zenpundit.com

[ by Charles Cameron — iconic images, riot police, compare and contrast, repetition with variation ]

First, let’s be clear that both these images have been widely considered iconic.

Thus NPR reported of the first photo:

There have been countless accounts of violence recorded during the uprisings in Egypt but the image that perhaps has captured the most attention is the most recent. The image has been widely referred to as the “girl in the blue bra.”

While Real Clear Politics quotes Michael Moore on the second:

“The images have resonated around the world in the same way that the lone man standing in front of the tanks at Tiananmen Square resonated. It is an iconic movement in Occupy Wall Street history,” Michael Moore declared on MSNBC’s “Last Word” program.

Moore was referring to police pepper spraying students at an “Occupy” protest at UC Davis.

So we have two similarities between the two images: they both show police in riot gear taking action against demonstrators, and they have both caught the public eye as somehow being representations that can “stand in” for the events they seek to portray.

Beyond that, it’s all compare and contrast territory — or variations on a theme, perhaps — and different people will find different reasons to attack or defend the demonstrators or the police in one, the other, or both cases.

1.

These are, for many of us, “home” and “away” incidents, to borrow from sports terminology, and some of our reactions may reflect our opinions in general of what’s going on in Egypt, or in the United States.

We may or may not know the rules of engagement in effect in either case, on either side.

In a way, then, what the photos tell us about those two events, in Tahrir Square and on the UC Davis campus, may tell us much about ourselves and our inclinations, too.

2.

As I’ve indicated before, I am very interested in the process of comparison and contrast that the juxtaposition of two images — or two quotes — seems to generate. And I’ve quoted my friend Cath Styles, too:

A general principle can be distilled from this. Perhaps: In the very moment we identify a similarity between two objects, we recognise their difference. In other words, the process of drawing two things together creates an equal opposite force that draws attention to their natural distance. So the act of seeking resemblance – consistency, or patterns – simultaneously renders visible the inconsistencies, the structures and textures of our social world. And the greater the conceptual distance between the two likened objects, the more interesting the likening – and the greater the understanding to be found.

I’d like to examine these two particular photographs, then, not as images of behaviors we approve or disapprove of, but as examples of juxtaposition, of similarity and difference — and see what we might learn from reading them in a “neutral” light.

3.

What I am really trying to see is whether we can use analogy — a very powerful mental tool — with something of the same rigor we customarily apply to questions of causality and proof, and thus turn it into a method of insight that draws on our aha! pattern recognition and analogy-finding intuitions, rather than the application of inductive and deductive reason.

And that requires that we should know more about how the mind perceives likenesses — a topic that is often obscured by our strong emotional responses — you’re making a false moral equivalence there! or look, one’s as bad as the oither, and it’s sheer hypocrisy to suggest otherwise!

So among other things, we’re up against the phenomenon I call “sibling pea rivalry” — where two things, places, institutions, whatever, that are about as similar as two peas in a pod, have intense antagonism between them, real or playful — Oxford and Cambridge, say, and I’m thinking here of the Boat Race, or West Point and Annapolis in the US, and the Army-Navy game.

Oxford is far more “like” Cambridge than it is “like” a mechanic’s wrench, more like Cambridge than it is a Volkswagen or even a high school, more like it even than Harvard, Yale, Princeton or Stanford — more like it than any of the so-called “redbrick universities” in the UK — so like it, in fact, that the term “Oxbridge” has been coined to refer to the two of them together, in contrast to any other schools or colleges.

And yet on the day of the Boat Race, feelings run high — and the two places couldn’t seem more different. Or let me put that another way — an individual might be ill-advised to walk into a pub overflowing with partisans of the “dark blue” of Oxford wearing the “light blue” of Cambridge, or vice versa.  Not quite at the level of the Zetas and the Gulf Cartel, perhaps, but getting there…

4.

So one of the things I’ve thought a bunch about is the kind of analogy that says a : A :: b : B.

As in: Egyptian cop is to Egyptian protester as UC Davis cop is to UC Davis protester.

Which you may think is absolutely right — or cause for impeachment — or just plain old kufr!

And I’ve figured out that the reason people often have different “takes” on that kind of analogy — takes so different that they can get extremely steamed about it, and whistle like kettles and bubble over like pots — has to do with the perceptual phenomenon of parallax, whereby some distances get foreshortened in a way that others don’t.

5.

So my thought experiment sets up a sunken garden — always a pleasure, with two video cameras observing it, as in this diagram:

And from the two cameras, the respective views look like this:

In this scheme of things, Aa (Oxford) seems very close to Bb (Cambridge) seen from the viewpoint of camera 1 — but from camera 2’s standpoint, Aa (Oxford) and Bb (Cambridge) are at opposite ends of the garden, and simply couldn’t be father apart.

6.

