Fear as A Political Motivator

Thomas Friedman wrote in an article about some of the fits and starts of peace that we have seen in the Middle East recently. In it he included this passage

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Fear can be a potent motivator. Fear of Al Qaeda running their lives finally got the Sunni tribes of Iraq to rise up against the pro-Al Qaeda Sunnis, even to the point of siding with the Americans. Fear of Shiite thugs in the Iranian-backed Mahdi Army has prompted many more Shiites in Iraq to side with the pro-U.S. Iraqi government and army. Fear of a Hamas takeover has driven Fatah into a tighter working relationship with Israel. And fear of spreading Iranian influence has all the Arab states — particularly Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan — working in even closer coordination with America and in tacit cooperation with Israel. Fear of Fatah collapsing, and of Israel inheriting responsibility for the West Bank’s Palestinian population forever, has brought Israel back to Washington’s negotiating table. Fear of isolation even brought Syria here.

But fear of predators can only take you so far. To build a durable peace, it takes a shared agenda, a willingness by moderates to work together to support one another and help each other beat back the extremists in each camp. It takes something that has been sorely lacking since the deaths of Anwar Sadat, Yitzhak Rabin and King Hussein: a certain moral courage to do something “surprising.”

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I must respectfully disagree, and believe that especially in the Middle east we can capitalize on these very fears to improve it. To reference Political Science I essentially agree with Hobbes. In Leviathan, Hobbes argues that political sovereignty grew out of a fear of violent death (Hobbes 1651, 84). In essence, according to Mr. Friedman this is what is currently motivating the changes in the Middle East. No government to date can promise an avoidance of death altogether. Not even the most stout theocracies make the attempt. But with careful planning violent death can become a thing that is relatively rare, as it has in most of the Developed World.

However, while terrorist organizations claim to be able to provide a degree of salvation after death, and even a theoretical terrestrial paradise, they bring an awful lot of very violent death with them, and that death can be seemingly indiscriminate. This is what has motivated the changes in the Middle East right now.

That said, the limitations of this motivation are not the limitations fear of violent death, but instead the fact that instead of creating a sovereign to deal with the issue, there is instead a precarious balance between people that hate each other, (e.g. Sunni's and Shi'ite, Jews and Muslims, Arabs and Americans). Eventually the common enemy will go away. In the case of Iraq, the only problem is making sure that the redployment and the disappearance of the threat is not too far separated in time. But all the other animosities are still there, and neither the Shi'ites nor the Sunni's are picking up and leaving. Essentially, there is still plenty of fear to go around.

Therefore, it is still possible to employ fear to guarantee a stable government, and an environment. The first step is to develop a dialog, which is hopefully happening now. If not, fighting common enemy has a way of bringing things together. After that the combatant parties can develop a pattern of checks and balances, and finally upon implementing that pattern watch it carefully until it has been in force for so long that it becomes taken for granted. This is how all treaties are written and peace is made. It can work in the Middle East as well, witness the border between Israel and Egypt which is now primarily patrolled by European troops in shorts for sunbathing. It all starts with fear, but it cannot be misdirected fear, and it must be strong.

On the small wars front, this same strategy can be employed writ small, and is essentially what has been driving the success of the surge. The problem is that until fear is piqued enough there is no desire for either side to negotiate. In order to keep the success of the surge going, a long lasting solution must be arrived at, otherwise once the fear decreases, instead of falling into a long terms stable situation, it will degrade into more violence. Basically, while it need not be the pseudo-dictatorial sovereign of Thomas Hobbes, some sort of Sovereign needs to be created and allow peace to rest upon that.

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Originally Posted by Abu Suleyman

Thomas Friedman wrote in an article about some of the fits and starts of peace that we have seen in the Middle East recently. In it he included this passage



I must respectfully disagree, and believe that especially in the Middle east we can capitalize on these very fears to improve it. To reference Political Science I essentially agree with Hobbes. In Leviathan, Hobbes argues that political sovereignty grew out of a fear of violent death (Hobbes 1651, 84). In essence, according to Mr. Friedman this is what is currently motivating the changes in the Middle East. No government to date can promise an avoidance of death altogether. Not even the most stout theocracies make the attempt. But with careful planning violent death can become a thing that is relatively rare, as it has in most of the Developed World.

However, while terrorist organizations claim to be able to provide a degree of salvation after death, and even a theoretical terrestrial paradise, they bring an awful lot of very violent death with them, and that death can be seemingly indiscriminate. This is what has motivated the changes in the Middle East right now.

That said, the limitations of this motivation are not the limitations fear of violent death, but instead the fact that instead of creating a sovereign to deal with the issue, there is instead a precarious balance between people that hate each other, (e.g. Sunni's and Shi'ite, Jews and Muslims, Arabs and Americans). Eventually the common enemy will go away. In the case of Iraq, the only problem is making sure that the redployment and the disappearance of the threat is not too far separated in time. But all the other animosities are still there, and neither the Shi'ites nor the Sunni's are picking up and leaving. Essentially, there is still plenty of fear to go around.

Therefore, it is still possible to employ fear to guarantee a stable government, and an environment. The first step is to develop a dialog, which is hopefully happening now. If not, fighting common enemy has a way of bringing things together. After that the combatant parties can develop a pattern of checks and balances, and finally upon implementing that pattern watch it carefully until it has been in force for so long that it becomes taken for granted. This is how all treaties are written and peace is made. It can work in the Middle East as well, witness the border between Israel and Egypt which is now primarily patrolled by European troops in shorts for sunbathing. It all starts with fear, but it cannot be misdirected fear, and it must be strong.

On the small wars front, this same strategy can be employed writ small, and is essentially what has been driving the success of the surge. The problem is that until fear is piqued enough there is no desire for either side to negotiate. In order to keep the success of the surge going, a long lasting solution must be arrived at, otherwise once the fear decreases, instead of falling into a long terms stable situation, it will degrade into more violence. Basically, while it need not be the pseudo-dictatorial sovereign of Thomas Hobbes, some sort of Sovereign needs to be created and allow peace to rest upon that.

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We had that in Iraq in 2003: his name was Saddam. And we took him down. The use of fear as a tool to build has its own set of effects and costs. To name one as an example, you have to use it or you lose it. Saddam used it.

