Dreaming 5GW

In a look at “4GW Christianity Around the Blogosphere” Dan recently highlighted some 5GW-related thoughts from Thomas P.M. Barnett’s post “Why the yin disconnects from the yang” which are fertile ground for 5GW theorists.  I’m going to break apart the ideas and respond to each in turn with my own take.

Amateurs talk hatred, professionals talk love. Amateurs talk destruction, professionals talk co-optation.

co-opt tr.v.

1. To elect as a fellow member of a group.
2. To appoint summarily.
3. To take or assume for one’s own use; appropriate: co-opted the criticism by embracing it.
4. To neutralize or win over (an independent minority, for example) through assimilation into an established group or culture: co-opt rebels by giving them positions of authority.
   

[Latin cooptare : co-, co- + optare, to choose.]

— The American Heritage Dictionary, electronic version.

Can entrenched opponents in our complex, interconnected and diverse world be either (a) utterly destroyed, (b) forced to join our side, or (c) fenced in?  If the answer to all of these is No, then alternative methods must be found for neutralizing them.  Co-optation, or a willingness to include our opponents in our overall game plan, is difficult to oppose, if it actually occurs.  If we do our design work in a way that apparently also benefits our opponents, their argument against our design will be neutralized; they must become ‘hands in the field’ working cooperatively unless they are ardently suicidal.

The trick:  getting them to believe that what they want is achievable, and then giving them the methods for achieving it — methods which just happen to be different than their current piecemeal, shotgun, or limited approaches.  With reference to Dan tdaxp’s topic:

Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge ye this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock in his brother’s way, or an occasion of falling.

[RO 14:13]

Amateurs want to win wars, professionals want the game already decided before the first shot. Amateurs loathe fair fights, professionals never allow them to unfold.

The belief that utter destruction of our foes is possible, or else that sufficient kinetic force will either force them to our way of thinking or fence them in, is founded upon the notion that what goes into the OODA loop of our foe comes out without interference from his reasoning.  I.e., it is the grossest form of Objectivism possible, entirely entrenched in the assumption that what is done to the physical world will have a direct, predictable result in shaping the enemy’s activity (whether he dies or submits), as if all enemies are merely carbon copy constructs of our own imagining.  It is a linear epistemology; and those with the most faith in kinetic force tend to be those who overlook complexity and confluential processes, preferring to eliminate complexity by obliterating whatever does not hold to their line of sight.

‘Fair fights’ do not allow such a destruction, since either side may gain the upper hand; and this threatens to maintain complexity as each side competes for the upper hand position.

With co-option, ‘fair fights’ do not happen.  Where there is only one side, fairness as a form of balancing act ceases to be of importance.

Naivete is operating under the assumption that this fight hasn’t already been decided. What we negotiate all along are the terms, and to slant that negotiation to the greatest extent possible, you have to get past the hate (especially the self-hatred), and connect.

Those who hate have a perpetual cognitive either/or, and this admits the possibility of defeat:  They remain perpetually in the struggle over upper-hand positions, and there is no possibility of pro-action since every act is a reaction to the actions of a thinking, maneuvering foe who also hates. Neither side in such a struggle can see beyond the linear demarcations that determine the bounds of their particular hatreds.

The real 5GWer never claims victory, never recognizes a loss. All victories are claimed by others, by design. All “losses” simply set up the next iterative victory.

A 5GWer only sees opportunity.  Love is expansive, inclusive —

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

[Shakespeare, Sonnet 116]

— hate, linear and exclusive.  Love multiplies choices; hate eliminates choices.  A lover can negotiate terms; a hater cannot.  ‘Victory and loss’ requires dichotomy, or a severe limitation on choice:  which is what we want for our foes, because we want them to join our group, the only choice left to them.  Thus the hating opponent is at an obvious disadvantage; he has fewer choices.

The trick:  our foe’s victory must become our victory, in all the meanings of that word.

The most profound manipulation involves the most profound emotions, and love trumps hate every time. That’s why humanity won out over the rest. That’s how we evolve. That’s how we progress.

But if you want to achieve real objectivity, you have to leave the fears behind. As long as you drag them along, they drag you down. You see only what you know and you know only what you see.

It’s the only qualification that’s non-negotiable, because without it, there’s no accessing the joy that is human evolution. Instead, there’s just the bitterness of knowing that life is just a slog and then you die.

And here’s the most amazing/infuriating part: you can’t think systematically about the future until you master this most essential rule set—love your enemies more than yourself.

