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MILITARISMIn War Spirit (1962), Goodman seeks to uncover why the North American public is so susceptible to military propaganda, using Cold War militarization as the model. He argues that the government is always prone to maintain the military mega machine for economic interests and that the public should never believe the government’s lies about goals of disarmament until actual preparations have been undertaken in that direction. He argues that the “war spirit” is promoted throughout the public’s life, which ensures discrimination, nationalism, and violence. He believes there are several reasons why the public is susceptible to the “war spirit” mindset. First, he argues that urbanism promotes competition not happiness. Additionally, the criminalization of physical aggression prevents any outlet. Thus, “since one cannot be angry, one cannot be affectionate.” (War Spirit, 1962) Second, he states that the “urban-technological-economical-political complex” (i.e. capitalism) results in people not being in control of their own lives. For instance, workers do not make any decisions about the product, process, utility, or distribution of goods. Everything is bureaucratized. Likewise, the American political system is not based on true democracy and is very top-down with no community control. “Voters decide not issues or policies but the choice between equivalent Front personalities.” Competition for success destroys all spontaneity and results in people acting not for happiness but for emulation of the social construction of success. All of this conformity is enforced through police surveillance. This helplessness, from the lack of community self-sufficiency and control is manifested through the theory of masochism (which he bases on Wilhelm Reich), resulting in violence and support for offensive military destructiveness. (War Spirit, 1962) Third, commercialized popular culture and advertising results in feelings of self-disgust and powerlessness to end that way of life, since it is everywhere. As such, the war spirit is a culturally created wish to commit suicide in mass. (War Spirit, 1962) Also, he criticizes the media for its purification and sterilization of violence. Like Noam Chomsky, he argues that the media constructs reality and that the US constructs enemies to maintain a justification for military expansion and weapon development. Goodman argues that the media is a major conduit for this military propaganda. For instance, he discusses how movies make the public especially susceptible to military propaganda, since the bright screen and dark theatre tend toward fascination and hypnosis (Goodman, Liberation, 1961). “Brinkmanship and playing chicken and the testing of bigger firecrackers – however stupid and immediately rejectable by common reason – are nevertheless taken as most serious maneuvers.” This is shown through the public’s use of the inclusive rhetoric of “we” to indicate military decisions of the US government. The sterilization of war and war-games theory allows the public to have forbidden satisfaction in violence while diminishing responsibility through air instead of ground war. “Games-theory has the mechanical innocence of a computer.” (War Spirit, 1962) The military mega-machine spurs machoism and hyper-masculinity, as all tenderness and emotional attachment is regarded as weakness. “Psychologically, our ‘tough’ warriors live by a conceit of themselves as strong, to ward off the anguish of their spirits broken by authorities they could not face up to; and a conceit of themselves as hard, to ward off loss of love and fear of impotence” (Goodman, Liberation, 1961). Goodman argues that the societal steps that must be taken to end the “war spirit” are as follows: First, decentralization in all elements of society to increase community control and diminish feelings of helplessness and hopelessness; second, promotion of individual enterprises with less focus on work; third, ending sex and morality laws to allow for discharge of energy; fourth, the promotion of useful not busy work, utilizing more of a person’s capabilities; fifth, education focusing on useful skills surrounding technology, to enliven creativity and inventiveness; sixth, promotion of culture and a greater self to give people meaning; seventh, support for confrontation and minimal violence, to prevent built-up hostility resulting in explosive destructiveness. These changes, he believed, would give more meaning to life and result in less public support for militarism and collective suicide. (War Spirit, 1962) On an individual or social movement level of analysis, Goodman’s solution is to wage peace, not war, since the “war spirit” is merely a societal construction that can be changed. “Factual exposure of the political and corporate operations of war society, and psychological and social analysis of its war ideology and spirit ought to disattach and release the energy that had been bound up in conventional symbols and habits of life” (Goodman, Liberation, 1961). “War feeds on the inhibition of normal aggression,” thus social movements ought to find pacifist actions for this released energy (Goodman, Liberation, 1961). For example, refusing is necessary, he argues, when people are required to engage directly in some process of war-making. Additionally, he argues any type of group should use nonviolent direct action. “Any instance of this, even if it fails, is proof of the feasibility of the pacifist position, for it shows that sensible and moral individual and small-group action is possible, and thereby it diminishes our masochistic paralysis in the face of an approaching doom ‘too big for men to cope with’…. For the resistance to modern warfare is natural and universal; the arguments against pacifism are weak; and the spirit of war is reducible by analysis; but what is needed is stories, examples, and opportunities for action concrete….” (Goodman, Liberation, 1961) ECOLOGY AND SCIENCEGoodman was strongly concerned with ecology, and his main arguments about the subject were already formulated by 1960 (Stoehr 1990), as a form of geo-piety (Knapp 1997). By 1970 Goodman was speaking of the environment in terms of "delicate sequences and balances." Following Rachel Carson, Goodman criticized chemical pest control. Goodman referred in 1970 to a "tribe in Yucatan" that "educates its children to identify and pull up all weeds ... then what is left is a garden of useful plants that have chosen to be there" (Knapp 1997). A simplified and modest technology would permit "the environment to persist in its complexity, evolved for a billion years" (Goodman, New Reformation, 1970, p. 12-13). This rhetoric causes some to call Goodman an "ecosystemicist" (Knapp 1997). However, he saw through the rhetoric of “sustainable development,” which, he argued, mortgaged the present to the future (Goodman, Crazy Hope and Finite Experiences, 1994, p. 66-67). He also carried a strong adaptationist, evolutionary perspective (Knapp 1997). “The complexity makes nature unpredictable, even to systems science; therefore decision-making involving the environment must be decentralized, modest, and subject to continual adjustment. In this context, both positivist experimental methods and natural history methods have validity in appropriate situations” (Goodman, New Reformation, 1970, p. 12-15). Goodman argued that scientific advancement has value in its adventurousness, but that scientists should follow certain ethical responsibilities: First, all research findings should be made public and replicable. Second, there should be international cooperation on scientific and technological advancements. Third, science should not be directed for non-scientific purposes, such as military, national glory, or economic profits. Fourth, scientists should refuse to cooperate on development of bad technology. Fifth, they should evaluate and criticize the applications of their technology development. Sixth, they should explore the potential effects of their technology application and make such research public. Finally, they should engage in political activity intended to undo the damage of the technology they have helped create. (Goodman, “Responsibility of Scientists,” 1968) Directory: uploads uploads -> 587 Return function, r i(X) r i(0) r i(1) r i(2) r i(3) 1 0 2 4 6 Thermal Station, I 2 0 1 5 6 3 0 3 5 6 10 uploads -> Department of science and humanities department of mathematics part-a questions and answers uploads -> The Case Against the nypd’s Quota-Driven ‘Broken Windows’ Policing What Is It? uploads -> For want of a nail uploads -> Ownership Models There are two different types of ownership models uploads -> Police Militarization uploads -> City of rising star regular meting thursday, july 14, 2016 uploads -> Township of winfield uploads -> Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act of 2014 uploads -> The Black Panther Party’s Ten-Point Program What We Want Now! Download 5.81 Mb. Share with your friends:
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