Now, my thinking here is either so obvious and simple as to be a platitude verging on tautology — or one of those subtle places where the closer examination of what looks tautological and obvious leads to the emergence of a new insight, a new “difference that makes a difference” in Bateson’s classic phrase.

And clearly, I hope that the latter will prove to be the case here.

7.

What can we learn from juxtapositions? What can we learn from our agreements about specific juxtapositions — and what can we learn from our specific disagreements?

Because it’s my sense that samenesses and differences both jump out at us, as Cath Styles suggested — and that both have a part to play in understanding a given juxtaposition or proposed likeness.

Each juxtaposition will, in my view, suggest both a “sameness” and a “difference” — in much the same way that an arithmetic division of integers, a = qd + r, gives both quotient and dividend.

And then we have two or more observers of the juxtaposition, who may bring their own parallax to the situation, and have their own differences.

8.

Tahrir is to Tienanmen as Qutb is to Mao?

Or is pepper spray just a food additive?

And how do icons become iconic anyway? Are they always juxtapositions, cops against college kids, girl vs napalm, man against line of tanks?  Even in the iconic photo of Kennedy from the Zapruder film, the sudden eruption of violence into the stateliness of a presidential parade is there — a morality play in miniature.

Any thoughts?

“Let the Wookiee win….”

Warning! Thinking out loud in progress…..

Strategy is often described as the alignment of “Ends-Ways-Means” and “planning” to achieve important goals and several other useful definitions related to matters of war, statecraft and business.  That great strategists have come in many forms, not just between fields but demonstrating tremendous variance within them – ex.  George  Marshall vs. Alexander the Great vs. Carl von Clausewitz – indicates that strategic thinking is a complex activity in terms of cognition.

What are some of the mental actions that compose “strategic thinking” or “making strategy”? A few ideas:

• Recognition of important variables
• Assessment of the nature of each variable
• Assessment of the relative importance of each variable
• Assessment of the relationships among the variables
• Assessment of the relationship between the variables and their strategic environment
• Assessment of current “trajectory” or trend lines of variables
• Assessment of costs to effect a change in the position or nature of each variable
• Assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the variables as a functioning system
• Recognition of systemic “choke points”, “tipping points” and feedback loops.
• 
  
• Probabilistic estimation
• Logical reasoning
• Introspection 
• Extrapolation
• Simplification
• Metacognition
• Horizontal Thinking
• Insight
• Imagination (esp. at “grand strategic” level)
• 
  
• Logistical estimation of costs
• Normative evaluation of potential benefits
• Understanding of temporal constraints
• Recognition of opportunity costs
• Recognition of boundary conditions
• Recognition of physical constraints of strategic environment (terrain, weather, distance etc.)
• Recognition of patterns in the history of the strategic environment
• 
  
• Net assessment of the maximum capabilities of a political community (first ours, then theirs)
• Understanding of organizational structure of a political community
• Recognition of stakeholders in the political community 
• Understanding of decision making process of the political community
• Understanding the power relationships of the decision making process of the political community
• Understanding the distribution of resources within the political community
• Recognition of the touchstone points of the cultural identity of the political community (positive and negative) and worldview
• Assessment of morale of the political community and the community’s moral code
• Assessment of psychology of individual adversary decision makers
• Identification of points of comparative advantage
• Recognition of how different bilateral outcomes/shifts will affect third parties
• Assessment of relationship between the adversaries and between them and third parties

This list is not comprehensive. In fact, I have a question for the readership, particularly those with military service and/or a good grasp of military history:

Where do the interpersonal skills or “emotional intelligence” abilities that comprise the activity we term “leadership” fit into strategic thinking? Or is it a separate but complementary suite of talents? We often assume that great strategists are the great leaders, but we tend to forget all of the generals who were popular yet mediocre in the field and gloss over the human faults of those who won great glory.

I have some ideas but I would like to hear yours. Or any additional suggestions or comments you would care to make.

[by Charles Cameron — on warfare and social media ]

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Al-Shabaab‘s media wing now has a twitter interlocutor from the Kenyan Army…

as the Islamic Emirate (Afghan Taliban) does from the ISAF Press Office:

Is this just “silliness”, as @Rory_Medcalf tweeted — or is there something fresh and with potential going on?  I’m thinking of richer social media initiatives, like Leah Farrall‘s conversations with Abu Walid, here, too…

[ by Charles Cameron — recursion as form — this one’s for analysts: poets should know it already ]

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We spend far too much time on content, and not enough time on form.

We spend far too much time on the data, and not enough time on relationships. It is pattern that connects the dots with accuracy, not more dots – quality of insight, not quantity of information.

And pattern is underlying form.

Haiku is a form. The sonnet is a form, the sonata is a form. And just to juxtapose sonnet and sonata is to recognize the formal relationship between them.

1.