Secondly, fear of AQ did not necessarily drive the shift. Rather encroachment on tribal perogatives promted key sheiks to shift alliances; that could be interpreted as "fear" but I would term it more as greed.

Best

Tom

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Originally Posted by Tom Odom

We had that in Iraq in 2003: his name was Saddam. And we took him down. The use of fear as a tool to build has its own set of effects and costs. To name one as an example, you have to use it or you lose it. Saddam used it.

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While Saddam was excellent at instilling fear, that is not the only way to use fear. I am not advocating in the least the generation of fear. Quite to the contrary, I want peace, which among other things includes the absence of fear.

In this case I am saying that with a fear either of us, the enemy, general chaos or whatever is a condition already extant with which we have to deal. In fact what we really want to do is do away with fear. Counter intuitively, we have to use the conditions created by fear, or the motivation of the fear to generate something good.

I have to respectfully disagree that it was greed that motivated the move of the Shaykhs in Al Anbar, etc. While greed can indeed trump fear, if they were more motivated by greed than fear there were and are far more lucrative ways to take advantage ("Hey! Where did all that contract money go?"). It is no coincidence that the move by the shaykhs came at the same time as American pullout seemed most imminent. Also, we had to give them a viable option to the fear.
The point is that we need to present a viable option to put fear in check. Up until then the only options available were either Shi'ite Domination (and in their mind at least almost certain death) or AQIZ domination (and maybe death). The role that fear played into this is it was the motivator in both cases. Now by empowering the tribes, and hopefully in the future establishing either organizations or conventions that will prevent further 'fearful' situations we can institutionalize peace.

Let me reiterate I am NOT advocating creating fear. That is what Saddam did, and lord knows we don't need more of that. I am merely saying that fear exists aplenty. If we understand it we can harness it, and use it to create a better situation, and hopefully peace. If the fear just went away, that would be fine too, but I think is would be naive to believe that will happen.

Friedman notes:

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It takes something that has been sorely lacking since the deaths of Anwar Sadat, Yitzhak Rabin and King Hussein: a certain moral courage to do something “surprising.”

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Now, I think King Hussein was a truly remarkable political leader. However, his survival amid the tumult of Jordanian and Arab politics stemmed more from his unwillingness to take major risks, than his willingness to do so: after all, Jordan didn't sign its peace treaty with Israel until after it had it had been given the political space to do so by the Israeli-Palestinian Oslo Accords.

Hussein similarly joined the 1967 Arab-israeli war because he couldn't risk bucking domestic public opinion; cozied up to Nasirite Egypt and Ba'this Syria when he needed to; and refused to join the coalition during the 1990-91 Iraq war because he (again) didn't wish to buck domestic opinion.

Don't get me wrong: I think these were all very astute moves under the circumstances, and did much to both consolidate the monarchy and stabilize Jordan. But they weren't risk-taking in the Sadat mold (and I say that as no Sadat fan).

Interestingly, and for all the ebb and flow of domestic repression (sometimes substantial) in Jordan, this country has relied much less on "fear as a motivator" than most in the region. The monarchy has often shown remarkable ability to co-opt potential opponents, and while the iron fist is here it is usually kept very much inside a velvet glove.

Sorry for all the Jordan comments for what was intended to be a broader discussion, but I just happen to be here a few days for a meeting/conference, and it seemed appropriate!

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Originally Posted by Abu Suleyman

While Saddam was excellent at instilling fear, that is not the only way to use fear. I am not advocating in the least the generation of fear. Quite to the contrary, I want peace, which among other things includes the absence of fear.

In this case I am saying that with a fear either of us, the enemy, general chaos or whatever is a condition already extant with which we have to deal. In fact what we really want to do is do away with fear. Counter intuitively, we have to use the conditions created by fear, or the motivation of the fear to generate something good.

I have to respectfully disagree that it was greed that motivated the move of the Shaykhs in Al Anbar, etc. While greed can indeed trump fear, if they were more motivated by greed than fear there were and are far more lucrative ways to take advantage ("Hey! Where did all that contract money go?"). It is no coincidence that the move by the shaykhs came at the same time as American pullout seemed most imminent. Also, we had to give them a viable option to the fear.
The point is that we need to present a viable option to put fear in check. Up until then the only options available were either Shi'ite Domination (and in their mind at least almost certain death) or AQIZ domination (and maybe death). The role that fear played into this is it was the motivator in both cases. Now by empowering the tribes, and hopefully in the future establishing either organizations or conventions that will prevent further 'fearful' situations we can institutionalize peace.

Let me reiterate I am NOT advocating creating fear. That is what Saddam did, and lord knows we don't need more of that. I am merely saying that fear exists aplenty. If we understand it we can harness it, and use it to create a better situation, and hopefully peace. If the fear just went away, that would be fine too, but I think is would be naive to believe that will happen.

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Fear is as you say something which exist without having to be encouraged and as such must definately be taken into account when making any determinations about how to approach a solution.

That said, we must never allow ourselves to allow manipulation of said factors in order to control, or direct the actions of a populous in general.

This is where the greatest fears for many in academia stem from when the collaborative efforts of anthropologists and military are referenced.

In direct competition with an enemy then any factors both human and otherwise can and should be considered and employed effectively.

There must be a line drawn however, and it would be somewhere around where long term leadership within these areas are concerned.

Anything else leads us down paths which history has shown us we don't want to follow.

Hi Ron,

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Originally Posted by Ron Humphrey

That said, we must never allow ourselves to allow manipulation of said factors in order to control, or direct the actions of a populous in general.

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I think it is important to note something here about the use of fear in propaganda; namely that fear generates an anger response in many situations and this response is frequently used to manipulate entire populations. This is, after all, the desired goal of a lot of terrorist attacks. It is also, I should note, the guiding principle behind what's known in pragmatic politics as "waving a bloody shirt".

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Originally Posted by Ron Humphrey

This is where the greatest fears for many in academia stem from when the collaborative efforts of anthropologists and military are referenced.

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I'm not sure I agree with this, Ron. Could we (Anthropologists) help the military produce such a campaign based on fear tactics? Probably, although I suspect that it wouldn't be as good as that produced by a couple of good ole boys from the smoke filled back rooms. As to this being the source of much of the "fear" in academia, I really doubt that. My suspicion is that a lot of that fear is generated more from a concern that they "mysteries" of the discipline will be seen by "profane" hands, and that those same non-initiates will realize that a lot of the "mysteries" are Bravo Sierra.

