Goin’ Fishing? Not quite, but things here at Deliberately Considered are slowing down for the summer, as I go to teach in the Democracy and Diversity Institute in Wroclaw, Poland, and then to take part in a research project on Regime and Society in Eastern Europe (1956 – 1989) in Sofia, Bulgaria. After three years of regular, often daily, publishing, posts will be less frequent until September. At that time, we will be presenting Deliberately Considered in a new form.

Here some quick thoughts on topics I would like to write about now, but don’t have the time or energy to do so thoroughly.

On Egypt: I am fascinated by the grayness of it all: the unbearable grayness of being? I don’t see heroic figures or villains. Rather I see mortals, tragic figures, facing huge challenges, beyond their capacity to address.

Most objective observers are labeling the latest turn of events as a coup, but that seems to me to be too simple. Equally simplistic is the view of those who see the events as a clear political advance. A democratically elected leader, President Morsi, was overthrown by the military, not a good thing. But there was a significant popular movement, perhaps representing more than fifty per cent of the public, demanding the resignation of Morsi and new elections, and a resetting of the political order, which didn’t include them and their opinions, and didn’t provide the mechanisms for recalling the President. Yet, a legitimate President, from the point of view of many of the over fifty percent that voted for him, has been removed by the military. While I am no fan of military interventions in politics, I know that there is a real danger when a party confuses its particular interests with the common good. Yet, while lack of inclusion was a key problem in the Muslim Brotherhood led regime, it continues to be a problem as reports today indicate a crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood.

On Obama, the NSA and Snowden: I am disappointed, dismayed and irritated. National security is the one arena in which I have been least satisfied with Obama’s Presidency. I had wanted a clear line to be drawn between the policies of Bush and Cheney, and Obama’s. The compromised civil liberties and the continued escalation of surveillance revealed by Snowden’s leaks, alas, indicate continuity rather than change. I think the leaks serve good purpose. I also think the arguments Obama presented in his national security speech provide reasonable grounds for the criticism of the administrations surveillance policies. There is, indeed, a need for a consequential national conversation on the continued ways the war on terror has compromised civil liberties in the United States and beyond. Obama seems to recognize this, but he has not facilitated the discussion, to say the least. On the other hand, I can’t stand the self-righteous, self-serving arguments of Snowden and his chief supporters, Glenn Greenwald and WikiLeaks. The demonization of the U.S. and Obama, the absolute certainty that all surveillance is about the projection of oppressive power – is not serious. As I felt after the attacks of 9/11, I find the critics of official policy as dismaying as the official policy itself. And the melodrama of Snowden’s search for asylum makes matters worse. Why didn’t he stand his ground on principle in the U.S.? Seeking asylum in countries with regimes with questionable human rights records is irritating and confuses important issues, as does the 24/7 news treatment of Snowden’s latest whereabouts and likely endpoint.

Politics and the social condition: I think the NSA revelations and the events in Egypt underscore the reasons for studying social dilemmas as they are knitted into the fabric of social and political life. Iddo Tavory and I are working hard on this over the “summer vacation.” I am leaning heavily on Hannah Arendt, he on Jean Paul Sartre. We believe that there is something missing in social science. It oversimplifies. Today I am thinking about the political significance of our project. If Obama and his critics would recognize, discuss and act upon complexity, perhaps the line between then and now, between Bush and Obama, would be drawn. Perhaps, if all parties recognized the problems of inclusion, democracy and social justice could be constituted in Egypt. I know this may sound naïve, another example of my easy hopefulness. But consider the alternative: without the recognition and understanding of dilemmas, the political challenges in Egypt and between Obama and his critics can’t be resolved.

The Ironies of Consequence: Daniel Dayan and I are talking about analyzing the interaction of what I call “the politics of small things” and what he calls “monstration.” We have had many discussions on this, public and private, in classrooms, at conferences, and in very pleasant meetings in our favorite cafes, and at our homes in New York and Paris. In our last meeting, in the spring, we agreed that our focus would be on what we are calling “the ironies of consequence.” Apparently trivial things sometimes have major consequences, while what appears to be of major significance, has little consequence. And there is also much in between. Take the recent surveillance revelations: it is striking how popular and elite European responses were strong, while the American public and political leadership responded quite weakly. The Americans responded as cynical world-weary cosmopolitans, apparently understanding the ways of the world and power, while the Europeans at least feigned outrage, appalled that a security apparatus uses state of the art methods to gather information on foreign and domestic citizens, and other states, both friend and foe. Media reporting, I believe, shapes this. I wish I had time to show it. I think as I did, I would also be showing how unstable these responses are.

This will have to wait for a couple of months. We will continue to publish pieces occasionally, deliberately, but less frequently, responding to the events of the day. In the pipeline: Helena Chmielewska-Szlajfer’s “Reflections on Al Qaeda in Mali and Other Radicals at the Gates,” and Susan Pearce’s update on the cultural shutdown in Bosnia and Herzegovina and her report on the LGBT pride parade in Istanbul.

To skip this introduction and go directly to read Daniel Dayan’s In-Depth Analysis, “Overhearing in the Public Sphere,” click here.

Daniel Dayan in today’s “In-Depth” post considers overhearing on a global scale. He investigates a simple formula: overhearing + global media = public crisis. He starts with a little anecdote, a personal experience at an academic conference in Sweden, and uses the anecdote to open an examination of major challenges of our times: differentiating, maintaining and then connecting public spheres, which resist the twin dangers of fragmentation from within, and global confusion. As usual, his is an elegant and provocative inquiry.

I find particularly illuminating his concise definition of the public sphere: “a conversation between a given nation- state and the corresponding civil society, with central media connecting centers and peripheries,” along with his expansive discussion of how such spheres operate. He analyzes how such spheres are de-stabilized, and how they are interrupted, how overhearing and intruding have become a normal in global public life promising a more universal public, but delivering moral spectacles. Reflecting on the case of Gerard Depardieu and his relationship with Vladimir Putin, and on the WikiLeaks dump, Dayan warns of the dangers of irrational spectacle in the world of normalized overhearing and intrusion, and he notes the illuminating transparency of things near and far lead to unintended tragic effects.

And note how Dayan’s opening story presents a concrete compact rendering of his global diagnosis. I will respond to this in my next post.

To read Daniel Dayan’s In-Depth Analysis, “Overhearing in the Public Sphere,” click here.

