[rohrpost]Fwd: The World Trade Center and the Rise of the Security State
Tillmann Allmer
rohrpost@mikrolisten.de
Wed, 19 Sep 2001 12:42:18 +0200
fand ich ganz interessant... Gruss - Tillmann Allmer
>X-Flags: 0000
>Delivered-To: GMX delivery to tallmer@gmx.de
>X-Sender: ctech@alcor.concordia.ca (Unverified)
>Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 14:19:23 -0500
>To: ctheory@concordia.ca
>From: CTHEORY EDITORS <ctech@alcor.concordia.ca>
>Subject: Event-scene 98 - The World Trade Center and the Rise of the
> Security State
>X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by clyde.concordia.ca=
=20
>id OAA29921
>Sender: owner-ctheory@concordia.ca
>Reply-To: CTHEORY EDITORS <ctech@alcor.concordia.ca>
>X-MIME-Autoconverted: from 8bit to quoted-printable by clyde.concordia.ca=
=20
>id WAA20442
>X-Modified-Forwards: 2D.Paging address tallmer@gmx.de
>
> _____________________________________________________________________
> CTHEORY THEORY, TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE VOL 24, NO 3
>
> Event-scene 98 09/18/01 Editors: Arthur and Marilouise Kroker
> _____________________________________________________________________
>
>
> The World Trade Center and the Rise of the Security State
> =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
>
>
> ~Dion Dennis~
>
>
> Reflecting on the images of a black and gray ashen Manhattan, the
> skeletal remains of imploded skyscrapers, the survival narratives of
> witnesses, and the images of the dead and dying, the iconicity of the
> attack is striking: the date, 911, a shorthand for telephoning
> emergency services; the airlines, "United" and "American," synecdoche
> for the state, and the nation, respectively; the American Airlines
> plane ripping into one side of the Pentagon, lurching toward its
> center, breaking what had been a domestically unbroken pentagram of
> power. As representative instruments of spatial deterritorialization
> and globalization, Boeing 757s and 767s slammed into two prominent
> icons of information and commodification, the Twin Towers of the
> World Trade Center. As the buildings tumbled into a mix of black
> smoke and debris that rushed down the streets of West Manhattan, the
> utopian belief in Market Society also crumbled. As John Lennon sang a
> generation ago about another rupture, "the Dream is Over."
>
> The abrupt and violent detumescence of the Twin Towers signals,
> irreparably, the de facto end of an uncritical faith in Market
> Society. While markets will always be with us, the universalist
> prescription of "the market" as a form of social and cultural Viagra,
> died on the streets of Manhattan, and in the images of destruction
> dispersed to the rest of the planet.Embedded in the black smoke and
> in the shredded and spongy mountains of glass, steel and cadavers was
> the virus of endemic fear and perpetual anxiety, and the incipient
> prescription and inscription of a nascent security state.
>
> What a virus does, biological, technological or social, is to
> rewrite a basic instructional set on a cellular, machine-language or
> cultural level, and then to spread that instruction set, upward from
> below. That's what makes it a form of micro-power, low-tech,
> secretive, adaptive and extremely replicable. What has so quickly
> spread in the last few days is this virus of terrorism, from the
> outer spatial and cultural margins of late capitalism (Afghanistan)
> rewriting not just the mood of the U.S., but also the fundamental
> stance (national identity and values) of Americans, and the
> institutional routines of the state. Taken as a whole, the net effect
> is of the American Empire stumbling through a sharp discontinuity
> into its third, post-WWII ideological period. Below is a brief
> mapping of the relationship between the past, the incipient present,
> and the probable near future.
>
> The first ideological dream, an uncritical belief in government,
> emerged after WWII. Fiscal policies informed by Keynesian economics
> had turned the tide against the Depression, and the U.S. emerged as
> an economically and technologically dominant world power by 1945.
> Nearly three decades of rising standards of living (for almost all
> demographic groups), and remarkable technological achievements, lent
> temporary credence to an uncritical faith in the powers of
> government.
