Oppenheimer and the State of Undemocracy in America: A Rebuttal to SouthPark's "Let Go, Let Gov."
One of the most watched SouthPark episodes is the depiction of NSA and Edward Snwoden affair in "Let Go, Let Gov." (Season 17) In simple terms, it is a defense of the NSA, making a not-so subtle association between it and religious deities with overreaching powers to "See all" and, by presumption, to "Protect all". In their typically comic fashion, fat Cartman is critically weary of government intervention while very publicly announcing all of his plans and intentions via twitter, vlog, and his cellphine's speakerphone. A shy and introspective counterpart, on the other hand, recognizes the importance of a watchful government, hilariously confusing the NSA for the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles). When a Jehovah's Witness visit Cartman's counterpart, he converts them to the "DMV Church", a staid bureaucratic office space where one confesses all sins and "becomes renewed." Towards the end of the piece, Cartman fails to get any attention after 'infiltrating' the NSA, leading to a psychological breakdown. However, Cartman then rebuilds his identity by confessing his sins to the DMV. It is a hilarious episode, in typical SouthPark fashion.
Yet the apologetic episode has a number of problematic assumptions which we will try to analyze in this piece.
The main argument in this essay will be that episode's key presumption, the innately human notion of an easily detected 'in-group' and 'out-group' boundary-line which also cuts across moral domains, is disconcerting. The United States at the moment is an open society which has become a global 'empire', and finds itself trying to resolve the incompatible demands which these two aspects imply, 'open society' and 'empire'--only to grossly fail in the process. Successes at the rhetorical aspect are confused in bureaucratic corridors for truly morally authentic public policies 'in spirit', thereby further undermining the moral legitimacy (and public support) of their policies.
Robert Oppenheimer, a key figure in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II, critically analyzed during the postwar period the conditions enabling the control of the very weapons he had unleashed onto the world. (He is famously known for having said, "I have become Shiva, the destroyer of worlds", taking a quote from the Bhagavad-Gita.) One of his arguments was that all nuclear facilities should be run and controlled by the very same entities which established public policy. Otherwise, according to Oppenheimer, these would be seen as intrusive given the inherent 'in-group'/'out-group' boundary-line between two separate institutions. Oppenheimer also pointed out the supreme importance of 'moral authority' in international relations: degradation of a public policy maker's moral standing would greatly undermine any agreements between nations. This was of acute importance given the potentially devastating impact of nuclear weapons. Although Oppenheimer would fall from grace as a result of his conflicts with Edward Teller, it was Oppenheimer who set the underlying tone for much of Cold War public policy.
The notion of 'in-group/out-group' is a key principle to understanding NSA's activities and failures.
In-group/out-group behavior is perhaps innate to all mammalian species. Wild dogs closely guard their territory, chimpanzees roam the group's geographical limits to ascertain its integrity, and even solitary big cats are known to have wide spaces claimed for their own with scent marks. Humans are no different, and the literature on tribal psychology and sociology is ample and profound. Our hominid small-group origins set the conditions under which our brain evolved, and even though we have created very different modern day 'cosmopolitan conditions', the 'default' state of our perspective is that of the 'ingroup-outgorup'. While the definitions of these boundaries are flexible and illusive in that they are malleable and can be formed on the most innocuous of traits, the tendency is always present. We tend to let our guard down with our 'in-group', and be overly-critical with the 'out-group'.
One of the key pressures for the formation of contemporary NSA policies has much to do with the sociocultural complexity that has come to characterize the US in the 21st century. There are many different ways to portray the history of ethnic demographics in the US, yet it can be stated that whereas there was ample ethnic diversity at the beginning of the twentieth century, these groups tended to come from groups with broadly shared European values and of similar racial backgrounds. The difference between a German and a British immigrant were not as great in contrast to that of an Asian or Hispanic migrant. The US 'open character', a byproduct of various factors as a dynamic US economy or the protection provided to political refugees, has increasingly created more complex socio-cultural dynamics that are harder to simplify when compared to a more demographically homogenous time-period.
This demographic complexity also makes for more complex governance.
The 9/11 attacks showed that foreigners could intrude into the US sociocultural 'home sphere' and wreak substantial damages without being 'caught'. They could surreptitiously 'attack from within', thereby elevating the perceived need in many political leaders (and the public overall) for having a more watchful government. It is this key fact which stands at the core of the presumption of the SouthPark piece, which portrays Anglo-Saxon protestants of a generally homogenous 'officialist' character while failing to explicitly depict 'the foreign menace' implicit of its core theme. (Had it explicitly done so, it would have actually appeared offensive and distasteful.) There was peace in suburbia, and it was the government's job to maintain the peace, regardless of the cost. Never knowing the limits of the 'negative injury', which could only be imagined, the government required 'absolute powers' to prevent something that had not yet occurred.
One cannot help but note the obvious.
As the US has increasingly turned 'internationalist', much more so after the decline of the Soviet Union in 1991, foreign policies potentially had immediate repercussion on domestic realities. Acts of ruthlessness by US government representatives, often shielded from public view by a pliant media, would ultimately have a direct impact on the 'peace at home' atmosphere which has characterized much of the US since the Civil War. (While there are acts of disturbance, they have not approached anywhere near the level that would create the social division typically seen in civil wars like ones of the Middle East: Egypt, Syria, Libya, etc.) The war in Afghanistan seemed distant to most people--so much so that it created psychological clashes between soldiers living the realities of war and their domestic partners and/or family members who had no experience whatsoever with them.
