incestuous amplification
The world seems to be getting tenser with each passing day, like a giant spring wound tighter and tighter and tighter. I have this mounting dread that it's going to pop someday soon.
An acquaintance, pro-war before last week, has suddenly realized that the Iraqis don't trust us to liberate them. And why should they? We've carpet-bombed their nation, killed their civilians, and shut off the water supply to at least one major city. This, of course, is following the 12-year economic sanctions we've levied against them.
CY jokingly dared me to write a poll question for the system I develop at work, along the lines of, "If a Muslim army were to invade the United States with the intent to overthrow George W. Bush, what would you do?" Needless to say, the poll question for next week has something to do with academic advising, and nothing at all to do with Muslim armies invading the U.S. It's a bad economy, after all, and I need to keep my job.
Yeah.
In a gesture that more than made up for her trying to get me fired with a controversial poll question, CY pointed me to a New York Times op-ed article by Paul Krugman, called Delusions of Power that actually clarified (indirectly) how Americans and other members of the "coalition" have convinced themselves that this war would be largely unopposed, wildly successful, and mercifully brief.
The idea is called "incestuous amplification" -- it's apparently a military term that refers to a situation when people talk only to those who agree with them, reinforcing their set beliefs.
This idea makes perfect sense to me, actually.
My educational background in advertising introduced me to the dual purpose of ads:
1) to sway opinions toward a desired effect. Generally, this refers to convincing people to buy a product, but sometimes, the goal could be to cause people to change their behavior (e.g., "Just Say No") or alter their mindset (e.g., political advertising).
2) to relieve cognitive dissonance. After large purchases or important decisions are made, consumers want reinforcement that their decisions were the correct ones. The more they see others agreeing with the decision they've made, the better they feel about it. Nobody likes cognitive dissonance -- it's like a twinge of conscience at the back of your head, saying, "Are you sure you did the right thing?"
I see this as being a fundamental weakness in both camps. Anti-war groups listen to one another talk and cheer themselves on. Generally, they're preaching to the choir, and as a result, they aren't really aware of how they're perceived by others -- particularly, those they want to convince. Pro-war individuals, likewise, pay most attention to those who espouse the same beliefs they do. For those with strong opinions either way, it's a way of quieting the nagging voices and convince themselves that they've made the right decision.
On a larger scale, I think the American government has made much the same mistake in judgment. The U.S. refused to listen to the rest of the U.N. when it opposed war, choosing to go it alone (or nearly alone, with the help of Great Britain, which, of course, agreed with every point the U.S. government made).
"It'll be a quick invasion," said the advisors, "just like the first Gulf War."
"It'll be quick and relatively painless," repeated the government in lockstep, "and the Iraqis will greet us as liberators."
"It is a war of liberation," the media chimed in, "and we're willing to make the sacrifice for the better of the world."
"We're doing the right thing," agreed the American public, "and we should stand behind our government and our military."
It sounds like one big, twisted game of Telephone.
There's no right way to think now. I can't want for us to win, but I can't want for us to lose. Either option is devastating. We're in this huge mess up to our necks, with bombings of Baghdad happening constantly and mysterious explosions in Kuwait and possible terrorist attempts in the U.S., and I no longer know who to believe. I will not buy in to the culture of fear propagated by my government to justify this war, but nor will I fall victim to the same incestuous amplification that plagues both sides of this controversy.
We're between a rock and a hard place, and I don't see us getting out anytime soon.
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: incestuous amplification.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.waterlilies.org/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/960
Well said. Well said indeed. In fact, you've just expressed every feeling that I've had about this war, and done it without wasting a word. Thank you - it gives me some peace to know that I'm not alone in this "space-in-between".
Hear, here. The fog rolls in.
I have been watching CNN, in a state of shock and awe, for about a week now. Today there was a picture of a US soldier holding a native child in his arms. The spin from Atlanta was that he was saving this child from something-or-other, I wasn't really listening to the story.
I could just see the Al-Jazeera caption: US Soldiers Now Stealing Iraqi Babies!