Dead People Af

Created by the one, the only: CMoney

Plan: The United States federal government should
substantially curtail its domestic surveillance on its dead
people
Contention 1: Inherency
The government surveys dead people
Scahill - Devereaux 14 (July 23 2014, Jeremy Scahill, Ryan Devereaux,
Jeremy Scahill is one of the three founding editors of The Intercept. He is an
investigative reporter, war correspondent, and author of the international bestselling
books Dirty Wars, Ryan Devereaux is a Brooklyn-based journalist.)

The Obama administration has quietly approved

a substantial expansion of the terrorist watchlist system, authorizing
a secret process that requires neither concrete facts nor
irrefutable evidence to designate an American or foreigner as a
terrorist, according to a key government document obtained by The Intercept. The March 2013 Watchlisting Guidance, a 166page document issued last year by the National Counterterrorism Center, spells out the governments secret rules for
putting individuals on its main terrorist database, as well as the no fly list and the selectee list, which triggers enhanced
screening at airports and border crossings. The new guidelines allow individuals to be designated as representatives of
terror organizations without any evidence they are actually connected to such organizations, and it gives a single White
House official the unilateral authority to place entire categories of people the government is tracking onto the no fly and
selectee lists. It broadens the authority of government officials to nominate people to the watchlists based on what is

It also allows for dead people to

be watchlisted. Over the years,
vaguely described as fragmentary information.

the Obama and Bush Administrations have fiercely resisted disclosing the criteria for placing names on the databasesthough the guidelines are officially labeled as unclassified. In May, Attorney General Eric Holder even

invoked the state secrets privilege to prevent watchlisting guidelines from being disclosed in litigation launched by an American who was on

the no fly list. In an affidavit, Holder called them a clear roadmap to the governments terrorist-tracking apparatus, adding: The Watchlisting Guidance, although unclassified, contains national security information that, if disclosed could cause significant harm to national security. The rulebook, which The Intercept is publishing in full, was developed behind closed doors by representatives of the nations intelligence,
military, and law-enforcement establishment, including the Pentagon, CIA, NSA, and FBI. Emblazoned with the crests of 19 agencies, it offers the most complete and revealing look into the secret history of the governments terror list policies to date. It reveals a confounding and convoluted system filled with exceptions to its own rules, and it relies on the elastic concept of reasonable suspicion as a standard for determining
whether someone is a possible threat. Because the government tracks suspected terrorists as well as known terrorists, individuals can be watchlisted if they are suspected of being a suspected terrorist, or if they are suspected of associating with people who are suspected of terrorism activity. Instead of a watchlist limited to actual, known terrorists, the government has built a vast system based on the unproven and
flawed premise that it can predict if a person will commit a terrorist act in the future, says Hina Shamsi, the head of the ACLUs National Security Project. On that dangerous theory, the government is secretly blacklisting people as suspected terrorists and giving them the impossible task of proving themselves innocent of a threat they havent carried out. Shamsi, who reviewed the document, added, These criteria should
never have been kept secret. The documents definition of terrorist activity includes actions that fall far short of bombing or hijacking. In addition to expected crimes, such as assassination or hostage-taking, the guidelines also define destruction of government property and damaging computers used by financial institutions as activities meriting placement on a list. They also define as terrorism any act that is dangerous
to property and intended to influence government policy through intimidation. This combinationa broad definition of what constitutes terrorism and a low threshold for designating someone a terroristopens the way to ensnaring innocent people in secret government dragnets. It can also be counterproductive. When resources are devoted to tracking people who are not genuine risks to national security, the actual threats
get fewer resourcesand might go unnoticed. If reasonable suspicion is the only standard you need to label somebody, then its a slippery slope were sliding down here, because then you can label anybody anything, says David Gomez, a former senior FBI special agent with experience running high-profile terrorism investigations. Because you appear on a telephone list of somebody doesnt make you a terrorist. Thats the
kind of information that gets put in there. The fallout is personal too. There are severe consequences for people unfairly labeled a terrorist by the U.S. government, which shares its watchlist data with local law enforcement, foreign governments, and private entities. Once the U.S. government secretly labels you a terrorist or terrorist suspect, other institutions tend to treat you as one. It can become difficult to get a job (or
simply to stay out of jail). It can become burdensomeor impossibleto travel. And routine encounters with law enforcement can turn into ordeals. nomination_chart A chart from the March 2013 Watchlisting Guidance In 2012 Tim Healy, the former director of the FBIs Terrorist Screening Center, described to CBS News how watchlists are used by police officers. So if you are speeding, you get pulled over, theyll query that
name, he said. And if they are encountering a known or suspected terrorist, it will pop up and say call the Terrorist Screening Center. So now the officer on the street knows he may be dealing with a known or suspected terrorist. Of course, the problem is that the known or suspected terrorist might just be an ordinary citizen who should not be treated as a menace to public safety. Until 2001, the government did not
prioritize building a watchlist system. On 9/11, the governments list of people barred from flying included just 16 names. Today, the no fly list has swelled to tens of thousands of known or suspected terrorists (the guidelines refer to them as KSTs). The selectee list subjects people to extra scrutiny and questioning at airports and border crossings. The government has created several other databases, too. The largest is the
Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE), which gathers terrorism information from sensitive military and intelligence sources around the world. Because it contains classified information that cannot be widely distributed, there is yet another list, the Terrorist Screening Database, or TSDB, which has been stripped of TIDEs classified data so that it can be shared. When government officials refer to the watchlist, they
are typically referring to the TSDB. (TIDE is the responsibility of the National Counterterrorism Center; the TSDB is managed by the Terrorist Screening Center at the FBI.) In a statement, a spokesman for the National Counterterrorism Center told The Intercept that the watchlisting system is an important part of our layered defense to protect the United States against future terrorist attacks and that watchlisting continues to
mature to meet an evolving, diffuse threat. He added that U.S. citizens are afforded extra protections to guard against improper listing, and that no one can be placed on a list solely for activities protected by the First Amendment. A representative of the Terrorist Screening Center did not respond to a request for comment. The system has been criticized for years. In 2004, Sen. Ted Kennedy complained that he was barred from
boarding flights on five separate occasions because his name resembled the alias of a suspected terrorist. Two years later, CBS News obtained a copy of the no fly list and reported that it included Bolivian president Evo Morales and Lebanese parliament head Nabih Berri. One of the watchlists snared Mikey Hicks, a Cub Scout who got his first of many airport pat-downs at age two. In 2007, the Justice Departments inspector
general issued a scathing report identifying significant weaknesses in the system. And in 2009, after a Nigerian terrorist was able to board a passenger flight to Detroit and nearly detonated a bomb sewn into his underwear despite his name having been placed on the TIDE list, President Obama admitted that there had been a systemic failure. Obama hoped that his response to the underwear bomber would be a turning
point. In 2010, he gave increased powers and responsibilities to the agencies that nominate individuals to the lists, placing pressure on them to add names. His administration also issued a set of new guidelines for the watchlists. Problems persisted, however. In 2012, the U.S. Government Accountability Office published a report that bluntly noted there was no agency responsible for figuring out whetherwatchlist-related
screening or vetting is achieving intended results. The guidelines were revised and expanded in 2013and a source within the intelligence community subsequently provided a copy to The Intercept. tbu2 Concrete facts are not necessary The five chapters and 11 appendices of the Watchlisting Guidance are filled with acronyms, legal citations, and numbered paragraphs; it reads like an arcane textbook with a vocabulary
all its own. Different types of data on suspected terrorists are referred to as derogatory information, substantive derogatory information, extreme derogatory information and particularized derogatory information. The names of suspected terrorists are passed along a bureaucratic ecosystem of originators, nominators, aggregators, screeners, and encountering agencies. And upgrade, usually a happy word
for travellers, is repurposed to mean that an individual has been placed on a more restrictive list. The heart of the document revolves around the rules for placing individuals on a watchlist. All executive departments and agencies, the document says, are responsible for collecting and sharing information on terrorist suspects with the National Counterterrorism Center. It sets a low standardreasonable suspicionfor placing
names on the watchlists, and offers a multitude of vague, confusing, or contradictory instructions for gauging it. In the chapter on Minimum Substantive Derogatory Criteriaeven the title is hard to digestthe key sentence on reasonable suspicion offers little clarity: To meet the REASONABLE SUSPICION standard, the NOMINATOR, based on the totality of the circumstances, must rely upon articulable intelligence or
information which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrants a determination that an individual is known or suspected to be or has been knowingly engaged in conduct constituting, in preparation for, in aid of, or related to TERRORISM and/or TERRORIST ACTIVITIES. The rulebook makes no effort to define an essential phrase in the passagearticulable intelligence or information. After
stressing that hunches are not reasonable suspicion and that there must be an objective factual basis for labeling someone a terrorist, it goes on to state that no actual facts are required: In determining whether a REASONABLE SUSPICION exists, due weight should be given to the specific reasonable inferences that a NOMINATOR is entitled to draw from the facts in light of his/her experience and not on unfounded suspicions
or hunches. Although irrefutable evidence or concrete facts are not necessary, to be reasonable, suspicion should be as clear and as fully developed as circumstances permit. While the guidelines nominally prohibit nominations based on unreliable information, they explicitly regard uncorroborated Facebook or Twitter posts as sufficient grounds for putting an individual on one of the watchlists. Single source information,
the guidelines state, including but not limited to walk-in, write-in, or postings on social media sites, however, should not automatically be discounted the NOMINATING AGENCY should evaluate the credibility of the source, as well as the nature and specificity of the information, and nominate even if that source is uncorroborated. There are a number of loopholes for putting people onto the watchlists even if reasonable
suspicion cannot be met. One is clearly defined: The immediate family of suspected terroriststheir spouses, children, parents, or siblingsmay be watchlisted without any suspicion that they themselves are engaged in terrorist activity. But another loophole is quite broadassociates who have a defined relationship with a suspected terrorist, but whose involvement in terrorist activity is not known. A third loophole is
broader stillindividuals with a possible nexus to terrorism, but for whom there is not enough derogatory information to meet the reasonable suspicion standard. Americans and foreigners can be nominated for the watchlists if they are associated with a terrorist group, even if that group has not been designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. They can also be treated as representatives of a terrorist
group even if they have neither membership in nor association with the organization. The guidelines do helpfully note that certain associations, such as providing janitorial services or delivering packages, are not grounds for being watchlisted. The nomination system appears to lack meaningful checks and balances. Although government officials have repeatedly said there is a rigorous process for making sure no one is
unfairly placed in the databases, the guidelines acknowledge that all nominations of known terrorists are considered justified unless the National Counterterrorism Center has evidence to the contrary. In a recent court filing, the government disclosed that there were 468,749 KST nominations in 2013, of which only 4,915 were rejecteda rate of about one percent. The rulebook appears to invert the legal principle of due
process, defining nominations as presumptively valid. Profiling categories of people While the nomination process appears methodical on paper, in practice there is a shortcut around the entire system. Known as a threat-based expedited upgrade, it gives a single White House official the unilateral authority to elevate entire categories of people whose names appear in the larger databases onto the no fly or selectee lists.
This can occur, the guidelines state, when there is a particular threat stream indicating that a certain type of individual may commit a terrorist act. This extraordinary power for categorical watchlistingotherwise known as profilingis vested in the assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, a position formerly held by CIA Director John Brennan that does not require Senate confirmation. The
rulebook does not indicate what categories of people have been subjected to threat-based upgrades. It is not clear, for example, whether a category might be as broad as military-age males from Yemen. The guidelines do make clear that American citizens and green card holders are subject to such upgrades, though government officials are required to review their status in an expedited procedure. Upgrades can remain in
effect for 72 hours before being reviewed by a small committee of senior officials. If approved, they can remain in place for 30 days before a renewal is required, and can continue until the threat no longer exists. In a set of watchlisting criteria riddled with exceptions that swallow rules, this exception is perhaps the most expansive and certainly one of the most troubling, Shamsi, the ACLU attorney, says. Its reminiscent of
the Bush administrations heavily criticized color-coded threat alerts, except that here, bureaucrats can exercise virtually standard-less authority in secret with specific negative consequences for entire categories of people. The National Counterterrorism Center declined to provide any details on the upgrade authority, including how often it has been exercised and for what categories of people. Pocket litter and scuba
gear The guidelines provide the clearest explanation yet of what is happening when Americans and foreigners are pulled aside at airports and border crossings by government agents. The fifth chapter, titled Encounter Management and Analysis, details the type of information that is targeted for collection during encounters with people on the watchlists, as well as the different organizations that should collect the data. The
Department of Homeland Security is described as having the largest number of encounters, but other authorities, ranging from the State Department and Coast Guard to foreign governments and certain private entities, are also involved in assembling encounter packages when watchlisted individuals cross their paths. The encounters can be face-to-face meetings or electronic interactionsfor instance, when
a watchlisted individual applies for a visa. In addition to data like fingerprints, travel itineraries, identification documents and gun licenses, the rules encourage screeners to acquire health insurance information, drug prescriptions, any cards with an electronic strip on it (hotel cards, grocery cards, gift cards, frequent flyer cards), cellphones, email addresses, binoculars, peroxide, bank account numbers, pay stubs, academic
transcripts, parking and speeding tickets, and want ads. The digital information singled out for collection includes social media accounts, cell phone lists, speed dial numbers, laptop images, thumb drives, iPods, Kindles, and cameras. All of the information is then uploaded to the TIDE database. Screeners are also instructed to collect data on any pocket litter, scuba gear, EZ Passes, library cards, and the titles of any books,
along with information about their conditione.g., new, dog-eared, annotated, unopened. Business cards and conference materials are also targeted, as well as anything with an account number and information about any gold or jewelry worn by the watchlisted individual. Even animal informationdetails about pets from veterinarians or tracking chipsis requested. The rulebook also encourages the collection of
biometric or biographical data about the travel partners of watchlisted individuals. The list of government entities that collect this data includes the U.S. Agency for International Development, which is neither an intelligence nor law-enforcement agency. As the rulebook notes, USAID funds foreign aid programs that promote environmentalism, health care, and education. USAID, which presents itself as committed to fighting
global poverty, nonetheless appears to serve as a conduit for sensitive intelligence about foreigners. According to the guidelines, When USAID receives an application seeking financial assistance, prior to granting, these applications are subject to vetting by USAID intelligence analysts at the TSC. The guidelines do not disclose the volume of names provided by USAID, the type of information it provides, or the number and
duties of the USAID intelligence analysts. A USAID spokesman told The Intercept that in certain high risk countries, such as Afghanistan, USAID has determined that vetting potential partner organizations with the terrorist watchlist is warranted to protect U.S. taxpayer dollars and to minimize the risk of inadvertent funding of terrorism. He stated that since 2007, the agency has checked the names and other personal
identifying information of key individuals of contractors and grantees, and sub-recipients. Death and thewatchlist The government has been widely criticized for making it impossible for people to know why they have been placed on a watchlist, and for making it nearly impossible to get off. The guidelines bluntly state that the general policy of the U.S. Government is to neither confirm nor deny an
individuals watchlist status. But the courts have taken exception to the official silence and footdragging: In June, a federal judge described the governments secretive removal process as unconstitutional and wholly ineffective. The difficulty of getting off the list is highlighted by a passage in the guidelines stating that an individual can be kept on the watchlist, or even placed onto the watchlist, despite being acquitted of a