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Originally Posted by Ron Humphrey

In direct competition with an enemy then any factors both human and otherwise can and should be considered and employed effectively.

There must be a line drawn however, and it would be somewhere around where long term leadership within these areas are concerned.

Anything else leads us down paths which history has shown us we don't want to follow.

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Again, I'm going to have to disagree with you, at least as far as the use of "any factors" is concerned. This marks a key difference between professionals and amateurs in many fields of endevour (including politics): professionals realize that todays opponent may be tomorrows ally, while amateurs often believe that an enemy is an enemy, period.

BTW, let me just make it clear that I'm not saying that as an insult. The observation behind it comes out of a lot of work done on studying how groups operate and how individuals operate in new fields. The short term gain mentality exhibited by amateurs in a field (regardless of their expertise in other fields) often leads to a degradation of that field for all involved. When the field degrades, it has a feedback effect on all people in the field (on the psychology behind this, check out Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on the Flow experience), and I think this is what you are talking about when you talk about "drawing a line".

Marc

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Originally Posted by marct

Hi Ron,



I'm not sure I agree with this, Ron. Could we (Anthropologists) help the military produce such a campaign based on fear tactics? Probably, although I suspect that it wouldn't be as good as that produced by a couple of good ole boys from the smoke filled back rooms. As to this being the source of much of the "fear" in academia, I really doubt that. My suspicion is that a lot of that fear is generated more from a concern that they "mysteries" of the discipline will be seen by "profane" hands, and that those same non-initiates will realize that a lot of the "mysteries" are Bravo Sierra.

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First thank you very much for the feedback, and secondly no offense taken.
However much I study I never consider myself to know all the answers and thus I partake in such ventures as this in efforts to discover those answers.

I did not mean to associate anthropologists soley with the art of manipulation by fear, nor to even place them within the realm of helping with directed fires (so to speak). I was however referring to the fact that as you say, perception by those on the outside of the community may lead to unnecessary and ill placed kickback against that which they do not understand and thus do not trust.

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Originally Posted by marct

Again, I'm going to have to disagree with you, at least as far as the use of "any factors" is concerned. This marks a key difference between professionals and amateurs in many fields of endevour (including politics): professionals realize that todays opponent may be tomorrows ally, while amateurs often believe that an enemy is an enemy, period

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On this I meant to focus on the fact that any social factors can and will affect the outcome and as such none should be without review.
There is a tie-in between the line drawn and which factors can and should actually be used in any efforts by the military/government.

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Originally Posted by marct

BTW, let me just make it clear that I'm not saying that as an insult. The observation behind it comes out of a lot of work done on studying how groups operate and how individuals operate in new fields. The short term gain mentality exhibited by amateurs in a field (regardless of their expertise in other fields) often leads to a degradation of that field for all involved. When the field degrades, it has a feedback effect on all people in the field (on the psychology behind this, check out Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on the Flow experience), and I think this is what you are talking about when you talk about "drawing a line". Marc

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This is exactly on mark, I was trying to tie the long term changes ( todays enemies, tommorows allies) into determining which aspects of social existence should be actively pursued in operations.

I think for me the guiding premise might be my personal interpretation of sun tzu's know yourself. I think the key component here is not only should one know their own weaknesses and strengths but also know what their own social issues are. I think if we follow the guidance of Christ in his statement " Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you it helps delineate which factors are the right ones for action when dealing with others.

The measure of intent being good might be found in knowing what would be acceptable behaviour when relating to oneself, and treating others accordingly.

This is however just the thoughts of an Amateur Expert in Training :)

Very well put Ron.:) Your mention of Sun Tzu with regards to knowing oneself (as well as the enemy - to the extent practically possible) and especially Christ's Commandment on how to treat others, are the best ways to go here, the light in the dark to to speak, especially given the sheer murkiness of the matters having to be dealt with.

Marc, you're back!:) (Or you're posting from the other side of the planet:eek:)Good to see you.

Perhaps this is what I get for being overly rhetorical, and using an emotionally charged word such as 'fear'. So instead let me abandon the rhetoric completely.

What I am saying is that in the Middle East we have a nearly absolute Hobbesian "Natural State." According to Hobbes (and I am going to distill an exceedingly long book into a few pages) in our natural state, violence is ubiquitous and life is "nasty brutish and short." Because everyone has a right to everything we are constantly trying to kill each other, or harm each other to take it. We have may have a desire, or greed, that wants us to take everything, but we have an aversion to the outcome which is a high probability of violent death. Therefore society came together and ceded some of the rights that we had to the sovereign in exchange for the protection that the sovereign gives us against violent death caused by each other.

In the modern world the sovereign is not the theoretical individual that Hobbes posits, but instead a system or 'regime' in political speak. Mr. Friedman is saying that because the aversion that is motivating current changes is an aversion by a third party that will not participate in a regime there is a limit to how much progress can be made with the current situation. I maintain that there is sufficient aversion to a variety of situations, caused by a variety of actors, that are the philosophical equivalents of violent death that a Hobbesian bargain can be struck and we can see peace, or at least stability.

This is not manipulation of fear. This is how governments are formed. John Locke built upon the ideas of Hobbes, and said that by dividing powers we could keep the Sovereign from taking over our individual live. Nevertheless, he conceded the original motivation for the contractual theory of government. Hobbes' idea, by way of Locke is a major inspiration of the U.S. Constitution, and is specifically referenced throughout may founding documents including the very important Federalist Papers. Lest we be too American centric these ideas also underpin essentially every liberal government in the world, usually by way of the British or French government which serve as models, and themselves reference Hobbes and Locke. And while Marx and Nietzsche differed on many counts with the goals of contractual government, as far as I know they never repudiate the responsibility of the government to provide security (that was left for other 'theorists' who followed them.)

To require Arabs to find a stable and liberal form of government without acknowledging and understanding the foundations of our own, and worse yet without allowing them to appeal to the same basic human motivations is hypocritical. It is like requiring a first time cook to bake a cake without looking at your recipe or using flour.

