Wikileaks is only a single part of something that is, on its own terms, very important. They’ve given us a great deal of knowledge about exactly how the American state actually acts, proof that many of the state department’s secrets are simply a way of avoiding democratic oversight, that our diplomatic corps secretly does horrible things in our name. We already had a lot of knowledge of that, but now we have a lot more, and much of it utterly and uniquely damning.
Well, I would suggest that what we have learned is that the American state acts like other states. This can only be a revelation to the terminally naive. Moreover, why should we think that the federal government -- which is really what we are talking about -- functions any differently in other respects, and therefore why should we think that it would handle matters any better in other areas?
It tells you a great deal about how our media works, after all, that so very many of the people pronouncing moralistically on Wikileaks and Assange — either pro- or con- — seem more or less completely unblemished by more than a casual familiarity with the most sketchy and incomplete details of the case or the cabledump. On day one, long before more than a tiny fraction of the cables had been released, and long before they had a chance to look very deeply at more than a few, the fact that so many pundits were already pronouncing that there was nothing new here will tell you a lot about how seriously to take such people. They were wrong, but it’s more important to point out that they simply had no idea what they were talking about; even now, we‘ve barely figured out more than a little bit what‘s in those cables (and only 1/250th of the total has been released).
Well, if "we‘ve barely figured out more than a little bit what‘s in those cables," then maybe much of what is said here will turn out to be wrong as well (though I do agree that this does provide useful insight into how the media works, meaning that -- wow! -- if you "only know what you read in the newspapers," you don't know very much at all).
But it's not naive to want to live up to our ideals, and standards. If we're to be the standard of democracy in the world, which is what so many claim we are, then acting just as bad as other states is inexcusable. By our own rhetoric we're supposed to be better than that.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's a lot of what this is about.
Yes, on one level none of this is new. But it's precisely what Patrick Henry insisted we would have to always watch out for—the temptation to let ourselves be corrupt like everyone else—when said that vigilance is the eternal price of liberty.
Oh, I think it is naive, Art, if you're going to live in the world as it actually is. You may aspire to meet your ideals, but trying to live up to them without compromise -- and without acknowledging that they ideals, not reality -- is to become Ibsen's Dr. Stockman.
ReplyDelete