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Wikileaks has made the news once again for leaking confidential documents. This latest batch consists of 251,287 cables from Unites States embassies. While most of the documents are not classified, some are and this is a matter of concern to American officials.
While there are various legal concerns regarding these documents, my main concern is with the ethics of this leaking. I will consider various arguments in the course of the discussion.
One argument in favor of the leak is the classic Gadfly Argument (named in honor of Socrates because of his claim to the role of the gadfly to the city of Athens). The gist of the argument is that the people in government need to be watched and criticized so as to decrease the likelihood that they will conduct and conceal misdeeds in shadows and silence.
Given that governments have an extensive track record of misdeeds, it certainly makes sense to be concerned about what the folks running the show might really be doing under the cloak of secrecy and national security. If it is assumed that being part of the government does not exempt these people from moral accountability, then it would seem to follow that leaking their misdeeds is, in general, a morally acceptable action. After all, it would seem to be rather absurd to argue that people have a moral right to keep their misdeeds a secret.
The obvious reply to the Gadfly Argument is that even if it is granted, it does not cover all of the leaked material. After all, not all of the material deals with moral questionable activities that should be thus exposed to the light of day. As such, more would be needed to justify such a leak.
A second obvious argument is based on the assumption that in a democracy the citizens have a moral right to know what the folks in the government are doing in their name. This right can be based on the idea that the citizens are collectively responsible for the actions of their government and hence have a right (and need) to know what is actually going on. This right could also be based on the notion that the citizens need to be properly informed so as to make decisions. Since power comes from the people, one might argue that the people have a right to know about how that power is exercised and the information to (in theory) exercise it wisely.
To use a specific example, given the support the United States provides to Saudi Arabia, the citizens of the United States would seem to have a right to know that the Saudis provide funding to anti-American terrorist groups. That information seems quite relevant in deciding how we should deal with Saudi Arabia and to conceal such things from citizens seems to be rather wrong.
To use another example, given the truckloads of public money being dumped into Afghanistan, the American public (and the world) would seem to have the right to know about the widespread corruption.
The obvious reply to this approach is to contend that the good of the people sometimes requires that the state keep secrets from them and others. In support of this, the usual sort of utilitarian argument can be trotted out: to create the most good for the people (and, of course, the world) the United States must sometimes engage in secret activities that might cause problems if they were known. However, this secrecy is justified for the greater good that it creates.
This argument does have significant appeal. After all, the main function of a state is to protect the citizens and ensure the good of the people. This might (and perhaps often does) require actions that might be morally questionable or at least rather embarrassing. As such, for the good of the people, these things must be concealed. Diplomacy, it can be contended, requires considerable duplicity, two-faced behavior and various social games that require secrecy. In this regard, diplomacy between diplomats is very much like diplomacy between friends and co-workers: to get along it is sometimes best that we do not know everything we really think about each other. As such, these leaks could be harmful to international relations and thus the leaking might be wrong.
There are also legitimate reasons to conceal things that are not morally questionable or embarrassing. For example, military secrets or details of intelligence operations seems to fall under the realm of things that can generally be legitimately kept secret. Such leaks could be morally wrong.
This discussion leads to my final point. Given that there can be legitimate grounds for secrecy and real harms arising from leaks, there is a clear need to judge what to leak and what not to leak with due wisdom and moral authority. While the folks at Wikileak claim that they review the documents, it is still a matter of grave concern as to how well the material is assessed before leaking. After all, leaking information about vile misdeeds or exposing wicked deceptions is laudable. Leaking information that undermines attempts to resolve conflicts peacefully or puts people at risk needlessly is certainly morally dubious at best.
Determining who should decide what should be known and what should be secret is a rather difficult matter. Naturally, the folks in the government are likely to be biased and hence their judgment cannot be completely trusted. I have my doubts about the wisdom and moral authority of the folks at Wikileaks, but the need for gadflies does seem clear. However, it would be nice to have gadflies as wise and as ethical as Socrates.
Thanks for the post Mike. I think you’ll need to expand on your doubts concerning the moral authority of Assange et al. I contributed money to Wikileaks earlier this year, and I have been both impressed and gratified by the work they’ve done in exposing American military atrocities (among other things). As far as I’m concerned, their moral authority comes from their utility at bringing about the good. I hope organizations like Wikileaks can tilt the table towards sanity, because most living institutions are either inefficient or irreparably corrupt. I believe that the next 50 years are going to be a turning point in human history, so I have high hopes for Assange’s project, among others.
I suppose that you might dispute those highly speculative premises, though, and it would be understandable if you were to do so. Still, putting all that aside — if nothing else, Wikileaks have been useful at smoking out politicians like Tom Flanagan (an advisor to the Canadian PM), who recently advocated for the assassination of Mr. Assange. I want to know who in my government openly despises human life and liberty, so that I can pamphlet and petition against them. It is so much easier when those figures launch themselves into the spotlight.
