In Broken Images

In a Time of Tumult, Better Honest Confusion Than Mistaken Understanding - Drawing by Genevieve Shapiro

Philosophers of perception know that we don’t see the world whole, “as it is,” but only in fragmentary parts, through an infinitesimal aperture at a given angle. As for political reality, we have little direct access to it, and we build our point of view from the second and third hand reports of trusted others who are not always trustworthy.¹ Even during relatively placid times, we cobble together confused fragments and varying reports into some kind of coherent perception, literally making sense out of disorder. Without lemons, however, we can’t make lemonade. Sometimes the chaos is so deep and pervasive that there is no way to make sense of it. Sometimes the most appropriate response to confusing events is confusion, while apparent clarity is a dangerous distortion. During such times (ours?), when having no clue about what’s going on may be more honest and accurate than pretending to know, I turn to a short poem by Robert Graves that explores the paradoxical relationship between understanding and confusion.

In Broken Images

By Robert Graves

He is quick, thinking in clear images;
I am slow, thinking in broken images.

He becomes dull, trusting to his clear images;
I become sharp, mistrusting my broken images.

Trusting his images, he assumes their relevance;
Mistrusting my images, I question their relevance.

Assuming their relevance, he assumes the fact;
Questioning their relevance, I question the fact.

When the fact fails him, he questions his senses;
When the fact fails me, I approve my senses.

He continues quick and dull in his clear images;
I continue slow and sharp in my broken images.

He in a new confusion of his understanding;
I in a new understanding of my confusion.

*****

A Few Broken Images of My Own

I offer below a brief burst of broken images to try to better understand my own confusion about what might be happening in the United States, and beyond.

• The principal policy advisor of our current Commander in Chief would appear to be a Russian or PRC bot—or some combination thereof. Many decisions and actions taken these past three weeks make little sense through the traditional lens of US national interests. As an exercise in self-mutilation or “unilateral dismemberment” (which cedes global leadership to our rivals—as described here), they kind of do. What is going on?

• I’m still not sure if we’re overreacting to surface events (the deliberately flooded zone) or under-reacting to the brazen capture of the state by powerful private interests. At the moment, I’m leaning hard toward the latter. In fact, it looks a lot like a massive unarmed robbery is taking place right before our eyes. We’re so stunned by what we see in broad daylight, we can scarcely react.

• One thing that had not occurred to me, though I hear certain (seemingly) smart people saying it, is that this is all for the best. Just wait. The bugles have sounded. Good government is on the way. Out with the flat-footed, overly regulated, deeply wasteful Deep State! In with its gleaming, nimble, techno-utopian successor! AI-led algorithms will bring us the kind of government “efficiency” that makes America great again, and makes us all proud to be American. We’re going back to the future in the best possible way! Thank God.

• How I wish the techno-utopians were right and I was wrong! Or do I?

• For one, we have good reason to be suspicious of our dear leader: Clear evidence of past criminal wrongdoing and probable continued intent. Unlike our best and most beloved presidents at pivotal points of our history (no need to name names), this is no great man who is also good. Character has always counted. In our age of gilded technocracy, it may matter even more.

• “Inefficiency” (to some degree) is built into our democracy’s DNA: separation of powers, federalism, the distribution of political authority up, across, and down. Our radically decentralized and redundant systems were designed to account for and represent as many interests as possible. This design is meant to slow things down—to prevent the bullet train we’re on, propelled by the rocket fuel of bright ideas from a tiny techno-authoritarian elite, from speeding off a cliff. Institutional guard rails exist for a reason, as do old-fashioned practices like consultation and debate, including, say, in Congress. For starters, we need to carefully weigh the costs, risks and benefits—and for whom—of such radical ideas and dramatic action. Now I’m nervous again.

• One problem: we humans remain stubbornly human. We are not yet machines—for the time being. This means that political laws still apply, including those governing concentration of power. Might it bear repeating here that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely? Does technology like AI (deep knowledge of which is concentrated in the hands of a privileged few) accelerate such corruption? Does this fact explain the fashionably dark, anti-democratic thinking among prominent members of our techno-elite? From a civics perspective, such techno-authoritarianism is dangerous and (in the etymological sense) sophomoric. Hadn’t we learned that lesson before?

