A Nuanced Take on Statecraft and Political Gamesmanship
By avoiding reductive media narratives and acknowledging nuance, we can thrive in the face of complexity.
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who constitute this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.”
Edward Bernays
I find most of American political content to be nauseating. Politicians are seen as either saviors or devil incarnates. Conservatives naively believe that all members of the ownership class amassed their wealth and influence virtuously. Liberals absurdly deny the significant role biology has on outcomes.
Much of this is by design. In 1917, Woodrow Wilson commissioned the Committee on Public Information to garner public support for America’s entrance into WW1. Prior to this, Americans wanted no part of the carnage. Using insights into crowd psychology from Freud and Le Bon, the C.P.I. impressed a slew of distortions, half-truths, and embellishments onto the citizenry via a painstakingly crafted propaganda campaign. The committee was in awe at how remarkably their techniques reversed public sentiment on the war. It was then understood by the Establishment that these methods could be used to create a permanent, wanton consumer class. Riskier gambits to expand the American Empire could be made against the backdrop of a subservient, over-stimulated populace.
Following the war, two C.P.I. members, Walter Lippmann and Edward Bernays, openly shared their beliefs about inculcating and steering the American public. In their eyes, the notion of the “omnicompetent citizen” was a farce, and the average American was too myopic, impulsive, and/or intellectually limited to grasp the complexities of statecraft. It was up to a cognitive elite, a “specialized class whose interests reached beyond the locality” to preserve and cultivate the nation-state.
To some degree, these policies are understandable. If America is attempting to thwart an attack on the homeland, why release jeopardizing information? If every threat, cyber-attack, data breach, and failed mission were publicly disclosed, are we sure people won’t become psychotic? Rampant fear, paranoia, and distrust could lead to a societal breakdown.
On the other hand, one’s ability to hold a leadership position doesn’t guarantee that they’ll be moral. The temptation to abuse power, especially without repercussions, is too much for some to resist. And this is why most of American political discourse is lacking: as comforting as it is to believe all humans are equally capable, altruistic, and prudent, the evidence proves the contrary. There are massive variations within the human population with respect to fluid intelligence, criminal tendencies, the ability to handle stress, mental illness, etc. The difficulty in having civilization run smoothly, in spite of all this variance, is amplified by us existing within and depending on complex systems for our survival.
World Affairs are so Much More Complex Than the Media Acknowledges
Complexity theory is a field of science derived from nonlinear mathematics and systems theory. Hurricanes, factory machinery, the human body, traffic networks, corporations; there are unifying characteristics that constitute them all as complex systems, interconnected systems where a variety of components are performing multiple actions simultaneously. They can be biological, mechanical, or technological.
What complexity science unequivocally proves is that, within complex systems, unexpected events are a certainty. The components in a system will sometimes interact in ways even the most advanced software can’t predict. Whether these chance events are benign or catastrophic depends on the stability of all the interconnected systems. Larger, dysfunctional complex systems can wreak havoc on its smaller, stable subsystems. Chaos theory and complexity theory are related, so Nassim Taleb’s “Black Swan” is relevant here. The possibility of an unforeseen occurrence causing a global firestorm always looms.
Let’s think about how this relates to the everyday person. You, the reader, inhabit a human body. You regularly depend on numerous sophisticated technologies for leisure and transportation. You most likely work for a large company. That company is subject to state and federal regulators. Your nation’s governance is affected by the policies of other countries. Multiple countries can be impacted by a natural disaster or regional conflict. Earth is subject to all sorts of astronomical phenomena...see where I’m going with this? Isn’t it sobering how many areas chaos can emanate and fiercely metastasize? The preconditions that lead to stock market meltdowns and large-scale wars develop over years, but the triggers that spark them are often sudden and unforeseen. Feedback loops are constantly running between interconnected complex systems. The ways in which they can affect each other are limitless and not always readily visible.