But no matter where one stands when it comes to the politics, there are other arguments in information ethics that are worth considering. One position would argue that information ought to be free in principle. This radical-sounding doctrine, associated with the “2600 Magazine” crowd and Kevin Mitnick/80′s hacker crowd, would tell us that we’re entitled to information, full stop, end of story.
I doubt that I would endorse this radical view. (Probably not, since I endorse the harm principle.) But some have endorsed it, and some who are involved in media ethics have tried to get their heads around it. And — most importantly — it’s just an interesting view. So it’s worth trying to research, articulate, and criticize it in its stronger forms.
Whoa. You say there, “can be legitimate grounds for secrecy” !?!
You’ve GOT to be kidding me !!!!
Perhaps people have forgotten when Plato touched upon the subject of anonymity and morality in his parable of the ring of Gyges:
That mythical ring gave its owner the power of invisibility, and Plato observed that even a habitually just man who possessed such a ring would become a thief, knowing that he couldn’t be caught. Morality, Plato argues, comes from full disclosure; without accountability for our actions we would all behave unjustly.
Thusly, FULL DISCLOSURE !!
I’m not sure you’re right when you say Wikileaks is doing the leaking. Wikileaks has received the information that was leaked from US government sources. The damage had been done by the time the stuff got to Wikileaks.
Secondly, if you accept that governments have a responsibility to do certain things in secret for the greater good, surely they have an equal obligation to keep those things secret. To allow a quarter of a million documents to be visible to a single individual who could then download them (in Afghanistan it seems), is hardly doing a good job to protect those secrets.
Mike sums it up for me in his last two paragraphs.
Sometimes leaking is justifiable; sometimes not.
I, like Mike, have my doubts if the people at Wikileaks review the documents with wise criteria before publishing them, and like Mike, I distrust governments and suspect that they will only disclose information which suits their interests.
Since DIK 909 cites Plato’s Republic, maybe we need a group of philosophers to evaluate which
documents should be leaked and which documents should not.
By the way, Plato does not argue for full disclosure in the Republic, but that the wise man, even if invisible, will never be unjust.
Extensive transparency in government is the ethical choice. If we allow tyrants like Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld to operate under a cloak of secrecy, then they are free to do whatever they like. Why? Because they get to decide what’s secret, and can therefore act with impunity. That’s a recipe for unjust war and all manner of atrocities.
I agree that journalists must strive to minimize harm, but when in doubt, I say tell the truth. Ultimately, if tyrants know that their actions will be publicly disclosed, they’ll do less harm. And when they act unethically, the informed populace can replace them.
Our best weapon against tyranny is truth. Let’s spread it far and wide.
Dik909, if you don’t recall, in Plato’s Republic, Plato actually advocates something that is far and away less than full transparency, for the good of the whole. He advocates outright lies and propaganda.
I’m trying to think of some concrete good that has come about from wikileaks’ government document publications (Not some of their corporate leaks… those have clearly done good). Maybe I’m just not following up on the news enough. Anyone know of any?
Re: Posted by dik909 | December 3, 2010, 12:05 am
“Thusly, FULL DISCLOSURE !!”
Dik909, Is this really you? I mean, are you really who you say you are?
I don’t know the answer to that question, but I do know what has come from government secrecy. Unjust wars, torture, coercion, corruption, etc., etc.
Just as there should be watchdogs over government, there should be watchdogs over the watchdogs.
I read that in Human Rights Watch, there is an independent committee, formed by people from outside the institutional staff, which decides which sensitive material to publish or not.
It would be a good idea if Wikileaks were to adopt a similar policy.
The “watchdogs over the watchdogs” [over the watchdogs...] reasoning seems to invite an endless regress, and I’m not sure it solves anything.
I’m currently reading French philosopher Pierre Rosanvallon’s latest book, which discusses various attempts along those lines since the French revolution.
With (what I take to be) implicit reference to the U.S., one of Rosanvallon’s points (again, this is my understanding) is that no matter which systems you install to counter-balance executive power – these systems, in themselves, never suffice.
The “solution”, however imperfect, to this inescapable dilemma is to never forget that the balancing act is just that: an act, an ongoing process requiring (a critical mass of) vigilant, informed and dedicated citizens and officials. A process – not (just) an institution.
I don’t think that a watchdog over the watchdog entails an infinite regress nor is there any magic formula which dictates how many levels of watchdogs are necessary.
In this specific case, there seems to be one unsupervised, undoubtedly well-intentioned individual, Mr. Assange, who while an excellent watchdog, needs a watchdog over him.
From the point of view of philosophy, I tend to reject the gadfly theory for the immediate reason that Socrates divination for being a busybody came from the Oracle of Delphi, not a set of ethical media standards. “Infinite regress” is another excellent objection. However, there have been some good watchdogs in recent history, such as labor safety boards and medical dispensary information.
