about the integrity of the vote.
However, there has been scant coverage of this issue in the major media and,
perhaps reflecting this, little interest by the broad public. Moreover, few
elected officials of either major party are willing to address what is, without
a doubt, the major political issue of the day.
During the
Shortly after the 2002 election, questions were raised about the reliability of
touch-screen voting. Particularly disturbing findings were that top executives
of the major suppliers of touch-screen voting equipment were strongly aligned
with one political party (Republican), and that there was no way to verify the
accuracy of the touch-screen vote. Subsequent investigations by computer
scientists have shown that the touch-screen computers could easily be hacked.
Indeed, there were strong indications of touch-screen computer fraud in the
2002 election.
Coming up to the 2004 election, there was not only well-documented
disenfranchisement of voters, but even stronger indications of lack of
trustworthiness of touch-screen voting. It has also been revealed that the
results of other voting systems, including paper ballots, could be subject to
miscounts through manipulation of the central tabulating equipment used at the
county level to tally votes from the precincts. Although this particular
problem could be overcome by instituting appropriate procedures, putting these
procedures in place nationwide cannot realistically be achieved under the
current system, in which individual states and even counties have jurisdiction
over voting procedures.
Those who believe there is no way widespread voting fraud could occur in
Why are mostly Democrats supporting voting reform? It's really an issue of
self-interest. Republicans have a substantial advantage in leaving things as
they are. The flaws in our election system work to their advantage.
Unfortunately, history has shown that it is not unusual for political parties
(for example, there were questions about
It is ironic that
ENDORSEMENTS
"There is an urgent need today for a think tank to research and develop
ideas and facts to inform the public and assist officeholders. The Commonweal
Institute's work is urgently needed and I welcome what they will do and the
impact they will have during one of the most trying times in the life of our
country." -- Congresswoman Anna G. Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, 14th CD-CA
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© 2005 The Commonweal
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