I was once invited to speak at a conference in Sigtuna, near Uppsala, in Sweden. The conference dealt with religious sociology and a few clerics were present. One of them was a famous Danish Imam, Abu Laban. He had ignited what came to be known as the Danish scandal of the Mohammed Cartoons (Favret-Saada 2007). I had exchanged a few words with him and was being interviewed by a Swedish newspaper. Abu Laban was seated nearby. In fact, he listened to the interview. Sometimes he nodded. Sometimes he smiled. I could hardly object to his presence without being rude. But then, the Imam started answering the questions that were put to me.

Although I do not remember how I reacted, what happened on that day illustrated a fundamental distinction established by Erving Goffman, between the “ratified” listeners of a verbal exchange and those who just happen to be there.

Being present and technically able to hear everything that is said does not make you a partner in a conversation. Unless “ratified” as a listener, you are just “overhearing.” An implicit protocol expects overhearers not to listen, since listening would amount to a form of eavesdropping. As to intervening, it clearly establishes that you have been overhearing and constitutes an additional transgression. Intervening takes overhearing one step further. It is, and was in the case of the Imam and me, an intrusion.

I believe that Goffman’s distinction between ratified participants and overhearers can be transposed on a larger scale, concerning those conversations societies hold with themselves under the name of “public sphere.”

2. Destabilized public spheres

Our vision of the public sphere is predicated on the implicit model of a conversation between a given nation- state and the corresponding civil society, with central media connecting centers and peripheries. This geography of centers and peripheries has been submitted to many waves of destabilization. After having been structured for a long time in national terms and dominated by central television organizations, public spheres have grown in a number of directions, most of which involve a post-national dimension. Three such directions are particularly significant.

First, mega television networks offer world audiences vantage points that are, in fact, nationally or regionally inflected (Al Jazeera, BBC World, TV5 Monde, CNN International etc.), but aim at publics much larger than nations. In this case the model of national television is relativized from above. It is challenged by supranational television.

A second challenge emanates from the new media.  Digital public spheres subvert national space through decentered interactions often described in terms of rhizomes, networks or capillarity. In this case, the national model is relativized from below.

A third challenge comes from television broadcasts that cater to immigrant populations and help in constructing or reconstructing spectral communities, disappeared nations, forgotten empires, actual diasporas. These “transnational” televisions broadcast their programs across national borders. The national model is challenged here by the multiplicity of centers catering to the same peripheries. It is challenged sideways (Dayan 2009). Together these three challenges have resulted in a profoundly transformed situation.

The displays offered in the mediated public sphere were meant to be part of a conversation between state and civil society. The partners of this conversation keep changing. Some partners disappear. New ones emerge. Digital media allow debates within civil society. Simultaneously, the combination of supranational and transnational media is no longer addressing what Goffman would call a “ratified” partner (Goffman I981).

A concerned public was cast in the role of that “ratified” partner. But what circulates today on television screens is available to publics that are not concerned at all. These publics belong to countless societies. They cannot possibly be the “ratified” partners of all the conversations they routinely witness. In such a context, world spectators willy-nilly occupy a position that used to be that of eavesdroppers. New media configurations have placed them in a position of overhearing the deliberations of others.

This does not mean that public spheres are no longer providing an arena for debate. In fact one could speak of two spheres imbricated in each other. The first is the classical public sphere, the site of a conversation of a society with itself, the site of a critical interaction between civil society and the state. The second is incredibly larger. But is it devoted to any conversation at all? Would I be correct in characterizing it as a public sphere of overhearing? Of eavesdropping? Of spectacle?

3. Breaking into a public sphere, Putin speaks to the French

Take the case of Gerard Depardieu. He is a famous actor who belongs to the small group of the very rich Frenchmen whom the present government expects to pay 75% of their income in taxes. Depardieu could escape this enormous taxation by doing what other French millionaires do: fleeing to England, Belgium, or Switzerland. But Depardieu does not simply wish to escape taxation. He wants to protest it. In an open letter to President Hollande, he announced his decision of returning his French passport. This theatrical gesture is very much in line with some of his most famous parts (“Jean Valjean,” “Cyrano de Bergerac”). An expert at bravado antics, Depardieu recently urinated in public when denied access to an aircraft’s toilet. Returning his passport is a gesture meant to influence the French public opinion.

But Depardieu is “overheard.” Russian President Putin has scores to settle with the French government (support given to the Syrian opposition; visa requirements for Russian nationals; protests after his violent silencing of the “Pussy Riot” singers). Putin grants Depardieu a Russian passport, which he ceremonially hands over to the actor during a much-publicized encounter in Sochi on January 7^th, 2013. Putin’s gesture is of course meant to impress the Russian public sphere. But it is also directed towards the French public sphere. In other terms: A French debate is overheard by a foreign politician, and this foreign politician invites himself into the debate.

Knowledge gathered by “overhearing” a national conversation is used by an outsider to break into that conversation. Terrorist leaders excel at this. Bin Laden made a point of addressing the American nation over the head of its leaders, and the attacks on Madrid’s Atocha station took place just before the Spanish national elections. As in the case of my Swedish interview, uninvited participants are forcing their way into an ongoing conversation. They are not ratified participants. Do they need to be?

4. Is it absurd to speak of overhearing and intruding?

“No,” says Habermas’ disciple Jean Marc Ferry (Ferry I989). Concerning ourselves with events that are likely to have no impact on our lives could illustrate the philosophical norm of a rational, impartial and potentially infinite public, a public that is large enough to encompass the whole of humanity. Why should a “public” sphere stop being public as soon as one crosses the boundaries of a nation state?

“The notion of ‘public’ is part and parcel of the definition of a public sphere. Note that the public in question in no way limits itself to one nations’ electoral body. It rather includes all those who are susceptible of receiving and understanding messages that are circulated throughout the world. Virtually, this public amounts to the whole of humanity … One could describe the public sphere as the medium in which Humanity offers itself in spectacle to itself.”

And Ferry adds:

“This means that the ‘social public sphere‘ in no way conforms to the national borders of each civil society … It is not merely the site of a communication between each society and itself, but rather the site where different societies communicate with each other.”

Ferry’s point consists in reiterating a philosophical postulate. The public of the public sphere encompasses the whole of humanity. This is true if one sees the global public sphere as embodiment of universalism. Yet the reality seems more prosaic. Of course civil societies that are politically “contained within the confines of nation states,” can “easily penetrate each other.” Is such interpenetration a sign of universalism? Is it devoid of antagonism between nations or groups of nations? Does it involve the sense of a common good? Is Putin’s splashy gesture a contribution to a debate? Or is it just a blow? Is the universal public invoked by Ferry gathered around a boxing ring?