terrorism-related crime. The rulebook justifies this by noting that conviction in U.S. courts requires evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, whereas watchlisting requires only a

reasonable suspicion. Once suspicion is

raised, even a jurys verdict cannot erase it. Not even death
provides a guarantee of getting of the list. The guidelines say the
names of dead people will stay on the list if there is reason to

believe the deceaseds identity may be used by a suspected

terroristwhich the National Counterterrorism Center calls a
demonstrated terrorist tactic. In fact, for the same reason, the rules permit
the deceased spouses of suspected terrorists to be placed onto the list after they
have died. For the living, the process of getting off the watchlist is simple yet opaque.

Contention 2: Necrophilia
Surveillance of the dead is a sexual fantasy it exposes
our attempt to control life past death and reveals
our necrophilic fascination with death
Erich Fromm 64, PhD in sociology from Heidelberg in 1922,
psychology prof at MSU in the 60s, Creators and Destroyers,
The Saturday Review, New York (04. January 1964), pp. 22-25
***Necrophilia - sexual intercourse with or attraction toward
corpses.
People are aware of the possibility of nuclear war; they are aware
of the destruction such a war could bring with it--and yet they
seemingly make no efort to avoid it. Most of us are puzzled by this
behavior because we start out from the premise that people love
life and fear death. Perhaps we should be less puzzled if we
questioned this premise. Maybe there are many people who are
indiferent to life and many others who do not love life but who
do Wlove death. There is an orientation which we may call love of life (biophilia); it is the
normal orientation among healthy persons. But there is also to be found in others a deep attraction
to death which, following Unamuno's classic speech made at the University of Salamanca (1938), I

call necrophilia. It is the attitude which a Franco general, Milln Astray, expressed in the slogan
"Long live death, thus provoking Unamunos protest against this "necrophilous and senseless cry." Who

is attracted to and fascinated by all that

is not alive, to all that is dead; to corpses, to decay, to feces, to
dirt. Necrophiles are those people who love to talk about sickness,
burials, death. They come to life precisely when they can talk about death. A clear example of
is a necrophilous person? He is one who

the purenecrophilous type was Hitler. He was fascinated by destruction, and the smell of death was
sweet to him. While in the years of success it may have appeared that he wanted only to destroy those
whom he considered his enemies, the days of the Gtterdmmerung at the end showed that his
deepest satisfaction lay in witnessing total and absolute destruction: that of the German people, of

The necrophilous dwell in the past, never in the future. Their

feelings are essentially sentimental; that is, they nurse the memory of feelings which they had
those around him, and of himself.

yesterday--or believe that they had. They are cold, distant, devotees of "law and order." Their values

death
excites and satisfies them. If one wants to understand the influence of men like Hitler
and Stalin, it lies precisely in their unlimited capacity and willingness to kill. For this they' were
loved by the necrophiles. Of the rest, many were afraid of them and so preferred to admire,
are precisely the reverse of the values we connect with normal life; not life, but

rather than to be aware of, their fear. Many others did not sense the necrophilous quality of these
leaders and saw in them the builders, saviors, good fathers. If the necrophilous leaders had not
pretended that they were builders and protectors, the number of people attracted to them would
hardly have been sufficient to help them seize power, and the number of those repelled by them would
probably soon have led to their downfall. While life is characterized by growth in a structured,

the necrophilous principle is all that which does not

grow, that which is mechanical. The necrophilous person is driven
by the desire to transform the organic into the inorganic, to
approach life mechanically, as if all living persons were things. All
living processes, feelings, and thoughts are transformed into
things. Memory, rather than experience--having, rather than being--are what counts.
Thenecrophilous person can relate to an object--a flower or a person--only if
he possesses it; hence, a threat to his possession is a threat to himself; if he loses possession
functional manner,

he loses contact with the world. That is why we find the paradoxical reaction that he would rather lose
life than possession, even though, by losing life, he who possesses has ceased to exist.

He loves

control, and in the act of controlling he kills life . He is deeply

afraid of life, because it is disorderly and uncontrollable by its
very nature. The woman who wrongly claims to be the mother of the child in the story of
Solomon's judgment is typical of this tendency; she would rather have a properly divided dead child

To the necrophilous person justice means correct

division, and they are willing to kill or die for the sake of what
they call, justice. "Law and order" for them are idols, and everything
that threatens law and order is felt as a satanic attack against
their supreme values. The necrophilous person is attracted to darkness and night. In
than lose a living one.

mythology and poetry (as well as in dreams) he is attracted to caves, or to the depth of the ocean, or
depicted as being blind. (The trolls in Ibsen's Peer Gynt are a good example.) All that is away from or
directed against life attracts him. He wants to return to the darkness {23} of the womb, to the past of
inorganic or subhuman existence. He is essentially oriented to the past, not to the future, which he

Related to this is his craving for certainty. But life is

never certain, never predictable, never controllable; in order to
make life controllable, it must be transformed into death; death,
indeed, is the only thing about life that is certain to him.
hates and fears.

