Metaphorical Chaos

My last posting suggested that we could tell that Tom Friedman didn’t really know what he was talking about, because his metaphor – the flat world – was all wrong. But the truth is, I had no clue how wrong. Check this out.

After explaining that the world is flat because accounting firms have tax returns prepared in India, Friedman describes the ten forces that flattened the world. It’s a mish-mosh of recent events – the fall of the Berlin wall, Netscape, Wal-mart, China joining the WTO, Google, and so on. But number ten, the final force that really flattened the hell out of the world, is a group of wireless technologies that get described with another metaphor. So let’s stop and ask ourselves, how would we describe something that really flattened the world? Steamrollers came to my mind. Steamrollers are not particularly sexy or up to date, but they sure flatten stuff. For the more domestically minded, there’s the simple household iron. Irons flatten clothes; they get the wrinkles out. Electric sanders flatten wood; they smooth it out. I like those countertop kitchen grills that press down on sandwiches and make them flat. Or how about road graders and bulldozers that flatten the earth? OK, I’ll admit that none of these devices are consistent with the digital revolution described by Friedman. And remember, he’s a word guy; words are his stock in trade. Words strung into sentences, and paragraphs. And made colorful through the use of metaphors. And so what metaphor does he pick for the ultimate flattener? The Mack daddy motherfucking flattener? According to Tom Friedman, -- Steroids.

Steroids? What the hell do steroids flatten? If anything, steroids make people unflat, all bulked up with muscles bulging out everywhere. But Friedman isn’t content to stop with steroids. In his frenzy to gush about wireless technology, here’s what he says. And, to quote Dave Barry, I’m not making this up. “I call certain new technologies the steroids because they are amplifying and turbocharging all the other flatteners.” This just might be the all-time greatest mixed metaphor. We have the pharmaceutical metaphor, steroids; the electrical metaphor, amplification; and the mechanical engineering metaphor, turbocharging. And not just mixed up. The steroids are amplifying the other flatteners, like Wal-Mart. Steroids making Wal-mart louder. Got that? And after you have that image in your mind’s eye, or wherever you put it, did that somehow help you visualize how the internet is making the world flat? Not strong; not loud; not fast (ok, maybe fast, but that’s just an accident in my opinion.) But flat. Is it clear to you now? Friedman tops Joe Garigiola, who previously held the record for the all time best mixed metaphor, when he announced before a World Series game that, “The chemistry tonight is off the Richter scale!”

Maybe I’ve got it all wrong. Maybe this isn’t a serious book after all, just a bunch of inside jokes about globalization. Or maybe I need a couple more glasses of Talisker before I can appreciate these insights. Or maybe Friedman doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. What do you think?

Thomas Friedman Misses the Point

I’m told that Thomas Friedman has been described as the smartest man in the world, but you could never tell it from his recent book, The World Is Flat. Perhaps he’s has an insight or two that are right on the money, but that’s like a stopped watch being precisely accurate two times every day.

For starters, his basic metaphor is entirely wrong. Friedman wants to emphasize the leveling process that computer technologies have achieved; how the internet makes the sum total of human knowledge available to anyone with a computer and a connection. How open sourcing is creating a democratic bottom-up environment for the creation of software, so different from the proprietary, top-down world of Microsoft. But flat?

If the world were flat, Bangalore would be no closer to Palo Alto than it is now. And there would be some single place that was located at the center of everywhere. Whereas the world Friedman is trying to describe is exactly the opposite. Nowhere is the center of anyplace, and in fact, everyplace is equidistant from everyplace else. Stated otherwise, everywhere is exactly everywhere. It’s all the same place. That’s not a flat surface; I’m not exactly sure what it is, but the first description that comes to mind is a point. So the world isn’t two dimensional. It’s zero dimensional.

Except that it's not really zero-dimensional, because it has depth. Amazingly, in his description of the ten forces that flattened the world, the ten great developments that brought about this democratic and global change we are experiencing, he never once mentions hypertext. Perhaps that’s understandable for a guy who lives and works on the printed page, who still writes a linear column (or book) that is supposed to be read from start to finish, the same way that Gutenberg’s Bible was read. But one of the most remarkable things about the web is that, unlike a book or magazine, a webpage has infinite depth. The reader is not limited by the arbitrary organization of the author, but can, with hypertext, link through to any number of other pages, and from these to another series of pages, and so on, ad infinitum. This depth changes the way the reader uses the page -- even sees the page; hypertext will change cognition. But Friedman doesn’t notice this.

Look at the examples he uses to emphasize the ‘changes’ the internet has brought. Early on, he tells us how Indian accountants are now processing tax returns. Now this may demonstrate that certain businesses are changing the way they produce their work, having folks in India do drudge work that used to be done in local back room operations. But aside from the fact that people are doing the exact same work overseas, instead of in a different room or office, what has changed? Worse is the example on page 79 of how we’ll make dentist appointments – by checking computerized calendars, not hard copy, and by getting e-mail reminders, and computer generated phone messages the night before. This is really nothing at all. Friedman marvels over this scenario, but after you strip away the technology, it’s just having machines do the same old stuff we once did without machines, or maybe with pencils and telephones.

