On Fri, 20 Sep 2002, Kevin Tarr wrote: > I've read what you wrote a few times and I still don't know what you mean > or where you stand.*
Heh, sorry about that. I can't honestly say I'm sure myself, just thinking out loud. > What risks are you talking about? Well, it seems to me that a) economic & cultural globalization combined with b) open societies that are generally happy to allow anybody in the world to enter and seek education or a job constitute c) an easy opportunity for anyone in the world unhappy with a) to exploit b) to avenge their real or perceived grievances on members of those open societies. It's a risk that's fairly obvious: I'm guessing that some variation on this theme underlies a hefty percentage of the suspense, thriller, and spy fiction written or filmed over the last 50-odd years. The advantage is that we get to enjoy what the rest of the world has to offer in goods and cultures while encouraging it to modernize in a cycle that we assume is mutually beneficial. As for the risks: as a rule, we shunt the risk for this way of being in the world on to our armed forces and security agencies. We want them to keep us safe, to fence out the bad guys, and to divert towards themselves the wrath of the discontented. Usually for meager pay (and the privilege of enduring the suspicion of the people they are tasked to protect). In financial (and sometimes human) terms, those risks are also assumed by the companies and people who do business on the international scene. So here's my question: when I go to the pump and fill my car with gas, am I not myself incurring some of the risk inherent in international business? When I get on a plane, turn on my computer, attend a big and ethnically diverse state university...am I not constantly accepting the boons of the world -- as provided by my culture -- and at the same time opening myself, albeit in individually small ways, to the risks attendent upon seeking out the boons of the world? This being the case, if we citizens shout to the government "Keep us Safe!" and "Keep us Free!" at the same time, do we not oblige the government either to reply, "Sorry, no can do" -- which it can't say if it wants to be re-elected except as an acknowledgment of transitional logistical difficulties -- or to reply in a manner that involves fudging the concepts of freedom and safety to make it seem we're getting all we want of both at the same time? Therefore, I'm thinking that the first step towards making resonable and realistic demands on our institutions is to take realistic amounts of responsibility for the part each citizen plays in our wild & wacky globalized culture and economy. Which means recognizing that no matter what, we in the West all incur some (usually small) degree of risk as the price of enjoying the benefits of the type of world in which we live. I'm thinking that there's a real sense in which we need to say to ourselves, "Yes, I'm willing to chance suffering and death so that young men (and women) from the Mid-East (or wherever) can attend our universities and take knowledge home with them that can be used to enrich their societies and ultimately my own." And, "Yes, I'm willing to chance suffering and death if it means denying the state a centralized clearinghouse of information used to keep tabs on them and my fellow citizens, because that's just not quite free enough for me." And, more broadly, "Yes, I'm willing to understand that life is suffering and prone to tragedy and when bad things happen I won't forget all the good things and f*@% them up too as a knee-jerk reaction to pain." I feel that this attitude is a corollary to the idea in _The Transparent Society_ that tenchologically empowered individuals can protect the public from many threats far better than any centralized security apparatus. If we are responsible for our safety, then we are also partners in risk. "Freedom isn't free" means not that I'm obliged to support soldiers as such; rather, it means that I'm obliged, even as a civilian, to *be* a "soldier" in the sense that I'm prepared to die without recrimination for the benefits my society provides me, knowing as I do that none of these benefits are without cost and risk. None of these thoughts are set in stone, but it's a set of thoughts that have been gnawing at me over the past year. Marvin Long Austin, Texas "Two bits, four bits, six bits, a peso. If you're for Zorro, stand up and say so!" _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