This is social science. I am asserting clearly and unequivocally a traditional liberal political theory view of the Middle East. If this is not a valid theory I would like to hear about it, but on its own merits, not because of some aesthetic aversion to the word fear. And if it isn't valid then I would like to hear a counter-theory to the way governments and regimes form, so that we can test that, and perhaps advocate that as a way of resolving our small wars.

I got a little fired up in writing this. I hope I don't come across as too much of an ideologue. I really do want a discussion on this, because I believe that we are trying to create solutions without understanding what human nature and political nature are. I see also that others have posted since I started this post so it may not be particularly sequitur Theorists and scientists are the people who help us understand the nature of the things we are dealing with. And that is why this post is in this forum.

Hi Ron,

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Originally Posted by Ron Humphrey

On this I meant to focus on the fact that any social factors can and will affect the outcome and as such none should be without review.
There is a tie-in between the line drawn and which factors can and should actually be used in any efforts by the military/government.

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Ah, okay, gotcha.

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Originally Posted by Ron Humphrey

This is exactly on mark, I was trying to tie the long term changes ( todays enemies, tommorows allies) into determining which aspects of social existence should be actively pursued in operations.

I think for me the guiding premise might be my personal interpretation of sun tzu's know yourself. I think the key component here is not only should one know their own weaknesses and strengths but also know what their own social issues are. I think if we follow the guidance of Christ in his statement " Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you it helps delineate which factors are the right ones for action when dealing with others.

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One of the major problems I have with Western societies in general is the Cartesian mind-body dualist fantasy and how this has played out in terms of how religions (loosely construed) operate. On the whole, we have degraded the entire field of, hmmm, let's call it "mysticism", to the point where most social impetus is place on immediate, mechanistically understood, results. We rarely consider the effects of our actions on our "souls" (boy, is this moving into a discussion best handled over beers!).

This, in turn, leads us into all sorts of problems with how we construct our social interactions. So, for example, why should we "hate" (or "fear") our "enemies"? Or, conversely, why should we blithely accept what our "enemies" say and do? Back to Anthropology for a second - Hugh Gusterson just wrote an article on Anthropology and Militarism in Annual Reviews in Anthropology. When I read a draft of it, I noted to him that he didn't appear to be concerned with militarism per se so much as with American militarism. My question to him was "Why?" - why not look at the militarism of other groups?

I find that a lot of the discussions running around inside Anthropology over how much we should engage with the military to be, in all honesty, insanely parochial. The model of "ethics" used by the AAA, while fairly decent in some ways, is barely above a "Do's and Don'ts" taxonomy. There is no theorized model of ethics as a process along with an examination of the effects of that process; a point that, IMO, goes back to that degradation of the field of "mysticism".

[ /rant]

Hi Norfolk,

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Originally Posted by Norfolk

Marc, you're back!:) (Or you're posting from the other side of the planet:eek:)Good to see you.

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Too much work and too much codein for a bad back over the past 3 weeks :D.

Marc, you made a great point about today's enemy being tomorrow's ally. That immediately prompted me to think about WWII, where we as a nation (or coalition) demonized the Japanese and Germans (not without good reason), yet in a very short time span after the war we seemed to embrace them as strong allies against communism. Does that mean government generated fear can be turned on and off almost as quickly as a light switch? We used fear to mobilize our population to fight, but then what emotion or logic did we use to turn that fear off and generate the support to spend a substantial amount of money to rebuild those countries? Was it that communism was seen as a greater fear; thus the lesser of two evils? Or were the Germans and Japanese simply seen as defeated and we're a compassionate and forgiving people? Let's face it, the Germans and Japanese behavior during WWII was much more evil than anything AQ has done to date, yet it was very quickly forgotten (or perhaps not well understood).

The military in a counterinsurgency has always used fear, it is the stick in carrots and sticks. It can consist of curfews, turning off electric power to certain troubled areas, etc., but in general our form of coercion is very gentle compared to the likes of Saddam and Stalin and Hitler, thus much less effective.

Another way to use fear, as discussed in the article is convince the afflicted population that if the enemy wins, this is the life style that you and your family will be forced to endure. You would think that even our I/O forces could paint a picture for the audience, since they can borrow AQ's own propaganda, but show it in a different light. I know I'm using western logic, but I think in many cases, especially Iraq, we would be the considered the lesser fear, or evil, if we could effectively convey this message. I think that is happening anyway, despite our inept I/O work.

In general terms I think in a counterinsurgency we need to focus on exploiting existing fears that the population is experiencing to mobilize them to support our efforts. It is shocking that we failed to do this in Afghanistan, when not too many years ago the people there lived under a brutal Taliban regime. Are we really that inept, or is there something else going on there we're missing?

Hi AS,

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Originally Posted by Abu Suleyman

What I am saying is that in the Middle East we have a nearly absolute Hobbesian "Natural State."

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I am going to disagree with you in this - it is not a Hobbesian "Natural State" or even a "nearly" situation; there is at least one level of institutional interface between that and current reality in even the worst "hell holes" - the kinship / para-kinship system. This, BTW, appears to be the original solution that our species came up with (cf Marshal Sahlins, Stone Age Economics, esp. Chapter 5).

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Originally Posted by Abu Suleyman

I maintain that there is sufficient aversion to a variety of situations, caused by a variety of actors, that are the philosophical equivalents of violent death that a Hobbesian bargain can be struck and we can see peace, or at least stability.

This is not manipulation of fear. This is how governments are formed.

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Of course it is a manipulation of fear! And the manipulation of fear is one of the core ways in which governments are formed; denying that would be denying the reality of most state creation in human history.

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Originally Posted by Abu Suleyman

To require Arabs to find a stable and liberal form of government without acknowledging and understanding the foundations of our own, and worse yet without allowing them to appeal to the same basic human motivations is hypocritical. It is like requiring a first time cook to bake a cake without looking at your recipe or using flour.

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I totally agree with that :D.

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Originally Posted by Abu Suleyman

This is social science. I am asserting clearly and unequivocally a traditional liberal political theory view of the Middle East. If this is not a valid theory I would like to hear about it, but on its own merits, not because of some aesthetic aversion to the word fear. And if it isn't valid then I would like to hear a counter-theory to the way governments and regimes form, so that we can test that, and perhaps advocate that as a way of resolving our small wars.