5. Is it equally absurd to speak of spectacle?

Once again Ferry disagrees. When he describes the public sphere as “the medium in which humanity offers itself in spectacle to itself,” he adds:

“The word ‘spectacle’ might … lead to a misunderstanding. The public sphere is not to be reduced to a mere spectacle, be it of images or words. It also calls on discourse, on commentary, on discussion. It aims for a ‘rational’ purpose of elucidation.”

Ferry sees the supranational public sphere as one that promotes ‘rational’ elucidation. I would suggest that speaking of spectacle is the result of no misunderstanding. Of course, some events have international consequences. Some societies are so central that whatever happens in their midst might influence all other societies. Yet there are cases in which chances of a local event having relevance to the life of other societies are indeed very slim. Why then would the media of these other societies report on this event? When the media invites you to look at “the life of others,” are they always performing a ‘rational’ exercise?

Strictly speaking their reporting is not a matter of overhearing, since the media explicitly calls for your attention as a member of a given society. Yet if this attention leads to no relevant debate, wouldn’t it be correct to define the display that calls for it as a spectacle?

Boltanski notes that those you see taking part in distant events are routinely cast as victims, perpetrators, saviors, rescuers (Boltanski 1999). In this way, the watched world becomes a succession of moral fables. Watching them is justified in the name of information (the “public’s right to know”), but also in terms of a moral endeavor (each fable provides a villain). The main issue at hand is not: Why should I watch this?’ (Does it concern me?). But: Who is the villain? A Manichean grammar transforms a public sphere of “overhearing” into a “moral” public sphere; one which does not call for debate, but for applause or booing. Is applauding or booing a matter of rational elucidation?

Remember WikiLeaks? WikiLeaks celebrated itself as a victory of democratic transparency, a tribute to the “public’s right to know.” But what was made visible was often unsubstantial. The exchanges revealed in the divulged diplomatic cables were moderately “devious.” Like most conversations, they were based on trust and confidentiality, and thus vulnerable to exposure (Brooks, 2010). Many of the alleged scandals involved no more than the dubious thrill of eavesdropping on someone else’s conversation. Without much to condemn, “surveillance” was simply another name for bad manners. Yet WikiLeaks was promising a spectacle of moral turpitude. Is the accumulation of such spectacles the instrument of “elucidation” that Ferry describes? Or is it an instrument of obfuscation?

I admire Ferry and like the type of public sphere he advocates. But saying it is desirable is not the same as saying it exists. For the time being the choice seems one between the Charybdis of overhearing and the Scylla of spectacle. The question is: With what sorts of media could we bring Ferry’s desirable public sphere into existence?

6. Robert Merton and butterflies

The exploitation of overhearing by determined intruders, as well as its “mise–en scene” by those who want to present it as an ethical endeavor are conspicuous, yet less important than the phenomenon of overhearing itself. I would like to conclude on one last point.

By reaching unexpected viewers and listeners, any conversation in any public sphere is doomed to entail consequences that are not only unintended (what the French call “perverse effects”), but also unpredictable (what we now know as “butterfly effects”). “Overhearing” is no longer one of those quirky objects that met Goffman’s insatiable curiosity. Whether it is exploited by the virtuous or the ruthless, it has become a structuring factor in the interaction of public spheres. Merton’s study of unintended consequences was prophetic.

References

—Goffman, E. (1981). Footing. In Forms of Talk. Phila, U of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 124-159

— Ferry, JM.  « les Transformations de la publicité politique ») in Ferry, Dayan & Wolton, eds. le Nouvel Espace Public. Hermes 4  I989 ; I5 :27

–Favret Saada, Jeanne  (2007) Comment provoquer une crise mondiale avec 12 petits dessins. Paris. Les Prairies Ordinaires

–Dayan, Daniel (2009). « Sharing and Showing: Television and monstration »The Annals  of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, September 2009 vol. 625 no. 1 19-31

–Brooks David (2010) « The Fragile Community » The NY Times

–Boltanski, Luc (1999) Distant Suffering, N Y – Cambridge University Press

My arrival in Vegas has put me somewhat off my equilibrium. It’s twelve in the morning here, and through some trick of non-euclidian geometry, my cell tells me that it’s only been three hours since my flight left New York City at nine. I know that the time-difference has created the illusion that less time has passed than I perceived, but the streets of Vegas are indifferent, and beat out their manic, midnight tempo regardless.

I’m here, in search of Anonymous, that nameless, faceless organization that scares the pants off of politicians and public figures everywhere, a bogeyman, haunting the nightmares of middle-class boomers, and mid-level bureaucrats. This past Summer has seen a great uptick in the number of high-profile cyber crimes, many committed in the name of WikiLeaks, and I know that this may be my best chance to get a word with someone who knows about the splinter-group Lulsec.

Even as Jim, Frank, Karen and I make tracks across the desert highway in the rental car, fifteen-thousand hackers are making similar pilgrimages, converging on our location from all over the world. The leaders from every tribe come to DEFCON, one of the largest hacker conferences on the planet, bring the latest news and gossip from all corners of the world back to their local communities. Nobody knows quite what will happen, but whatever does will set the tone for the entire year.

First impressions, Vegas: a hooker thumbs a ride under a sign advertising six dollar prime rib. The strip is a hallucinogenic wonderland of dancing light, and architectural insanity. Each architectural monstrosity bound to its neighbors only by divergence, and difference. Each is more garish and twisted than the last. This city is a schizoid’s sandbox in the middle of the desert. The land here is barren. It produces nothing, and instead the city must leech resources and pastiche styles from other peoples, places, and times.

The casinos are empty. Nobody wants to gamble in this economy. The Hotel Rio seems to scrape by because of the conference, and I watch it gradually fill to the brim with hackers, until it seems we will run out of space to move. A quick duck into Caesar’s Palace or Palms will show the truth- the slots lie dormant. Lights and sounds, an unintentional parody, attempting to distract from the fact that the great gambling halls are almost entirely empty.

We stand in line for registration, and I have an opportunity to reflect upon my fellow conference-goers. The hackers in Hotel Rio, though representing various local and national institutions all over the world, seem somehow to have agreed on some sort of dress code: Ponytails, sunglasses, fatigues, and combat boots. Shirts with ironic writing, or perhaps the insignia of the last conference, or their local hackerspace, or, alternately, a suit and tie, or a jacket with the insignia of one government agency or another. Men and women both, clean cut, shorn bald, or mohawked in every color imaginable. Brilliant misfits and outcasts, they’ve come here to learn, build, and interact, to share their love of science and technology, and to learn about developments in the state of the art in their respective fields.