Recursion is the form that Doug Hofstadter explores in his book, Godel Escher Bach, and you’ll find it every time one mirror reflects another mirror (what color does a chameleon turn when placed on a mirror?), every time there’s a doll inside a doll inside a Matrioshka doll, often in the form of a paradox (“this sentence is meaningless”) – and when people take photos of themselves holding photos of themselves…

as in the pic of Noam Chomsky and Morris Halle and (in case your politics doesn’t agree so much with Chomsky) the one below them of Jacob Appelbaum and Donald Knuth in my “specs” image at the top of this post.

2.

Content can be powerful, but form really doubles up on the power. Here’s one way of thinking about it: form is what tightens information into meaning.

A couple of news reports in the last couple of days have caught my attention because of their form:

Charter of Open Source Org is Classified, CIA Says

Open Source Works, which is the CIA’s in-house open source analysis component, is devoted to intelligence analysis of unclassified, open source information. Oddly, however, the directive that established Open Source Works is classified, as is the charter of the organization. In fact, CIA says the very existence of any such records is a classified fact.

“The CIA can neither confirm nor deny the existence or nonexistence of records responsive to your request,” wrote Susan Viscuso, CIA Information and Privacy Coordinator, in a November 29 response to a Freedom of Information Act request from Jeffrey Richelson of the National Security Archive for the Open Source Works directive and charter.

“The fact of the existence or nonexistence of requested records is currently and properly classified and is intelligence sources and methods information that is protected from disclosure,” Dr. Viscuso wrote.

This is a surprising development since Open Source Works — by definition — does not engage in clandestine collection of intelligence. Rather, it performs analysis based on unclassified, open source materials.

That’s hilarious, it’s so misguided: I don’t know whether to laugh or barf (not a word I ever expected to use in my writings, but there you go).

3.

That’s sad, this one’s just plain tragic:

Protesters calling for religious tolerance attacked with stones, threatened with death

Police are investigating a violent attack on a ‘silent protest’ calling for religious tolerance, held at the Artificial Beach to mark Human Rights Day.

Witnesses said a group of men threw rocks at the 15-30 demonstrators, calling out threats and vowing to kill them.

One witness who took photos of the attacked said he was “threatened with death if these pictures were leaked. He said we should never been seen in the streets or we will be sorry.”

Killing your enemies for reasons of religion is one thing: killing those who work for peace between you and your religious enemies is no worse of the face of it – it’s religious killing, no more and no less, in both cases — but it drives the point home with considerable, poignant force.

Keep your eye out for recursion, it’s an interesting business. And respect form – it empowers content.

4.

You’ll find recursion right at the heart of Shakespeare: his plays were performed in a round theater (the “wooden O” of Henry V) called the Globe, whose motto was “totus mundus agit histrionem” – roughly, “the whole world enacts a play” – a notion which Shakespeare put into the mouth of the melancholy Jaques in As You Like It:

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts…

A martial version of this idea, indeed, can be found in the philosopher Plotinus, who wrote in his Enneads (3.ii.15):

Men directing their weapons against each other — under doom of death yet neatly lined up to fight as in the pyrrhic sword-dances of their sport — this is enough to tell us that all human intentions are but play, that death is nothing terrible, that to die in a war or in a fight is but to taste a little beforehand what old age has in store, to go away earlier and come back the sooner. So for misfortunes that may accompany life, the loss of property, for instance; the loser will see that there was a time when it was not his, that its possession is but a mock boon to the robbers, who will in their turn lose it to others, and even that to retain property is a greater loss than to forfeit it.

Murders, death in all its guises, the reduction and sacking of cities, all must be to us just such a spectacle as the changing scenes of a play; all is but the varied incident of a plot, costume on and off, acted grief and lament. For on earth, in all the succession of life, it is not the Soul within but the Shadow outside of the authentic man, that grieves and complains and acts out the plot on this world stage which men have dotted with stages of their own constructing.

5.

I thought it would be interesting to see if recursion had power, too, in the field of religion, and this passage from Ephesians (4.8) sprang to mind…

When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men…

That’s a lovely recursion, “leading captivity captive”. But I think we can go deeper. John Donne‘s sonnet Death be not proud reaches to the very heart of the Christian message, it seems to me –it parallels the passage from Ephesians closely, while focusing in on the hope of resurrection with its stunning conclusion:

Death, thou shalt die.

Here’s the whole thing: profound content in impeccable form:

Death be not proud

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell’st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

6.

What do you think?

