Jordan asked what I meant by the post below, responding to Wretchard. I am moving my response to the front page, because it probably deserves to be here.
That [i.e., her assertion that dialogue is increasingly futile] is part of it: that we've come to a point at which we are, both sides, wasting our breath. But why should it be so?There are many other breaking models of this type. I suspect more will occur to you.
The way the human mind thinks about complicated, complex problems is that it attacks them in stages. It is very difficult to sit down and think out a solution to, say, the problem of terrorism; or of how to achieve relatively large degrees of international peace and stability. These aren't questions you solve over your morning coffee.
What most people do is that they first study generalized models that have been developed by recognized experts; then they study the history and current events surrounding the problem; and then they try to fit the modern event to the historic model. If you're thinking about the problem of international peace, you might study a few different models that have been developed and choose between them, or try to synthesize them: say the Kissenger model, and the UN model.
I believe we're coming to a point at which our models are breaking.
Take the UN model. I think a lot of people are deeply, emotionally committed to the idea. They either refuse to see the flaws in it, or they assert that they are flaws of execution: that the UN could be reformed, improved. The real problems are basic.
1) The UN proposes to outlaw war except in self-defense, which means that only the worst sorts of wars can be "legally" fought -- wars where your enemy has been allowed to prepare, and you have counter-prepared.
2) The UN assumes a moral equality of states, and that states -- and not individual people -- are the creatures with rights that must be protected. Both propositions are fundamentally wrong. They cannot be rescued.
3) The UN requires, at the level of the Security Council, unanimity to act. Such unanimity has never been achievable. It creates negotiation death-spirals on every problem, which means that every problem worsens over a period of months or years until someone finally "breaks the rules" and deals with it.
So the UN model is broken; what replaces it? And how do you convince the people who are so deeply tied to it that it must be abandoned -- that they must start anew, looking for new ways to think about these problems?
Take another example, so you'll see that I'm talking about a major chain problem rather than an isolated problem. Consider the question of whether al Qaeda-type organizations should be treated as combatants, or criminals.
The argument of the criminal-method say that they feel treating terrorists under the Geneva Conventions does them more honor than they deserve; that they are not deserving of status as soldiers (which the Conventions do not assert -- yet this is a deep-set misunderstanding that will not be easily removed) nor even combatants, but that they are "mere" criminals.
Advocates of the alternative position point out that "mere" criminals have a huge host of rights and protections; and that criminals are a different order and type of problem anyway. A criminal may be a parasite, but he's at least attached to the civilization on which he is parasitic.
The terrorist seeks to destroy the civilization. It is nonsense to treat the two problems as if they were the same, or to extend the protections of civilization to people who will only use those protections as part of a war against its foundations.
Yet there are legal structures in place that make it difficult to even have the conversation, or to make necessary changes. For one thing, many states (not the US) have signed a later addition to the Geneva Conventions, one that actually does extend many POW protections to terrorists and other militants. That means that making an attempt to treat terrorists "under the Conventions" won't fix the problem at the international level -- and the international level is indispensible to the fight against these kinds of groups.
Meanwhile, within the US, the SCOTUS has ordered that all such things be handled through the Federal Courts where such courts operate. Fixing that requires a new SCOTUS ruling, or a Constitutional amendment. Either requires moving the whole society to a point of consensus on the issue -- one that isn't going to come through argument, because people are arguing based on the old models to which they remain attached.
These models are broken. They don't speak to the problems we face. They can no longer serve us. Their proposals do not aid us; the understandings of issues that they suggest are wrong. They move us away from the truth, and the things we need to be able to think and say and do.
This is what I mean by the poetic reference. These models are like the ghosts of the old kings, who "grew greyer and greyer, less and less." Yet we grasp at them wildly, for our whole understanding is based on them.
When that breaks, at last, there will be a time beyond words. 9/11 was such a time for some of us: a time when we looked at the smoke, and realized that everything we thought we understood about the world was wrong.
It is increasingly clear that most people did not have that experience. Another such event will be needed -- increasingly, it looks like it will be the Iranian bomb. It might be something else. We will cling to the old models until a heavier blow breaks them. Words are wasted, because even the arguments being had between advocates of models, NEITHER of which apply.
This is what Wretchard means when he points out that the people who are accustomed to trafficking in thought are disrupted. The thoughtful ones see that the models on which their very thoughts are based have ceased to serve them. But no new models exist.
Under those circumstances, words are wasted. We must act as we can, using only the facts, and whatever weapons we find to hand.
We are, for the moment, in a time without models. We have no old kings to guide us. We must simply fight for the ground on which we stand, and wait for the vision to come.
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