News From the OHCHR's Business and Human Rights Section

 

 I am delighted to pass along these bits of interesting news from the OHCHR's Business and Human Rights Section:

• Official launch of the OHCHR Helpdesk on Business and Human Rights: The OHCHR Helpdesk on Business and Human Rights (BHR Helpdesk) is now live! The BHR Helpdesk is a free and confidential service open to all who have questions about the meaning and application of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Please consult the BHR Helpdesk portal for information on how to submit a request or support the initiative. 

 

• Internship opportunity (application deadline: 16 May): Our section is currently recruiting an intern to support our work on business and human rights. We would greatly appreciate your help in circulating the announcement within your networks. Applications may be submitted through Job Opening 274702 on Inspira.

 

• New resources forthcoming: In the coming weeks, we will release several new BHR resources, including on: 
• the use of digital tools to support stakeholder engagement
• investors and the arms sector
• diversity, equity and inclusion policies
• the involvement framework.

A more comprehensive update will be shared once these resources become available.

Reflections on 张冠梓: 从世界历史纵深把握中国式现代化的时代价值 [Zhang Guanzi, Grasping the Contemporary Value of Chinese Modernization from the Depth of World History ]--The Marxist Variation on Leninism and the Constitution/Realization of Modernization

 

Pix credit here: Unite,  Work Hard for China's Prosperity to Speed Up the Struggle to Realize the 4 Modernizations

Versión en español

 Chinese Marxist-Leninism has never strayed far from one of its key core organizing premises--modernization. This is modernization--development of a nation's productive forces-- that understands production in a comprehensive way. It touches not just on economic development, but also social, cultural, religious, political, etc. All of the productive forces of a nation must be modernized to a quite specific purpose--to guide the nation toward an efficient and effective positive progress along a socialist path toward the realization of a communist society, a goal reached in the perfection of all productive forces as an in themselves. It is at this stage of development that the state would wither, the divide between capital and labor would become irrelevant, and permanent stability could be achieved. 

It is at this point that Leninism--as a very specific form of vanguardism tied to the trajectories of Marxist progressivism--becomes a critical element in the management and guidance of social progress through the necessary stages of collective evolution toward that communist ideal state. Within the Russian context (then Soviet and in variation Marxist-Leninist governance circles), Leninist vanguardism progressed from a state of vanguardist professional revolutionaries (Lenin's What is to be Done?, 1902), to the managers of social, political. economic, cultural, etc. transformation that, at the hands of this Communist vanguard of leading social forces, could efficiently and deliberately guide the nation through the stages of its historical evolution to more efficiently reach the end of the socialist path initially within the structures of a dictatorship of the proletariat 

"The Party is the highest form of organisation of the proletariat. The Party is the principle guiding force within the class of the proletarians and among the organisations of that class. But it does not by any means follow from this that the Party can be regarded as an end in itself, as a self-sufficient force. The Party is not only the highest form of class association of the proletarians; it is at the same time an instrument in the hands of the proletariat for achieving the dictatorship, when that has not yet been achieved and for consolidating and expanding the dictatorship when it has already been achieved. "(Josef Stalin, Foundations of Leninism, 1924 Part VIII).  

Marx had suggested something like an inevitable organic progress in that respect; and he might have considered that Germany and the U.K. were, as the most advanced societies of the day, closer to reaching that goal. Lenin and then Mao Zedong are representative types for schools of thought that were built on a presumption that even societies stuck in much earlier stages of development could be scientifically managed forward in ways that substantially compressed the time to realization of the communist goal and thus the overall minimization of the suffering to be endured over a longer time period of development in getting there. Thus Marxist historical progression operates as an inevitable background text in liberal democracies, perhaps enhanced or constraint by its own vanguardist structures. Marxist Leninists rejected this idea in its Soviet phase (Josef Stalin, Foundations of Leninism, 1924, contextualizing Marxism within the stage of the historical development of Europe in the middle 19th century; a discursive approach that finds its way in a differently elaborated form within Chinese Marxist-Leninism); in Marxist  States Leninism operates as the driver and guide, operating consciously and actively on the theoretical inevitabilities of Marxist predictive trajectories (in both cases the emerge of a communist society in which labor and capital, as traditional objects and subjects, become irrelevant) (For one version of the structuring of those debates, see, Leszek Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism (first published OUP, 1978). 