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Umm, actually, it's not social science, it is social science theory; there is a difference. Personally, I don't have an aesthetic aversion to the word "fear", but I do have a distaste for the ineffective use of fear (or any emotion) as a motivational factor in politics. I also have a major distaste for the general use of "fear" without a consideration of its effects on the entire field of politics.

Let me pull this out a bit by asking a question. What is the social cost to an actor of engaging in a fear / terror campaign in Iraq? If the social benefit to the actor is higher than the social cost, then the tactic is "effective" and will, in all probability, be used (this is based on a simple variant of the Prisoners Dilemma game). The relative social weighting of a given tactic, in terms of social cost/benefit, is based in part on the social acceptance of that tactic and the fear that someone who uses that tactic will be slapped down by the rest of the social actors. This, BTW, appears to be hardwired into our brains (cf. Cosmides and Tooby on Evolutionary Psychology and the Cheater Module [and here]).

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Originally Posted by Abu Suleyman

I got a little fired up in writing this. I hope I don't come across as too much of an ideologue. I really do want a discussion on this, because I believe that we are trying to create solutions without understanding what human nature and political nature are. Theorists and scientists are the people who help us understand the nature of the things we are dealing with. And that is why this post is in this forum.

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No worries, mate ;).

Hi GS,

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Originally Posted by Global Scout

Marc, you made a great point about today's enemy being tomorrow's ally. That immediately prompted me to think about WWII, where we as a nation (or coalition) demonized the Japanese and Germans (not without good reason), yet in a very short time span after the war we seemed to embrace them as strong allies against communism. Does that mean government generated fear can be turned on and off almost as quickly as a light switch? We used fear to mobilize our population to fight, but then what emotion or logic did we use to turn that fear off and generate the support to spend a substantial amount of money to rebuild those countries? Was it that communism was seen as a greater fear; thus the lesser of two evils? Or were the Germans and Japanese simply seen as defeated and we're a compassionate and forgiving people? Let's face it, the Germans and Japanese behavior during WWII was much more evil than anything AQ has done to date, yet it was very quickly forgotten (or perhaps not well understood).

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I think that Communism was one of the factors in the turnaround, but I also suspect that a major factor was that the American public was not as "scarred" by WWII as most other nations. I think that government generated fear, as you cal it (I'd use the term propaganda) can be switched fairly quickly IFF you are dealing with a broadcast media environment - which we were at that time. Nowadays, things are a lot harder since we are dealing with highly interactive media (Mountainrunner and I have been chatting about this in relation to American Public Diplomacy).

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Originally Posted by Global Scout

The military in a counterinsurgency has always used fear, it is the stick in carrots and sticks. It can consist of curfews, turning off electric power to certain troubled areas, etc., but in general our form of coercion is very gentle compared to the likes of Saddam and Stalin and Hitler, thus much less effective.

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I'm not sure if it is less effective, really. One of the problems with excessive use of fear tactics is that people become "numb" to them - fear is "normalized", routinized and cultural practices develop that promote successful survival tactics. Of course, this flips when you have a populace which has developed these cultural practices and you try and use "gentler" forms of coercion. At the same time, a lot of cultural practices seem to operate (at least at the level of neural circuity) by using fear as a boundary/maintenance condition, which means that that form of fear can be used quite effectively without ever using direct forms of action.

Let me toss out an example. As a general warning, let me note that this example may well be offensive to a number of people here - which is, actually, the purpose of the example since I'm trying to stimulate that boundary maintenance fear.

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Example:

Why does the US military support a Don't Ask, Don't Tell (and Don't Pursue) policy in relation to gays and lesbians serving in the military? Are the supporters of this policy so sexually insecure? What are they afraid of, that they aren't really attractive?
**********

In Science and Sanity, Alfred Korzybski coined the term "semantic reaction" to refer to this, and it is a manipulation of fear at the symbolic level. The manipulation of this type of fear is, IMO, one of the core strategies behind both successful COIN and Insurgency operations, although I haven't seen it actually discussed in this light.

Marc

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Originally Posted by Abu Suleyman

What I am saying is that in the Middle East we have a nearly absolute Hobbesian "Natural State." According to Hobbes (and I am going to distill an exceedingly long book into a few pages) in our natural state, violence is ubiquitous and life is "nasty brutish and short." Because everyone has a right to everything we are constantly trying to kill each other, or harm each other to take it. We have may have a desire, or greed, that wants us to take everything, but we have an aversion to the outcome which is a high probability of violent death. Therefore society came together and ceded some of the rights that we had to the sovereign in exchange for the protection that the sovereign gives us against violent death caused by each other.

In the modern world the sovereign is not the theoretical individual that Hobbes posits, but instead a system or 'regime' in political speak. Mr. Friedman is saying that because the aversion that is motivating current changes is an aversion by a third party that will not participate in a regime there is a limit to how much progress can be made with the current situation. I maintain that there is sufficient aversion to a variety of situations, caused by a variety of actors, that are the philosophical equivalents of violent death that a Hobbesian bargain can be struck and we can see peace, or at least stability.

This is not manipulation of fear. This is how governments are formed.

To require Arabs to find a stable and liberal form of government without acknowledging and understanding the foundations of our own, and worse yet without allowing them to appeal to the same basic human motivations is hypocritical. It is like requiring a first time cook to bake a cake without looking at your recipe or using flour.

This is social science. I am asserting clearly and unequivocally a traditional liberal political theory view of the Middle East. If this is not a valid theory I would like to hear about it, but on its own merits, not because of some aesthetic aversion to the word fear. And if it isn't valid then I would like to hear a counter-theory to the way governments and regimes form, so that we can test that, and perhaps advocate that as a way of resolving our small wars.

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Thought-provoking post Abu Suleyman.:)

I agree that Marc's right that Leviathan's treatment of Human Nature is not social science fact, and I would argue that it is not even social science theory. The theory of human nature that was proposed in Leviathan was a rhetorical tool intended to convince public opinion of the desirability of a Government (the Sovereign - the Leviathan) that appeared to safeguard their lives and property whilst offering them the freedom to accumulate all the material goods they could - the Unlimited Acquisiton of Goods (Capitalism). And people are not mere individuals, they are part of an organic whole, especially in the forms of families, clans, tribes, communities, etc.

