As a practice of building, changing, and destroying coalitions,
politics today is a summation of human practice. Professional
politicians design strategies for coalition implementation and
identify the most effective interactions for a certain policy.
They develop their own language and criteria for evaluating the
efficiency of their specialized practice and of their mediating
function in a society of many and varied forms of mediation.
The obsession with efficiency, whether applied to politics or
not, is not imposed by forces outside ourselves. The tendency to
transfer responsibility does not result in some curse spoken by
a disappointed politician, philosopher, or educator. The shorter
political cycles that we encounter correspond to the dynamics of
a human practical experience focused on the immediate within the
framework of a global existence. It seems that the transition is
from the small communal life striving for continuity and
permanence, to a global community of interacting individuals,
whose identity itself is variable, prepared to experience
discontinuity and change. Coordinations of actions in this
universe are no longer possible through large integrative
mechanisms, such as language and bureaucratic institutions.
Small differentiating operations, in the nature of coalitions
tested through polling or electronic balloting, and modified in
accordance with the rapid change of political roles, represent
an alternative.
Monarchies embodied the eternity of rule; treaties among monarchs
were supposed to outlast the monarch. The 15-minute access to
political power, far from being a metaphor in some parts of the
world, is as relevant as any other form of celebrity (Warhol's
included), since political processes and power relations are more
and more uncoupled from each other and disconnected from the
obsession with universality and timelessness. A 15-minute
coalition is as critical as access to power, and as useful as
the new principles accepted by the people involved. Instead of
the top- down model of politics, we can experience a combination
of bottom-up and top-down procedures. Under these circumstances,
the making and unmaking of coalitions remains one among very few
valid political functions. The centers of political power-
economics, law, interest groups-constitute poles around which
such coalitions are established or abandoned.
One should ask whether such coalitions do not come into being in
the universal language of literacy. Literacy is defended with
the argument that it is some kind of common denominator. What is
not accounted for is the fact that coalitions are not
independent of the medium of their expression. Literacy-based
coalitions pursue and further goals and actions consistent with
the pragmatic framework that requires them. Needs characteristic
of a pragmatic context incompatible with the structures imposed
by literacy-based practical experiences require other means for
establishing coalitions. When the leaders of the most advanced
industrial states agree on indexing the value of their currency,
or when friend and foe establish a political coalition against an
invasion that could set a precedent and trigger consequences for
the global economy, the means in place might take the appearance
of literacy. In fact, these means are freed from words and
literate articulations. They emerge from data processing and
simulation of behavior in financial markets, virtual reality
scenarios turned into actions for which no script could provide
a description in advance. While politicians might still perform
their script in a literate manner, the centers of power choose
the most efficient means for evaluating each new coalition. As a
consequence, and this is a distinguishing element, there is
little connection between the authority of political
institutions, as it results from their literate premise, and the
dynamics of coalitions, reflecting the pragmatics of the
civilization of illiteracy.
The sense of beginning experienced in our day goes well beyond
the new states, new political means, beyond the science (or art)
of coalition making. It is basically a beginning for the new
zoon politikon, for a political animal that has lost most of its
natural roots and whose human nature is probably better defined
in terms of political instincts than cultural accomplishments.
Culture is by and large discarded. People simply cannot carry
culture with them, but neither can they negotiate their existence
without political means appropriate to a social condition
structurally different from that experienced in the past. The
self-centered individual cannot escape relating to others and
defining himself in reference to them. "We Am a Virtual
Community" is not merely a suggestive title (conceived by Earl
Babble) for an article on Internet interaction, but a good
description of today's political world. The specific forms of
relations, the We Am faction among them, are subject to many
factors, not least to the biological and cognitive redefinition
of the human being. When everything, literally everything, is
possible and indeed acceptable, the political animal has to find
new ways to make choices and pursue goals without facing the
risk of losing identity. This is probably the decisive political
battle that the humans have yet to win.
"Theirs not to reason why"
High precision electronic eyes placed on orbiting satellites
picked up the firing of the rocket and the launch parameters.
Data was transmitted to a computer center for information
processing. The computed information, specifying angles, firing
time, and trajectory, was relayed to antirocket missiles
programmed to intercept enemy attack. The system-consisting of a
vast, distributed, highly interconnected configuration-
incorporates expertise from electronic vision devices, knowledge
encoded in software designed to calculate rocket orbits (based
on launch time, position, angle, speed, weight, meteorological
conditions), fast transmission networks, and automated
positioning and triggering devices.
This integrated system has replaced literacy-based modes of
practical experiences pertinent to war. Instead of manuals
describing the many parameters and operations that military
personnel need to consider, information is contained in computer
programs. These also eliminate the need for long training cycles,
expensive practical exercises, and the continuous revision of
manuals containing the latest information. Distributed knowledge
and interconnectedness have replaced the structure of top-down
command. The system described above contains many mediating
components that allow for highly efficient wars.
Examples similar to the relative annihilation of the infamous
(and ineffective) Scud missiles can be given from other episodes
of the Gulf War, including the 100 hours of the so-called ground
battle. This battle displayed the deadly force of artillery and
tanks, the power of modeling and simulation, and major planning
and testing methods independent of literacy-based military
strategy and tactics. The enemy consisted of an army structured
on the principles derived from the pragmatic framework of
literacy: centralized line of command, rigid hierarchy, modern
military equipment integrated in a war plan that was essentially
sequential and deterministic, and based on a logic of long-term
encounters.