The Securitization of Everyday Life
A thoughtful reader writes in response to our blog statement "we shouldn't concede that 'security' means only 'stopping foreigners with weapons.' Greater health security, for instance, would save lives. Greater economic security would mitigate the ravages of globalization. And so on… I'm just pointing out that we should be careful not to accept the Republican frame on this."
But Republican or otherwise, all this talk about human security, economic security, environmental security etc. has a tendency to make all the things we care about only conceivable in terms of a risk assessment. The politically important thing about health care is not just that it keeps us from dying, but that it provides the conditions for us to pursue our goals and control our lives. In other words, security-speak promotes an environment in which we are unwilling to take chances, politically and otherwise, because of a plethora of fears, most of which aren't particularly rational.
The administration plays on the cultural climate of fear by constantly invoking our various insecurities (terrorism chief among them) to maintain its own authority. The Democrats simply respond by saying ‘we'll better protect you’. But they would just be playing on different kinds of fears. Of course, security is a concern, but we should describe our political goals in terms that emphasize our ability to overcome security worries and risk and make positive changes to the world. This may all sound like psycho-babble, but it's a real problem. We rarely have politicians today that inspire us with what we can do, rather than playing to our insecurities.
But Republican or otherwise, all this talk about human security, economic security, environmental security etc. has a tendency to make all the things we care about only conceivable in terms of a risk assessment. The politically important thing about health care is not just that it keeps us from dying, but that it provides the conditions for us to pursue our goals and control our lives. In other words, security-speak promotes an environment in which we are unwilling to take chances, politically and otherwise, because of a plethora of fears, most of which aren't particularly rational.
The administration plays on the cultural climate of fear by constantly invoking our various insecurities (terrorism chief among them) to maintain its own authority. The Democrats simply respond by saying ‘we'll better protect you’. But they would just be playing on different kinds of fears. Of course, security is a concern, but we should describe our political goals in terms that emphasize our ability to overcome security worries and risk and make positive changes to the world. This may all sound like psycho-babble, but it's a real problem. We rarely have politicians today that inspire us with what we can do, rather than playing to our insecurities.
4 Comments:
I haven't been reading the blog long enough -- yes, I know it hasn't been up that long but I've been visiting less long -- to get an idea of your overall political philosophy.
I think I understand that you believe that the Administration, with the permission of the polity, in prosecuting the inaptly named WOT has sacrificed civil rights more than it need have done had it (and the voters) made a realistic assessment of the threats the country faces. You ascribe this failure to a tendency (recent? longstanding?) to overemphasize the value of physical security (see Benjamin Franklin).
Civil libertarians of both parties can come together in support of your argument (notice where Paul Craig Roberts is being published these days). But these minority voices mean little unless they're attached to a party in power. Currently, the Republican Party would not appear to be the one to carry your standard.
But the Democratic Party is the party of economic security and frequently, physical security, as well (gun control laws, for example). Can you, do you, wish to try to live within its fractious tent?
You touch on an important point. It is not just the Republicans who play the security card, Democrats are just as opportunistic. In fact, they have had a strong hand in expanding security to many other spheres of life - 'health security', 'economic security', 'environmental security'. It's not that some of these things aren't good. But to talk about them in terms of security belittles their importance, and confuses why we care about them. For example, we don't worry baout health care because we just want to stay alive, we want health care to be available in adequate quantity so people don't have to worry whether they will get sick or die. Security is a means to live a free life, not an end in itself. If we argue for various goods as if they were simply a matter of security, then we'll get a bare minimum, rather than what is needed to live freely. So to bring it back to Dems v. Reps, we think that the most important thing is to defend liberty consistently, not immediately identify with one side or the other. In fact, the categories of left and right, Republican and Democracy, seem to us not all that useful given the security consensus, and can get in the way of just thinking through the ideas and arguments themselves.
There is nothing objectionable with adopting an issue -- and especially, an interesting and contemporary issue, and arguing its ins and outs in a principled manner; and of course, it's your blog.
But there is an election on November 7, and most responsible citizens, influenced by the one or the other party's and its candidate's political arguments, will be exercising the old franchise. Are you opting out of that particular conversation?
The purpose of AWOT is to attempt something distinct from the partisan debate. We are trying to raise themes in American political life that we find troubling, and to work through with the help of readers and participants in the teach-in ways to imagine an alternative political discourse. Each of us has views about American elections and the two parties, but as a group we want to present a voice that's not expressed by either party -- one that gives a principled critique of the war on the terror and that provides a standard by which to judge those vying for power. If that has consequences for how one votes, so be it. But our principle aim is to develop collectively the tools and language for shifting the parameters of acceptable debate, left or right.
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