The necrophilous person can often be recognized by his looks and his gestures. He is cold, his skin
looks dead, and often he has an expression on his face as though he were smelling a bad odor. (This
expression could be clearly seen in Hitler's face.) He is orderly and obsessive. This aspect of
the necrophilous person has been demonstrated to the world in the figure of
Eichmann. Eichmann was fascinated by order and death. His supreme values were obedience and
the proper functioning of the organization. He transported Jews as he would have transported coal.
That they were human beings was hardly within the field of his vision; hence, even the problem of his

was the perfect bureaucrat who

had transformed all life into the administration of things. But examples
having hated or not hated his victims is irrelevant. He

of the necrophilous character are by no means to be found only among the inquisitors, the Hitlers and
the Eichmanns. There are any number of individuals who do not have the opportunity and the power to
kill, vet whose necrophilia expresses itself in other and (superficially seen) more harmless ways. An
example is the mother who will always be interested in her child's sickness, in his failures, in dark
prognoses for the future; at the same time she will not be impressed by a favorable change nor
respond to her child's joy, nor will she notice anything new that is growing within him. We might find
that her dreams deal with sickness, death, corpses, blood. She does not harm the child in any obvious
way, yet she may slowly strangle the child's joy of life, his faith--in growth, and eventually infect him
with her own necrophilous orientation. My description may have given the impression that all the
features mentioned here are necessarily found in the necrophilous person. It is true that such divergent
features as the wish to kill, the worship of force, the attraction to death and dirt, sadism, the wish to
transform the organic into the inorganic through "order" are all part of the same basic orientation. Yet
so far as individuals are concerned, there are considerable differences with respect to the strength of
these respective trends. Any one of the features mentioned here may be more pronounced in one
person than in another. Furthermore, the degree to which a person is necrophilous in comparison with
his biophilous aspects and the degree to which a person is aware of necrophilous tendencies and
rationalizes them vary considerably from person to person. Yet the concept of the necrophilous type is

Necrophilia
constitutes a fundamental orientation; it is the one answer to life
that is in complete opposition to life; it is the most morbid and the
most dangerous among the orientations to life of which man is
capable. It is true perversion; while living, not life but death is
loved--not growth, but destruction. The necrophilous person, if he dares
to be aware of what he feels, expresses the motto of his life when he says: "Long live
death!" The opposite of the necrophilous orientation is
the biophilous one; its essence is love of life in contrast to love of
death. Like necrophilia, biophilia is not constituted by a single trait but representsa total
orientation, an entire way of being. It is manifested in a person's bodily processes,
by no means an abstraction or summary of various disparate behavior trends.

in his emotions, in his thoughts, in his gestures; the biophilous orientation expresses itself in the whole
man. The person who fully loves life is attracted by the process of life in all spheres. He prefers to

He is capable of wondering, and he prefers to

see something new to the security of finding the old confirmed . He
construct, rather than to retain.

loves the adventure of living more than he does certainty. His

approach to life is functional rather than mechanical . He sees the whole
rather than only the parts, structures rather than summations. He wants to mold and to influence by
love, by reason, by his example--not by force, by cutting things apart, by the bureaucratic manner of
administering people as if they were things. He enjoys life and all its manifestations, rather than mere

Biophilic ethics has its own principle of good and evil.

Good is all that serves life; evil is all that serves death. Good is
reverence for life (this is the main thesis of Albert Schweitzer, one of the great
representatives of the love of life--both in his writings and in his person), and all that
enhances life. Evil is all that stifles life, narrows it down , {24} cuts it
into pieces. Thus it is from the standpoint of life-ethics that the Bible mentions as the central sin
excitement.

of the Hebrews: "Because thou didst not serve thy Lord with joy and gladness of heart in the
abundance of all things." The conscience of the biophilous person is not one of forcing oneself to refrain
from evil and to do good. It is not the superego described by .Freud, a strict taskmaster employing
sadism against oneself for the sake of virtue. The biophilous conscience is motivated by its attraction to
life and joy; the moral effort consists in strengthening the life loving side in oneself. For this

the biophile does not dwell in remorse and guilt, which are, after
all, only aspects of self-loathing and sadness. He turns quickly to
life and attempts to do good. Spinoza's Ethics is a striking example of biophilic morality.
reasons

"Pleasure," he says, "in itself is not bad but good; contrariwise, pain in itself is bad." And in the same
spirit: " A

free man thinks of death least of all things; and his wisdom is a

meditation not of death but of life ." Love of life underlies the various versions of
humanistic philosophy. In various conceptual forms these philosophies are in the same vein as

that man's aim in life is

to be attracted by all that is alive and to separate himself from all
that is dead and mechanical. The dichotomy of biophilia-necrophilia is the same as
Spinoza's; they express the principle that the same man loves life;

Freud's life-and-death instinct. I believe, as Freud did, that this is the most fundamental polarity that
exists. However, there is one important difference. Freud assumes that the striving toward death and
toward life are two biologically given tendencies inherent in all living substance that their respective
strengths are relatively constant, and that there is only one alternative within the operation of the
death instinct--namely, that it can be directed against the outside world or against oneself. In contrast
to these assumptions I believe that necrophilia is not a normal biological tendency, but a pathological
phenomenon--in fact, the most malignant pathology that exists in mail. What are we, the people of the
United States today, with respect to necrophilia and biophilia? Undoubtedly our spiritual tradition is one
of love of life. And not only this. Was there ever a culture with more love of "fun" and excitement, or
with greater opportunities for the majority to enjoy fun and excitement? But even if this is so, fun and
excitement is not the same as joy and love of life; perhaps underneath there is indifference to life, or

we must consider the nature of our

bureaucratized, industrial, mass civilization. Our approach to life
becomes increasingly mechanical. The aim of social eforts is to
produce things, and. in the process of idolatry of things we
transform ourselves into commodities. The question here is not whether they are
treated nicely and are well fed (things, too, can be treated nicely); the question is whether
people are things or living beings. People love mechanical gadgets
more than living beings. The approach to man is intellectualabstract. One is
interested in people as objects, in their common properties, in the
statistical rules of mass behavior, not in living individuals. All this
goes together with the increasing role of bureaucratic methods. In
giant centers of production, giant cities, giant countries, men are
administered as if they were things; men and their administrators
are transformed into things, and they obey the law of things . In a
bureaucratically organized and centralized industrialism, men's
tastes are manipulated so that they consume maximally and in
predictable and profitable directions. Their intelligence and
character become standardized by the ever-increasing use of
attraction to death? To answer this question

tests, which select the mediocre and unadventurous over the

original and daring. Indeed, the bureaucratic-industrial civilization that has been victorious in
Europe and North America has created a new type of man. He has been described as the "organization
man" and as homo consumens. He is in addition the homo mechanicus. By this I mean a "gadget man,"
deeply attracted to all that is mechanical and inclined against all that is alive. It is, of course, true that
man's biological and physiological equipment provides him with such strong sexual impulses that even
the homo mechanicus still has sexual desires and looks for women. But there is no doubt that the
gadget man's interest in women is diminishing. A New Yorker cartoon pointed to this very amusingly: a
sales girl trying to sell a certain brand of perfume to a young female customer recommends it by
remarking, "It smells like a new sports car." Indeed, any observer of men's behavior today will confirm
that this cartoon is more than a clever joke. There are apparently a great number of men who are more
interested in sports-cars, television and radio sets, space travel, and any number of gadgets than they
are in women, love, nature, food; who are more stimulated by the manipulation of non-organic,
mechanical things than by life. Their attitude toward a woman is like that toward a car: you push the

homo mechanicus has

more pride in and is more fascinated by, devices that can kill
millions of people across a distance of several thousands of
miles within minutes than he is frightened and depressed by the
possibility of such mass destruction. Homo mechanicus still likes sex {25} and
button and watch it race. It is not even too farfetched to assume that

drink. But all these pleasures are sought for in the frame of reference of the mechanical and
the unalive. He expects that there must be a button which, if pushed, brings happiness, love, pleasure.
(Many go to a psychoanalyst under the illusion that he can teach them to find the button.) The
homomechanicus becomes more and more interested in the manipulation of machines, rather than in
the participation in and response to life. Hence he becomes indifferent to life, fascinated by the
mechanical, and eventually attracted by death and total destruction. This affinity between the love of
destruction and the love of the mechanical may well have been expressed for the first time in
Marinetti's Futurist Manifesto (1909). "A roaring motor-car, which looks as though running on a shrapnel
is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace. We wish to glorify war--the only
health-giver of the world-militarism, patriotism, the destructive arm of the Anarchist, the beautiful

intellectualization,
quantification, abstractification, bureaucratization, and reification-the very characteristics of modern industrial society-- when applied to people rather
than to things are not the principles of life but those of
mechanics. People living in such a system must necessarily
become indiferent to life, even attracted to death. They are not
aware of this. They take the thrills of excitement for the joys of
life and live under the illusion that they are very much alive when
they only have many things to own and to use. The lack of protest
against nuclear war and the discussion of our "atomologists" of the
balance sheet of total or half-total destruction show how far we
have already gone into the "valley of the shadow of death."1 To speak
Ideas that kill the contempt for woman." Briefly then,

of the necrophilous quality of our industrial civilization does not imply that industrial production as such

The question is whether the

principles of social organization and of life are subordinated to
those of mechanization, or whether the principles of life are the
dominant ones. Obviously, the industrialized world has not found thus far an answer, to the
is necessarily contrary to the principles of life.

question posed here: How is it possible to create a humanist industrialism as against the bureaucratic
mass industrialism that rules our lives today? The danger of nuclear war is so grave that man may
arrive at a new barbarism before he has even a chance to find the road to a humanist industrialism.
Yet not all hope is lost; hence we might ask ourselves whether the hypothesis developed
here could in any way contribute to finding peaceful solutions. I believe it might be useful in several
ways. First of all,an

awareness of our pathological situation, while not yet a

is nevertheless a first step. If more people became aware of the
diference between love of life and love of death, if they became
aware that they themselves are already far gone in the direction
of indiference or of necrophilia, this shock alone could produce
new and healthy reactions. Furthermore, the sensitivity toward those
cure,

who recommend death might be increased. Many might see through the pious
rationalizations of the death lovers and change their admiration for them to disgust. Beyond this, our

every
efort must be made to weaken the attraction of death and to
strengthen the attraction of life. Why not declare that there is only one truly
hypothesis would suggest one thing to those concerned with peace and survival: that

dangerous subversion, the subversion of life? Why do not those who represent the traditions of religion
and humanism speak up and say that there is no deadlier sin than love for death and contempt for life?
Why not encourage our best brains--scientists, artists, educators--to make suggestions on how to
arouse and stimulate love for life as opposed to love for gadgets? I know love for gadgets brings profits
to the corporations, while love for life requires fewer things and hence is less profitable. Maybe it is too
late.Maybe

the neutron bomb, which leaves entire cities intact, but

without life, is to be the symbol of our civilization . But again, those
of us who love life will not cease the struggle against necrophilia .