I’ve been here what feels like two days, now. Time has begun to blur, as Jim, Frank, Karen and I move between various presentations, in the day, and parties at night. We rarely sleep. The parties are where the true connections happen at DEFCON. After talking my way past three layers of security, I drink vodka and tonic in a suite with a built-in basketball court and jacuzzi. I used to have a purpose here, but I can’t remember it.

My quest to find Lulsec and Anonymous has almost been forgotten, as I stumble into a party hosted by Xerobank. The bouncer nods at me. I’ve lost my friends somehow, and am now traveling with two guys whose names I can’t remember. A DJ thumps out trance music from speakers that take up half of the suite’s living room. A projector lights up the ceiling with rainbow patterns calibrated to disrupt one’s normal optical functions. It makes me feel woozy, and I can’t stay in this room for long.

I push through the sweaty masses of dancing people, and through a door, into a bedroom turned smoking room. My eyes sting as I walk into the smoke cloud. All of Vegas is visible through the floor to ceiling windows that cover the entire wall of the bedroom. It’s a very flat city, flashing neon, arranged in a geometrically perfect grid, as artificial as Vegas itself, extending for dozens of miles out into the desert. Beyond that stand enormous rock formations, dark and brooding forms, silhouetted against the stars.

In this room lay people sprawled out on the bed and couch, or huddled together, smoking, in dark corners. Two on the couch wave me over, and we start talking. I ask them what Xerobank is, anyway.

“We’re anonymous! The kid yells, eyes glinting- or perhaps he’s just feeling the sting of the smoke, as I do. As he says this, my ears begin to perk up.

“We provide anonymous proxies. We don’t log anything, and that’s all you need to know!”

“Anonymous? I give the kid a skeptical look. He barely looks twenty. The brown goatee and handlebar moustache that he sports, covering skin too pale and papery for the desert, is still filling out.

“We support their struggle! Anonymous, Lulsec, Anon-Ops, they’re the same thing!”

“But don’t you think that the government will use Anonymous as a scarecrow, to pass more oppressive laws? All it takes is one person to act like an idiot under the cloak of anonymity, and politicians will point the finger at them-”

“The oppressive laws are already being passed. How many more will we tolerate!? We need to fight back! Facebook, on the fifth of November!”

At about this time, the hotel intercom system kicks in, and announces a general state of emergency. Some people panic, and stand up, but most understand that this is just an elaborate prank. More likely, someone has just compromised Hotel Rio’s VOIP network. The kid just laughs.

“But don’t you think Anonymous needs a face? Someone to relate to normal people?”

“No way, we’re a faceless mass! A face can be destroyed. A faceless mass can never be killed, or put in jail!”

The intercom cuts in again, and announces that the general state of emergency has passed. I never do get to reconnect with the kid. He’s right on at least one count — Anonymous is a faceless mass. I never even got his name.

Author’s Note: Some or all names in this article may have been changed to protect the innocent.

I did not have the time to prepare a post while teaching with Daniel Dayan “Media and News in a Time of Crisis” in Wroclaw, Poland. This was unfortunate because there were news events during the period of the course that seemed to be a series of case studies on our topic. As we were examining theoretical material, which illuminates the roles media play in such cases, media were playing important roles, from the Murdoch scandal, to the terrorist attack in Oslo. Today, I will reflect on Murdoch and, more broadly, the tasks of making distinctions and coming to actionable judgments in the media. Oslo will wait for another day. I draw on the ideas of Eviatar Zerubavel, a distinguished sociologist of cognition and student of Erving Goffman, to make sense of our ongoing seminar discussion and the debate between Daniel and me.

The Murdoch presence in America has long concerned me, particularly Fox News and the Wall Street Journal. While Fox is a strange mix of opinionated journalism and political mobilization instrument, as I have already examined here in an earlier post, the Journal has been a distinguished business newspaper with a conservative slant on the news, with the slant increasingly prevailing over the news in recent years with Murdoch’s ownership. I was struck by Joe Nocerra’s analysis in The New York Times. Concern with factual reality has diminished. Editors went beyond improving reporter’s copy from the stylistic point of view to ideological “improvement.” Political and business news reported was re-worked to confirm the political positions promoted on the editorial page. Note the problem in these cases is that strong distinctions between journalism as a vocation and other vocations are ignored became fuzzy, in the terms of Zerubavel.

Such willful ignorance is also present in The New York Post, another Murdoch enterprise that I see in my daily life. I read it only late at night, picking up a discarded copy on the train when I have nothing else to stimulate my eyes and pass the time. It is a tabloid, with very limited news value, a kissing cousin of The News of the World. The scandal of that scandal sheet broke out with the hacking of a murdered teenager’s phone which has rocked British public life, suggesting that Murdoch’s international media empire may very well melt into air, challenging the standing of many British public figures, including Prime Minister Cameron. An unserious business has become very serious, though it is not directly connected with my concerns about Fox and the WSJ. Yet, I see an important indirect connection, which is related to one of the central themes of our seminar, the relationship between media and public and private life.

Daniel Dayan and I agree on the importance of making a strong distinction between public and private. Thus, for example, he and I were both highly critical in Deliberately Considered posts of the WikiLeaks dump, as was Elzbieta Matynia, a fellow teacher in our Democracy and Diversity Institute, and its director and organizer. This is not only a matter of political commitment, for the pubic good and private happiness, as Hannah Arendt illuminates in The Human Condition. It also is based on an understanding of a fundamental precondition of  almost all social endeavors, nicely explained by Erving Goffman in his investigations of the front stage and back stage of interaction. If diplomacy is understood as an alternative to war in international relations, revealing secrets must be revealed selectively, with specific critical issues in mind, not just “dumped.” To dump is to destroy. It is a nihilistic act, undermining the world of diplomacy, potentially making war more likely. In the terms of Eviatar Zerubavel, our minds are rigid on this matter.

While this is an important ground of agreement, Dayan and I disagree on how the distinction between public and private is applied in the media in specific circumstances. Our minds are flexible in Zerubavel’s terms, but in different ways.

In the Strauss-Kahn scandal, he worries about the compromise of the private life of a public official. He emphasizes the principle of innocent until proven guilty, and thinks the French press has compromised this principle. The invasion of the private life of public officials for my friend and colleague is a pressing concern.

I worry that the public standing of officials has enabled private abuses, and that hidden in the shadows, the high status of powerful men has supported a sexist public life. I think that the failure of the French press to report on “what everyone knew” about DSK may have compromised the private rights of some women, and has compromised the principle of equality in French public affairs. using public status to abuse people privately is no less serious than the invasion of the private life of public officials. The unfolding scandal in France has the potential for working against this. Thus, I think the struggle to respect the separation of the public and the private goes both ways.