We might also observe that domestic intrusive NSA activities are themselves a reflection of America's own foreign policies and military activities abroad. The greater the military activity in foreign counties, the greater the threat of an internal actor harming from within, and hence the 'need' to increase NSA domestic vigilance--a position that is contrary to historical Constitutional standards. (We may deduce from this observation is that if the US had a reduced military involvement abroad, there would be less of a need for NSA constitutional intrusions domestically.)
Yet, again, at the heart of the matter is the implicit moral association to our 'internal kindred'.
Given the absence of domestic war within the United States, it is very difficult for many US citizens to conceive how individuals placed in positions of power might abuse such powers in the most unethical of ways. Many movies allude to this abuse of power, but given their fictional nature, they tend to be perceived as just that (fiction). Again, we turn to Oppenheimer to note that whereas the 'rhetoric' of morality is followed within the US, its spirit is not in that public misdeeds are covertly hidden from the public eye, and is one reason why the Edward Snowden revelations were so harmful. 'If you can scratch the eye of God, you can kill him by having shown him to be mortal', said one evil nemesis of a comic cartoon book character. Showing that Keith Alexander and other NSA representatives were blatantly lying was a scar on the moral chest of the institution.
We may point out that the sociodemographic complexities of the United States--typically depicted by mid 20th century scholars as key ingredients of the 'modern society' given its impersonal and anonymous 'rule of law'--make it also very difficult to detect immoral actors within beaureocratic agencies. All members within an institution know you cannot necessarily trust other members, which explains to some degree why there is so much compartmentalization of programs and projects. Internal enemies 'hide in the shadows', and are difficult to detect given the time-delays that exist between information procurement and information deployment. In oder to minimize possible obstruction or impediments, information is restricted limiting the total number of actors with knowledge of your activity. One of the very reasons why Snowden was such a powerful actor was a result of his 'fly-in-the-wall' position: as a system administrator, he acquired access to all files, without necessarily having the knowledge to understand its contexts. The positions were exchanged between deity and observant.
There can be no doubt as to how dangerous the NSA's information gathering carte blanche can be to individuals residing WITHIN the United States. This is a point, again, which is very difficult to understand to most individuals. One item in and of itself--communications--might not appear to be that harmful, with the exception of a possible breach of privacy. This was one of the main points mocked in the SouthPark piece. NSA agents listened to endless voices of trivial conversations, making it comically difficult to detect what was meaningfully relevant from what was not. This was perhaps SouthParks 'strongest' defense of the NSA, ironically reducing their activities to that of a harmless fly-on-the-wall, much like Snowden had been within its inner sanctum. While this might be of tremendous importance to a national agency with such broad powers and financial resources (implicit is the menace of the reduction of its resources), little would it bother the sanctity at an individuals level. "I farted." So what, you might say.
Yet when this seemingly unobtrusive element is combined with others, one can begin to obtain a much more frightening picture of the power of the 'government', or of individuals in positions of legal power. Practices, which by themselves appear to be trite on prima facie, can be become ultimately life-threatening when used in combination with other elements and violations of civil rights. Examples abound. Trick the victim to seeing a corrupt doctor and you will have effectively killed the victim without ever having cognizance of the crime (pancreatic cancer). Awareness of the estrus cycle of a woman might alter her life plan with an inopportune but maleficient act of coitus. The number of scenarios are endless, but you get the point. Communications, when combined with psychology and medicine, can have devastating effects on the lives of individuals innocently going about their daily business.
In this way, 'troublesome individuals' are removed from the scene, in what are more inhumane acts of murder than open aired gunshots. Leading moral figures with enormous influence over crowds are eliminated or emerging liberal scholars given to 'truth telling' are yanked from their early career paths. Via these mechanisms, the way is made open for pliable individuals who will do nothing but the devils deeds, blindly following orders regardless any ethical considerations that a moral individual would have. One should not presume that acts like these, so well documented by the Church Committee hearings in the post-Watergate scandal, suddenly just 'vanished' in a 'distant' historical period some 40 years ago. It is not inconceivable to suggest that events like these occur with more frequency than is to be supposed.
"Why would a government (or rogue actors within it) commit such horrific acts?" you might ask. The first explanation that comes to mind is the obvious reason of reducing the likelihood of not getting caught.
If a victim is unaware that they have been the victim of a crime, they are much less likely to file some sort of suit or public claim against the perpetrator. In fact, the victim might come to internalize moral culpability in light of an unwanted illness that was percieved to be the consequence of a deviant act.
From a broader public policy point of view, however, we can turn again to Oppenheimer to argue that such undetected crimes would not reduce the 'moral standing' of an institutional actor, thus permitting them continued influence in the policy making process they would not hold had they otherwise been caught. (It should go without saying that if you know leaders are committing crimes, they will not last very long in their positions of leadership.) Human nature is such that acts of violence during times of peace are looked down upon, in contrast to acts of violence during time of war and conflict, which are defined as heroic.
It would be wise to reconsider SouthPark's principal message.