As about half of the male and about a third of the female population of England in the late 17th-Century was more or less literate, Leviathan was targeted at them. Its predecessor works, at the time written in Latin (and not intended to be read by the general public), were shorn of most of the rhetoric that Leviathan used to flatter public opinion inorder to persuade it of the desirability of the system of Government proposed therein. The lure of "Commodious Living" - what in the U.S. is basically termed "the pursuit of happiness" and the threat of the Leviathan's taking of the life of anyone who threatened that (though of course, each man was free to seek to save his own life as it is just his nature to do so), were the carrot and the stick of that system of Government.

Combined with an appeal to each reader that the reader's personal opinion was as good as that of anyone else (especially those in traditional positions of authority which the Leviathan contrived as being the chief threats to peace and thence to live and commodious living), the readers of Leviathan were intended to be persuaded by its rhetoric to accept the more-or-less absolute authority of the State in order to both save their own lives and to enjoy commodious living. What was also glossed over of course, was that the Government made the world safe for Capitalism, but in no way provided for any means by which man could enjoy commodious living if he did not already have it, as the "value of a man" was defined as what "others would pay for the use of his power".

In reality of course, the conditions for most people in early Capitalist England were poor to say the least, and until the threat of a revolution in the wake of the Peterloo Massacre in the early 19th-Century, the subsequent fall of the Government of the time, and the beginning of the Reform movement, the State was principally concerned with using force to keep the population in line and flowing into the industrial cities (in so small part to due land enclosure, creating most of the great landed estates of the new Whig aristocracy in the process) and overseas trade safe.

Where and how this applies to the Middle East is that these are cultures that have long been merchant-based (for thousands of years) in the cities and inclined to capitalism to a considerable extent in that way, but the Governemnt is used to protect the wealth and the wealthy against the population who cannot enjoy "commodious living", or even the safety of their own lives. 18th-Century England was peaceful not because Capitalism had provided for commodious living or that the State protected their lives from the threat of violence (it didn't, and it wasn't until later in the 18th century that London first formed a police force), but because there had been a clear military victor (the Whigs) who monopolized military force (but not violence, and left the common people to their own devices to deal with that) and that English society had simply been fought to exhaustion by Civil War and two Revolutions.

In Iraq, let alone Afghanistan, the Governments cannot provide for either commodious living nor preserve the lives of the people. And in any case, even the constant resort to terror and atrocities did not prevent frequent upheavals and rebellions in either Ba'athist Iraq or in Taliban Afghanistan (although Ba'athist Iraq did go quite some way in providing many of its people with commodious living even in Shi'a and Kurdish areas), and that still did not stop revolt.

In short, what Leviathan proposes is not a reflection of reality nor is even really a theory, it is rhetoric posing as theory in order to convince people to accept another reality that is quite different from what appears to be proposed. And it will not work in Iraq.

Apologies for this long response, but the subject matter that AS posted was not to be taken lightly, but he posed serious points that had to be very carefully considered. I hope that I didn't botch this too badly, it's been years since I've really dealt with this stuff.

While I agree to a large extent with Norfolk's take on Hobes, I have some other issues about it and with MarcT's earlier post, quoted below. For those who want to cut to the chase here's my bottom line (which I justify eventually down further):
BLUF: Perhaps a Rousseau-like myth seems a better place to start in the Middle East. After all, through the insistence on using Shari'a as the basis of government and justice, the opponent is advocating for a "divine right" state of sorts .

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MarcT

What is the social cost to an actor of engaging in a fear / terror campaign in Iraq? If the social benefit to the actor is higher than the social cost, then the tactic is "effective" and will, in all probability, be used (this is based on a simple variant of the Prisoners Dilemma game). The relative social weighting of a given tactic, in terms of social cost/benefit, is based in part on the social acceptance of that tactic and the fear that someone who uses that tactic will be slapped down by the rest of the social actors. This, BTW, appears to be hardwired into our brains

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I am somewhat confused by this post. What variant are you talking about? The usual application of the Prisoner's Dilemma is to show a fundamental inconsistency in acting egoistically. It purports to show that acting in what appears to be your unique self-interest results in an outcome that is least in your self interest. I'm not sure how that plays into the Hobbesian myth from Leviathan about how and why we form governments. Another use of the Prisoner's Dilemma is an attempt to show how Adam Smith's hidden hand makes for the best outcomes for all in a laissez faire market--another interesting myth, IMHO.

I view the Hobbesian position as fundamentally opposed to that of Locke--Hobbes' view of human nature is that we are basically bad while Locke thinks we are basically good. Hobbes also views our resources as constrained--there isn't enough to go around for everyone while Locke seems to think we have more than enough natural resources to turn into "property." For Hobbes, we need an outsider to keep us in line and make sure we share the limited resources. For Locke, we appoint a special agent to allow us to get on with enriching ourselves and keep those who would acquire property the easy way (by theft) from doing so. BTW for Hobbes revolution is not a right of the governed; it is a right in Locke's view, which probably explains why Jefferson and Co. look much more Lockean than Hobbesian in their efforts.

This all has little to do with the real world I think (except perhaps for the division of labor piece). BTW, I'm pretty sure most of the post-American Revolution uprisings/rebellions/ revolutions (and revolutionary writings, like Marx's and the modern Frankfort School folks, e.g.) are based, philosophically, on Rousseau, who is at odds with both Hobbes and Locke in important ways. Rousseau's hidden agenda/ interest is to justify getting rid of a government based on "divine right." (He didn't have a Henry VIII to break him from the Catholic guilt trip about obeying the duly annointed sovereign. Nor did he have a John Wesley to advocate for a missionary spirit vis-a-vis the urban poor, which kept England from undergoing the post-Congress of Vienna tumult that the Continental states experienced). Rousseau creates his social contract myth to explain why divine right is the wrong model for understanding how and why "man is born free yet is everywhere in chains."

Quote:

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Originally Posted by marct

professionals realize that todays opponent may be tomorrows ally, while amateurs often believe that an enemy is an enemy, period.

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You need the word "most" in front of professionals. People who were getting paid a lot of money decided that "you're either with us or against us."

Quote:

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Originally Posted by marct

I think that Communism was one of the factors in the turnaround, but I also suspect that a major factor was that the American public was not as "scarred" by WWII as most other nations.

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True story, unless I'm confused and it's not.

