A message from the Department of Hobbesian Security

[villager]

<snip>

What does it tell you about the health of society that the State is now training you to take violent action on your own initiative, as the only way to protect yourself when you are trapped inside the institutional structure of your office or school (structures designed to control our primitive instincts for violence)? What a dismal Hobbesian juncture. We have an epidemic of alienated individuals showing up at office, school or mall with over-the-counter arsenals unleashed on peers objectified through the dehumanized point of view of a first-person shooter. Our institutional authorities express complete bafflement at the causes of this epidemic, unable to confront the dark truths it surely reveals about the existential condition of the American self. They can't identify and address the causes, they can't cut off the means of destruction, and they can't stop the horrific incidents until they are over. So they tell us our only way to survive will be to disable the governors they have programmed into us with years of civil socialization inside schools and offices, and rely on our primate instincts of fight or flight.

We've come a long way from "Duck and Cover," the 1951 Federal Civil Defense Administration film that taught us how to use our school desks as shields from nuclear weapons.


[Video: "Duck and Cover," Federal Civil Defense Administration (1951)]

The change is evidenced in the etymological evolution from "Civil Defense" to "Homeland Security" over the course of fifty years of government-sanctioned fears. The Civil Defense authorities optimistically told you even a piece of newspaper could shield you somewhat from the effects of an atomic blast. The Homeland Security authorities tell you you are on your own against a threat they can't explain, and you better get ready to act in your own defense, turning whatever office supplies you can find nearby into primitive weapons. Fifty years ago, our "authorities" warned us about the risk of doomsday bombs being launched at us from the other side of the planet, but assured us with fantasies of cozy catastrophe survival. Today, they tell us the risk is our own dark natures, which even the highly evolved institutional control systems of our bureaucratic offices and prison architecture schools can no longer keep out.

<snip>

Is it too heretical to examine these themes through the laboratory prism of speculative counterfactuals? It's a treacherous path for the Authorities to train us to defend ourselves from our cubicles. What if we start using those techniques to defend ourselves against the Authorities? What if the previously docile employees in the corporate headquarters of a generic Houston petrochemical conglomerate featured in "Run-Hide-Fight," trained to snap out of their programming and act instinctively in their own primitive interests to defeat the active shooter, awaken to the realization that they have the means of their own liberation? No wonder the last few minutes of the video are focused on cooperating with the paramilitary law enforcement squads when they finally show up.

<snip>

http://nofearofthefuture.blogspot.com/2013/04/a-message-from-department-of-hobbesian.html

[bemildred]

1. Words are just weapons, they can mean whatever you like.

it is true that makes our discourse incoherent, but as long as the right people stay in control, that's supposed to be OK.

[villager]

2. Indeed. And as the author notes, interesting "word choices" from DHS in this "instructional" video..

Another interesting government "word choice" discussed in this later paragraph from the same essay:

"The change is evidenced in the etymological evolution from 'Civil Defense' to 'Homeland Security' over the course of fifty years of government-sanctioned fears. The Civil Defense authorities optimistically told you even a piece of newspaper could shield you somewhat from the effects of an atomic blast. The Homeland Security authorities tell you you are on your own against a threat they can't explain, and you better get ready to act in your own defense, turning whatever office supplies you can find nearby into primitive weapons. Fifty years ago, our "authorities" warned us about the risk of doomsday bombs being launched at us from the other side of the planet, but assured us with fantasies of cozy catastrophe survival. Today, they tell us the risk is our own dark natures, which even the highly evolved institutional control systems of our bureaucratic offices and prison architecture schools can no longer keep out..."

[bemildred]

3. I've been watching the decay of our language under this assault since the 60s.

I can supply a bibliography for the subject. It traces back in my mind to the sixties, when they decided that the public was too smart and started attacking the schools and disemboweling them when they could get away with it.

People ask why we are dumber, that's why, you cannot be smart with a dumbed-down language that makes only crude distinctions that obfuscate rather than elucidate. You csnnot have reasoned discourse when one side slings emotional bombs whenever it is losing the argument.

Obfuscation is a huge industry in this country, and we wonder why things don't work.

Both parties are guilty, but the Republicans are much more "creative", expediency rules the day with them. Every time a tape comes out, you can see what a bunch of shallow airheads they are.

[villager]

4. Exactly. You can't have a comfortable, educated, alert middle class....

...if you want to get away with shit.

Trash education. Make language increasingly "meaningless," so no one knows what they're being told. Suppress wages and increase expenses so the former middle class remains on a hamster wheel, and grows increasingly panicked.

Wash and repeat, etc.

[bemildred]

5. And "gridlock", don't forget gridlock. That is fake too. nt

[villager]

6. Helps foster the illusion there are "two" parties, and yet "nothing can actually be done"

"Be sure to keep voting for us though, kiddies! We do offer two sets of promises at election time, even if the resultant legislation is the same, each time!"

[bemildred]

7. And the constant whining for money as though that would help things get done. nt

[villager]

8. Right! Money only belongs in the hands of our betters!

Otherwise it's "wasted" in "public programs."

Except police actions for the 1% (a.k.a. "military expenditures&quot That money needs to be spent, kids!

[blkmusclmachine]

9. .

.

[cbrer]

10. Could it be considered pathetic

That we have to be instructed to take self preservative measures?

Despite the seeming increase of gun violence, I've never had to been told to protect myself or fight back.

Nukes are one thing. Serial killers another.

[villager]

11. As the article notes, it's an acknowledgement that we're not really "secure," despite all the money

..thrown in that direction...

"The video proceeds with its hierarchy of responses designed to help you survive threats that the authorities implicitly admitted they won't be able to protect you from, because by the time the SWAT team arrives it will be all, or mostly, over.

"First, try to get the hell out of there, with an emphasis on self-reliance: "Encourage others to leave with you. But don't let others slow you down with indecision." And (even though you are at the office where they have you working late to try to make your mortgage and credit card payments) they remind you to "remember what's important: you, not your stuff."