Yet, I admit this presents significant problems, radically revealed by Murdoch and Company. Their aggressive lack of respect for the privacy of public officials, specifically “the royals” and various celebrities, was widely known and tolerated. It was on the profits generated by such journalism that Mr. Murdoch became a king maker in British political life, courted by both the Conservative and Labor Parties. But when Murdoch employees ignored the distinction between public and private in the hacking of a young murder victim, and perhaps even of the families of the victims of 9/11 terrorists, “unintentional public figures,” the media empire built on invasive journalism that ignored the public – private distinction almost as a matter of principle, began its collapse. Please note: I judge, and also hope, that Murdoch is finished. I believe those who saw the Mubarak analogy are correct.

This would present an opportunity to reassert journalistic standards that are clearly in retreat, applying not only to the necessary distinction between private and public, but also the distinction between news and opinion, revealed in The Wall Street Journal, and the distinction between news reporting and political mobilizing, pioneered on television by Fox News.

Dayan and I also disagree on the distinction between journalism and politics as it applies to Fox News. He thinks that Fox (and I imagine would think the same of the WSJ) is presenting a political position, as is inevitably the case. I think that important distinctions between the ethics of different related activities are being blurred. Here I am more rigid, he more fuzzy, reversing our positions on DSK.

Making distinctions in everyday practice is difficult and not straightforward, as Zerubavel demonstrates in his masterful book, The Fine Line.  He analyzes “the rigid mind” that insists upon clear and strongly enforced distinctions, the “fuzzy mind” that does not perceive or blurs socially constructed distinctions, and the “flexible mind” with elastic mental structures “which allow us to break away from the mental cages in which we so often lock ourselves, yet still avoid chaos.”  In these terms, Dayan and I agree that the media have become too fuzzy.  But I think his answer is rigid on Strauss-Kahn, too fuzzy on Fox and The Wall Street Journal. He, no doubt reverses my judgment. Our disagreements underscore that now is the time for an agile flexibility. We disagree with mutual respect in our seminar and personal discussions, revealing that the truth that lies between us. I think we agree that the same sort of interaction is the micro- infrastructure of democratic life.

As I reported last week, Daniel Dayan and I had a nice lunch in Paris on the terrace of a little restaurant at the Palais Royal. He ate blood sausage. My wife, Naomi, and I had couscous with chicken. I followed Daniel’s recommendation and ordered mine with olives, a dish that was his grandmother’s specialty back in Morocco. We discussed what proved to be the theme of last week, looking at North Africa and the Middle East from the point of view of Europe. But of course, we couldn’t and didn’t ignore the Dominique Strauss-Kahn scandal, then raging in Paris. The following evening, he extended his side of the conversation in a crisp essay, which we posted on Monday. Here I continue my side of the conversation.

My first response came in the form of an email I wrote him upon receiving his piece:

I don’t agree with you on all points, centered on two issues: the way the distinction between private and public moves (the most general issue), and how the presumption of innocence necessarily varies from one institutional sphere to the next, from the judiciary to the police to the press, for example. Consider the case of a child molester and how the presumption is enacted or not by different people placed differently in the society. This is an empirical and normative issue. More soon. Again it was great seeing you and great receiving the post.

In the case of a child molester, the police look for a suspect and attempt to confirm guilt, while in court there must be a presumption of innocence. Before, during and after a trial, the press and the general public judges, independently of formal legalities, and explores whether they think justice is done by the police and the courts, sometimes in a sensational way. The spheres of public activity and the press are different from the professional activities of the police and the courts. And quite clearly, when the issue is child molestation, the public and the press are predisposed, often without regard to the solidity of the evidence, to believe the police, given the nature of the crime and the revulsion it elicits. They presume guilt.

Nonetheless with other sorts of offenses, ones concerning political or moral position, this often is not the case. In the U.S., Democrats probably presume Republican rascals are guilty, while Republicans presume the guilt of Democratic rascals. Partisanship colors perception, no doubt and this sort of partisan perception certainly was going on in the DSK affair.

Dayan worries, understandably, that the spectacle of guilt and dislodging of the powerful may overwhelm justice. He takes this to be the point of the philosopher and former minister Luc Ferry’s media performance, during which he denounced the press’ failure to report an unnamed former minister’s pedophilia in Morocco at an unspecified time. So outrageous was the performance that Dayan speculates it must have been “a demonstration by a philosopher of the way the media routinely takes short-cuts and obstructs the process of justice.”

Dayan believes that the French media have been perniciously operating, presuming guilt instead of innocence in the DSK affair. Further, he believes that the critical self-reflection in the French media about their failure to report Strauss-Kahn’s past transgressions overlooks the necessity of drawing a strong distinction between public and private matters. This is where my dear friend and I have a fundamental theoretical disagreement.

To use the theory of Eviatar Zerubavel, while Dayan believes that there needs to be a clear and strong distinction between public and private concerns, I believe the distinction is fuzzy and that it’s good that it is. However, we agree that the distinction between public and private has to be drawn. Thus Daniel (WikiLeaks and the Politics of Gestures and Political Leadership and Hostile Visibility) and I (WikiLeaks Front Stage/Back Stage) fundamentally agree that WikiLeaks’ general release of secret diplomatic exchanges potentially undermined diplomacy, which is one of the fundamental alternatives to war in international relations. It is not the specific revelations that concern me. It is the general principle that openness is more desirable than secrecy. Sometimes secrets are necessary in order to get on with proper private and public concerns, e.g. both love and the alternatives to war. When some things are shown, they disappear. As Hannah Arendt explored in The Human Condition, when love is openly and publicly displayed, it is no longer intimate, no longer love.

But surely, this disappearance is not always a loss. Public inspection makes it clear when romance, seduction, and eroticism end and sexual aggression and even rape begin. Now in France people are reporting they knew or at least suspected, for a long time, with considerable evidence, that Strauss-Kahn was not a womanizer but a sexual predator. Media attention to such matters would have made that clear. Reporting on such matters may have been indiscreet. But in this case indiscretion would have been a public virtue. The sexual peccadilloes of public figures shouldn’t matter, until they should, and the media clumsily should work with this. More on this next week, with reflections on the foolishness of Anthony Weiner.