The fear about the Wikileaks does not appear to be about issues of national security. The fear is that they expose the character traits of people in government positions. One release describes two world leaders admiring each other’s masculinity and exchanging gifts. Another release tells of a diplomats desire to be accompanied with a voluptuous blonde. Wikileaks is wrong to expose these releases. They do not have the permission of the individuals involved. These exposes will do nothing to help matters of real current international security, such as Korea’s border conflict.
It’s difficult for me to understand the force behind the “infinite regress” (or “watching the watchdogs”) objection. Assange (and the tireless Wikileaks team) aren’t watchdogs, they are a resource for whistleblowers. Wikileaks isn’t a legal institution; Assange has no guns or police batons; we don’t pay him tax money. Unlike the fleet of ambassadors, diplomats, and political figures that are implicated in these cables, Assange represents no army. If we think that Wikileaks demands equal scrutiny, it is because we are lulled by careless thinking.
Still, this is not to deny that there’s a sense in which Assange has to be vetted. We have to trust that Wikileaks is not engaged in libel or slander. If these cables were all fabrications, then that would be a major black eye to the organization, and it would personally erode my trust in them. Wikileaks is a journalistic resource, and we have to be able to trust that the Wikileaks team has journalistic integrity.
Luckily, we have every reason to think the data are veracious. If he were doctoring the cables, then the nations of the world would not be upset or flagging him with espionage or the like — they would just say, these are lies. For when you’re doing damage control on official matters, saying “proposition x is false / unsubstantiated” is the first and easiest thing you can say. It’s quick and painless. It’s also what people want to hear. First and foremost, an audience of taxpaying citizens wants to know the true and the false. So if you skip right past the question of “Is it true?” without even implicitly suggesting that your target is lying/deceitful, you may as well have admitted that they are correct.
And sure enough, as far as I can tell, the nations of the world (and their journalistic mouthpieces) are saying one of two things (or both at once): a) These cables are irrelevant; b) Assange is a national security threat/terrorist/child molester/must be assassinated. They’ve skipped the denial stage and gone right up into the downplay/have a fit stage. That’s instructive.
@Dennis Sceviour:
True, transparency (or, in this case, dirt digging) exposes the character traits of people in government positions, as well as more “objective” information.
But, in the long run, this is just as crucial as exposing matters of national security or more mundane “objective” facts about what people in government are doing.
True, the sexual tastes of an individual rarely have any bearing on his or her suitability for office. More generally, it is unfortunate that people feel the need to uphold the illusion that government officials should, can, and do adhere to super-human standards.
But this doesn’t mean that the moral conduct of officials is irrelevant or that it should not be monitored and communicated. And, quite obviously, a “watchdog” cannot be expected to ask “permission of the individuals involved”. Pretty harmless watchdog, that.
First, there is the issue of assessing the moral, ideological and intellectual fiber of the official. This assessment, after the fact of election, is growing increasingly important as the electoral process itself is growing less dependent upon the candidate’s previous track record and more dependent upon a short-term advertising campaign.
It may turn out that the candidate (already elected) is simply deemed unfit to remain in office. A fact that simply wasn’t available prior to him or her actually taking up office.
It may also turn out, as so often happens, that – in time – power corrupts. Continuous “sniffing” allows a watchdog to pick up signs that an official is no longer a suitable representative of his or her constituency. And these (first?) signs may well come in the form of generally dubious conduct (sexual preferences generally generally not being an issue).
@Benjamin S Nelson:
I agree with the bulk of your argument.
However, I disagree with your initial statement:
“Assange (and the tireless Wikileaks team) aren’t watchdogs, they are a resource for whistleblowers.”
If Wikileaks are not watchdogs, then who or what is?
Rosanvallon gives several examples of early post-revolutionary watchdogs and independent media or publications (newspapers, flyers, magazines, pamflettes…) figure large among these.
The fact that you seem to equate watchdogs with “legal institution[s]“; “police batons”; “tax money”; and “arm[ies]s” illustrates my previous point: the unfortunate tendency to rely exclusively on a fixed, institutionalised counter-balancing system (not least in the U.S., from the founding fathers onward).
In an ideal world, I would support having watchdogs filter the data. But, who gets to select the watchdogs, and how would we know that they haven’t become corrupt or haven’t been coerced or bribed?
Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court are selected by ideologues and one of the justices was known to pal around with the sitting U.S. Vice President. In Iowa, three justices were just voted off the bench for making a controversial ruling.
If our watchdogs were behaving unethically, how would we know?
Ben:
I have no doubt that the cables published by Wikilinks are veracious. That’s not the issue.
In my opinion, some of the cables should not have been published, even if they are veracious.
