The New Dark Age Revisited

The torture debate illustrates how the latest in technological wizardry is not necessary to plunge us into the depths of intellectual darkness

In 1996 Mark Stahlman, a former technology analyst on Wall Street, espoused his theories about the rise of the New Dark Age. At that time, he couldn't have foreseen how quickly circumstances would develop to this end. Even so, the new dark age has turned out to be not exactly what he -- or many others like him -- thought it would be. Then, in the eyday of the "Internet Revolution", it was considered that technology would play a fundamental role in the new dark age. In essence, the new dark age would be primarily a digital dark age.

Recent events, however, have shown this not to be the case. Unlike Stahlman's prophecy that we would be psychologically programmed and that new media networks would become the mechanism of psychological destruction and seamless surveillance, the new dark age has descended in a much more simple manner: that of self-censorship and collective amnesia. In other words, the latest in technological wizardry is not required to plunge us into the depths of darkness.

This is where many of the doom and gloom philosophers of the past made their mistake. Caught up in the euphoria of the so-called "Internet Revolution", Stahlman and others were constrained by a binary way of thinking. For them it was clearly black or white: either the new media would be utilized to further the forces of darkness, or it could be used to forestall our personal demise, if we could just grasp its positive potential in good time.

At this juncture, Stahlman's view runs similar to that of the late Michael Hauben and the Netizen movement, in that the Internet has the potential to become the greatest weapon against propaganda by virtue of it's very nature; that is, it's inherently two-way and conversational. Unfortunately, what Stahlman and others failed to notice is that too much information can be just as inhibiting as too little.

Looking at present day circumstances, we can now see that the role of new media technologies in the rise of the new dark age is negligible. Although there have been many attempts to control or manipulate computer mediated communications, these networks have remained intact, more or less. Rather, the problem is they are not being utilised to their full extent. Indeed, the irony is that the new dark age has descended at the very same moment when access to information and the ability to communicate broadly is near its peak.

Take the issue of torture, for instance. It would have seemed inconceivable a few years ago that anyone in the "free" world would seriously discuss the "merits" of using torture. And yet, toward the end of 2001, this very subject had been elevated to a position of acceptability, in that it was worthy of consideration among the intellectual elite and chattering class, most notably in the US.

The common practice and legal acceptance of torture was one of the hallmarks of the dark age. Naturally, it was not limited to that specific period in time and space, but was widely practiced throughout the world and within different civilisations. Yet what has supposedly sets us apart from other civilisations is our common understanding that torture is barbaric and wrong.

But in the US, the so-called leader of the free world and the lone superpower, and the country which human civilisation of the Third Millennium supposedly should emulate, the treatment of prison inmates is such that international organisations like Amnesty International and the United Nations have complained that it was violating the International Convention Against Torture. In fact, ever since ratifying the "Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment" in 1994, the US has been dragging its feet when having to show its compliance with the treaty. The first report was five years late, and there's no reason to believe subsequent reports will be any quicker.

More shocking than this, however, is the apparent mainstream media acceptance of torture as a justifiable means to an end in wake of America's holy crusade against terror. Growing numbers of pundits have openly discussed allowing US law enforcement to officially use torture against suspects. They openly flaunt the fact that the CIA has taught other countries how to torture effectively and has even published an interrogation manual of coercive methods, both physical and mental, including drugs and hypnosis.

In evaluating the "pros and cons of torture", debate in the US centered around the premise that the use of torture could save tens or hundreds of thousands of lives. A typical scenario (from the McLaughlin Group, November 10, 2001) is the following: "Imagine that your child were being held captive and the only means to save her life were to torture a suspect. Would you condone it?"

The fact that pundits in the US would so casually debate the "merits" of using torture is a cause for alarm. Even more frightening are some of the views espoused in support of it. On the far-end of the scale some, like Alan Dershowitz, have suggested the use of "torture warrants", in where law enforcement would be able to get a warrant from a court in order to engage in psychological torture. Likewise, Jonathan Alter of Newsweek wondered whether torture would "jump-start the stalled investigation into the greatest crime in American history."

Others are no less bloodthirsty. Tony Blankley of the Chicago Tribune rationalises the use of torture in this way: "Given the dangers that are involved, the possible nuclear dangers that we're talking about, regretfully, we have to return to these medieval calculations." Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, meanwhile, is more blunt: "We have to fight the terrorists as if there were no rules."

For those a little more moderate in their views, they prefer not to use the term "torture", but are happy to call it "moderate coercion". Likewise, most prefer a "no see, no hear" policy. Some moderate torture advocates don't mind if there is someone in another branch of government who works in the "dark operations of intelligence", as long as they do so behind closed doors.

On the whole, most pundits are uncomfortable about having "moderate coercion" practiced in the US, but have no qualms over shipping American interrogators to Morocco, France or Israel, where they can use that kind of coercion. Others are a little more humane: they think someone else should do it. Thus, it has been suggested that the US should send suspects to be tortured to another country that will do the job, such as the Philippines.

For the few pundits totally against any form of coercion, they feel the next-best thing is the now official policy (and unconstitutional practice) of eavesdropping on client-lawyer conversations and holding suspects without sufficient evidence. This kind of thinking is not only prevalent in the US but elsewhere: like Ashcroft in America, Home Secretary David Blunket in the UK has been trying to create an environment where a suspect will not see the evidence against him or her, a judicial mechanism where lawyers will not be trusted with confidential information, and a system where there will be detention without trial.

In the end, whatever the degree of blood lust, the underlying premise of all those involved in the torture debate is the same: that "Enduring Freedom" is going to be a messy war, and therefore you have to do some underhanded things. Yet from an epistemiological perspective, what all this amounts to is nothing less than intellectual barbarism.

The dark ages have been called thus because it represented a period in European history when the "lights went out" in terms of knowledge. Although faint glimmers appeared now and then, such as Alcuin in the time of Charlemagne, on the whole it represented a dark period when compared with the cultural traditions of Greece and Rome, the "rebirth" that was associated with the Renaissance, or the rise of art and science in the emergent world of Islam.

While torture is not exclusive to the dark ages, but was quite prominent in the golden ages of the great civilizations of the past, the fact that by the end of the 20th century it was generally considered to be an inhumane form of treatment should be an indication of how much we had learned from the past. That world leaders and media pundits have now retreated from this position is a mere testament to how much the light of knowledge has since dimmed.

Sadly, this is but one in a number of like indicators of how the war against terror is pretty much over -- and that terrorism has won the day. Not only is it dark outside, but it's an alien world out there, full of fear of trepidation. The repeated call for vigilance merely reinforces this state of fear and indicates how scared the US -- and the rest of the western world -- really is. The only hope for the future is that those who continue to grope in the dark, with an unyielding desire to find an exit, will ultimately stumble across a light switch.

http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/11/11731/1.html