A final note on the Week in Review: In the past months I have used the Week in Review to show how the various posts at DC during the week relate and highlight an important public issue or theoretical point. I will continue to occasionally make such posts. But I will also use the platform, as I did today, to engage a specific post, or to address an issue that occurred in the past week that we have not addressed here. That said, in the posts this week, we saw how the elections in Peru show how institutionalized democracy matters. Memorial tattoos show how marked skins beyond the workings of official institutions preserve memory for and of those involved in war, and as Alissa’s moving reply to the post demonstrates, they can also inspire the reflections of those beyond the immediately involved. Of course, this depends on the mediation of the photographer, Mary Beth Heffernan, and the report and reflections of the sociologist, Michael Corey. What we do to make the world a bit more tolerable for a small circle can have large effects beyond our circle, as Vince Carducci’s review of Grace Lee Boggs’ latest book reveals. For more on that theme take a look at the video of Immanuel Wallerstein and Grace Lee Boggs in conversation at the 2010 US Social Forum embedded in the post.

From Flower Wreaths to Live Behabitives

Presidential gestures are often boring. Presidents must carry flower wreaths, listen to anthems, hoist flags, light eternal flames.  In J.L. Austin’s terms, one could say that these routine tasks enact  the “behabitive dimension.”  This gestural dimension is steadily growing. It also is changing by becoming less routine, even risky.

Today’s gestures are meant to respond to unexpected situations. They take place in real time. There is nothing routine when Bush responds poorly to Katrina victims, or when Sarkozy calls young people who insult him “scumbags” (racailles).  Of course, presidential jobs still consist of what Austin would call “exercitives.” Yet, the “exercitives,” speech acts making decisions such as orders and grants, increasingly give way to a vast array of “behabitives” such as offering condolences, “apologizing,” asking forgiveness, dissociating from, displaying solidarity .

Why the Importance of Behabitives?  The Question of Visibility

While at the heart of governmental action, processes of deliberation, moments of decision are not really visible. They only become visible through announcements, or, much later, through their results. Yet the multiplicity and variety of media available allow for an almost continuous visibility of the political personnel.This visibility is expected to consist in presentations of self, which are anticipated, deliberately performed and controlled by those who choose to appear in public.

This visibility also consists in situations where those who “appear in public” lose  control over their appearances.  Suddenly thrown in the public eye, political actors are submitted to impromptu ordeals, and lightning judgments. Their “behabitives” are recorded by the media.  Often, they are provoked behaviors.

Politics, Reality Shows and the Question of Reactivity

Take the case of an Iraqi journalist taking his shoe off and throwing it at George Bush.  This is, of course, an insult.  But, there is more.   The flying shoe begs for a reaction. How will the President react? Will he throw back his own shoe?  Will he maintain his composure and ignore the insult?  Will he duck to avoid the shoe, or get it in the face?

One of the first things actors learn is that knowing the part, acting according to script, is just a beginning.  An actor is expected to constantly take notice of the performance of other actors; to respond to their performance, no matter how unexpected or disconcerting. Reacting is often more important than acting.  Crucially, my central point, this is particularly true of today’s politics.

Political rhetoric used to be dominated by the model of the “speech” (parliaments). Then came the interview (radio); then came the “media-event” (television).   Today, a new type of political dramaturgy has emerged. It resembles reality-TV.

Ordeal Journalism

Like candidates for a reality show, political actors are meant to be assessed, judged, chosen or dumped on the basis of unexpected ordeals.  Like these candidates, they will be assessed on the basis of a spontaneous reactivity.  Reacting has moved to the center of the political stage.  Unlike the producers of reality shows, the media are usually not in charge of scripting the ordeals. Yet they have the choice of endorsing them by broadcasting them, or not.

When they do – which is often – one can speak of “ordeal journalism.” Ordeal journalism does not merely concern political personnel.  Sometimes the ordeal is that of a whole state. Think of the Turkish flotilla sailing towards Gaza to challenge the Israeli blockade.   In terms of visibility, Israel cannot avoid reacting to the publicized challenge.  Either it does nothing, and this will be read as gesture of giving up, of condoning the “fait accompli,” or it does something, and this will be read as a gesture of insensitivity, and perhaps of cruelty.  Whether it is one or the other, Israeli behavior becomes a gesture. The ship challenging the blockade, the “Mavi Marmara,” carries a geopolitical reality show. It is a floating television studio.

As opposed to “investigative journalism,” which confers retrospective visibility, revealing the obscure face of well known situations, “ordeal journalism” triggers unexpected forms of visibility.

The WikiLeaks episode participates in both.  On the one hand, it discloses, unveils, unmasks, or means to. On the other hand, it sets up an ordeal situation that makes it impossible for the U.S. not to respond, since both action and inaction will be read as meaningful gestures.  The leaks constitute a dramaturgic performance.  Answering or not answering this performance is also a dramaturgic performance.  Not answering means condoning.  As put by The Economist on December, 11, 2010: “Calibrating the response raises questions of principle, practice and priority… The big danger is that America is provoked into bending or breaking its own rules…” Doing so would, of course, allow WikiLeaks  to implement  a self fulfilling prophecy.

Hostile Visibility: The Destroyers of Front Regions

The public sphere of gesturing has now developed its own rituals and mythologies. On the ritual side, “ordeal journalism” proposes a dramaturgy of losing face.  On the mythological side, the gestures of “unveiling,” of “outing,” of “exposing,” characterize a new type of hero: the investigative Parsifal.  Both “ordeal journalism” and “investigative journalism” are conceived as attacks on what Goffman called the “front region.”

The front region is the main casualty of “ordeal journalism.”  It is also the main target of an “investigative journalism” that thrives on the trope of unveiling (as demonstrated in Rafael Narvaez’s post yesterday).  Investigative journalism is essentially based on what Barthes used to call “the hermeneutic code.”  Appearances are lies. Official narratives are alibis; Thus, Le Monde no longer speaks of “investigation,” but of “counter-investigation” (contr’enquêtes).  Instead of “analyses,” it offers “decipherings” (décryptages).  A paranoid universe that used to be found in thrillers (Robert Ludlum, Dan Brown) has migrated to elite newspapers.

Of course, what is revealed is sometimes substantial.  Yet, the alleged scandal may involve no more than the mere gesture of pointing to a scandal.  If reality is measured by consequences, crying wolf is a relatively efficient way of constructing reality.  One step further, pointing to a scandal is not even required.  All you need is the mere gesture of pointing. Thus a news-segment on an international meeting in which a journalist decides to film Sarkozy’s and Obama’s back. This discloses, the futile attempts by, the ordeal of the shorter man, to gain a few centimetres by standing on his toes; his futile yearning for a front region.

After receiving the 2010 Nobel Prize for literature, Mario Vargas Llosa gave an interview with Inger Enkvist at the Swedish Academy. Enkvist begins by asking broad questions pertaining to the role of literature, of fantasy, the humanities, etc. He then asks about one of the key themes in Vargas Llosa’s work.