For example, one of the cables concerns a conversation between ex-Chilean President Michelle Bachelet and Arturo Varenzuela
(an advisor on Latin America to Obama) about Cristina Fernandez, the president of Argentina.
In the conversation, which took place at a dinner, Bachelet suggests to Valenzuela that Fernandez is mentally unstable.
Bachelet, who is no fool, surely knew that Valenzuela would inform his superiors about the conversation. However, Bachelet could never have imagined that the conservation would be leaked to the entire world.
Relations between Chile and Argentina are peaceful now, but
only 30 years ago, they were on the brink of war. If Cristina Fernandez is as unstable as Bachelet (and I) think that she is, then the leaking of that cable may seriously damage relations between Santiago and Buenos Aires.
Assange probably has no idea of the state of relations between Chile and Argentina nor can he be expected to know what goes on in every country in the world. However, any responsible person can be expected to inform him or herself about the possible consequences of publishing sensitive information. That’s why the watchdog, Assange, needs a watchdog.
I worked for an internationally known large company. Whilst I was not at the nerve centre of everything that went on I was nevertheless involved in decisions and forward planning in several areas. Most of this took place behind closed doors where we were free to speak frankly concerning our opinions of others and their capabilities. Yes of course the occasional joke was made never to be mentioned outside the room. Additionally we were involved in discussions as to how things may be more efficiently done how staff could be deployed and so on. We also had to take into consideration how staff would react to alterations in the terms of their employment what was possible what was not possible and what was totally out of the question. The main thrust of all these negotiations was to increase the productivity and efficiency of the Company but staff welfare and training was always an important consideration, Some of this was highly favourable to the staff as individuals and some decisions would result in casualties. Once decisions were reached they were implemented and where necessary discussed with staff representatives before implementation.
My purpose here is an analogy between the interactions of world leaders and those whom they represent and a number of people in a Company whose responsibility is to assist in doing what is best for that company, in this case one of many top players in the financial world.
Were our discussions behind closed doors to be leaked I am sure there would have been chaos. False accusations would have been bandied around, misunderstandings, would have been rampant staff morale would have plummeted. The leaks on Wikipedia seem to me to have similarities here. For this reason I do not see it is possible for there to be complete and utter openness at all times. Mr Obama said Mr Cameron was second rate. Well I am sure neither he nor Mr Cameron would wish that to be made public. It seems to me that the onus is on those who are embarrassed by these leaks to tighten up on their security.
Don’t get the impression I was a big wheel in the Company I was not, but I saw enough to realise that many things need to be kept under wraps until and if they can be made public.
Re: Posted by Bjorn | December 3, 2010, 7:10 pm
“…a watchdog cannot be expected to ask permission of the individuals involved.”
What specifically is your objection? Is it theoretical, or practical?
Bjorn, yes, I can see why the sentence is misleading. I meant it in a different sort of way — that Wikileaks is a venue for whistleblowers, not themselves whistleblowers. I think it probably amounts to nothing.
Amos, my emphasis is rather different, because I think the primary purpose of Wikileaks is to tell the truth. But I see your point. Though I believe in the free press (or internet), I also believe in a reasonable form of the harm principle; e.g., I am not moved to sympathize with those who would engage in acts of treason, or intentionally bring about dire emergency. I don’t think that the craziness of one head of state qualifies as a national emergency, even if it makes things more difficult.
When I say “reasonable form” of the harm principle, I have in mind something like this. We have to keep in mind the difference, I think, between harm that owes to acts and harm that owes to facts. All other things equal, if the harm owes to the facts, then the blame needs to be passed on to those involved in producing those facts, and not to the one who merely speaks to those facts. Although this is a very rough and ready sense of what is reasonable, and it has all kinds of problems attached to it, it is also roughly what I have in mind when we try to keep a sense of proportionality when deliberating on these kinds of issues.
@Dennis Sceviour:
The objection is theoretical (and thus also has practical implications).
You would not want a watchdog that refrained from barking in deference to a burglar (or that awaited the burglar’s permission, perhaps with business completed and escape secured).
More generally – and, I think this qualifies as an axiom – people who have something to hide will not, per definition, willingly give their consent to the disclosure of whatever it is that they are hiding.
So, if it is up to the individual under scrutiny to decide whether the watchdog should publicize his or her findings, then that watchdog is utterly useless (to anyone else).
Ben:
The facts can destroy. A short-time ago, a lad was outed as a homosexual in Facebook and committed suicide.
I’m sure that we all know people who live in a world of fiction and yet we sense that if we tell them the truth, their sense of self will disintegrate.
The facts always must be exposed with discretion and with prudence, and I don’t see either discretion or prudence in Wikileaks.
Amos, you bring up a useful example. Notice I said “all other things equal” in my rough explanation above. One thing that is not equal in the case of the Rutgers student is that he is not an institution or a representative of one.