This necrophilia is ultimately part of the overarching

structure of death related representations within our
discourse, thus losing all reference to the real world
through a constant criticism of credibility through images
of distruction.
Baudrillard in 94 [Jean, The Illusion of the End p. 55-58]
InthecaseoftheRomanianrevolution,itwasthefakingofthedeadinTimisoarawhicharousedakindof
moralindignationandraisedtheproblemofthescandalof'disinformation'or,rather,ofinformationitself
asscandal.Itwasnotthedeadthatwerethescandal,butthecorpsesbeingpressedintoappearing

beforethetelevisioncameras,asinthe
pastdeadsoulswerepressedintoappearanceinthe
registerofdeaths.Itwastheirbeingtakenhostage ,asitwere,andourbeingheldhostagetoo,as
mystifiedTVviewers.Beingblackmailedbyviolenceanddeath,especiallyinanobleandrevolutionary
cause,wasfelttobeworsethantheviolenceitself,wasfelttobeaparodyofhistory.Allthemedialive
offthepresumptionofcatastropheandofthesucculentimminenceofdeath .AphotoinLiberation,

forexample,showsusaconvoyofrefugees'which,sometimeafterthisshotwastaken,wastobeattacked
bytheIraqiarmy'.Anticipationofeffects,morbidsimulation,emotionalblackmail. Itwasthesame
onCNNwiththearrivaloftheScuds.Nothingisnewsifitdoesnotpassthroughthathorizonofthe
virtual,thathysteriaofthevirtualnotinthepsychologicalsense,butinthesenseofacompulsion
forwhatispresented,inallbadfaith,asrealtobeconsumedasunreal.Inthepast,toshowsomething
upasafake,wesaid:'It'sjustplayacting','It'sallromance!','It'sputonforthecameras!'.Thistime,with
RomaniaandtheGulfWar,wewereabletosay,'It'sjustTV!'Photographicorcinemaimagesstillpass
throughthenegativestage(andthatofprojection),whereastheTVimage,thevideoimage,digitaland
synthetic,areimageswithoutanegative,andhencewithoutnegativityandwithoutreference.Theyare
virtualandthevirtualiswhatputsanendtoallnegativity,andthustoallreferencetotherealortoevents.
Atastroke,thecontagionofimages,engenderingthemselveswithoutreferencetoarealoran

imaginary,itselfbecomesvirtuallywithoutlimits,andthislimitlessengenderingproduces
informationascatastrophe.Isanimagewhichrefersonlytoitselfstillanimage?Howeverthismaybe,
thatimageraisestheproblemofitsindifferencetotheworld,andthusofourindifferencetoitwhichisa
politicalproblem.Whentelevisionbecomesthestrategicspaceoftheevent,itsetsitselfupasadeadly
selfreference,itbecomesabachelormachine.Therealobjectiswipedoutbynewsnotmerely
alienated,butabolished.Allthatremainsofitaretracesonamonitoringscreen .ManyRomanian
eyewitnessaccountsspeakofbeingdispossessedoftheeventinthisway,deprivedofthelivedexperience
theyhaveofitbybeingsubmergedinthemedianetwork,bybeingplacedunderhousearrestinfrontof
theirtelevisionscreens.Spectatorsthenbecomeexotericsofthescreen,livingtheirrevolutionasan
exoticismofimages,themselvesexogenous,touristicspectatorsofavirtualhistory .Fromthe
momentthestudiobecomesthestrategiccentre,andthescreentheonlysiteofappearance,everyonewants
tobeonitatallcosts,orelsegathersinthestreetintheglareofthecameras,andthese,indeed,actually

filmoneanother.Thestreetbecomesanextensionofthestudio,thatis,ofthenonsiteoftheevent,ofthe
virtualsiteoftheevent.Thestreetitselfbecomesavirtualspace.Siteofthedefinitiveconfusionofmasses
andmedium,oftherealtimeconfusionofactandsign.Thereisnowilltocommunicateinallthis.The
onlyirresistibledriveistooccupythisnonsite,thisemptyspaceofrepresentationwhichisthescreen.
Representation(politicalrepresentationtoo)iscurrentlyatroughofdepressionmeteorologicaldepression
whichthemediafillupwiththeirturbulences,withthesameconsequencesasoccurwhenanykindof
spaceissuddenlydepressurized.Thehighestpressureofnewscorrespondstothelowestpressureofevents
andreality[Iereel].ThesameunrealismintheCeausescutrial.Itisnotthejudicialprocedureitselfwhich
isscandalousbutthevideotape,unacceptableastheonly,bloodlesstraceofabloodyevent.Intheeyesof
thewholeworld,thiswillremainaneventforeversuspect,forthesolereasonofitsstrangelyobscene
scenicabduction.Thishiddenjury,itsvoicestrikingoutagainsttheaccused,thesedefendantsweare
forcedtoseeeventhoughtheyarevirtuallydead,thesedeadprisonersshotasecondtimetomeettheneeds
ofnews.Onemightevenwonderwhethertheactorsinthisstagedeventwerenotdeliberatelytryingto
makethemselvesseemsuspectintheeyesofworldopinion,asthoughplayingatsabotagingtheirimage.
Atthesametime,theCeausescutrialwaspulledoffperfectlyasavideoproduction,betrayingasharp
senseoftheimagefunction,theblackmailfunction,thedeterrencefunction.Deepdown,theintuitive
graspofthesethingshasgrownmoresophisticatedoverthere,intheshadowofdictatorship,thanithas
withus.Wehavenothingtoteachthem.For,iftheRomaniansthemselvesgothighonthismedia
speculationwhichservedthemasarevolutionaryaphrodisiac,theyalsodraggedalltheWesternmediainto
thesamenewsdemagogy.Bymanipulatingthemselves,theycausedusspontaneouslytoswallowtheir
fiction.Webearthesameresponsibilityastheydo.Or,rather,thereisnoresponsibilityanywhere.The
questionofresponsibilitycannotevenberaised.Itistheevilgeniusofnewswhichpromotessuchstaging.
Wheninformationgetsmixedinwithitssource,then,aswithsoundwaves,yougetafeedbackeffectan
effectofinterferenceanduncertainty.Whendemandismaximal(andeverywheretodaythedemandfor
eventsismaximal),itshortcircuitstheinitialsituationandproducesanuncontrollableresponse
effect.Thatis,ultimately,whywedotheRomaniansaninjusticewhenweaccusethemofmanipulation
andbadfaith.Nooneisresponsible.Itisallaneffectoftheinfernalcycleofcredibility.Theactorsand
themediasensedobscurelythattheeventsinEasternEuropehadtobegivencredibility,thatthat
revolutionhadtobelentcredibilitybyanextradoseofdeadbodies. Andthemediathemselveshadto
belentcredibilitybythereferencetothepeople.Leadingtoaviciouscircleofcredibility,theresultof
whichisthedecredibilizingoftherevolutionandtheeventsthemselves.Thelogicalsequenceofnews
andhistoryturnsbackagainstitself,bringing,initscyclicalmovement,akindofdeflationofhistorical
consciousness.TheAmericansdidjustthesameintheGulfWar.Bytheexcessivenatureoftheir
deploymentandstagecraft,byputtingtheirpowerandnewscontrolsoextravagantlytothetest,they
decredibilizedbothwarandnews.TheyweretheUbusoftheirwnpower,justastheRomanianswerethe
Ubusoftheirownmpotence.Excessitselfengenderstheparodywhichinvalidatesthefacts.And,justas
theprincipleofeconomicsiswreckedbyfinancialspeculation,sotheprincipleofpolitics [Ie
politique]andhistoryiswreckedbymediaspeculation.

This only works to reduce peoples lives to mere numbers

for debaters to consume in their game. This fascination
with the spectacle of death creates a culture with no
meaning, thus trivializing our existence.
Jean Baudrillard, 93 (Symbolic Exchange and Death trans Iain Grant, 162-3, 173-5,
manpower is left deliberately in)
2. More importantly, that everyone should have a right to their life (habeas corpus habeas vitam) extends
social jurisdiction over death. Death is socialized like everything else, and can no longer be anything but
natural, since every other death is a social scandal: we have not done what is necessary. Is this social

Everyone is
dispossessed of their death , and will no longer be able to die as it is now understood. One
progress? No, it is rather the progress of the social, which even annexes death to itself.

will no longer be free to live as long as possible. Amongst other things, this signifies the ban on consuming

ones

life without taking

limits

into

account. In short,

the principle of

natural death

is

equivalent to the neutralization of life . 28 The same goes for the question of equality in
death:

life must be reduced to quantity (and death

therefore

to nothing ) in order to

adjust it to democracy and the law of equivalences. The same objective that is inscribed in the monopoly of institutional violence is
accomplished as easily by forced survival as it is by death: a forced life for lifes sake (kidney machines, malformed children on life-support
machines, agony prolonged at all costs, organ transplants, etc.). All these procedures are equivalent to disposing of death and imposing life,
but according to what ends? Those of science and medicine? Surely this is just scientific paranoia, unrelated to any human objective. Is profit
the aim? No: society swallows huge amounts of profit This 'therapeutic heroism is characterised by soaring costs and 'decreasing benefits':
they manufacture unproductive survivors_ Even if social security can still be analysed as 'compensation for the labour force in the interests of
capital, this argument has no purchase here_ Nevertheless: the system is facing the same contradiction here as with the death
penalty. it overspends on the prolongation of life because this system of values is essential to the strategic equilibrium of the whole;
economically: however, this overspending unbalances the whole_ What is to be done? An economic choice becomes necessary, where we can
see the outline of euthanasia as a semi-official doctrine or practice_ We choose to keep 30 per cent of the uraemics in France alive (36 per cent
in the USA!). Euthanasia is already everywhere, and the ambiguity of making a humanist demand for it (as with the 'freedom' to abortion) is
striking: it is inscribed in the middle to long term logic of the system. All this tends in the direction of an increase in social control. For there is a
clear objective behind all these apparent contradictions: to ensure control over the entire range of life and death. From birth control to death
control, whether we execute people or compel their survival (the prohibition of dying is the caricature, but also the logical form of progressive

the essential thing is that the decision is withdrawnfrom them:

that their life and their death are never freely theirs, but that they live or die according to
a social visa. It is even intolerable that their life and death remain open to biological chance, since
tolerance),

this is still a type of freedom. Just as morality commanded you shall not kill', today it commands: 'You shall
not die', not in any old way. anyhow, and only if the law and medicine permit. And

conceded you, it will still be by order. In

if your death is

short: death proper has been abolished to

it is no longer even death,

but something completely neutralised that comes to be inscribed in
the
rules
and
calculations
of equivalence: rewriting-planningprogramming-system. It must be possible to operate death as a
social service,integrate it like health and disease under the sign of the Plan and
make room for death control and euthanasia strictly speaking,

Social Security. This is the store of 'motel-suicides' in the USA, where, for a comfortable sum, one can
purchase one's death under the most agreeable conditions (like any other consumer good); perfect service,
everything has been foreseen, even trainers who give you back your appetite for life, after which they
kindly and conscientiously send the gas into your room, without torment and without meeting any
apposition. A service operates these motel-suicides, quite rightly paid (eventually reimbursed?). Why did
death not become a social service when: like everything else: it is functionalised as individual
and computable consumption in social input and output?