[ by Charles Cameron, h/t Mike Few — bananas, cucumbers, tomatos and piano legs as sexual objects, reading the world as a book, Iraq recently, Shakespeare a while back, Robert Hooke ]
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Louis XV grand piano legs, hard maple. Image credit: http://www.balaams-ass.com/grandlegs.htm

MikeF in a comment on my post, Let me put my banana in your fruitbasket, pointed us to his Small Wars Journal article The Break Point: AQIZ Establishes the ISI in Zaganiayh, in which he reports that the Mujahedeen Shura Council in Iraq passed out propaganda pamphlets providing “instruction on the proper actions of good Muslims” in preparation for the establishment of an Islamic State of Iraq. One example of “proper actions” given was as follows:

One cannot eat tomatoes and cucumbers together because one is male and the other is female. This action is immoral. Failure to comply will result in death.

Think long and hard on that one!

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By way of light relief:

Frederick Marryat‘s 1839 book A Diary in America, in which he describes (as his title stipulates) American, not British, customs, seems to be the source of the idea that the (British, the urban legend having undergone a transatlantic metamorphosis here) Victorians covered the Legs (think: ankles, see diagram above) of their pianos for modesty’s sake.

Marryat, a credulous fellow as Matthew Sweet describes him in his Inventing the Victorians (p. xiii.), may well have been being teased when told this tale by his American friends. In any case, he reported that in an American girl’s school he visited, the head mistress “to preserve in their utmost purity the ideas of the young ladies under her charge” had “dressed all four limbs” of the school piano “in modest little trousers, with frills at the bottom of them!”

“Was this practice ever pursued, even in America?” Sweet asks sweetly, and answers himself: “Probably not.” And further, “whatever the case, the synecdochic relationship that now exists between Victorian sensibilities and the clothed piano leg is wholly fraudulent.”

Sweet is marvelous on this whole business, going on about it for pages. Most useful for my own purposes is his quotation from Richard Sennett‘s (1986) The Fall of Public Man, which argues:

that cultural change, leading to the covering of the piano legs, has its roots in the very notion that all phenomena speak, that human meanings are immanent in all phenomena.

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And a tad more seriously…

Interestingly enough, that very notion is indeed to be found in Islam, where the Qur’an asserts that nature is to be read like a scripture. In the words of Seyyed Hossein Nasr:

The Quran refers constantly to the world of nature as well as to the human order. The sky and the mountains, the trees and animals in a sense participate in the Islamic revelation, through which the sacred quality of the cosmos and the natural order is reaffirmed. The sacred scripture of Islam refers to the phenomena of nature as ayat (“signs” or “portents”), the same term used for its verses and the signs that appear within the soul of human beings according to the famous verse: “We shall show our portents (ayat) upon the horizons and within themselves, until it be manifest unto them that it is the Truth” (41:53). Natural phenomena are not only phenomena in the current understanding of the term. They are signs that reveal a meaning beyond themselves. Nature is a book whose ayat are to be read like the ayat of the Quran; in fact, they can only be read thanks to the latter, for only revelation can unveil for fallen man the inner meaning of the cosmic text. Certain Muslim thinkers have referred to the cosmos as the “Quran of creation” or the “cosmic Quran” (al-Qur’an al-takwini), whereas the Quran that is read every day by Muslims is called the “recorded Quran” (al-Qur’an al-tadwini). The cosmos is the primordial revelation whose message is still written on the face of every mountain and tree leaf and is reflected through the light that shines from the sun, the moon, and the stars. But as far as Muslims are concerned, this message can only be read by virtue of the message revealed by “the recorded Quran.”

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This view is not solely an Islamic one: Duke Senior, exiled to the Forest of Arden in Shakespeare‘s As You Like It (Act II Scene 1) declares:

And this our life: exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

And if Shakespeare be considered too worldly a source, here is Hugh of St. Victor (twelfth century):

For this whole visible world is a book written by the finger of God, that is, created by divine power … But just as some illiterate man who sees an open book looks at the figures but does not recognize the letters: just so the foolish natural man who does not perceive the things of God outwardly in these visible creatures the appearances but does not inwardly understand the reason. But he who is spiritual and can judge all things, while he considers outwardly the beauty of the work inwardly conceives how marvellous is the wisdom of the Creator.

More recently and less theologically, the scientist Robert Hooke (1635 – 1703), friend of Robert Boyle and discoverer of Hooke’s Law, wrote that in the interests of science it was:

much to be wisht for and indeavored that there might be made and kept in some Repository as full and compleat a Collection of all varieties of Natural Bodies as could be obtain’d, where an Inquirer might be able to have recourse, where he might peruse, and turn over, and spell, and read the Book of Nature, and observe the Orthography, Etymologia, Syntaxis, and Prosodia of Natures Grammar, and by which, as with a Dictionary, he might readily turn to and find the true Figures, Composition, Derivation, and Use of the Characters, Words, Phrases and Sentences of nature written with indelible, and most exact, and most expressive Letters, without which Books it will be very difficult to be thoroughly a Literatus in the Language and Sense of Nature.

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All of which is to say that it may be unwise to read spiritual texts in too literal a manner.