Bjorn,
I assume the metaphors of watchdogs and burglars refer to the exposure of exorbitant and lavish government spending. In a democratic society, this is supposed to be the role of elected representatives. However, representatives are not dogs that bark at everything in sight. They require specific guidelines for journalism ethics, and they are capable of interpreting them correctly. Specifically, the issue is not about government spending, but about releasing personal information in diplomatic cables.
Your axiom is incomplete in that – people who have nothing to hide will not, per definition, willingly give their consent to the disclosure of whatever it is that they are not hiding. In a world nervous of propaganda and deceit, this is more reason for the enforcement of a permissive ethic in journalism. Further, many world leaders are quite prepared to release their story in an autobiography and expose their personal lives – if they are asked first.
@Dennis Sceviour
You write:
“I assume the metaphors of watchdogs and burglars refer to the exposure of exorbitant and lavish government spending.”
They don’t, actually. I guess that would be a good example, though.
“In a democratic society, this is supposed to be the role of elected representatives.”
I’m not 100 % sure, but I assume “this” refers to watchdog duty? If so, then no, it is NOT the (exclusive) role of elected representatives. That is one of the points I have been trying to make.
“They require specific guidelines for journalism ethics…”
I am confused… journalistic ethics seem neither appropriate nor required or sufficient to impose on elected representatives. (Although ethical guidelines of some form are certainly in order for them as well.)
“…and they are capable of interpreting them correctly.”
This is you expressing an opinion, bordering on wishful thinking. I am quite sure that many officials ARE capable of adhering to appropriate ethical guidelines most of the time. But ALL of them? ALWAYS? I think not. If that were the case, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
You are quite right in pointing out that my “axiom” isn’t reversible. Touche! So, some measure of discretion is advised, on the part of the (conscientious) watchdog. But as has been pointed out previously in this tread, it is (in my view) better to err on the side of exposure.
However, my point remains. To leave it up to the official to decide when and what to reveal – regardless of whether there is anything (damaging) to hide or not – negates the purpose of having a watchdog. It effectively amounts to letting people decide for themselves whether they are guilty or innocent.
(Yes, this is another metaphor. And as I see it, government officials are constantly on trial.)
Your closing sentence makes things very clear:
“…many world leaders are quite prepared to release their story in an autobiography and expose their personal lives – if they are asked first.”
I am sorry, but this sounds naïve. Maybe it is time to agree that we simply disagree on this.
Ben:
I would start from the other end: that public persons have a right to privacy in their dealings, except if there is good reason to believe that they are engaged in
crimes, human rights violations or other actions which transgress basic ethical principles and that only evidence which has to do with said crimes, human rights violations or transgressions of basical principles should be released to public view, for example, published in interent.
Just as I think that private individuals should not be subjected to wiretaping or reading of their emails or interrogation by government security agencies unless there is good reason to believe that they engaged in illicit acts, etc. and they should be examined only about those illicit acts, etc., so too public persons should be exempt from violation of their privacy in their dealings until there is good reason to believe
that they are up to no good, etc.
I think that’s not enough, because government and governance are fundamentally about associations between people. So while people might laugh at the fact that two Eurasian leaders have a bromance, it makes a difference. These people control the world.
Take the following passage. “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty or justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary.” That’s Adam Smith from Wealth of Nations (Book I, Chapter X, Part II). He was talking on the subject of meetings held by those in the same trade, and hence his quote could be invoked by union-busters and anti-capitalists alike. But I would suggest that this prudential sentiment is even more potent when you substitute “members of the same trade” with “the political members of the power elite”.
Ben:
Your point of view is clear. We are not going to agree about the privacy issue, because we have
a different vision of what you call the “power elite”.
From what I can see, people, at least in Western Europe, the U.S., Canada, Australia, Japan, some countries in Latin America (Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, Costa Rica…) have the best system of government in human history, whatever the personal defects of the power elite, and
being a bit conservative, at least more conservative than you are, I am content to let that power elite continue doing its job, unless it gets way of out of line, for example, invading countries in the Middle East under false pretenses.
I fear that those who replace the current power elite (who are no angels) wil be less tolerant, less scrupulous, more war-like, more demagogic, less thoughtful than the current cast of characters.
That does not imply that the current power elite is above criticism, but in general, they should be handled with
care.
Bjorn,
I saw no theoretical basis for your argument. Your practical intention is to eliminate elected representatives of their fiscal responsibilities, and to put them permanently and preemptively on trial for crimes. Your evidence will be dirty-underwear releases from Wikileak cables. You have certainly frightened me away from considering a role as a public spokesperson. We can agree to disagree.
Well I’m not sure my point of view is clear, because I’m not sure whether or not we’re talking about domestic or foreign issues. You, it seems, were referring to the idea of state democracies, and not to international governance. And that’s fine. But I worry, first and foremost (in my posts above) about the associations and conflicts between the governments. I am concerned with the connections they make, the deals they broker, without the consent or briefing/debriefing of any democratic body.