Only this questioning of necrophilic fascination allows us

to recreate meaning in our life.
Austin Kutscher, President of the Foundation of Thanatology and Professor Columbia University, 80 (Death & Existence,
p. Foreward)

Within the educational setting,

interdisciplinary relationships are altering the perspectives of those who must make
decisions on the care of terminally ill patients, the members of their families, and other involved professional staff. The approaches to
and expectations from therapeutic modalities are being broadened by new explorations into the ethics and values which should be
automatically considered whenever human lives are being cared for. Philosophical enlightenment adds indispensable historical
clarification to scientific interventions on behalf of the dying and the bereaved. Philosophy relates death to human existence and the
quality of life the essential quality of human existence itself that engages the consciences of those who would offer us humanistic
medicine. Compassion and knowledge are the springs from which flow trust and faith, without which man can live only a most
deprived and barren existence. The task is to know how and when decisions can be made, to proceed

thoughtfully while making them, to distinguish between what can and cannot be done and what should and
should not be done. In analyzing death, in interpreting its every significant nuance , Professor Carse
advances the cause of all who delve into the meaning of life . Mere survival is not enough to provide
nourishment for the soul of man. The message to be read in Philosophy and in Thanatology is the same: Life is a treasure which
mankind must cherish a treasure whose value increases exponentially when one being bestows solace on and acts to give love to

Debate is theater. Our 1AC allows an intimate encounter

with death critical to turn survival into life.
Razinsky 9 (Liran, University of Wisconsin, How to Look Death in the Eyes: Freud and Bataille)
Thus we see that the stakes are high. What is at stake is the attempt of the subject to grasp itself in
totality. This attempt necessitates bringing death into the account, but death itself hampers this very
attempt. One never dies in the first person. Returning to Bataille, why does he believe sacrifice to be a
solution to Hegels fundamental paradox? For him, it answers the requirements of the human, for Man
meets death face to face in the sacrifice, he sojourns with it, and yet, at the same time, he preserves his

life. In sacrifice, says Bataille, man destroys the animal within him and establishes his human truth as a
being unto death (he uses Heideggers term). Sacrifice provides a clear manifestation of mans
fundamental negativity, in the form of death (Bataille, Hegel 335-36; 286).

The sacrificer

both destroys and survives.

Moreover, in the sacrifice, death is approached voluntarily

by Man. In this way the paradox is overcome, and yet remains open. We can approach death and yet
remain alive, but, one might ask, is it really death that we encountered, or did we merely fabricate a

sacrifice is not a simulacrum, not a mere

subterfuge. In the sacrificial ritual, a real impression of horror is cast upon the spectators.
Sacrifice burns like a sun, spreading radiation our eyes can
hardly bear, and calls for the negation of individuals as such (The Festival 313; 215). We did
not fool death; we are burned in its fire. Batailles idea of the sacrifice also
simulacrum? Bataille insists elsewhere, however, that

addresses Freuds paradox. It might be impossible to imagine our own death directly, but it is possible to
imagine it with the aid of some mediator, to meet death through an others death. Yet on some level this
others death must be our own as well for it to be effective, and indeed this is the case, says Bataille. He
stresses the element of identification: In the sacrifice, the sacrificer identifies himself with the animal that
is struck down dead. And so he dies in seeing himself die (Hegel 336; 287). There

is no
sacrifice, writes Denis Hollier, unless the one performing it identifies,
in the end, with the victim (166). Thus it is through identification, through otherness
that is partly sameness, that a solution is achieved. If it were us, we would die in the act.
If it were a complete other, it would not, in any way, be our death. Also noteworthy is Batailles stress on
the involvement of sight: and so he dies in seeing himself die (Hegel 336; 287), which brings him close
to Freuds view of the nature of the problem, for Freud insists on the visual, recasting the problem as one of
spectatorship, imagining, perceiving. Batailles description recapitulates that of Freud, but renders it
positive. Yes, we remain as a spectator, but it is essential that we do so. Without it, we cannot be said to
have met death. Significantly,

meeting death is a need, not uncalled-for. We must meet

death, and we must remain as spectators. Thus it is through identification and
through visual participation in the dying that a solution is achieved , accompanied by the critical
revaluation of values, which renders the meeting with death
crucial for humanness. Note that both possibilities of meeting deathin the sacrificial-

ritual we have just explored, and in theatre or art, to which we now turnare social. Thus Freuds text,
although it insists on the irrepresentability of death, actually offers, unintentionally perhaps, a possible way

Death perhaps cannot be looked at

directly, but it can be grasped sideways, indirectly, vicariously through a
mirror, to use Perseuss ancient trick against Medusa. The introduction of
out of the paradox through turning to the other.

the other, both similar to and different from oneself, into the equation of death helps break out of the

The
safety that theater provides, of essentially knowing that we will
remain alive, emerges as a kind of requirement for our ability to really identify with the other. In
that, it paradoxically enables us to really get a taste of death. Bataille radicalizes
Cartesian circle with both its incontestable truth and its solipsism and affirmation of oneself.

that possibility. Although Freud deems the estrangement of death from psychic life a problem, as we have
seen and shall see, theater is not a solution for him. With Bataille however, theater emerges as a much
more compelling alternative. Again, it is a matter of a delicate nuance, but a nuance that makes all the
difference. The idea common to both authorsthat we can meet death through the other and yet remain
aliveis ambiguous. One can lay stress on that encounter or on the fact of remaining alive. 11 Freud
SubStance #119, Vol. 38, no. 2, 2009 75 Looking Death in the Eyes: Freud and Bataille tends to opt for the
second possibility, but his text can also be read as supporting the first. The benefit in bringing Freud and
Bataille together is that it invites us to that second reading. An Encounter with Death Death in Freud is
often the death of the other. Both the fear of death and the death wish are often focused on the other as
their object. But almost always it is as though through the discussion of the other Freud were trying to
keep death at bay. But along with Bataille, we can take this other more seriously. Imagining our own death
might be impossible, yet we can still get a glimpse of death when it is an other that dies. In one passage in
his text, the death of the other seems more explicitly a crucial point for Freud as wellone passage where
death does not seem so distant. Freud comments on the attitude of primeval Man to death, as described
abovenamely that he wishes it in others but ignores it in himself. But there was for him one case in
which the two opposite attitudes towards death collided, he continues. It occurred when primeval man
saw someone who belonged to him diehis wife, his child, his friend []. Then, in his pain, he was forced
to learn that one can die, too, oneself, and his whole being revolted against the admission. (Thoughts

293) Freud goes on to explain that the loved one was at once part of himself, and a stranger whose death
pleased primeval man. It is from this point, Freud continues, that philosophy, psychology and religion
sprang. 12 I have described elsewhere (Razinsky, A Struggle) how Freuds reluctance to admit the
importance of death quickly undermines this juncture of the existential encounter with death by focusing
on the emotional ambivalence of primeval man rather than on death itself. However, the description is
there and is very telling. Primeval man witnessed death, and his whole being revolted against the
admission. Man could no longer keep death at a distance, for he had tasted it in his pain about the dead
(Freud, Thoughts 294). Once again, it is through the death of the other that man comes to grasp death.
Once again, we have that special admixture of the other being both an other and oneself that facilitates
the encounter with death. Something of myself must be in the other in order for me to see his death as
relevant to myself. Yet his or her otherness, which means my reassurance of my survival, is no less crucial,
for if it were not present, there would be no acknowledgement of death, ones own death always being,
says Freud, ones blind spot. 13 Liran Razinsky SubStance #119, Vol. 38, no. 2, 2009 76 I mentioned before
Heideggers grappling with a problem similar to Batailles paradox. It is part of Heideggers claim, which he
shares with Freud, that ones death is unimaginable. In a famous section Heidegger mentions the
possibility of coming to grasp death through the death of the other but dismisses it, essentially since the
other in that case would retain its otherness: the others death is necessarily the others and not mine
(47:221-24). Thus we return to the problem we started withthat of the necessary subject-object duality in
the process of the representation of death. Watching the dead object will no more satisfy me than
imagining myself as an object, for the radical difference of both from me as a subject will remain intact.
But the possibility that seems to emerge from the discussion of Freud and Bataille is that in-between
position of the person both close and distant, both self and other, which renders true apprehension of
death possible, through real identification. 14 As Bataille says, regarding the Irish Wake custom where the
relatives drink and dance before the body of the deceased: It is the death of an other, but in such
instances, the death of the other is always the image of ones own death (Hegel 341; 291). Bataille
speaks of the dissolution of the subject-object boundaries in sacrifice, of the fusion of beings in these
moments of intensity (The Festival 307-11; 210-13; La Littrature 215; 70). Possibly, that is what
happens to primeval man when the loved one dies and why his whole being is affected. He himself is no
longer sure of his identity. Before, it was clearthere is the other, the object, whom one wants dead, and
there is oneself, a subject. The show and the spectators. Possibly what man realized before the cadaver of
his loved one was that he himself is also an object, taking part in the world of objects, and not only a
subject. When he understood this, it seems to me, he understood death. For in a sense a subject
subjectively never dies. Psychologically nothing limits him, 15 while an object implies limited existence:
limited by other objects that interact with it, limited in space, limited in being the thought-content of
someone else. Moreover, primeval man understood that he is the same for other subjects as other subjects
are for himthat is, they can wish him dead or, which is pretty much the same, be indifferent to his
existence. The encounter made primeval man step out of the psychological position of a center,
transparent to itself, and understand that he is not only a spirit but also a thing, an object, not only a
spectator; this is what really shakes him. 16 The Highest Stake in the Game of Living Thus far we have
mainly discussed our first two questions: the limitation in imagining death and the possible solution
through a form SubStance #119, Vol. 38, no. 2, 2009 77 Looking Death in the Eyes: Freud and Bataille of
praxis, in either a channeled, ritualized or a spontaneous encounter with the death of an other, overcoming
the paradox of the impossibility of representation by involving oneself through deep identification. We shall
now turn to our third question, of the value of integrating death into our thoughts. We have seen that
Batailles perspective continuously brings up the issue of the value of approaching death. The questions of
whether we can grasp death and, if we can, how, are not merely abstract or neutral ones. The encounter
with death, that we now see is possible, seems more and more to emerge as possessing a positive value,
indeed as fundamental. What we shall now examine is Freuds attempt to address that positive aspect
directly, an attempt that betrays, however, a deep ambivalence. As mentioned, Freuds text is very
confused, due to true hesitation between worldviews (see Razinsky, A Struggle). One manifestation of
this confusion is Freuds position regarding this cultural-conventional attitude: on the one hand he
condemns it, yet on the other hand he accepts it as natural and inevitable. For him, it results to some
extent from deaths exclusion from unconscious thought (Thoughts 289, 296-97). Death cannot be
represented and is therefore destined to remain foreign to our life. 17 But then Freud suddenly recognizes
an opposite necessity: not to reject death but to insert it into life. Not to distance ourselves from it, but to
familiarize ourselves with it: But this attitude [the cultural-conventional one] of ours towards death has a

loses in interest, when the highest

stake in the game of living, life itself, may not be risked. It becomes as shallow and empty as,
powerful effect on our lives.