• Imagine a world without credible data from the National Weather Service, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or the National Census Bureau (among many other faceless deep state entities). Talk about broken images. How about shattered fragments?! One real risk of politicizing the state apparatus is the manipulation of statistics for political advantage. Instead of seeking to reflect disinterested “reality,” the new numbers will work loyally on behalf of those in power, not the people. I’ve seen that very thing happen in other places (like Argentina). It doesn’t end well.

• In national security strategy, one critical early step is to define the problem you’re trying to solve, and your desired end state. Otherwise you won’t know where you want to go, much less how to get there. I can’t even begin to make sense of either the “problem statement”or the “desired end state” of the current administration. To me, it looks a whole lot like “moving fast and breaking things” without rhyme or reason. What do they hope to achieve with such blind destruction? Who benefits?

• On a related note, one recurring mistake in strategy is identifying the wrong problem, or defining the problem with too broad a brush. Just as in medicine, a mistaken diagnosis will result in the wrong remedy being prescribed and applied—with destructive (presumably) unintended consequences. For its part, the broad brush problem necessarily brings on the blunt instrument solution, the sledgehammer instead of the scalpel, one that (by definition) is unable to make needed distinctions. The resulting strategy tends to throw out the baby with the bathwater, and that’s in the best of cases.

• If pressed, I would say the core problem identified by the current administration appears to be government itself: the Deep State, a broken public apparatus and the lazy, disloyal permanent bureaucrats who administer it. While I vehemently disagree with this diagnosis, and would counter that the government is better understood as a flawed instrument (in need of reform, to be sure) but not in itself the core problem², let’s accept the premise for the purposes of discussion. At a minimum, this diagnosis is overly sweeping, an enormously broad brush. Apart from the cut-outs for military, security, and immigration enforcement, no distinction is being made between vital and marginal government functions, between must have and nice to have, between subpar and superb. All 2 million plus of you lazy losers must go! To take just one example, do we really want to be deprived of the services of the FAA’s apolitical technical experts right now? How about all the promising public sector professionals who are just getting started—those with the energy, ambition, and cutting edge 21st century skills we so desperately need and who will be coming into their own as leaders and managers in 5-10 years? (By then the dear leader will be dead or descended into an ever deeper fog of distorted thoughts and dementia). Apparent answer: Who cares? Another answer: Millions more private contractors will have taken their place. Working for whom? Unintended consequence or by design?

• As any terrorist worth his salt knows, it’s easier to destroy than to build. But what happens afterwards? Functional institutions won’t rise from the rubble on their own. What’s the plan for rebuilding? From what I can tell, there is no such plan. None. Only the wrecking ball of chaos and confusion. Who gains?

• Here, my thoughts naturally turn to Elon Musk, our unelected de facto president. Who says money can’t buy you everything? (Is love next on the list?) I’m tempted to say that none of this would be happening if Donald J. Trump were president today. But I won’t, partly because I don’t believe it.

• The “flooding the zone with shit” strategy is either working or not working. I don’t know which. It depends on what happens next, and then after that…

• In some quarters a chorus is rising that the fate of America’s constitutional democracy lies solely in the hands of the debilitated Democratic party. This view assumes that the Republican Party has already folded its tents and transferred its loyalty from the letter and spirit of the constitution to the person of the president. For what it’s worth, based on my three decades serving as a self-described “rabid nonpartisan centrist” career diplomat under presidents of both parties with a varying mix of sympathy and disaffection, I simply can’t buy this assertion. We’re lost without a democratic Republican party, one that energetically joins in the fight to support and defend our constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. This fight far transcends partisan divisions. If our very first President was right to warn of the dangers of a “small but artful and enterprising minority… and cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men… (who) usurp for themselves the reins of government?”³, now would be a good time to heed it—and to take appropriate action.

• Who benefits from the chaotic mess? Who gains in such turbulent waters? As Hamlet said in a separate connection, that is the question.

1. The world outside and the pictures in our heads

2. Most national security strategies highlight threats and opportunities before dramatically reconfiguring the means by which we will respond, including (importantly) the public apparatus, or state. By focusing first on supposed enemies within and deleting them, as the current administration is apparently doing, the United States could find itself with a dismembered state apparatus that is incapable of responding to the real and present threats and opportunities in the “outside” world—from the growing power of the PRC to the transnational movement of people, drugs, and diseases (among other things).

3. https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/Washingtons_Farewell_Address.pdf — See pages 11-12.