As far as international governance goes, it seems doubtful to me that what we have now is the best form of government in human history. Actually, it is the first time in human history that we’ve had *any* international form of governance. Unless we’ve achieved perfection — which you don’t believe — we shouldn’t presume that the only truly international form of governance that has ever existed in the course of human history is the best one. And because this is a relatively new situation, this is also an area in which conservatism (if it applies at all) would have to demand that the clock tick backwards. Conservatism in this area entails that you be an anti-globalization activist.
Both of us advocate the harm principle, so in that sense, we’re both libertarian. I think you also understand the value of stability, as I do; we would both agree that it is impossible to find happiness amidst chaos and violent revolution.
So how is it that we’ve arrived at a disagreement? This might help: I believe that taking risks on behalf of liberty is the only way to achieve a better stability. I believe that courage in exposing the mechanisms of governance is one mechanism that generally promotes incremental progress. What do you think? Would you agree or disagree?
Ben:
So many questions! I wish that I had a consistent political philosophy in order to answer you.
I had never thought of the United Nations. For me, we live in an empire ruled by the United States, which will be replaced, sooner or later, by another super-power, most likely by China. I’m not in favor of eliminating the U.N., but it’s never going to govern the world. I think that a world without a superpower would tend towards chaos and anarchy.
For me, the United States is a relatively benign world power: the next one could be worse. I can be fervently anti-American, hating not only the U.S. government, but also the American
spirit, the way they talk, the way they walk, their blindness towards the rest of humanity, their inevitable “good intentions”,
their belief that God is on their side, but I recognize that America has a super-ego (not all cultures have one), which limits its brutality and imperial blindness.
No, I don’t think of myself as libertarian. I’m in favor of big government, of the welfare state, of public healthcare. I’m a Keynesian in economic terms. As I stated above, I cannot even imagine a world without a superpower playing international policeman.
Yes, I’m anti-globalization, if by globalization, you mean MacDonalds replacing the national cuisine, Walmart replacing the local grocery store, etc. However, the force of international capitalism seems to push towards a global market, in which the consumer buys the lowest common denominator at the lowest price. I’m a bit of a Marxist.
Your last paragraph seems to sum up our differences. I’m less sure than you are that risks on behalf of liberty, in this case, Wikileaks, will achieve stability; I suspect that they may produce chaos.
Exposing the mechanisms of governance may better things (I would not use the word “progress”), but they may
also undermine institutions which, inspite of their defects, are a force for stability, order and justice.
Ah, sorry for the ambiguity — I wasn’t referring to the UN, I was referring to something slightly more nebulous — the overlapping power structures of G8 nations, post-Cold War.
Of course, America has a central role to play in any explanation of the governing consensus, but they’re codependent on the other nations in important and interesting ways. In this regard, the China-America codependency is too obvious to mention — there’s nothing counterfactual or future-tense about it.
Still, for the sake of argument, let’s call them a superpower, for lack of a better term. There’s something sort of right about that — I mean, there’s no doubt that when the American President shows up to the yearly rotating G8 social club, they carry a lot of power with them.
What’s interesting, for my purposes, is just the structure of that annual social club. The purposes are quite clear: to provide an informal meeting space to align the agendas of wealthy states, East and West alike. At the start, these meetings were primarily attended by the economic ministers of each country, but increasingly (esp during the 80s) the mandate became more political. Over the course of the 35 years that it has existed, the purpose of the summits have been on informality and confidentiality. That’s the whole point: for like-minded heads of state to deliberate without feeling any pressure to represent the interests of their home populations.
I’m not sure the language of the psyche is appropriate to describe entire nations. (I’m not even sure the language of nations makes any sense. But nevermind.) But I don’t doubt that there is this eroding threadbare thing in America that goes by the name of representative democracy, and there’s no point in denying that it exists in some form or other. Fine, good enough; that’s domestic policy. The question is, how do they treat other democracies? Do they villify them, hold them in contempt, when foreign populations make decisions that depart from G8 interests? I think you’ll find they do, as a matter of course.
To say “it could be worse” is perfectly right — but if it were any worse, then it would be because the international order dissolves and we return to the international anarchy that characterized the first half of the twentieth century.
Still: could it be better? My goodness yes. How could you make that happen? By showing these people that if they absorb their politics into their private lives, away from the eyes of the democracies that they ostensibly represent, then the people will — and must — demand to know every last detail about their private lives. It’s a perfectly rational and foreseeable outcome, and I argue here (and must continue to argue, I’m afraid) that there is no moral alternative.
But I’m not an idealist, in the sense that my ideas are immune to facts or consideration of consequences. Quite the opposite. Acts of treason — for example, giving Nazi Germany the blueprint for a nuclear bomb — deserve the highest penalties. But we’re hardly talking about that. So at least for the moment I think that the “instability” argument you’ve offered is weak.