“In your oeuvre one often finds fanatics, characters that are cynics, politically, and also skeptics. And almost always there is a fracture [in your narrative] separating the world of politics and the world of ethics or morality. Can you comment?”

Vargas Llosa, with his usual nonchalant straight-forwardness, answers:

“I come from a world [Peru] where politics, generally and save exceptions, has been in the hands of the worst kind of people […]; a world that has had a very entrenched history of dictatorships that have been very violent and very corrupt; a world where politics seemed to be the monopoly of cheaters [pícaros], of bandits, of the most violent people. Naturally […] there have also been decent people, idealists; but they have been generally defeated, left in the margins –destroyed, in the end. So it is not at all strange that my oeuvre presents a view into political life in Peru and Latin America [which shows] such tradition of violence, of large-scale corruption, of thuggishness […]. In Latin America politics has generally been a terrible source of violence, of corruption, of backwardness. It would have been absurd and unreal for me to describe such political world as it were a world of generous beings, of idealistic characters who work for the common good [begins to laugh], who had a great sense of honesty [laughs]. This would have been tantamount to writing science fiction, right?”

Right. There are exceptions, of course, Lula, Bachelet, and others. But, and I think that Daniel Dayan would agree as indicated in his last post, Vargas Llosa is here revealing nothing new at all. His oeuvre, in fact, as it concerns political life in Latin America, likewise reveals nothing new. Yet, and Dayan may agree again, such obvious statements nonetheless say a lot. Hearing these things out loud is meaningful. Bear in mind that these “bandits” alluded to by Vargas Llosa have always, for 500 years, strived to confine that sort of talk to the backstages of everyday life. In Peru, for example, the former president Alberto Fujimori –the very caricature of this sort of Vargas Llosan being: corrupt, cynical, violent, populist– did his utmost to control all aspects of what one may call “the frontstage discourse” in my country. He bought journalists, owners of newspapers and TV stations, celebrities –allies—, literally paying them, for their acquiescence and service, millions or thousands of dollars, depending on their rank and their ability to bargain.

This has been shown by dozens of videos which Fujimori himself recorded from the Intelligence Service Agency (see this link for example). Videos that, to Fujimori’s humiliation, were at some point leaked to the local media. It seems to me that, in fact, the special characteristic of the Third World is that people like Fujimori always, at all cost, try to avoid such backstage leakage. They have always tried to confine the inevitably dissenting popular discourse to the backstages, because they know, of course, that when such discourse leaks to the frontstage, it asks them questions that they cannot answer, it makes their life more difficult (as the author of The Politics of Small Things may agree). To be sure, we in Peru and in Latin America love to express our unedited and often angry opinions about political life. Vargas Llosa is, of course, not the only one who does that. But though we all talk and complain a great deal, our opinions seldom come to dominate the frontstage discourse, partly because the Fujimoris of the world resolutely fight such leakage.

And Vargas Llosa’s (non)revelations have meaning because they manage to encroach upon key areas of the frontstage, thus facilitating dissenting public spheres, thus catalyzing aspects of the politics of small things. His (non)revelations are, again, meaningful. Unlike many of the characters depicted in Vargas Llosa’s novels, who enjoy impunity, Fujimori ended up in prison –precisely because of the leaked videos, precisely because of the frontstage transfer of information. (Incidentally, he has been convicted among many other things of having provided support for the assassination of an eight-year-old boy who was executed along with his father for political reasons.)

Importantly, when he was in office, most people knew that he was corrupt and murderous. And we were not surprised when we saw, via the leaked videos, that he had bribed local and thuggish newsmen, etc. But, never mind that, we all got very excited. We devoured these images. And then eagerly talked about them, and not only in the kitchens and pubs, but in the media, in the frontstages. Soon, demonstrations became a common sight. International attention and then international pressure mounted. Fujimori’s administration began to fall, naturally, irretrievably, one video at a time, one demonstration at a time. These (quasi)revelations forced key aspects of the politics of small things. Similarly, the “revelations” provided by WikiLeaks about Latin America, and the Third World in general, have revealed very little (corruption, cheating) –while, however, having facilitated significant advances in the public sphere. It seems to me that they have thus made life a little bit more difficult for those Vargas Llosian characters, who often monopolize politics in our countries.

This is the first of a series of posts by Daniel Dayan exploring the significance of WikiLeaks.

Is WikiLeaks a form of spying? Transferring information to an alien power can induce harm. This is why spying constitutes a crime. In the case of WikiLeaks, the transfer concerns hundreds thousands of documents.  The recipients include hundreds of countries, some of which are openly hostile. In a way WikiLeaks is a gigantic spying operation with a gigantic  number of potential users. Yet, is it really “spying?”

Spying (in its classical form ) involves a specific sponsor in need of specific information to be used for a specific purpose, and obtained from an invisible provider.  WikiLeaks “spies” eagerly seek to be identified (Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder and editor in chief,  has been voted Le Monde’s “man of the year”). Information covers every possible domain, and there is no privileged recipient. Anyone qualifies as a potential beneficiary of Wiki-largesses and most of those who gain access to the leaked information have no use for it. Spying has become a stage performance.

On 9/11 a group of Latin American architects hailed the destruction of The Twin Towers as a sublime event. The pleasure of seeing Rome burning had been made available for the man of the street. It was –suggested the builders – a democratization of Neronism.  In a way, WikiLeaks, could also be described as a democratization of spying.  It offers a form of  “public spying.” Distinct from mere spying (a pragmatic activity), it proposes “spying as a gesture.”  This gesture concerns other gestures. What WikiLeaks discloses is less (already available) facts than the tone in which they are expressed.

Content or gestures?

If the Assange leaks reveal nothing that we did not know already, what counts is less their  propositional content than the enacted speech acts.  The vocabulary of WikiLeaks gestures starts with the noble gestures of war.  Many commentators tell the WikiLeaks saga in military terms. For the Umberto Eco, it is a“ blow:” “To think that a mere hacker could access the best kept secrets  of the world’s most powerful states is in fact a considerable blow to the state department.”  For David Brooks it is a declaration of war: “the group celebrated the release of internal State Department documents with a triumphalist statement claiming that the documents expose the corruption, hypocrisy and venality of U.S. diplomats.”

The journalism of investigation, the journalism of  disclosure, and the journalism of intrusion

By inflicting enforced visibility, WikiLeaks adopts a family of gestures that characterize contemporary trends in journalism.  In a way WikiLeaks is “investigative journalism” pushed one step further. Yet “investigative journalism” is a misnomer, since, in principle, every sort of journalism should involve investigation.  If sources and facts were not checked, journalism would be no more than gossip or propaganda.  The real name for what is usually called “the journalism of investigation” should be the “journalism of disclosure.”  In a way, then, WikiLeaks “enforced visibility” is a new step in the journalism of disclosure.