>
> Durable as that dream was, it was ruptured by multiple and
> persistent shocks: Assassinations, a morally ambiguous and unviable
> Vietnam War, urban riots, political corruption (Watergate), and
> structural changes in national and global economies (changes that led
> to the "stagflation," in the post-1973 period). Symbolized by the
> U.S. government's impotence in securing the release of 52 hostages,
> in the wake of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the "dream of government"
> as a universalist panacea for social ills lost its viability. With
> the election of Ronald Reagan, the post-1945 American Empire entered
> into its second ideological dream - an uncritical belief in the
> curative properties of "market society."
>
> Symbolized by Reagan, and his charmingly simple and nostalgic moral
> tales about the wonders of "the individual" and a "Mr. Rogers"
> version of "the invisible hand," the redistribution of wealth during
> the 1980s (spurred by massive changes in tax laws in 1981), and the
> years of economic growth between 1983-1990 led many to conclude that
> the mix of governmental deregulation and the hyper-redistribution of
> wealth was the medicine that the country needed. After all, didn't
> the Fall of the Berlin Wall, and "The Velvet Revolution" of 1989
> herald the triumph of capitalism, and the defeat of centralized
> statisms?
>
> In the early 90s, the U.S. faced a massive savings and loan crisis,
> enormous general fiscal debt and an economic recession. The
> uncritical dream of market society might have died in 1993, but for
> Bill Clinton's election. In the eight years of the Clinton
> presidency, Clinton commandeered just enough governmental resources
> to buttress the practices and discourses of market society. Informed
> by Gary C. Becker's formulation of "human capital," Clinton found his
> complement in Al Gore, an avid total quality management advocate who
> was in charge of "reinventing government." Concurrently, the religion
> of Privatization was the buzz word of the Gingrich conservatives.
> "Whatever you [government] can do, I [the private sector] can do
> better," they chanted. And so some of the practices [and much of the
> discourse] of the private sector came to dominate how the public
> sector and its workers were viewed, and how work and monies were
> redistributed.
>
> By the 2000 election, the U.S. economy had lost its momentum, and
> the shortcomings of an uncritical faith in market society became more
> evident. Examples include welfare reform that moved people from
> destitution to perpetual poverty; privatized prisons and schools that
> were dens of corruption and misery; and institutional scandals, such
> as an enormous (268 billion dollar) tobacco settlement from firms
> that had previously shifted the health risks and costs from cigarette
> manufacturers to the public sector. All of these areas (and many
> more) demonstrated the narrow limits of the market as universalist
> prescription and dream.
>
> And then came 911. Nothing in Adam's Smith's invisible hand, or in
> Yahoo's web directory, or in short-term cost/benefit analyses, or in
> any dream of the market (equity, futures or derivatives) and its
> neo-utilitarian and commodified world-view could account for, or
> prevent Boeing 757s and 767s from crashing the twin towers of the
> late World Trade Center. No faith in "human capital" or a
> commodity-based social logic (to run government like a business,
> taking the low bid for airport security services, for example)could
> mediate such transgressive violence. of 911. Thousands die, billions
> are lost, fear reigns, and market society, which requires a
> socio-political backbone of stability and predictability, loses its
> patina of magic. As the offices of Merrill Lynch, Smith-Barney and
> the Solomon Brothers disintegrated into ash, smoke and cadavers, so
> did the idea of "market society" as a panacea to our woes. No market
> tool (such as focus groups or surveys) can, by itself, counter those
> forces that seek the destruction of the very idea of a Western-style
> commodity market. Mark the date: On 09/11/01, that particular
> incarnation of Market Society died.
