Groupthink, sociology, and a general failure of hedology
Watching the Ferguson problem explode just makes me angry. There are a lot of reasons why, but the one I'm talking about right now is the complete and utter lack of critical thinking going on in the police establishment in the STL area. I know some people are very tired of this, so I'm cut-tagging.
The US is a country founded on the principle of overthrow of tyranny, and certain key words taught in every school highlight just what those revolutionaries did. This mythology is stronger in some parts of the US than others, but it is definitely a large part of our cultural landscape. If someone bigger than you is trying to beat you down, you stand right the fuck up and not submit; we're all created equal, says so right there, so you have no right to put a boot on my neck.
THIS is what the Ferguson Police are fighting against.
THIS is what the Ferguson Police are trying to intimidate, beat, frighten and tear-gas into submission.
No matter how many knees get applied to heads, maced faces, water-canon induced blindness, baton-round lacerations, chemical burns or tear-gassed toddlers, there will be someone to stand there and say, 'this is tyranny, and I'm fighting it'. It's baked into our national mythology and completely predictable, so why the heck can't the planners see this and plan accordingly? What makes them think that walking in phalanx down the main drag will cause the evil doers to go home and not bother?
Because they subscribe to a different mythology, one that doesn't follow the same narrative. They do not see America as inherently peaceful, they see a citizenry seeded with malcontents looking out only for themselves and don't really care about the greater good. They see a nation besieged by crime (both loose and well organized varieties) and terrorists, and they are the front line between anarchy and what order we've managed to keep.
THIS is what makes them think a massive show of force will reassure people that things are well in hand.
THIS is what makes them think that temporarily abridged civil liberties are an appropriate sacrifice to keep everyone safer.
Ferguson is what happens when the American fight-tyranny mythology collides with the security state mythology. The security state is better armed, organized and centrally coordinated and will eventually bust up organized cells of resistance, that's what it is there for. Right now we have two belligerents bumping chests at each other, one is backed into a corner, the other is bigger and better armed. No good will come of this, and if it sticks around long enough (which may have already happened) will trigger decades of side-effects.
The adults need to come to the table and separate the belligerents and interrupt the cycle of violence we're seeing on the streets every night.
But if it doesn't, it risks creating the very thing the security state mythology demands be present: organized resistance. Right now it's very much ad-hoc, loosely coordinated resistance. The longer this goes on, the more people will realize an actual strategy will be needed, and we will begin to get planning on the part of the direct-action anti-police protesters. The security state will have fulfilled its own prophesy.
We've seen this very dynamic work elsewhere. Syria ended up going down this path; at first it was a loose coalition of anti-government protest, and as the fighting drew on the politics of the resistance turned in very different ways. The Satanism paranoia of the 1980's caused more would-be satanists to look into it than would have ever found out about it otherwise. If your mythology demands that a nebulous enemy exist, if that enemy doesn't actually exist it will eventually come into being because people are contrary bastards and there is always someone who thinks, "they say Levellers are against the government, I'm against the government, so I must be a Leveller, QED. I wonder how I find them?"
This is why Ferguson is so very critical. If the security state does not back down, and Public Safety keeps pouring resources into the tools of oppression we will fall further down the security-state spiral we got kicked down after the 9/11 hijackings. The spiral is well known, we've been watching examples of this ever since Humanity figured out how to organize beyond immediate-family groups.
The US is a country founded on the principle of overthrow of tyranny, and certain key words taught in every school highlight just what those revolutionaries did. This mythology is stronger in some parts of the US than others, but it is definitely a large part of our cultural landscape. If someone bigger than you is trying to beat you down, you stand right the fuck up and not submit; we're all created equal, says so right there, so you have no right to put a boot on my neck.
THIS is what the Ferguson Police are fighting against.
THIS is what the Ferguson Police are trying to intimidate, beat, frighten and tear-gas into submission.
No matter how many knees get applied to heads, maced faces, water-canon induced blindness, baton-round lacerations, chemical burns or tear-gassed toddlers, there will be someone to stand there and say, 'this is tyranny, and I'm fighting it'. It's baked into our national mythology and completely predictable, so why the heck can't the planners see this and plan accordingly? What makes them think that walking in phalanx down the main drag will cause the evil doers to go home and not bother?
Because they subscribe to a different mythology, one that doesn't follow the same narrative. They do not see America as inherently peaceful, they see a citizenry seeded with malcontents looking out only for themselves and don't really care about the greater good. They see a nation besieged by crime (both loose and well organized varieties) and terrorists, and they are the front line between anarchy and what order we've managed to keep.
THIS is what makes them think a massive show of force will reassure people that things are well in hand.
THIS is what makes them think that temporarily abridged civil liberties are an appropriate sacrifice to keep everyone safer.
Ferguson is what happens when the American fight-tyranny mythology collides with the security state mythology. The security state is better armed, organized and centrally coordinated and will eventually bust up organized cells of resistance, that's what it is there for. Right now we have two belligerents bumping chests at each other, one is backed into a corner, the other is bigger and better armed. No good will come of this, and if it sticks around long enough (which may have already happened) will trigger decades of side-effects.
The adults need to come to the table and separate the belligerents and interrupt the cycle of violence we're seeing on the streets every night.
But if it doesn't, it risks creating the very thing the security state mythology demands be present: organized resistance. Right now it's very much ad-hoc, loosely coordinated resistance. The longer this goes on, the more people will realize an actual strategy will be needed, and we will begin to get planning on the part of the direct-action anti-police protesters. The security state will have fulfilled its own prophesy.
We've seen this very dynamic work elsewhere. Syria ended up going down this path; at first it was a loose coalition of anti-government protest, and as the fighting drew on the politics of the resistance turned in very different ways. The Satanism paranoia of the 1980's caused more would-be satanists to look into it than would have ever found out about it otherwise. If your mythology demands that a nebulous enemy exist, if that enemy doesn't actually exist it will eventually come into being because people are contrary bastards and there is always someone who thinks, "they say Levellers are against the government, I'm against the government, so I must be a Leveller, QED. I wonder how I find them?"
This is why Ferguson is so very critical. If the security state does not back down, and Public Safety keeps pouring resources into the tools of oppression we will fall further down the security-state spiral we got kicked down after the 9/11 hijackings. The spiral is well known, we've been watching examples of this ever since Humanity figured out how to organize beyond immediate-family groups.
- The State smashes organized resistance with a really big hammer.
- The hammer-strike causes splashback of malcontents who figure out that overt organizing is a losing game and start subversively organizing.
- The State starts trying to infiltrate the subversive groups spawned by the splashback.
- Cat and mouse games ensue, the State tightens control ever tighter.