Before D-Day Churchill told de Gaulle that after the war Britain was going to align itself much more closely with America - and much less with France - than it had before the war. De Gaulle wasn’t worried, because he knew that France could align itself with Germany. Remember, this was before D-Day.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by marct

Science and Sanity, Alfred Korzybski coined the term "semantic reaction" to refer to this, and it is a manipulation of fear at the symbolic level. The manipulation of this type of fear is, IMO, one of the core strategies behind both successful COIN and Insurgency operations, although I haven't seen it actually discussed in this light.

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Our predictions about the semantic reaction to "shock and awe" were way off.

The main reason that I think we shouldn't do "voluntary univited nation building" is that by invading a country we change the semantic reactions of the public to our best efforts.

Having said that, I think we did a suburb job of changing the German public's semantic reaction to Hitler. The military deserves a lot of the credit. Marc, can you think of any other good examples?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rank amateur

You need the word "most" in front of professionals. People who were getting paid a lot of money decided that "you're either with us or against us."

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professional who said anything along that line -- I DO recall a lot of Amatuers In High Places saying it...

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Our predictions about the semantic reaction to "shock and awe" were way off.

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Now that phrase may have been uttered by a nominal professional -- if so, I submit he wasn't really a pro war fighter. A really, really stupid phrase that should never have been uttered much less publicized in any event. :(

Quote:

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The main reason that I think we shouldn't do "voluntary univited nation building" is that by invading a country we change the semantic reactions of the public to our best efforts.

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Yeah. Though I suspect the guys and gals who are there uninvited are more concerned with the kinetic reaction than the semantic... :D

Hi RA,

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rank amateur

You need the word "most" in front of professionals. People who were getting paid a lot of money decided that "you're either with us or against us."

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Call me old fashioned, but I don't use the term "professional" as a noun in reference to whether or not people get paid; I use it to refer to a vocation and an attitude :D.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rank amateur

Our predictions about the semantic reaction to "shock and awe" were way off.

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Not really, they were spot on except that the predictors forgot that a semantic reaction is temporally immediate. In the case of Iraq, I would say the effect lasted from 2-5 months.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rank amateur

The main reason that I think we shouldn't do "voluntary univited nation building" is that by invading a country we change the semantic reactions of the public to our best efforts.

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Gotta agree with Ken on this one ;). After all, the first time you guys tried it, we whupped your b***s back across the border :D.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rank amateur

Having said that, I think we did a suburb job of changing the German public's semantic reaction to Hitler. The military deserves a lot of the credit. Marc, can you think of any other good examples?

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Shortish term. There is a lot of underground support for Hitler as a backlash against the increasingly PC doctrine "culture" in Germany. This has been compounded by Bush's attempts to get the Germans more involved in Afghanistan. I remember one German minister telling me he thought it was "amusing" how the US spent 50 years telling Germany to be "nice" and now they "want us to be militarists".

Still, I think the best examples, from the US point of view, are Germany and Japan. I still think that one of the best examples overall is Quebec and, in the "crush them all" school of COIN, Provence.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by marct

are Germany and Japan. I still think that one of the best examples overall is Quebec and, in the "crush them all" school of COIN, Provence.

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Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I think dropping two nuclear bombs on a country qualifies as crushing.;)

I suppose "Three Quebecs" could be one way of looking at Iraq, but the French and English did have a war before learning to live together.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ken

Yeah. Though I suspect the guys and gals who are there uninvited are more concerned with the kinetic reaction than the semantic..

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It is the semantic reaction, that makes people reach for kinetic weapons.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rank amateur

...It is the semantic reaction, that makes people reach for kinetic weapons.

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somewhat differently than I. My observation has been that visceral reactions, not semantic ones, tend to lead to breaking the Broadswords out of the thatch... :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ken White

somewhat differently than I. My observation has been that visceral reactions, not semantic ones, tend to lead to breaking the Broadswords out of the thatch... :D

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Actually, Ken, that's pretty much how Korzybski defined a semantic reaction ;).

as opposed to a semantic reaction... :D

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Originally Posted by Ken White

My observation has been that visceral reactions, not semantic ones, tend to lead to breaking the Broadswords out of the thatch... :D

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Ken,

I suspect the visceral, AKA emotional, reaction you describe is part and parcel of the sematic reaction. Every word has some emotional charge attached to it--comes with learning any language's vocabulary. For that reason, I doubt that, short of killing them, we ever truly change anyone else's fundamental semantic reaction. We may suppress it (Marc's point about it being a short term event), but it will return, often at the most inopportune moments.

funny again.

Jeez. Can't even yank an occasional chain with a semantic quibble... :^)

:D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wm

While I agree to a large extent with Norfolk's take on Hobes, I have some other issues about it and with MarcT's earlier post, quoted below. For those who want to cut to the chase here's my bottom line (which I justify eventually down further):
BLUF: Perhaps a Rousseau-like myth seems a better place to start in the Middle East. After all, through the insistence on using Shari'a as the basis of government and justice, the opponent is advocating for a "divine right" state of sorts .



I am somewhat confused by this post. What variant are you talking about? The usual application of the Prisoner's Dilemma is to show a fundamental inconsistency in acting egoistically. It purports to show that acting in what appears to be your unique self-interest results in an outcome that is least in your self interest. I'm not sure how that plays into the Hobbesian myth from Leviathan about how and why we form governments. Another use of the Prisoner's Dilemma is an attempt to show how Adam Smith's hidden hand makes for the best outcomes for all in a laissez faire market--another interesting myth, IMHO.

I view the Hobbesian position as fundamentally opposed to that of Locke--Hobbes' view of human nature is that we are basically bad while Locke thinks we are basically good. Hobbes also views our resources as constrained--there isn't enough to go around for everyone while Locke seems to think we have more than enough natural resources to turn into "property." For Hobbes, we need an outsider to keep us in line and make sure we share the limited resources. For Locke, we appoint a special agent to allow us to get on with enriching ourselves and keep those who would acquire property the easy way (by theft) from doing so. BTW for Hobbes revolution is not a right of the governed; it is a right in Locke's view, which probably explains why Jefferson and Co. look much more Lockean than Hobbesian in their efforts.