Like a journalism of disclosure, it displays a paradoxical virtue. WikiLeaks can cause a scandal without revealing anything new.  The journalism of disclosure, can astonishingly survive without disclosing anything at all. At that point it turns into a journalism of mere intrusion. “Intrusive journalism” may wish to become a journalism of investigation, a journalism of denunciation. Yet, the process fails because the offered revelation just doesn’t occur. What is left, is the trappings of denunciation; the denouncing gesture without an actual content.

Thus Michael Moore bursts into the building of a large corporation, finds no one to challenge, and harangues a closed door.  Or, to take a French example, Sarkozy is being filmed, without knowing it while he awaits the beginning of an interview to be aired  on channel FR 3. Sarkozy is waiting for his turn to get on the air; he exchanges small talk with people around him, muses about new subjects for TV shows.  The video is mildly boring. Apart from its intrusive nature (and the dogma of Sarkozy’s detestability), it reveals nothing of interest. All it has to offer is the gesture of filming someone who is not aware of being filmed.  Yet the video turns into a trophy circulating on websites.   It reveals nothing about Sarkozy, but says a lot about  the use of visibility, about a new form of “surveillance” that denies the president the right to a “back region.”  All it really displays is its own intrusive nature.  What is mostly interesting about this example of “intrusive journalism,” is that it is has provoked heated controversies, and turned the cameraman who recorded the non-event into a hero. Like Assange, this hero is a crusader for  a new visibility ( which I plan to address in future posts), a “transparentizer.”

I think DC discussions this week were particularly interesting as we addressed the issue of the relationship between institutional and political practices, on the one hand, and ideals, on the other.  We have been considering how our ways of doing things are related to our values.

Democratic Ideals versus Plutocratic Realities

In the ongoing debate provoked by Martin Plot, there is the question of what is wrong with American democracy.  Scott, informed by my response to Martin, wants to underscore that it is not only, or even primarily, a systemic problem, it is more crucially a problem of action.  He criticizes “factoid based media, money based politics and narrow interest based legislating,” which have inhibited informed political action.

Jeffrey Dowd, who also identifies himself as Jeff in his replies, seems to agree with Plot that the possibility of an open politics is gravely diminished because of the workings of corporate power.

Michael is deeply concerned that the pressing issues of the day are not being addressed as they are overshadowed by ideological conflicts.

This is a full range of judgment, the basis of alternative political positions.  I think the different characterizations of the situation are informed by competing ideals.  I respect these differences and am interested in the alternative insights and interpretations they suggest for accounting for what has happened in the past, but also as a way of orienting future actions.

If Jeff and Martin are right, we can expect one pro – corporate move after another in the coming two years, with Obama triangulating and doing the work of corporations, perhaps doing so more efficiently than Bush would have.  (This parallels the far left’s account of FDR and the New Deal).

If Scott is right, the only way of avoiding this is to act against Obama when he compromises on the fundamental principles.  I am not sure whether Martin and Jeff think that this can lead to a positive outcome short of a radical shift in political strategy, in Martin’s account.  This includes for Jeff, in response to a post by Daniel Dayan from a few weeks ago, a possible shift in media policy.  He suggests the need for “a new ‘fairness doctrine’ that goes beyond the request for equal time and instead finds some way to fairly judge the accuracy of claims made on “news” stations…” (Of course the problem with such proposals, which I have no doubt Jeff is aware of, is that the “somehow” is very hard, reminding me that democracy is indeed in the details).

If Michael is right, we should look for openings for practical actions in addressing pressing problems, and support those on the left, right and center who make that possible.

I would suggest that each of these positions are in a sense a part of the Obama’s project, moving the center to the left, where he will sometimes appear as a feckless compromiser, and at other times like a happy warrior.

Note that his “sell out” to the Republicans this week in the form of the compromise that includes the extension of the Bush tax cuts for the rich is quickly being followed by a call for a fundamental reform of the income tax code, in which the issue of justice will become a matter of serious debate. (link) And as far as selling out is concerned, even Paul Krugman, a clear critic of Obama’s compromises, concedes that “President Obama did, after all, extract more concessions than most of us expected.”

Wikileaks Revisited

Arjen Berghouwer strongly criticized me for my position on WikiLeaks.  But I think it’s interesting to note that we actually agree in our sociology, and our ideals, as we disagreed in how we interpret what the significance of WikiLeaks is.  He emphasizes that this was a “one-off dump.”  And reflects upon how as such it lends critical insights into the limitations of secretive and manipulative diplomacy, opening up critique and the possibility of a more just international order.

I actually don’t know for sure whether the dump has much of a critical function, or whether it does irreparable damage to our foreign policy, as Senator Lieberman and others speak of espionage.  Rather my point here has been that of a simple micro-sociologist.  Without the possibility of maintaining a distinction between front stage and back stage, social interaction is not possible, and I think because of the actions of WikiLeaks maintaining this distinction in the field of interaction called diplomacy is becoming ever more difficult.  Thus, diplomacy will be either weakened or more secretive and elitist, Arjen major normative concern.  I share his concern, just don’t know why he thinks WikiLeaks’ is a “one-off dump.”  Rather it seems to me that it is part of a dangerous trend.

The Optimistic Note

On a much more positive note, I think the way ideal and practice can be combined in the establishment of positive social change was elegantly revealed in Rachel Sherman’s post.  Lauren asked whether the new Domestic Workers Bill of Rights will have any consequences beyond the symbolic.  Jeff thinks that it will, by encouraging those who are “well-intentioned, employers engaged in paternalistic labor relations” to do the right thing.  But he makes an additional, and I think very important observation, the law “formalizes some important labor standards.”

This, in my understanding, is Rachel’s main point.  She seems to be a student of Hannah Arendt here (though I am pretty sure she actually isn’t).   The passing of this bill and the formal enactment of the law are as important as the results the law yields.  Politics as a means is an ends.  Through much of labor history, workers rights have excluded the rights of people of color and of women.    This law represents the beginnings of a legal correction of this.  The action of the labor movement, Domestic Workers United , is as important as the details of the law.  To be sure Domestic Workers still will be exploited, but they now have gained significant formal and legal standing, as a result of their own actions, in addressing the problems of their exploitation, and as Rachel underscores their struggles are at the center of some of the major issues of our times.   A major ideal is sustained and extended.  It empowers a workers movement, as they achieve, limited, practical results.