Life

is impoverished, it

let us say, an American flirtation, in which it is understood from the first that nothing is to happen, as
contrasted with a Continental love-affair in which both partners must constantly bear its serious
consequences in mind. Our emotional ties, the unbearable intensity of our grief, make us disinclined to
court danger for ourselves and for those who belong to us .

We dare not contemplate a

great many undertakings which are dangerous but in fact
indispensable, such as attempts at artificial flight, expeditions to distant countries or
experiments with explosive substances. We are paralyzed by the thought of who is to
take the sons place with his mother, the husbands with his wife, the fathers with his children, if a

disaster

the tendency to exclude death from our

calculations in life brings in its train many other renunciations and
exclusions. Yet the motto of the Hanseatic League ran: Navigare necesse est, vivere non necesse.
should occur. Thus

(It is necessary to sail the seas, it is not necessary to live.) (Thoughts 290-91) Readers unfamiliar with
Freuds paper are probably shaking their heads in disbelief. Is it Freud who utters these words? Indeed, the
oddity of this citation cannot be over-estimated. It seems not to belong to Freuds Liran Razinsky
SubStance #119, Vol. 38, no. 2, 2009 78 thought. One can hardly find any other places where he speaks of
such an intensification of life and fascination with death, and praises uncompromising risk-taking and the
neglect of realistic considerations. In addition to being unusual, the passage itself is somewhat unclear. 18
The examplesnot experimenting with explosive substancesseem irrelevant and unconvincing. The
meaning seems to slide. It is not quite clear if the problem is that we do not bring death into our
calculations, as the beginning seems to imply, or that, rather, we actually bring it into our calculations too
much, as is suggested at the end But what I wish to stress here is that the passage actually opposes what
Freud says in the preceding passages, where he describes the cultural-conventional attitude and speaks of
our inability to make death part of our thoughts. In both the current passage and later passages he
advocates including death in life, but insists, elsewhere in the text, that embracing death is impossible. In
a way, he is telling us that we cannot accept the situation where death is constantly evaded. Here again
Bataille can be useful in rendering Freuds position more intelligible. He seems to articulate better than
Freud the delicate balance, concerning the place of death in psychic life, between the need to walk on the
edge, and the flight into normalcy and safety. As I asserted above, where in Freud there are contradictory
elements, in Bataille there is a dialectic. Bataille, as we have seen, presents the following picture: It might
be that, guided by our instincts, we tend to avoid death. But we also seem to have a need to intersperse
this flight with occasional peeps into the domain of death. When we invest all of our effort in surviving,
something of the true nature of life evades us. It is only when the finite human being goes beyond the
limitations necessary for his preservation, that he asserts the nature of his being (La Littrature 214;
68). The approaches of both Bataille and Freud are descriptive as well as normative. Bataille describes a
tendency to distance ourselves from death and a tendency to get close to it. But he also describes Mans
need to approach death from a normative point of view, in order to establish his humanity: a life that is
only fleeing death has less value. Freud carefully describes our tendency to evade death and, in the
paragraph under discussion, calls for the contrary approach. This is stressed at the end of the article,
where he encourages us to give death the place in reality and in our thoughts which is its due
(Thoughts 299). Paradoxically, it might be what will make life more tolerable for us once again (299).
But since Freud also insists not only on a tendency within us to evade death, but also on the impossibility
of doing otherwise, and on how death simply cannot be the content of our thought, his sayings in favor of
bringing death close are confusing and confused. Freud does not give us a reason for the need to approach
death. He says that life loses in interest, but surely this cannot be the result of abstaining from carrying out
experiments with explosive substances. In addition, his ideas on the shallowness of a life without death
do not seem to evolve from anything in his approach. It is along the lines offered by Batailles worldview

Sacrifice, Bataille says, brings together life in its

fullness and the annihilation of life. We are not mere
spectators in the sacrificial ritual. Our participation is much more involved. Sacrificial ritual creates
a temporary, exceptionally heightened state of living. The sacred horror, he calls the
emotion experienced in sacrifice: the richest and most agonizing experience. It opens itself,
like a theater curtain, on to a realm beyond this world and every limited
meaning is transfigured in it (Hegel 338; 288). Bataille lays stress on vitality. Death is
that I wish to interpret them here.

not humanizing only on the philosophical level, as it is for Hegel or Kojve. Bataille gives it an emotional

The presence of death, which he interprets in a more earthly manner, is

stimulating, vivifying, intense. Death and other related elements
(violence) bring life closer to a state where individuality melts, the mediation of
the intellect between us and the world lessens, and life is felt at its fullest.
Bataille calls this state, or aspect of the world, immanence or intimacy: immanence between man
twist.

and the world, between the subject and the object (The Festival 307-311; 210-213). Moments of

intensity are moments of excess and of fusion of beings (La Littrature 215;
70). They are a demand of life itself, even though they sometimes seem to contradict it. Death is
problematic for us, but it opens up for us something in life. This line of thought seems to accord very well
with the passage in Freuds text with which we are dealing here, and to extend it. Life without death is life
lacking in intensity, an impoverished, shallow and empty life. Moreover, the repression of death is
generalized and extended: the tendency to exclude death from our calculations in life brings in its train
many other renunciations and exclusions. Freud simply does not seem to have the conceptual tools to
discuss these ideas. The intuition is even stronger in the passage that follows, where Freud discusses war
(note that the paper is written in 1915): When war breaks out, he says, this cowardly, conservative, risk-

rejecting attitude is broken at once. War eliminates this conventional attitude to death. Death could no
longer be Liran Razinsky SubStance #119, Vol. 38, no. 2, 2009 80 denied. We are forced to believe in it.
People really die. . . . Life has, indeed, become interesting again; it has recovered its full content
(Thoughts 291). Thus what is needed is more than the mere accounting of consequences, taking death
into consideration as a future possibility. What is needed is exposure to death, a sanguineous imprinting of
death directly on our minds, through the accumulation of deaths of others. Life can only become vivid,
fresh, and interesting when death is witnessed directly. Both authors speak of a valorization of death, and
in both there is a certain snobbery around it. While the masses follow the natural human tendency to avoid
death, like the American couple or those who are busy with the thought of who is to take our place, the
individualists do not go with the herd, and by allowing themselves to approach death, achieve a fuller
sense of life, neither shallow nor empty. 19 Yet again, Freuds claims hover in the air, lacking any
theoretical background. Bataille supplies us with such background. He contests, as we have seen, the sole
focus on survival. Survival, he tells us, has a price. It limits our life. As if there
were an inherent tension between preserving life and living it. Freud poses the same tension here. Either
we are totally absorbed by the wish to survive, to keep life intact, and therefore limit our existence to the
bare minimum, or else we are willing to risk it to some extent in order to make it more interesting, more
vital and valuable. Our usual world, according to Bataille, is characterized by the duration of things, by the
future function, rather than by the present. Things are constituted as separate objects in view of future

the threat of death: it ruins value where value

is only assured through duration. It also exposes the intimate order of life that is
time. This is one reason for

continuously hidden from us in the order of things where life runs its normal course. Man is afraid of death
as soon as he enters the system of projects that is the order of things (The Festival 312; 214).

Sacrifice is the opposite of production and accumulation. Death is

not so much a negation of life, as it is an affirmation of the
intimate order of life, which is opposed to the normal order of things and
is therefore rejected. The power of death signifies that this real world can only have a neutral

image of life []. Death reveals life in its plenitude (309; 212). Batailles neutral image of life is the
equivalent of Freuds shallow and empty life. What Freud denounces is a life trapped within the cowardly

the economy of value and

future-oriented calculations that stand in opposition to the
insertion of death into life. Who is to take the sons place with his mother, the
economical system of considerations. It is precisely

husbands with his wife, the fathers with his children. Of course there is an emotional side to the story,
but it is this insistence on replacement that leaves us on the side of survival and stops us sometimes from
living the present. The

need for duration,

in the words of Bataille,

conceals

life from us (The Festival 309; 212). For both authors, when death is left out, life as it is is
false and superficial. Another Look at Speculation Both authors, then, maintain that if elements associated
with death invade our life anyway, we might as well succumb and give them an ordered place in our

to meet death is not due to the fact that we do not have a choice.
is necessary if life is to have its full value,
and is part of what makes us human. But the tension between the tendenciesto
thoughts. The necessity

Rather, familiarization with death

flee death or to embrace itis not easily resolved, and the evasive tendency always tries to assert itself.
As seen above, Bataille maintains that in sacrifice, we are exposed through death to other dimensions of
life. But the exposure, he adds, is limited, for next comes another phase, performed post-hoc, after the
event: the ensuing horror and the intensity are too high to maintain, and must be countered. Bataille
speaks of the justifications of the sacrifice given by cultures, which inscribe it in the general order of
things.
humankind, collectively and individually.

Contention 3: Framing
Reject predictions
1. Complexity theory means linear scenario planning fails
2. Unpredictable feedback loops mean we cant determine
long-term actions

3. The system is resilient and will adapt to check against

threats
4. Approaches that linearly stop threats make them
inevitable
5. The policy-maker paradox means we have no control
over consequences
Ford 15 B.A. summa cum laude from Harvard, Ph.D. in
International Relations from Oxford University as a Rhodes
Scholar, J.D. from Yale Law School, officer in the United States
Navy Reserve, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, Chief
Counsel for the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations
Christopher A. Ford, April 2015, State University of New York Press, Albany, World Politics at the Edge of
Chaos: Reflections on Complexity and Global Life, pages 79-89, 7/21/2015, #TheNextPKen