This all has little to do with the real world I think (except perhaps for the division of labor piece). BTW, I'm pretty sure most of the post-American Revolution uprisings/rebellions/ revolutions (and revolutionary writings, like Marx's and the modern Frankfort School folks, e.g.) are based, philosophically, on Rousseau, who is at odds with both Hobbes and Locke in important ways. Rousseau's hidden agenda/ interest is to justify getting rid of a government based on "divine right." (He didn't have a Henry VIII to break him from the Catholic guilt trip about obeying the duly annointed sovereign. Nor did he have a John Wesley to advocate for a missionary spirit vis-a-vis the urban poor, which kept England from undergoing the post-Congress of Vienna tumult that the Continental states experienced). Rousseau creates his social contract myth to explain why divine right is the wrong model for understanding how and why "man is born free yet is everywhere in chains."

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Great discussion

While I am studying up on some of the theories you have all mentioned ,has anyone worked with what I believe was Cooley/Goffman looking-glass and would it also be related research for this type of discussion ?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ken White

funny again.

Jeez. Can't even yank an occasional chain with a semantic quibble... :^)

:D

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But most of the best opportunities for learning and understanding start out as/with a joke :)

Hi Ron,

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ron Humphrey

While I am studying up on some of the theories you have all mentioned ,has anyone worked with what I believe was Cooley/Goffman looking-glass and would it also be related research for this type of discussion ?

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I've used Goffman's Framing as a way of examining external environmental selection pressures in social settings. I find that it complements the work of Schutz and Luckmann (Structures of the Lifeworld, vol 1 & vol 2) while, at the same time, can easily go on top of neural networks. I read Cooley's work quite a while ago and, while I don't use it, I suspect some of it has stuck in my subconscious :D.

For the past, oh, 12 years or so, I've been trying to formalize the concept of "cultural schemas" at different levels: neurological, cultural and sociability. I'm still not happy with the models I've produced, but I think they are a decent start that would fit into this area.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by marct

Hi Ron,




For the past, oh, 12 years or so, I've been trying to formalize the concept of "cultural schemas" at different levels: neurological, cultural and sociability. I'm still not happy with the models I've produced, but I think they are a decent start that would fit into this area.

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I would appreciate any suggestions you might have on more directed studies realted to this type of process. Aside from the analytical side I have also started playing around with possibilities towards simulated abstractions based on real interactions, thus hopefully allowing for slightly more realistic fiction.


So To Speak:wry:

I realize this is so far beyond me it's not funny , but one must have goals.

hI rON,

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ron Humphrey

I would appreciate any suggestions you might have on more directed studies realted to this type of process. Aside from the analytical side I have also started playing around with possibilities towards simulated abstractions based on real interactions, thus hopefully allowing for slightly more realistic fiction.

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lol - Life is fiction; at least in the sense of improvisational acting :D. The reference I have been tossing out recently is "This is your brain on music" by Daniel J. Levitin (book and web site). Rally good as a primer on both music and neurology, although not really getting heavily into the other aspects of cultural schemas except at a surface level.

Another good place for some basics is the Evolutionary Psychology Primer, by Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, which lays out some of the model of the social effects of neural evolution. Then it starts getting tricky... :wry:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ron Humphrey

I realize this is so far beyond me it's not funny , but one must have goals.

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Who says it's beyond you?!? Go for it and have fun :D. BTW, I use some of this (without the references) in my Market Research consulting.

Marc

Quote:

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Originally Posted by marct

hI rON,



lol - Life is fiction; at least in the sense of improvisational acting :D. The reference I have been tossing out recently is "This is your brain on music" by Daniel J. Levitin (book and web site). Rally good as a primer on both music and neurology, although not really getting heavily into the other aspects of cultural schemas except at a surface level.

Another good place for some basics is the Evolutionary Psychology Primer, by Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, which lays out some of the model of the social effects of neural evolution. Then it starts getting tricky... :wry:



Who says it's beyond you?!? Go for it and have fun :D. BTW, I use some of this (without the references) in my Market Research consulting.

Marc

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Thank You
I will stay fairly busy digging into what you've given me so far.


On quick review I couldn't agree more with this premise:

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Originally Posted by Evolutionary Psychology

It was (and is) common to think that other animals are ruled by "instinct" whereas humans lost their instincts and are ruled by "reason", and that this is why we are so much more flexibly intelligent than other animals. William James took the opposite view. He argued that human behavior is more flexibly intelligent than that of other animals because we have more instincts than they do, not fewer. We tend to be blind to the existence of these instincts, however, precisely because they work so well -- because they process information so effortlessly and automatically. They structure our thought so powerfully, he argued, that it can be difficult to imagine how things could be otherwise. As a result, we take "normal" behavior for granted. We do not realize that "normal" behavior needs to be explained at all. This "instinct blindness" makes the study of psychology difficult. To get past this problem, James suggested that we try to make the "natural seem strange":

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My favorite is still "Our modern skulls house a stone age mind" :D.

I couldn't keep from jumping in, as fear is one of my favorite emotions to discuss. Perhaps I could best contribute in a sociological vein (although my field is criminology). I think the previous discussion has been spot on regarding Hobbes, Rousseau, etc., and while I'd love to delve into the sociology of Cooley on fear (I think he forshadowed the whole symbolic interactionist notion of expectation or anticipation on that, as well as emphasized the social group - reference group - prerequisite for fear), I'm much more comfortable discussing Weber and/or Parsons on fear. It is the consensus of most sociologists that both of these thinkers downplayed the role of fear; Weber, in jumping from the centrality he gives it in Ancient Judaism to making it a residual ideal-type in Protestant Ethic; and Parsons, in attempting to give some play to "affective action" but falling back upon a dualistic interplay with "affective neutrality." Yet, there is insight to be salvaged from Weber and Parsons, particularly in the charismatic authority concept, which in large part, relies upon the manipulation of fear. This is looked down upon by much of modern sociology, but criminology accepts much of it (as well as the Hobbesean roots) while psychology has its concept of attitude. As a trans-historical phenomena that rests on no other legitimacy than its own strength, charisma plays an important role in heterogeneous societies. It manifests itself in local contexts, to be sure, but Parsons (and Shils) toy with the idea that charismatic fear (not punitive fear or magical charisma) provides societies with ways to identify their "danger spots" and hence draw together to face a common challenge. Turner's Charisma Reconsidered is a good essay on this.