Ben:
For the last few months, I’ve been following the economic crisis in Europe. Some experts say that Spain will meltdown soon, as Greece and Ireland did; some say that Spain is more solid. Maybe
the optimists look at different data than the pessimists; maybe they look at the same data but with another point of view; maybe some experts tend to be more optimistic than others because of their personality structure.
The Spanish economy seems much more simple to model and to predict the course of than the future of democracy on this planet. There are so many variables that come into consideration in speaking of the future of democracy, and of course, the events that no one could have foreseen or that no one foresaw, the first category being events like 9-11, the second being events like the instantaneous collapse of the Soviet Empire.
So my prediction of instability is not really a weak argument, but my impression of what may occur, just as your “rational and foreseeable outcome” is your impression of what may occur, not really an argument.
It would be very pretentious of either of us to claim that we can predict the future course of events. There are many rational and foreseeable outcomes. I suspect that in general, I tend to pessimism about life more than you do. I probably am more pessimistic than you are about the worth of arguments about rational and foreseeable outcomes.
I’ve been reading up a lot about Mr. Assange. I didn’t like him at all in the beginning, but in the last few days, I’ve come to like him more.
I’m afraid I haven’t made myself clear. The phrase, “rational and foreseeable outcome”, refers to the decision to engage in whistleblowing, not stability.
The stability of the global state of governance is not foreseeable, except in broad strokes. For instance, I think it is difficult to deny that America must either make a choice between its legacy as a superpower and being an economically viable state. Another plausible prediction: in the absence of advanced technological discovery, peak oil will destabilize everything.
But still, let’s suppose these predictions are unforeseeable in the details. Well, that would be why we have to engage in broad-based debates about the role of free information in producing stability, instead of avoiding them.
I think skepticism is epistemically responsible, but not prudentially responsive. Epistemology trades in probabilities; prudence trades in risks. And, at least in this context, we are slightly better informed about what is involved in an assessment of risk than we are when we make an assessment of probability. So I can be as skeptical as you are, without it having much impact on what I have said here. At the very least, what I have said here must stand for the moment, in the interest of engaging the issue as far as possible to uncover the best ways to arrive at the most prudential choices.
I understand that you disagree about the risks. But you surely must recognize that by admitting skepticism about the consequences of this kind of free information, you admit that you have no argument on the basis of stability available to you. So you can’t be a skeptic — at least, not deep down. There’s something else driving your intuitions.
I wouldn’t want this to be a question of Assange, by the way — that would be focusing too much on personalities. It’s really a question of Wikileaks, their mission, and the rightness or wrongness of it. My opinion of Assange is mostly beholden to my opinion of Wikileaks.
Ben:
At times you’re over my head. I don’t have the slighest idea what
“epistemology trades in probabilities, prudence trades in risks” means.
However, I think that I explained why I’m skeptical. But once again: I’m skeptical of arguments and analysis about what the future of society, of the world, will bring, because of the increible number of variables involved; because of the possibilites of events which are impossible to foresee or of events which no one foresees given that almost all of us are unable to think outside the box of how our current world functions; because almost all of us tend to extrapolate from the current world situation; because in “foreseeing” the future, it is all too easy to let personality traits like a tendency towards optimism or a tendency towards pessimism color one’s arguments.
What I say is not a philosophical argument: perhaps there is our mutual confusion. When I speak of my skepticism about arguments about the future, I’m not saying that in no instance can one have an idea what the future will bring:
I can with almost certainty tell you what I will eat for dinner tonight.
My skepticism is about speculations about what we might call the big picture: the future of democracy, the future of the American empire, the role of China. One possibility that everyone generally overlooks is that China collapses, either because their economic system is a bubble (who knows?) or because the dictatorship of the Communist Party is unable to contain mass demands for more freedom.
In any case, there are two things which I admire in you, Ben.
One is your ability to separate people from institutions: when I look at Wikileaks, I see Mr. Assange. That may have been my problem with the new atheists: not their arguments, but that I could not stand them as human beings.
The second thing is your ability to maintain the same posture for days on end. In the course of this amiable discussion with you and another about roughly the same topic in another forum, my view of Assange and Wikileaks has changed.
First of all, my view of both is less negative. The harm that they do is minor, a few moments of embarassment for Michelle Bachelet and other world leaders.
On the other hand, Wikileaks has provided us and others with hours of conversation, a true service if there ever was one. It has allowed us a fascinating glimpse into how certain powerful people, those who work at the U.S. State Department, see the world. The people at the CIA may converse in another style, of course.
However, I doubt that Wikileaks will make a big difference. That is my “intuition”, which you refer to above. My intuition is based on my being a bit of a Marxist, as I explained previously. I tend to think that big changes in the world, revolutions in the broadest sense of the word, are driven by economic factors and that having a glimpse of what the powerful really think about X and what they say about Y will not change how the masses of people behave and what they think about what you call the power elite.
