Emotional blackmail by officiants

Marrying Strategic White Holes with Problematic Black Holes (Part #4)

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The focus here is the extent to which the officiants of engagement between problematique and resolutique themselves engage is a strange process of emotional blackmail, as discused separately (Exploiting suffering as a means of moral and emotional blackmail, 2013) in a section of a more general argument (Enabling Suffering through Doublespeak and Doublethink, 2013). This explored the manner in which the various forms of doublespeak are blended cynically into the process of deploring suffering, as separately discussed (Vigorous Application of Derivative Thinking to Derivative Problems: transcending bewailing, hand-wringing and emotional blackmail, 2013):

As indicated by the title, the concern... is with the nature of authoritative analysis of any problem situation such as to avoid any focus on generative factors. The subtitle is indicative of a secondary concern that this avoidance ensures every opportunity for many to wring their hands in compassionate despair for those who suffer as a consequence. For those variously claiming the highest moral authority, this may then be reinforced by their vacuous appeals to others of lesser standing to enable the resolution of the problem -- a form of emotional blackmail further reinforced by daily media coverage of that suffering.

As further noted:

Possibly most offensive at this time is the "hand-wringing" by authorities... This is reminiscent of that given prominence by Pontius Pilate in "washing his hands" to show that he was not responsible for the execution of Jesus, and in thereby reluctantly sending him to his death (Matthew 27:24). Associated with this process is the emotional blackmail by which responsibility for the current global condition is thereby allocated to others.

Especially significant to the current argument is the manner in which human rights and the law are increasingly used as a form of decorative "fig leaf", variously adjusted to conceal the "erogenous zones" through which the problematique is engendered and sustained. Appeals to the "law" and its constraints then obscure the extent to which behaviour is conditioned by some form of "lore" to which little reference is made, as separately discussed (Law and Order vs. Lore and Orders? Imagining otherwise the forceful engagement of singularity with plurality, 2013).

A more clearly recognized situation is offered by the military and security services in their portrayal of the security problematique with which they consider their societies to be confronted -- and the absolute necessity for periodic increases to the military budget to safeguard the future. To what extent does their presentation constitute an exercise in emotional blackmail? Analogues are evident in response to other unquestionable budgetary situations presented as a case of "saving lives" -- as is typical of health-related proposals. That argument is extended to other domains, notably with respect to exploiting the environment. Then it is presented as "saving livelihoods" -- namely "saving jobs".

Another example is offered by a current issue of The Economist, a journal renowned for its responsible analysis. This was themed on the topic: Europe's boat people: a moral and political disgrace (25 April-1st May 2015). The entire focus was on the immediate tragedy with respect to Mediterranean migration, with the emphasis on how refugees should be more appropriately accepted in far larger numbers by Europe. There was only the briefest mention that: "And in the long run migration north to Europe will never be just a matter of refugees...And the population there [in Saharan Africa] is expected to double over the next 30 years". Despite this, the various mini-graphs offered stop at 2015. There is no analysis with respect to longer time scales. This is curious for a discipline typically so assiduous in the estimation of future economic impacts. Is it the case that the loss of human life in the future in greater numbers is in some strange and skillful way "discounted" in relation to the need for immediate commitment to focus on those who pose an immediate challenge?

What exactly is causing the population to "double over the next 30 years"? Would it not be strategically responsible to consider either how to constrain that rate of increase or to consider how Europe is to absorb such numbers -- given its own crises of unemployment, housing, social security, and the like?

Like it or not, such questions are being asked by right-wing parties -- with the unrest for which they are liable to be a focus, What seems so intellectually dishonest is the incapacity to address the issue of population pressure and the vested interests which have so surreptitiously supported it. The preferred focus then constitutes a form of short-term emotional blackmail with little attention to the long-term suffering already in the pipeline -- reframed curiously as somehow acceptable by future generations.

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