"Tough love" for humanity through unexplored "negative strategies"?

Time for a Remedial Global Nuclear War? (Part #10)

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Considerable energy is invested in exhorting constructive, positive behaviour in response to social and other problems. This approach has been used for many past decades. It is the basis for many institutional strategies, whether at the level of the United Nations, governments, or local communities. It is fair to say that these strategies have been relatively modest in their success -- in comparison with the challenges. This is as true with respect to health, violence, and environment, as is it is with respect to discrimination and other issues. Critics point to characteristically tired language and outworn formulae.

Paradoxical strategies? Without denying the merit of these positive strategies, there is at least a case for reflecting on another strategic approach -- especially in the light of the current disruption of the international framework of law and order and the increasing recognition that the forces undermining positive achievement are more powerful and widespread than was previously assumed. There are increasing appeals for more imaginative approaches and what follows is a modest contribution to this end.

Such a possibility has been explored (Liberating Provocations: use of negative and paradoxical strategies, 2005). The argument considered the following themes:

In a perverse world, is there not a strong case for developing perverse strategies -- especially if that is what humanity is already in effect doing? The strategy of suicide bombers might be seen as a strangely distorted, provocative effort to achieve justice. Perhaps modern society, like those of the past, requires "preparatory" human sacrifice as a rationale for remedial initiatives? As a trivial example, why is so little documented regarding the number of such "sacrifices" required before seat-belt legislation was imposed for automobile drivers?

Shock therapy? As noted above, the international community has had recourse to lobotomy, metaphorically understood (Severing the Russian Hemisphere as Problematic Global Lobotomy? 2022). This has proven to be far less than successful as a remedial strategy for global civilization. Consideration could therefore be given to a related technique, metaphorically understood, which has been variously promoted by the medical profession, namely shock therapy or the variant known as electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). An electrically induced generalized seizure (without muscular convulsions) is thereby used to manage refractory mental disorders.

There is little question that global society can be caracterized as suffering from "refractory mental disorders" -- whether or not these can be usefully associated with problematic conditions in the "global brain" (as mentioned above). As applied to the individual, ECT is considered a safe and effective intervention for major depressive disorder, mania, and catatonia -- conditions which could be variously recognized in global society in this period.

Curiously one feature of nuclear war may take the form of a nuclear electrical magnetic pulse (EMP), as noted above. As a burst of electromagnetic radiation created by a nuclear explosion, this could be understood from a global perspective as having an analogous effect to ECT applied to the individual.

Three components of nuclear EMP are distinguished: "E1", "E2" and "E3".  E1 causes most of its damage by causing electrical breakdown voltages to be exceeded, thereby destroying computers and communications equipment. The main problem with E2 is that it immediately follows E1, which may have damaged the devices that would normally protect against E2. The E3 component has similarities to a geomagnetic storm, producing geomagnetically induced currents in long electrical conductors, damaging components such as power line transformers. Also known as an "Enhanced-EMP", a super-electromagnetic pulse is a relatively new type of warfare in which a nuclear weapon is designed to create a far greater electromagnetic pulse in comparison to standard nuclear weapons of mass destruction.

Whilst the effects of EMP on infrastructure have been extensively studied, relatively absent are considerations of very extensive global communication breakdown, as envisaged above. In terms of collective psychotherapy, it is the immediate remedial potential of EMP which merits attention -- in the light of insight into the therapeutic effects of ECT.

Electronics-free days? A far less "convulsive" possibility than the catastrophically "shocking" consequence of EMP is already variously promoted annually in the form of International Internet-Free Day, the World Day Without Wi-Fi, and the World Days Without Phone and Smartphone. These are comparable with the annual World Car-Free Day, sponsored by the UN Environment Programme.

Given that such days are primarily voluntary -- "to raise awareness" -- they are characterized by exemptions, justified by response to emergency. Greater collective learning would potentially result from the absence of exemptions in the case of EMP. These would be illustrated by any "Power-Free Day", "Food-Free Day", "Water-Free Day", "Medication-Free Day", or "Sanitation-Free Day". These are of course characteristic of the lives of many exposed to natural disasters, strike action, or underprivileged environments.

It is noteworthy that variants of a "week" or a "month" may be enforced by religious restrictions associated with fasting, or by prohibition of use of technology.

Promotion of the problematic? Whether or not the anti-war movement is now deemed to be relatively ineffectual, what effect would strong popular promotion of nuclear war now have?

There is recognized value to role reversal as a  psychotherapeutic technique in psychodrama,  whereby a  protagonist's intrapersonal conflicts are deeply and explicitly on stage. The protagonist is invited to move out of their own position or role into the significant other's position and enact that role. What if nuclear war was promoted more vigorously than through the threats evoked by the military-industrial complex -- then to be framed as self-serving and cowardly by comparison?

Role reversal has curious implications for "dialogue" -- when understood as variously involving "con-versation", "pro-versation", "re-versation", "in-versation", and the like (Prefix "Re-cognition" as Prelude to Fixing Sustainability -- "Pro" vs "Con"?, 2017). These are suggestive of phases in a verbal dance, potentially enabled by "verse" (Poetry-making and Policy-making: Arranging a Marriage between Beauty and the Beast, 1993; Amy Mount, When Politics meets Poetry: what the humanities bring to policymaking, The Guardian, 29 April 2015).

Would vigorous warmongering by traditional peace advocates reframe a sterile space of dialogue by obliging the traditional warmongers to actively defend a peace process? Is there a case for a  global conference of warmongers -- and holders of nuclear missiles -- to consider how they might immediately enact their destructive potential?

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