But privacy is also a right. How would you feel if someone stole your diary and published it online. However, i agree the public should know what their goverments are up to. Maybe all cables should be published after say 10 years. Also, Wikileaks may be smug but the irony is what they have done will encourage govts to be even more secret and to take precautions by choosing not to record information/messages in digital form.
Re: Posted by amos | December 5, 2010, 4:26 pm
“The harm that they do is minor…”
Amos, I am not sure I agree.
In Plato’s Symposium, debauchery never bothered Socrates and his friends. They were quite capable of conducting a philosophical debate amidst an orgy. However, the issue is not whether philosophers have the right to know, the question is whether the public have the right to know. Socrates was poisoned by the people of city of Athens for blasphemy of the Gods and Goddesses. Not that far away in history, French revolutionaries stood at the base of the guillotine, screaming off with their heads. Even on this webpage, there are postings that indicate people would use the Wikileaks for extortion and blackmail. The unscrupulous will not hesitate to use the Wikileaks for subversive purposes.
Social conditioning plays a part in that there is still a wide difference in values across the globe. As we speak, young women are still being stoned to death for infidelity. They are at the mercy of sensitive dictatorial leaders. The Wikileaks might do a great deal of harm.
However, it appears inevitable that the Wikileaks are here to stay, and the precedent has been set for freedom of information. At this point, we will have to wait to see the outcome. Has humanity matured enough to take it?
Amos, sorry for the quasi-aphasic-sounding jargon.
The idea I was trying to convey in that paragraph is something like this. Suppose we’re arguing about global warming. When I argue that global warming will probably continue into the future, I am open to all kinds of nitty-gritty criticisms. But when I argue that the risk of global warming is dire, I am saying something that is rhetorically more informative and more difficult to refute.
In context, I made this point in order to say that you might not be able to definitely foresee what will happen down the line, but you can still make plausible arguments about what’s at risk and why. See what I mean?
And I made that point as a way of leaving conversation open on the subject of “big picture” developments. I think we (in the broadest possible sense of “we”) need to make it OK to talk about hopes, prospects, and worries about the future (meaning “the future” in the broadest sense). Surely some worries are more plausible than others. Social science is not exact, and often not even in the right ballpark, but it’s not nothing. (I think you’d agree on this, depending on the style of Marxism you’ve got.)
Thanks for the kind words. Always a pleasure.
TD, saying that Wikileaks is smug is like saying my pet brick is hairy. It might make sense to me in my imagination, but it sounds silly if I seriously say it out loud.
An organization has norms, processes, and volunteers. Perhaps the organization seems untouchable. Is that what you meant?
Ben:
Climate change, your example of a possible future, is one of the few future events in the public discourse, which can easily be modeled by hard sciences.
Poltical changes are harder to anticipate or to model. Did anyone, even the critics of the war, foresee in 2003 that the invasion of Iraq might turn it into a client state of Iran?
I called myself “a bit of a Marxist”, not a Marxist. Marxism is a failure at foreseeing the future; a very loose version of Marxism explains aspects of the past and of the present. Often, but not always, class interests and economic factors seem to be behind major political events, although the actors may be, as Marx points out, unconscious that they are “motivated” by said class interests and economic factors and attribute their motivations to idealistic factors such a sense of justice or a desire for freedom.
I put “motivated” in quotation marks because I do not understand how unconscious motivation operates.
The fascinating thing about Wikileaks is the window that it gives us into the mindset of the U.S. State Department. Often one listens to leaders such Obama or Hillary Clinton speak of, say,
the path of Afghanistan towards democracy or Saudi Arabia as a friend of freedom, and one wonders if they really believe that they’re saying, if they live in the same world as we do.
With Wikileaks, one learns that Hillary Clinton and others see the same world as we do, but for often understandable and even justifiable reasons, lie when they address the public.
I’d rather trust people who are making decisions what to reveal, than trust people who are making decisions what to hide.
You have made a nice analysis of the factors surrounding WikiLeaks – freedom of speech (my injection), censorship (my injection), moral responsibility for what to report, the right of the people to see transparency in government actions. Everything in life is about tradeoffs, and where we tip the scale. I would submit that freedom of speech needs to dominate censorship. I would submit that the right of the people to know needs to dominate secrecy in government actions. Those are my (philosophical) arguments. On a pratical and operational level, the press has to do a better job of challenging the government and be allowed to report on matters even if they come from questionable sources (better safe than sorry for the people). To put the responsibility on the press (or WikiLeaks) to make a judgement on what should or should not be reported is wrong and dangerous in my opinion. If they have access to information (whether from deep throats or from leaked documents), I believe they should make it public. That is the responsibility of the press, IMHO.
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