Complexity thinking (CT) has provided valuable insights in a number

of fields. Its contributions have been most pronounced in the
sciences, but there is also a significant and growing literature
exploring the implications of CT in the social sciences. Precisely to the
degree that one takes CT seriously as an important window upon the dynamics and phenomena of the

one must be willing seriously

to consider its potential relevance in the human world of social
interactions and cultural development. As we shall see, there may be some
important differences between these arenas, but at one level it would be startling if the
insights of CT proved entirely inapplicable to interhumaninteractions.
After all, human afairs seem to be characterized by intricate positive
and negative feedback loops, an acute sensitivity of outcomes to
initial conditions, a concomitant resistance to linear predictability
and susceptibility to rare but dramatic transformational efects, and
a tendency to develop elaborate higher-order rules of interaction out
of the raw material of comparatively simple unit-level behaviors . In
these regards, the human world would indeed seem to have many of
the characteristics of a complex adaptive system as understood by
CT theorists. This has led social scientists to be increasingly
interested in how the lens of CT can help them understand their
subjects. The emphasis of most work to date on CT in the "soft world of social sciences and public
policy, however, has for the most part been analytical, rather than normative or prescriptive. Yet if CT
ofers us lessons about the behavior of complex adaptive systems,
and if it is indeed possible to conceive of human society as a
complex adaptive social system (CASS), then CT may also have
something valuable to teach public policy makerswhose job it
is not simply to describe or understand their world but in fact also
deliberately to alter its course in some fashion. Yet this process of lesson
natural world of chemical, biological, and physical processes,

learning is far from straightforward, for in some ways the shift from merely descriptive purposes to
manipulative purposesa term that I use here in a strictly neutral sense, and without the moral
connotations that the word manipulation can sometimes imply, for it is a key purpose of public policy to
bring about change in the human environment, and this requires the purposive manipulation of system
inputs in order to achieve desired outcomesis a more intellectually portentous one than the shift from

For policy makers, it is not enough to

use CT as a way through which the world can be better
understood. For them, the key questions are the degree to which CT
derived understandings can be used to improve leaders' ability
the natural sciences to the interhuman realm.

deliberately to change the world in specific ways. How, for instance, can CT be
used as a tool with which to improve the development of public policy alternatives and as a way of

This chapter
posits that policy makers can indeed learn from CT, but that it
presents significant challenges to the very idea of public policy
challenges which must be overcome if CT is really to benefit public
policy makingand the lessons it ofers are by no means
straightforward. If CT is to provide in any sense an "answer to public policy problems, public
policy makers must be able first to answer the vexing questions that
complexity raises about the policy-making enterprise itself. If CT is
right about the deep unpredictability of system outcomes in a
complex adaptive system, for example, is it actually possible to talk
intelligibly about public policy making at all? This is what I will
term the " policy-maker's paradox : the conundrum presented by CT's
suggestion that modest policy inputs can indeed bring about
transformational change,but that such changes are deeply
unpredictable and hence uncontrollablemaking the very idea of
policy making highly problematic. I will argue in this chapter that CT offers valuable
grappling with the challenges of incomplete information and unpredictability?

insights to the policy maker with regard to dealing with the problems of incomplete information and

Part of the answer to the challenges of the policymaker's paradox lies in strategies of what one might call
perturbation management"that is, the deliberate adoption of
strategies and organizational forms through which leaders seek to
equip themselves to cope with unforeseen events, either negative or
positive. Scholars and analysts have focused with increasing interest upon these approaches in recent
outcome unpredictability.

decades, though only quite imperfectly in the arena of public policy itself. Such an emphasis upon
perturbation management, however, is a reactive and largely negative vision, focused upon how best to
armor the policy process against unplanned contingencies. Does CT offer us any hope of doing more? Does
it offer any hope of salvaging a proactive and affirmative approach to public policy capable of surviving the
subversive implications of the "policy-maker's paradox? Perhaps. Herein, I attempt to go beyond the
largely reactive agenda of unpredictability management in order to suggestalbeit in a necessarily
speculative waythat applying CT insights in the realm of interhuman reactions is different from applying
it in the natural sciences. This difference, I suggest, may provide leaders some ability to rescue policy
making from utter unpredictability, thereby salvaging something of public policy's positive vision of
purposive systemic change. In particular, our answer may lie in the fact that the unit-level participants in
a complex adaptive social system are humans, and not simply molecules in some autopoietic broth or lines
of code in an agent-based software application. Because humans possess the ability, and indeed the
tendency, to structure their behavior in important and at least partially predictable ways according to
cognitive frameworks or memetic constructs that are themselves subject to deliberate alteration or
influenceframeworks that are thereafter capable of more or less autonomous quasi-epidemiological
propagation throughout any given human populationthere may be some hope that the purposive
manipulation of ideational inputs may provide a tool with which systemic outcomes may sometimes be
influenced in broadly predictable ways. To the extent that the articulation and manipulation of ideational
frameworks provide a way of influencing events within a complex adaptive social system in ways that are
at least somewhat predictable, therefore, CT may ultimately lead us back the
ancient antimaterialist conclusion that ideas are among the things that matter most in the human world
and that their development and advancement offers a remarkably powerful means by which to bring about
change therein. The subversive implications of CT's lesson of deep, forward-looking
outcome unknowability may present policy makers with special challenges, but it may yet be that policy
making remains, for these reasons, possible after alland that values, political ideology, cultural baggage,
and memetic propagation should be issues of critical concern to complexity-informed leaders. Attempts to
Learn from Complexity Thinking There is certainly no shortage today of efforts to bring CT to bear in
understanding and better coping with various aspects of the world of interhuman relations. There exists,
for instance, a sizeable literature seeking to apply complexity-related insights to organizational theory,
particularly with regard to business structure and operations. Among other things, complexity-based
organizational theory has suggested lessons for business organization and managementthough not

In CT terms, for instance, the

"fitness of a complex system in its environment is a function of a
sort of managed tension, of success in hovering at some indefinable (and perhaps shifting)
always ones that are easy to apply in practice.

sweet spot of dynamic balance between "tight and loose organizational coupling." According to Russ

fit systems operate at the "edge of chaos . . . at a

certain point between tightly coupled and loosely coupled. Their
coupling is loose enough that they can dissipate much of the impact
of unwelcome or dangerous perturbations, because each component
can absorb and neutralize small pieces of perturbation because of
the nature of the relationships among units (e.g., redundancy, overlap) and
because the individual units have excess resources. At the same time,
such organizations are tightly coupled enough that they are able to
respond adaptively to change when this is needednot least when
so directed by organizational leadership. (If the coupling is too loose, a system can
Marion (1999), for example,

wind itself down into the organizational equivalent of heat death, a sort of dead stasis. If coupling is too
tight, it can become dangerously rigid, unable to resist unanticipated, potentially destructive

A fit
organization thus maintains itself at the point where its coupling is
sufficiently tight to allow the emergence of stable structures but
sufficiently loose to allow flexibility and change." It is "coupled at the Edge of
perturbation as disruptions cascade destructively through the system, shattering it).

Chaos where it risks dramatic cascading damage but reaps the benefit of maximum fitness in taking that
risk (Marion 1999, 162, 16769). Business executives and other leaders, one assumes, should thus seek
to keep their organizations in this sweet spot of maximally adaptive middle-range couplingthough how
this is to be done and where the optimal balance actually is would seem to be questions to which
organizational theorists can provide no a priori answers. (By definition, the right balance point will shift
with changing circumstances, and from one organization and institutional mission to the next. Here,
perhaps, complexity-informed management is revealed to be more art than science.) Charles Perrow and
others have also done important complexity infused work on the ways in which organizational failure can
occur in complex systems, particularly where their shaping variables "follow different periodicity patterns
and are highly coupled with each other. In this understanding, crises

are more the result

of complex, tightly coupled relationships than the outcome of
inadequate human actions (Thitart and Forgues 1995, 25). Such analysis has
potential implications in a range of endeavors, including public
policy making. Scott Sagan, for example, has applied such insights to the peculiar public policy
challenges of accident avoidance in nuclear weapons commandand-control (C) architectures.

the high
interactive complexity and "tight organizational coupling of
modern U.S. and Russian nuclear C* systems make them highly
accident prone regardless of the intentions of their leaders and
operators and irrespective of the precautions such officials may
take (Sagan 1991, 3236, 3946). (Some traditional approaches to reducing
accident risks, he warnssuch as increasing the use of redundant
systemsmay actually make things worse (Sagan 2004, 93638).) From this
Taking Perrow's analysis as his conceptual starting point, Sagan has argued that

foundation, Sagan has made a number of suggestions about how to reduce the dangers of accidents

CT insights
can also teach us something about the methods by which public
policy decisions are reached. Borrowing the term from Horst Rittel and Melvin
Webber,Fuerth describes a public policy world increasingly beset by
wicked problems " that is, the challenges of managing situations
characterized by resolutely nonlinear dynamics, complicated positive
and negative feedback loops, and mind-bogglingly intricate
interconnections among myriad variables. These, he says, are a
new order of . . . public policy issue[] that reflect[s] the axioms and
postulates of complexity theory (Cyber-security, he contends, is one such arena of
involving nuclear weapons (Ford 2010). More broadly, Leon Fuerth has suggested that

"wicked policy challenge, but hardly the only one.) Policy making in such an environment, Fuerth argues,
requires a different approach than has usually been taken within governments. Such matters cannot
be stovepiped as the responsibility of a single functional department or agency, he says, and instead may

have to be addressed on a government-wide basis (Fuerth 2009, 560-61). Others have suggested that we
may perhaps also need different approaches to who it is who makes policy decisions, insofar as there may
be no single human "skill set that is "optimal for leading a response to such

Addressing "wicked public policy challenges may therefore

demand a variety of inputs and perspectives beyond that which
normal functional specialization can provide. In this visionwhich can amount, in
challenges.

some articulations, to an ideal of populating leadership ranks with a suitably "diverse human capital stock
(Lefkoff 2010)theories

of conceptual requisite variety

should encourage decision makers to seek input from a
broad collection of cognitive perspectives, thus helping keep
available as large a repertoire of responsive actions as possible. Other
(Heylighen 2001)

thinkers have sought to move beyond merely responding to "wicked problems with more organizational
centralizationwhich, somewhat disappointingly, seems to be all that Fuerth was really suggesting by
urging the appointment of government-wide policy "czars for such challengesto undertake a more
fundamental rethinking organizational decision-making precisely in order to avoid such centralization in
the first place. Writing on military affairs, for instance, Thomas Czerwinski has urged devolution of decision
making in order to "distribut[e] uncertaintythat is, breaking tasks into smaller parts and establishing
"forces capable of dealing with each of the parts separately on a semi-independent basisin order to
enable organizations to do the complexity shuttle better" by remaining in the sweet spot of adaptive
survival between the suffocatingly brittle rigidity of Equilibrium and the ungovernable dissolution of Chaos
(Czerwinski 1998, 95). Such explicitly CT-derived insights, in fact, lay behind the U.S. Marine Corps release
in 1996 of a new doctrinal document on maneuver warfare, a publication that explicitly rests on the
complexity theory concepts (Alberts 1997, xiii-xw). The Policy-Maker's Paradox To my eye, one of the
peculiar challenges of CT for the public policy maker as opposed to, say, a biologist, computer scientist,
chemist, mathematician, or even social scientistis that the nonlinearity and unpredictability it posits as
being fundamental characteristics of complex systems are profoundly subversive of how we have

