Tea Party Protest, Washington D.C. September 12, 2009 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
What follows is some brief commentary on satire surrounding the Snowden leaks, e.g., this fairly characteristic bit by The Onion, pointing out that American’s generally don’t mind similar data mining conducted by private corporations. And while that studied indifference is fairly disturbing, I think the satire obscures important differences between data mining by companies and data mining by the state, when both operate within a state-centric political-legal framework. In particular, the legitimacy with which Americans view the state monopoly on coercive force justifies a greater aversion to government overreach than for corporate overreach. I believe that this respect and its effects are, counterintuitively, even more evident in conservative, small-government ideology than in the American left, traditionally the political wing more hostile to the defense and intelligence establishments. Indeed, this counterintuitive claim may help to resolve a central tension in conservative ideology – the desire for a decentralized domestic regime but a powerful, hegemonic state abroad.
The crucial distinction between private industry and the U.S. government is that the government-as-law-enforcer is the last protector of the citizenry against abuses. When a private corporation surveys private data, it is limited in modern society by the legal intervention of the state. Where the population generally appeals to, and therefore recognizes, the legitimacy of the state, that same population will believe that the government serves as a recourse against corporate abuse. When the government itself is seen to pursue potentially, even if not actually, abusive activities, no sense of recourse can exist, for no recognized authority beyond the state carries either the power or the legitimacy to forestall or repair abuses that the state commits. The tendency is thus to restrict the state more than one would restrict private enterprise, for the potentiality of private harm may always be balanced against government reparation in evaluating its desirability. Hence, we may find Target knowing about your pregnancy before your family does (partly) okay because we believe we can regulate away anything worse than diaper coupons. But the ability of a politicized agency in control of the military, federal police, international policy, the national guard, and hundreds of billions of dollars in ubiquitous public funding to gather such information seems decidedly less constrained. The potentiality of public harm may be seen only in the light of utter private ruin to those whose interests to not align with those of the empowered government regime.
Radical American conservatism is a response precisely to the apparent powerlessness of the the individual as confronted with the sovereign state. Stripped of faith in any authority providing earthly protection against state abuse, those without strong faith in the internal checks of the state recognize no recourse against intrusions except for brute force exercised in the name of self-defense. This self-reliance is a recognition of the world not as an orderly place subdued by society, but as a scene of violence. The capacity of any individual to abuse another with impunity, or of the government to do the same, recapitulates the state of nature and reconstitutes its corresponding mindset. The state must be constrained by the only power that remains to stop it – oneself.
Interestingly, the resultant ideology of “small” government depends precisely upon the existence of a powerful, centralized state. On the one hand, the demand that the state decentralize while private individuals may consolidate and incorporate power implicitly recognizes the legitimate authority of the state to intervene in private affairs. For he who is skeptical of unchecked abuse generally must believe that this private consolidation exists under external constraints if he is to support it generally. Only an anarchist believes that these external checks arise spontaneously, and modern American conservatism is not anarchistic. Hence, American conservatives recognize and respect a sovereign power, e.g., the state, as an authoritative limitation on action.
On the other hand, the characteristic support of conservatives for a militarily powerful and globally present United States demands precisely the public exercise of power within an international arena that contains no generally recognized universal authority. Where no external protection exists, protection must be internal. It must be drawn from the one source that can potentially represent the conservative’s interests within a violent international sphere – and that source is the modern state. Both the insistence on domestic decentralization and the desire for international hegemony thus result from the same set of basic beliefs: that the United States is generally good at protecting its citizens; and that it has the power, at any time, to humiliate, subjugate, and destroy them.
The move against surveillance must take the form of a public outcry precisely because of the weakness of the individual. In the face of state authority, it is only with broad support from the mob that one seeking to limit the reach of the state can succeed. Those who already possess power do not need public opinion. They can protect themselves silently (and yes, many of these may be corporations), without the uncertainty of openly entering political discourse.
Angry Philosophy 