In 2017, there were over 9,000 deaths, 239,000 injuries, and 312,000 displacements globally as a result of natural disasters. In America, there were also over 40,000 vehicle deaths in 2017, 5,100 workplace fatalities in 2016. Chillingly, freak incidents like these are minuscule compared to what transpires on the international arena. Cyber-aggressions, espionage, acts of financial warfare, and covert operations are always in motion. Despite countries maintaining diplomatic relations with one another, they promote their own interests clandestinely, sometimes in the most destabilizing and murderous ways.
The higher one moves up the career ladder, the more abstruse, intense, and time-consuming their jobs will become. Our leaders in D.C. assume an extraordinary amount of responsibility, and parse information that is astoundingly technical and voluminous. Most of American political content is abysmal because it’s a reflection of the public: consumers prefer simple, easy-to-follow narratives over ones that account for all of the world’s complexities and ugly truths. Most people don’t have the time and/or interest to pore over reams of books and research studies. What’s also dangerous is that corporate media giants proclaim themselves the premier sources of accurate news, all the while marginalizing independent thinkers. Those with truthful views that clash with mainstream thought are rarely given a platform.
Criticism of our leaders is sometimes warranted, but one should consider their daunting challenges before tearing into them. Keep in mind some information regarding pressing matters is classified, so it’s possible our opinions on certain news topics are misguided. Try to remember, when our country is faced with novel crises, there is no guidebook for us to consult and sometimes no way of knowing the long-term effects of our responses. Mistakes and tragedies are literally unavoidable. There is a saying within the American intelligence community, “If we always had access to the most pertinent information, teenagers could do our jobs.” Our leaders in Washington have to work with incomplete and/or conflicting information and make life-or-death decisions within very narrow timeframes.
Passively accepting simplistic and/or misleading takes on world affairs as fact, and not realizing that even the aristocracy are blindsided with crises they can hardly resolve imperils us all.
Simplistic Takes on World Affairs are Ultimately Unhelpful
In 1993, the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management was founded. The firm consisted of future Nobel Prize winners and PhD economists from America’s top universities. LTCM originated some of the byzantine financial products still pushed on Wall Street today. They raked in immense profits and hedged against losses by partaking in a myriad of foreign markets. Major publications lauded them as the most impressive hedge fund in history. The employees felt invincible and their best years were ahead of them.
However, in ‘97–98, contagion from currency crises in Southeast Asia and Russia hammered LTCM’s portfolio. These meltdowns from the Eastern Hemisphere decimated their investments across the board. Not only was LTCM on the brink of collapse, but so were the major Wall Street banks (Citibank, Goldman Sachs, etc.) who used it as a conduit to execute countless risky trades. To prevent an implosion of the other banks, the Federal Reserve and Treasury were forced to step in and orchestrate a bailout of the moribund hedge fund. Had they not, every stock and bond market in the world would have shut down indefinitely. The leadership of LTCM, men who considered themselves among the most brilliant in finance, were brought to their knees by foreign crises they didn’t even remotely anticipate.
If the future of humanity approximates a utopia, we’ll have overcome horrifying complications and hazards along the way. It’s disturbing that miscalculations from the past can cause fissures in the present. But it’s the truth. Passively accepting simplistic and/or misleading takes on world affairs as fact, and not realizing that even the aristocracy are blindsided with crises they can hardly resolve imperils us all. If the political discourse in this country continues to get more tribalistic and crazed, we’ll ravage each other as the American Empire sinks further into oblivion. Just because some people hold positions of power doesn’t automatically mean they’re the most qualified, so every so often we must find common ground and cooperate. We have more power at the individual level than we think.
Complexity theory proves our lives can be drastically altered by events out of our control. Our political leaders, both nationally and globally, must construct order out of the chaos that inevitably arises when people of varying temperaments and capabilities depend on intricate technologies. This isn’t to say they’re all forthright and virtuous. It’s just most people radically underestimate how onerous and cognitively demanding their jobs are. By avoiding toxic media narratives and understanding that there is much nuance to the world’s most dire problems, we increase our likelihood of thriving in a universe characterized by complexity.
