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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| Plain omelette. No potatoes. Tomatoes, instead |
| 2015-09-04 |
| [PJMedia] Some years ago the US Armed Forces tried to build an operational doctrine around the idea that war and conflict occurred in human structures, rather than in geographical places. "The Human Terrain System (HTS) is a United States Army, Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) support program employing personnel from the social science disciplines -- such as anthropology, sociology, political science, regional studies and linguistics -- to provide military commanders and staff with an understanding of the local population (i.e. the "human terrain") in the regions in which they are deployed." It tried to understand war as a human phenomenon. Although the program as designed was a flawed and terminated in 2014 there was some merit to its core insight. People, not things, drive conflict. When we read in the papers that refugees are "fleeing from Syria" or Libya; when the Guardian proclaims that "Gaza could soon become uninhabitable, UN report predicts", one must ask: are they running from the rocks and the very air? Or are they running from the Human Terrain? The question applies not just to Gaza, but whole swathes of the Middle East and North Africa which may soon become "uninhabitable". It would be useful to know why. The reason millions are fleeing is not because they prefer the climate or landscape in Germany but because they prefer the institutions. The Human Terrain is better in Germany and so the populations of MENA are embarked upon a wholesale relocation. That was not always the case. Seventy years ago the refugees were running all the other way. In 1944 the Human Terrain in Europe sucked. What the victorious Allies did was alter the institutions, the culture, the zeitgeist. Once they did that, war went away. There are now new institutions that are far different from the old. But the basic laws of institutional behavior remain, one of the most important is that organizations can only do what is in their repertoire. Bureaucracies are like jukeboxes. They can't play what's not on the list. One of the most striking examples of this is the scene in the 1970s movie, Five Easy Pieces. in which the character played by Jack Nicholson unsuccessfully tries to order breakfast items in a diner which are scattered in different parts of the menu. He simply couldn't get a "plain omelette. No potatoes. Tomatoes, instead". That's also explains why they, suddenly, love Iran. Since stopping refugees flood is impossible without shedding fundamental part of their ideology (all Peoples are equal), they're clutching at straws: "Maybe Iran can restore stability" (or, at least, nuclear war can cut down the numbers of refugees). |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #1 After the disenchanted leave, "all Peoples are equal" |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2015-09-04 13:10 |