Substitute for failure of intellectual integration and operational coordination

Cyclopean Vision vs Poly-sensual Engagement (Part #3)

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It could be argued that the totalizing function of spectacles, as noted by Kellner, is an effort to obscure various failures of conceptual integration in dealing with social reality -- especially on the part of various institutions. This effort may be partly conscious and partly inadvertent or unconscious.

Spectacles distract from integrative failures exemplified by the following:

• the inability of systems of governance to configure relevant agencies to initiate and deliver major social projects (development, "health for all", "freedom from hunger", "work for all", "literacy for all", "shelter for all", etc), but especially in response to complex crises
• the inability of academic and professional institutions to reconcile their methodological differences in order to ensure emergence of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary modes of reflection in response to complex problems
• the inability of social systems to respond coherently and creatively to the complex challenges of multiculturalism, notably as represented in the "clash of civilizations" (attaching radically different significance to the imagery of spectacles)
• the inability of religions to reconcile their differences in order to avoid the multiplicity of conflicts sustained by such differences
• the inability of leadership to engender social projects of a sufficiently inspiring nature to mobilize widespread enthusiastic support ("Make Poverty History", in contrast to travel to other planets, etc)
• the failure of attempts by authorities of any kind to disguise their failures through public relations and news management ("spin") and the consequent increase in the institutional credibility gap

Systems of governance might be said to be addicted to increasing levels of news management -- a pathological case of "mega-billboarditis" -- whose promises have proven to be increasingly unpersuasive. Those in power are no longer capable of proving the existence of challenges for which they invite support -- because of the demonstrated capacity to tamper with electronic evidence and to intimidate those who lend their credibility to its presentation. Cognitive reframing has been attempted through what have been termed "megametaphors" -- themselves a form of "cognitive spectacle" (cf Timothy W. Luke, MegaMetaphorics: Re-Reading Globalization, Sustainability, and Virtualization as Rhetorics of World Politics, 1999).

Spectacles are a logical extension of this progression. It can be argued that spectacular threats now offer the most effective means of controlling the priorities of governance (cf Promoting a Singular Global Threat -- Terrorism: Strategy of choice for world governance, 2002). A dangerous level of "groupthink" was acknowledged to have been associated with the manner in which the intelligence community encouraged policy-makers to "connect up the dots" in relation to the facts of 9/11 (cf Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Pre-War Assessments on Iraq, 9 July 2004; Lord Butler's Review of Intelligence of Weapons of Mass Destruction, 13 July 2004). However the question is, for some, whether this groupthink was elicited by the spectacle of 9/11 or 7/7, or whether groupthink amongst "rogue elements" of government was effectively responsible for either (cf Cui Bono: Groupthink vs Thinking the Unthinkable? Reframing the suffocating consensus in response to 7/7, 2005; also Journal of 9/11 Studies).

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