Today, contemplating a forthcoming post, I did think of him and his notion of novelty - the thought process is pretty much right there in the post title. You see, dear Reader, one simply cannot keep up with all of the things regarding which one ought to be well-informed and perhaps even exercise a little bit of moral agency. Every day there is an outrageous atrocity: while we're discussing today's atrocity tomorrow morning, there will be three more. So, I was thinking about former blog posts I've meant to revisit, the two newest Intercept leaks that I haven't finished reading yet (I have read the stories -- keep up the good work [non-gender-normative plural signifier ("folks?" -- what, too soon?)]s! -- but haven't finished the leaked source material), other leaks from other sources in other journals, several of our president's unfortunate statements, and on ad nauseam, when a new way of thinking about the novelty singularity struck me.
I have spent all these years thinking that novelty meant new stuff, things that are new, objects that are new, ideas that are new, technologies that are new -- "new" in this sense signifying previously unprecedented -- and not really being able satisfactorily to envision anything cognizable. These are all parts of the technological singularity, but, I think, not the novelty of McKenna's theory, or my current interpretation and invocation of it. Novelty, in this sense, I propose (or, he may have), is the encroachment on an awareness by any of an infinitude of "other sides" with their many-hued grasses, which might need to be considered in addressing the initial object of awareness. I think I said it in my The Hollow Men parody here:
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang [, a whimper or a war crimes tribunal
But the staid, clinical, toothless, and patently committee-authored 600 page report of The Constitution Project's independent bipartisan Task Force of eminent personages on Detainee Treatment, its Document Database, Interview Index, Transcripts and Errata, which will be read by few, credited by fewer, and influence the conduct of government and policymakers not one whit
and then a twitter update and something something reddit
and five egregious mainstream gaffes
and a yawn
as more technical reports about new catastrophes and catastrophes we negligently have been permitting to develop for scores of years are released, by teams of esteemed and tenured experts, one upon another for our reading pleasure if we could just find
enough time]
Perhaps when I get to writing that modern interpretation of Heidegger's The Question Concerning Technology, I can try to weave in some McKennaian novelty, say, as either part of the dangerous enframing aspect of technology or as the "saving power" that grows near the poison, or, as good ol' Marty seems to like to have it, as both. Ontologically.
As you may recall, dear Reader, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has been investigating probably totally unwarranted allegations that the Central Intelligence Agency might have done some torture a decade ago, for nine years or so, and has finally produced a thorough report, which has been submitted to the subject Agency and to the White House for redaction prior to publication.
Some days ago, the story goes, an office of the white house accidentally emailed draft talking points concerning the presumably-impending publication of the report to the Associated Press. This is not the first fortuitous leak concerning this report. In related developments, you'll recall the chair of that committee loudly decrying that agency's active interference with the investigation, and that agency denying, its pride wounded at the prospect that good American people might entertain the possibility that an upright, steadfast agency such as itself might engage in such unthinkably base behavior as alleged in that senator's slander. Well, Mr. Brennan's denial was unfounded. We might, generously, credit his trying to respond to the senator's charge, notwithstanding his later-asserted ignorance of the actual ops in his shop, from the gut, from his notion as a righteous executive of how the agency ought to behave, without deigning to check. It is a best practice among the who's who of executives in the government and private sector alike.
Anyway, I noticed some errors in the proposed "Topline Messages" (see them here), and took the liberty of editing them:
The 9/11 attacks were presented as an unprecedented threat to the security of the American people. Our government and people responded in ways that were mostly superficial, reactionary, vengeful and shortsighted. The use of interrogation techniques that were contrary to our values and traditions was no mistake, but policy. We must honestly address, acknowledge, learn from and punish the perpetrators, and effectively deter any repetition.
The fundamental facts about this program have been subject to denials, lies and obfuscation from the outset; there is no indication that this pattern of obfuscation is at all diminished now. The U.S. government makes many statements concerning the value of transparency, but stalls, blocks, resists and delays every disclosure concerning prior and ongoing malfeasance, although it has been compelled to reveal certain heavily-redacted documents related to some programs in isolated cases.
This report is damning. Details of the report emphasize the wisdom of out national decision not to use such interrogation methods, made significantly earlier than 2001 and deliberately breached at that time by order of the highest officers of the government, but leave grave doubts concerning our access to wisdom at any time since.
While it leaves plenty unsaid, and plenty still withheld, the report leaves no doubt that the CIA cannot be trusted, even by its boss, its oversight committee or its inspector general; the report leaves no doubt that subjecting terrorist suspects to profound pain, suffering and humiliation was an ineffective means of extracting information, about which, before 2001, there had been no sincere debate; the report leaves no doubt that the harm caused by the use of these techniques outweighed any putative benefit.
The report tells a story of which no American is proud. But it is also part of another story of which we all can be truly ashamed: America's democratic system was deliberately subverted by demagogues in its highest offices fostering hysteria and cultivating venal brutality as matters of policy, and it is not clear whether that damage can be repaired, whether any failsafes might be installed (such as, say removing faulty parts), or whether our core democratic values can be salvaged.
These interrogation methods were debated in our free media -- "should Jack Bauer pound the balls of that swarthy suspect or not?"; challenged in our independent courts -- mostly unavailingly due to the transparency of state secrets; and, a mere four years after they began, restricted by an act of Congress. Only seven years later, presidential candidates agreed that torture is wrong, about which, before 2001, there had been no sincere dispute.
The American people have agreed with President Obama's executive order banning torture and cruel treatment of detained persons, and revoking prior inconsistent executive directives, orders and regulations to the extent inconsistent with that order, because it was long overdue, and the American people have entertained no sincere debate on the question since significantly earlier than 2001.
America still looks like a hypocritical bully, but one that is generous to its friends: it can champion whatever it presumes to and the world and language will more or less accommodate its depredations. Our democratic system is struggling with the entrenched interests of its own immense administrative and security apparatus, as well as the all the instruments of modern propaganda bent to the will of the masters of capital. Our Congress spent nine years researching and developing this report notwithstanding consistent harassment by the agency subject to the investigation, and the Obama administration strongly supported its declassification and heavy redaction in that spirit. This report will help the American people understand what happened in the past, so that the CIA can keep doing whatever it is up to these days free of the potentially censorious attention of the electorate.It has, since, developed that the leaked talking points seem to have deflected and diluted some of the Brennan impact, and provided our president an opportunity to channel his predecessor in office right there on the camera, as grave and unfortunate an utterance as ever an American president has made, delivered with tin ear, absent affect and an impious litany of decontextualizing irrelevancies.
It has also developed that publication of the report may be further delayed because that senator finds the CIA's proposed redactions to "eliminate or obscure key facts." So, overall, it is good that Mr. Obama did not try to float that whole transparency chestnut from the original draft.
Also, I have been listening to a reading of Beelzebub's Tales to his Grandson on YouTube, because I have finished watching All of Television, and am just about done reading the Internet. It is easier to listen to than it was to read.