That last statement may encourage disagreement from me, especially if such an expansive inclusiveness as that already implied requires the essence of water.  This consideration of Love and Hate is itself dichotomous thinking, in which love is congruent with victory and hate is congruent with loss.  As a metaphor, the dichotomy may be useful; as a rigid strategy, it carries the seed of its own destruction:  when love becomes measurable, so that more or less of love can be directed at various points in the system, it is no longer limitless, indestructible, unalterable, eternally predominant, and will never be omnipresent.   The dichotomy, so expressed in action, ensures the continued operation of both sides of that dichotomy.

Before our enemies can be persuaded that their best future is our best future, we must first love our own future, our own selves, with all the force of love we would show toward our enemies.  Else, our lack of faith will show, and our enemies will not be persuaded. Alternatively, if only one future is assured — the best of all possible worlds — and is shared by ourselves and our opponents, perhaps no special and particularized love, for self or enemy, is necessary?  Say, a disinterested certitude which eliminates the need for any special love?

Not pity them. Not get inside their heads. Not access their worldview.

That’s all child’s play—parlor games for TV talking heads.

I mean, really love them more than yourself. Connect in the worst way—humbling, humiliating, can’t-look-away.

Again, there is that dichotomous thinking, that linear thinking: Connect.  Until we realize that memes emerge within individuals and that individuals are complete entities capable of loving and being loved, already, without predetermined pathways of connection first needing to occur, we will never succeed.  The assumption of connection carries with it the presumption of disconnection: limits on love.  ‘Can’t-look-away’ carries with it the same presumption; as if, loving were staring into our opponents’ eyes or at them and their lives, rather than looking outward upon the world together and seeing the same future.

To me, that sort of knowledge isn’t sympathy or empathy or any of the “-thies.” To me, it’s the most profound sort of understanding there is, making you capable of great intelligence and even wisdom in your strategic decision-making. You go way beyond the superficial understanding of his “loop” and how you get inside it. You really figure your opponent out in the deepest way. So this isn’t some goofy religious belief system I’m trying to enunciate here. This isn’t a form of intellectual withdrawal. I’m talking about a break-on-through-to-the-other-side type wisdom here—where the whole game slows down for you and you can see the entire playing field from a God’s eye view. I’m talking about serious control—you know, making the Matrix bend to your will.

“and you can see the entire playing field from a God’s eye view.” —  Are there any ‘other sides’ to such a view, requiring breaking through?  Or does the view include seeing everything, “-thies” and “loops” and so many non-human things without discriminating between them, or assigning more weight to one than others?

Although I’ll quibble with some of the phrasing, the 5GW implications of Barnett’s thoughts are important.  I do think, however, that the process of gaining ‘hands in the field’ or co-workers and co-developers must rely upon a general dissolution of so-called networks:  too many holes in a net. The water slips on through, however.  In operation, the dissolution is not so much the elimination of apparent networks but the culmination of them, or a multidirectional confluential approach which may operate from a God’s eye view (and nothing slips through that view.)  In actuality, for a long time many will continue to see those networks and follow them, out of habit and perhaps out of utility because an absolute dissolution of such pathing would only lead to extreme confusion and nihilism and an inability to act if nothing but static remains to guide them.

But these considerations are broad and have a distinctly rose-colored focus. I’m reminded of a pretty cool Russian movie called Night Watch. The movie is like many others recently appearing, a consideration of superempowerment in our contemporary world (the Marvel Comics movies, Heroes on NBC, the Underworld movie about vampires and werewolves.) In Night Watch, two groups of ‘Others’ with supernatural and superhuman powers live among regular humans, the Light Others and the Dark Others who once fought continuously but for centuries now have maintained a truce. According to the truce, neither side could force new Others to choose either Light or Dark paths or solicit new members; individuals would need to make that choice entirely for themselves. The central story of Night Watch concerns the coming of a Great Other, far more powerful than any others, and a reinauguration of the war between Light and Dark. Depending upon the personal choice made by that Great Other, either the Light side or the Dark side would be victorious in that final war. At one point in the movie, the leader of the Light Others explains the prophecy and describes the prospect for their side in the war:

“The Great Other will appear. If he takes the side of Light, Light will triumph. But wise men say he will choose the Darkness, for it is easier for a man to destroy the Light inside himself than to defeat the Darkness all around him.”

I.e., for the current discussion, perhaps creating a particularized love, a self-interested vision, is much easier than eliminating such from the world altogether — especially given the tendency to artificially eliminate complexity by building a myopic dream of reality. Complexity remains, but the dreams war and, because they are sharp lines leading through the cognitive chaos, they tend to manifest linearly as well, or through applied kinetic force.

Filed in The Vault and tagged Co-optation, Hands in the Field, Memetic Engineering, Movies, Superempowerment, Thomas P. M. Barnett