>
> Market Society was the target, not the weapon. It failed to
> guarantee order. Government did not foresee nor act - it failed to
> guarantee order. Our third ideological dream may be organized around
> a more intensive version of what Richard Ericson called a "policing
> [of] the risk society." As terroristic violence becomes increasingly
> dispersed, fluidic and possible almost anywhere, at any time, it does
> so by evading pre-existent risk-management techniques (as was the
> case on September 11th). The goal of state-centered responses will be
> to hone deterrence and policing strategies via intensified modes of
> militarization. Continuous surveillance, intensified
> information-collection and analysis techniques, and the honing of
> rapid deployment of counter-terrorism units may well be prominent,
> very soon, in the daily routines of American life. The boundaries of
> American life are in the process of a fundamental and rapid
> reconfiguration.
>
> Especially if there are some initial successes, the American Empire
> may be embracing this information-intensive dream of security as a
> paramount value, at the beginning of the new century. Fear is its
> engine.
>
> _____________________________________________________________________
> Dion Dennis is Visiting Assistant Professor, Dept of
> Psychology/Sociology, Texas A&M University - Kingsville, System
> Center Palo Alto (San Antonio)
>
> _____________________________________________________________________
>
> * CTHEORY is an international journal of theory, technology
> * and culture. Articles, interviews, and key book reviews
> * in contemporary discourse are published weekly as well as
> * theorisations of major "event-scenes" in the mediascape.
> *
> * Editors: Arthur and Marilouise Kroker
> *
> * Editorial Board: Jean Baudrillard (Paris), Bruce Sterling (Austin),
> * R.U. Sirius (San Francisco), Siegfried Zielinski (Koeln),
> * Stelarc (Melbourne), Richard Kadrey (San Francisco),
> * DJ Spooky [Paul D. Miller] (NYC), Timothy Murray (Ithaca/Cornell),
> * Lynn Hershman Leeson (San Francisco), Stephen Pfohl (Boston),
> * Andrew Ross (NYC), David Cook (Toronto), Ralph Melcher (Santa Fe),
> * William Leiss (Calgary), Shannon Bell (Toronto),
> * Gad Horowitz (Toronto), Deena & Michael Weinstein (Chicago),
> * Andrew Wernick (Peterborough).
> *
> * In Memory: Kathy Acker
> *
> * Editorial Correspondents: Ken Hollings (UK),
> * Maurice Charland (Canada), Steve Gibson (=C7anada/Sweden).
> *
> * Editorial & Technical Assistant: Adam Wygodny
> * WWW Design & Technical Advisor: Spencer Saunders (CTHEORY.NET)
> * WWW Editor: Carl Steadman (CTHEORY.COM)
>
> ____________________________________________________________________
> To view CTHEORY online please visit:
> http://www.ctheory.net/
>
> To view CTHEORY MULTIMEDIA online please visit:
> http://ctheorymultimedia.cornell.edu/
>
> To view CTHEORY.COM please visit:
> http://www.ctheory.com
> ____________________________________________________________________
>
> * CTHEORY includes:
> *
> * 1. Electronic reviews of key books in contemporary theory.
> *
> * 2. Electronic articles on theory, technology and culture.
> *
> * 3. Event-scenes in politics, culture and the mediascape.
> *
> * 4. Interviews with significant theorists, artists, and writers.
> *
> * 5. Multimedia theme issues and projects.
> *
> * CTHEORY is sponsored by New World Perspectives.
> *
> * Special thanks to Concordia University for CTHEORY office space.
> *
> * No commercial use of CTHEORY articles without permission.
> *
> * Mailing address: CTHEORY, Concordia University, 1455
> * de Maisonneuve, O., Montreal, Canada, H3G 1M8.
> *
> * Full text and microform versions are available from UMI,
> * Ann Arbor, Michigan; and Canadian Periodical Index/Gale
> * Canada, Toronto.
> *
> * Indexed in: International Political Science Abstracts/
> * Documentation politique international; Sociological
> * Abstract Inc.; Advance Bibliography of Contents: Political
> * Science and Government; Canadian Periodical Index;
> * Film and Literature Index.
> _____________________________________________________________________
http://www.meome.de/independentfilm
mailto:tallmer@gmx.de