Complex adaptive systems are highly

sensitive to initial conditions, as well aspotentially subject to a
variety of both positive and negative feedback loops that act either
to amplify or to dampen the efect of exogenous perturbations. As a
result, although the development of such systems is not random, it
nonetheless essentially entirely unpredictable over the long
term. This fundamental unpredictability introduces great challenges
for the public policy maker, because it seems to explode the very
idea that the complex adaptive social systems of the human world
may be purposefully manipulated in order to bring about particular
situational outcomes. What is public policy making about, after all, if not deliberately creating
traditionally understood public policy making.

perturbations in the current state of affairs in order to produce a specific, desired situational outcome at

If such affirmative, direction-focused change is

one's objective, however, the complexity of global life would seem to
present a paradox. On the one hand, CT suggests that as a result of nonlinearity
and positive feedback loops, even very small policy inputs do indeed
have the potential to bring about transformative change in a
complex adaptive social system. In a kind of policy-world analogue to Edward Lorenz's
famous butterfly effect therefore, one might to this degree hope to change the
world of tomorrow in important ways by the policies one chooses
todayperhaps even through the use of very small policy inputs. On
the other hand, however, complex adaptive systems are often quite
resilient, sometimes being able to absorb significant perturbations
without undergoing system-transformative efects. Many inputs, in
other words,will be successfully swallowed" by the system without
producing real change. But that's not the only problem. The extreme
sensitivity of complex systems to initial conditions and the very
potential for nonlinear feedback thatmakes it possible for small
inputs to have dramatic efects also suggest that a policy maker will
some point in the future?

not be able to predict just what efects, if any, any particular

intervention will have. Worse yet, we will not even be able to predict
whether they will be "good or bad While it may be true that even small actions
today are theoretically capable of producing a transformed world tomorrow, in other words, most
such inputs probably will not have any significant impact at all, and
we can predict neither which ones will have a major efect nor
whether this efect will be beneficial or catastrophic. Through this
prism, our world is thus characterized by a very deep unknowability,
which imperils the factual predicate for public policy making . As has been
said of complex systems more generally, their "sensitive dependence on initial
conditions is profoundly disruptive of the ability to develop rational
expectations, especially when any stochastic shocks are present
(Rosser 1997, 211), and indeed CT actually denies the possibility
of longterm predictions (Harvey 1997, 309). If indeed in nonlinear systems
results are not repeatable, and the same experiment may come out
diferently each time it is performed (Czerwinski 1998, 10), we face profound
and essentially insoluble problems of outcome uncertainty . We should
expect systems as complex as human society to be characterized by significant and irreducible

"[a]ny efort at long-term prediction in

nonlinear systems is highly suspect under the best of
circumstances, it is surely all but "impossible to make long-term
predictions concerning group interactions in society (Kiel 1997, 6, 10). CT
uncertainties (Hatt 2009, 316), and since

scholars have long recognized that applying its insights to the understanding of human systems offers us,
in Ilya Prigogine's words, both hope and threat. It offers "hope, since even small fluctuations may grow
and change the overall structure, but it also contains a sort of threat, "since in our universe the security of
stable, permanent rules seems gone forever (Prigogine 1984, 31213). In Thad Brown's delightful
description, if it is true that [t]he purpose of theory is to make nature stand still when our backs are

[as] Einstein reportedly said, political scientists must confront

the fact that "nature often laughs and dances around behind
us (Brown 1997, 136). In this sense, the complexity of global life seems quite
unkind to theorists. From a policy-maker's perspective, however, the problem is
more insidious than just teaching us lessons in impermanence and
insecurity or confounding our ability to articulate a clear explanatory
model. Complexity is particularly subversive of policy
making because of its implications for our ability to control the
world around us. If the animating idea of public policy making is to apply effort and resources
turned,

today in order to bring about a desired change in the future state of affairs, the complexity of global life
seems to subvert its very core. If MichaelMcBurnett is right, for instance, that the opinion shifts associated
with U.S. primary election campaigns have "a positive Lyapunov exponent (McBurnett 1997,

perhaps the most important thing this demonstrates is that

their outcomes really cannot be predicted.This sort of conclusion is very
problematic for the policy maker, as Alvin Saperstein has observed, because while
[t]he possibility of prediction implies the possibility of deliberate
control, it follows that "[i]f prediction is not possible, there is no
way of knowing the outcome of a given act or policy, which is
synonymous with saying control doesn't exist (Saperstein 1997a, 14546). If
there is no control, however, there can be no real policy making. The
role of the policy maker, whether in a domestic or an international
system, is to master the system: to be able to take actions now
which will lead to desirable events, or avoid undesirable events, in
the future. Thus he/she must be able to predict the outcome of
current activities: if I do A, A' will result; if I do B, B' will result, etc.
193),

(Saperstein 1997b, 103) The historian might not mind overmuch if the system he studies exhibits the
characteristics of complexity, for as Robert Jervis has noted, that essentially backward-looking discipline is
well suited to understanding and chronicling nonlinearity. ("[H]istory is about the changes produced by
previous thought and action as people and organizations confront each other through time [Jervis 1997a,

The policy maker, however, must perforce look forward and

necessarily aspires to control outcomes. Yet it is precisely in this
direction that CT suggests that our vision is in escapably impaired
and our grasp all but completely crippled by outcome
unpredictability. If there is no meaningful possibility of control,
policy making is essentially impossible. This is the policy-maker's
paradox presented by the complexity of global life. James Rosenau has
60].)

suggested that this problem of control could create problems for complexity more generally, by leading
members of the policy community to reject CT out of frustration with its inability to speak to their needs.
As he put it, "all the circumstances are in place for an eventual disillusionment with complexity theory,
because despite the analytical value CT can provide, there

are severe limits to the

extent to which such theory can generate concrete policies that
lessen the uncertainties of a fragmented world. For Rosenau, the frustrations
are likely to be most acute precisely to the degree that we look to complexity for guidance in the policy
arena, for it

is when our panacean impulses turn us toward complexity

theory for guidance in the framing of exact predictions that the
policy payofs are least likely to occur and our disillusionment is
most likely to intensify (Rosenau 1997, 74, 89). As suggested above, however, I would
submit that the problem is much more fundamental than simply that the
policy world may come to reject CT. The deeper danger is that CT might demonstrate
the fundamental irrelevance of the public policy enterprise as a whole. (If a complex world is indeed deeply

This is
indeed a challenge with which thoughtful would-be policy makers
must struggle.
unpredictable, and hence uncontrollable, why do we have policy makers in the first place?)

Specificity reduces the probability of their

predictions because of the conjunctive fallacy and reduces
the ability to cope with the highest magnitude impacts
Eliezer Yudkowsky 6, 8/31. Singularity Institute for Artificial
Intelligence Palo Alto, CA. Cognitive biases potentially
affecting judgment of global risks, Forthcoming in Global
Catastrophic Risks, eds. NickBostrom and Milan Cirkovic,
singinst.org/upload/cognitive- biases.pdf
The conjunction fallacy similarly applies to futurological forecasts. Two
independent sets of professional analysts at the Second International Congress on Forecasting were asked
to rate, respectively, the probability of "A complete suspension of diplomatic relations between the USA
and the Soviet Union, sometime in 1983" or "A Russian invasion of Poland, and a complete suspension of
diplomatic relations between the USA and the Soviet Union, sometime in 1983". The second set of analysts
responded with significantly higher probabilities. (Tversky and Kahneman 1983.) In Johnson et. al. (1993),
MBA students at Wharton were scheduled to travel to Bangkok as part of their degree program. Several
groups of students were asked how much they were willing to pay for terrorism insurance. One group of
subjects was asked how much they were willing to pay for terrorism insurance covering the flight from
Thailand to the US. A second group of subjects was asked how much they were willing to pay for terrorism
insurance covering the round-trip flight. A third group was asked how much they were willing to pay for
terrorism insurance that covered the complete trip to Thailand. These three groups responded with

According to
probability theory, adding additional detail onto a
story must render the story less probable . It is less probable that Linda is a feminist
average willingness to pay of $17.19, $13.90, and $7.44 respectively.

bank teller than that she is a bank teller, since all feminist bank tellers are necessarily bank

Yet human psychology seems to follow the

that adding an additional detail can make the story more
tellers.

rule

plausible . People might pay more for international diplomacy

intended to prevent nanotechnological warfare by China, than for an
engineering project to defend against nanotechnological attack from
any source. The second threat scenario is less vivid and alarming,
but the defense is more useful because it is more vague . More valuable still

would be strategies which make humanity harder to extinguish without being specific
to nanotechnologic threats - such as colonizing space, or see Yudkowsky (this volume) on AI. Security
expert Bruce Schneierobserved (both before and after the 2005 hurricane in New Orleans) that the U.S.
government was guarding specific domestic targets against "movie-plot scenarios" of terrorism, at the cost
of taking away resources from emergency-response capabilities that could respond to any disaster.

Overly detailed reassurances can also

(Schneier 2005.)

create false perceptions of safety : "X is not an existential risk and

you don't need to worry about it, because A, B, C, D, and E"; where
the failure of any one of propositions A, B, C, D, or E potentially
extinguishes the human species. "We don't need to worry about nanotechnologic war,

because a UN commission will initially develop the technology and prevent its proliferation until such time
as an active shield is developed, capable of defending against all accidental and malicious outbreaks that
contemporary nanotechnology is capable of producing, and this condition will persist

can inflate our probability

estimates of security, as well as misdirecting defensive
investments into needlessly narrow or implausibly
detailed risk scenarios. More generally, people tend
to overestimate conjunctive probabilities and underestimate disjunctive
indefinitely."

Vivid, specific scenarios

probabilities . (Tversky and Kahneman 1974.) That is, people tend to overestimate
the probability that, e.g., seven events of 90% probability will all
occur. Conversely, people tend to underestimate the probability that
at least one of seven events of 10% probability will occur . Someone judging
whether to, e.g., incorporate a new startup, must evaluate the probability that many individual events will
all go right (there will be sufficient funding, competent employees, customers will want the product) while
also considering the likelihood that at least one critical failure will occur (the bank refuses a loan, the
biggest project fails, the lead scientist dies). This may help explain why only 44% of entrepreneurial
ventures survive after 4 years. (Knaup 2005.) Dawes (1988, p. 133) observes: 'In their summations lawyers
avoid arguing from disjunctions ("either this or that or the other could have occurred, all of which would
lead to the same conclusion") in favor of conjunctions. Rationally, of course, disjunctions are much more

The scenario of humanity going extinct in the

is a disjunctive event . It could happen as a result of any of

probable than are conjunctions.'

next century

the existential risks discussed in this book - or some other cause which none of us
foresaw. Yet for a futurist, disjunctions make for an awkward and unpoetic-sounding prophecy.