Instead of gushing about global business, Friedman should be wondering about why cell phones and digital cameras got married. Because that’s a sign of some changes that are eventually going to make Friedman and his column, and his book, and his newspapers, and even this blog irrelevant. I’m just an idiot, and not a genius like Friedman, but I think this marriage heralds changes in our very conception of language. Already we see that facets of language – certainly spelling, but also grammar and syntax – are changing or disappearing. If we begin communicating through images, what will happen to language? And beyond that, what will happen to cognition? How will our process of thinking change?

Friedman should have read McLuhan before he undertook to write about the internet. More than forty years ago, before the internet, before laptop computers, before graphical interface, before the mouse, back in the days of punch cards and room-size computers, McLuhan described the global village. And before he became a pop star philosopher, he wrote Understanding Media, which described how media didn’t just change our manner of communicating, but changed us. How the electronic media were moving us away from the linear world, and the linear thought processes of the printed word. McLuhan saw around the corner, and Friedman is really unable to see what’s right in front of him. And worse than that, because he’s ultimately a solipcist, he thinks that what he sees is what is actually going on. From Friedman's perspective there's nothing more to the world than what exists in his very limited perceptions. And unfortunately, those limited perceptions aren’t up to the task he has undertaken.

Machiavelli being Machiavelli

If it were possible to have any meaningful and intelligent debate on public policy in today’s political climate, instead of the kind of shallow and thoughtless partisan bickering that characterizes our public discourse, it would be Machiavelli who would best frame the issues. In his essay, The Originality of Machiavelli, Isaiah Berlin quotes the following passage from the Discourses:

“When it is absolutely a question of the safety of one’s country, there must be no consideration of just or unjust, of merciful or cruel, of praiseworthy or disgraceful; instead, setting aside every scruple, one must follow to the utmost any plan that will save her life and keep her liberty.”

Berlin adds the following explanation of Machiavelli’s thesis: “states which have lost the appetite for power are doomed to decadence and are likely to be destroyed by their more vigorous and better armed neighbors.”

Before accepting that Machiavelli has anything to tell us today, we must ask whether we, as Americans, are under attack. And that question is not whether on September 11 we were under attack, or whether there is a chance that we will experience a repeat of September 11, but whether we face a global conflict which is apt to last generations? If we look back to the first World Trade Center bombing, the attack on the USS Cole, the embassy bombings in Tanzania, the more recent European bombings, and all the declarations of Bin Laden’s followers, is it a fair inference that we are engaged in an active conflict with radical Islamic fascism, one that can be expected to last indefinitely into the future?

If the answer to that question is yes, then, just by way of example, what is the significance of Gitmo or Abu Ghraib? Is it appropriate for us to apply the same principles to our treatment of foreigners captured in the course of this conflict, as we would to U.S. citizens, who have been arrested for violation of U.S. law? Machiavelli would unquestionably say no; different principles apply. Contrast that with the approach of say, Jimmy Carter, who would counsel that U.S. interests must, at all times be subordinated to generalized concerns for human rights. In other words, human rights first, safety of U.S. citizens second. Can these concerns be reconciled? Is it possible to protect ourselves, and simultaneously uphold the principles upon which our nation was founded?

Berlin explains that the most disturbing aspect of Machiavelli’s philosophy is that these two systems of morality are fundamentally incompatible. While the Jimmy Cater worldview is fine for a private citizen – one who seeks to guide his life by humane considerations, outside of the sphere of public life—it is impossible for our leaders to follow these principles and at the same time protect our safety and national interest. Furthermore, it’s wrong to characterize Machiavelli as unprincipled or amoral, because there is a clear virtue to preserving a free and open society. In other words, there is a morality which dictates that a free society should triumph over a repressive and fascistic one. And means that allow that free or virtuous society to so triumph are, therefore, moral and ethical, when viewed in the context of this larger struggle. Thus, it’s not that the means justify the ends; rather, it’s that means which might be unethical in the context of private life, are ethical, if used for the preservation of the state. The same standards simply don’t apply to the two systems.

“Men need rulers because they require someone to order human groups governed by diverse interests, and bring them security, stability, above all protection against enemies….” Thus our leaders must have first of all a clear vision of the need for our way of life to survive. Then, “what ought to be done must be defined in terms of what is practicable and not imaginary.” “The qualities of the lion and the fox are not in themselves morally admirable, but if a combination of these qualities alone will preserve the city from destruction, then these are the qualities which leaders must cultivate.”

I know I’m dreaming to think that political leaders, intellectuals, or policy makers would be guided by the teachings of Machiavelli. The name has become synonymous with a kind of reprehensible amorality. But the truth is that, in the context of the challenges we now face, we ignore these teachings at our peril.