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For the Soviets, at least, "Leninism is a school of theory and practice which trains a special type of Party and state worker, creates a special Leninist style in work. . . It has two specific features :a) Russian revolutionary sweep and b) American efficiency" (Josef Stalin, Foundations of Leninism, , part IX).  But it was more than that, in a sense, Stalin carried over the kernel of the definition of Leninism from the 1924 Foundations into  the On the Problems of Leninism (English version, 1954): "Leninism is the theory and tactics of the proletarian revolution in general, the theory and tactics of the dictatorship of the proletariat in particular (id., p. 149; and the structural framework of the dictatorship of the proletariat was "the political form, so long sought and finally discovered, within the framework of which the economic emancipation of the proletariat, the complete victory of socialism, must be accomplished" Foundations of Leninism, part IV)). That combines the normative goals of what started out as an end point--the dictatorship of the proletariat as the predicate for a global proletarian revolution which would create the conditions in which communism might be realized (until then both dictatorship and socialism with a purpose). It also required an organization through which this would be realized--the professional revolutionaries transformed into the incarnation of the proletariat, the relationship among which would be based, eventually in China, on the mass line and the principle of democratic dictatorship.   

In contrast, for emerging 19th and 20th century non-Soviet and post-Soviet and non-Marxist Leninism, the revolution IS American efficiency, one that required no ultimate objective other than the fulfillment of its highest forms of expression, guided by the vanguard built to facilitate those ends, like those around which Marxist realization of the perfection of the human condition might be realized, but here in whatever form might yet be revealed. That also placed development/modernization at the center of the project of the vanguard--but the point of value creation and of assessment would be different. And its techniques would reflect that foundational difference--markets versus planning; regulated fields of autonomy versus control, etc. But at the center--modernization and the striving toward whatever was conceived within the cognitive cages of each of these life-worlds, as perfection. See also my discussion (1)  The American Leninist-Brain Trust Republic: Text of President Trump's Executive Order, "Launching the Genesis Mission," and the Press Release "President Trump Launches the Genesis Mission to Accelerate AI for Scientific Discovery"; and (2) Brief Reflections on Rahm Emanuel, "Trump's Research Cuts Play Into China's Hands".

Pix credit here (1st Ann. Prolet. Victory)

Central to all of this was modernization--societal advancement or development in a comprehensive way. But of course, there are many routes that can be understood as Socialist Paths, each produced its own orthodoxy (eg, Josef Stalin, Problems of Leninism, 1958, Cf. here); and some of them appeared to require a certain ruthlessness either in managing productive forces (especially human productive forces) or in the fight against what might be identified as  reactionary, enemy and threatening forces, foreign and domestic (on the Soviet side, e.g., Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon (1941); Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, The First Circle (1954); on the Chinese side perhaps among others Mao Zedong, On the Peoples' Democratic Dictatorship, 1949). It needed its own narrative (Leon Trotsky, The Russian Revolution, 1932). That also produced a certain level of systemic corruption (on the Soviet side Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed (1936); and Deng Xiaoping's On Opposing Wrong Ideological Tendencies, 1981). It it also resulted in quite violent and ruthless disputes among factions of the Leninist vanguard that often ended in blood. . . lots of blood (on the Soviet side, e.g., Leon Trotsky, Stalin: An Appraisal of the Man and his Influence, 1941, pp 407 et seq.; but see here for a 1940s apologia). All of these affected modernization as well--from its receipt in the context of Western penetration in the 18th and 19th centuries, through  the efforts of Chinese Leninist to deploy Western know how but to Marxist, Chinese Marxist, effect--de-naturing Western know-how and investing it wit proper Socialist characteristics.

In China, the idea that modernization does not mean “Westernization” long predates the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). “Chinese substance, Western application” (中体西用) was the slogan of reform-minded intellectuals after the defeat in the Opium Wars. Its essence has been carried on by the CCP whose leaders have emphasized that China will not pursue a “Western-style” but a “Chinese-style modernization” (中国式现代化). One that modernizes industry, agriculture, army and science and technology – but does not include political liberalization or democracy. The latter, the CCP believes, has led to social conflict within Western societies – something that China can only avoid through the leadership of the CCP and socialist modernization (社会主义现代化). (China Media Project; Modernization) 

Assuming a unified Marxist Leninist Vanguard, and assuming stability and consensus about the Socialist Path, and assuming discussion at a purely theoretical level, then, what does change from one stage of China's historical development to another, as committed Chinese Leninist patriots would say, is the content and focus of modernization. That has been the basis on which the theorization of modernization and its relationship to the Socialist Path, and the constitution of the political economic model under the leadership and guidance of the Communist Party has developed since the Cultural Revolution in a more of less stable way.  But what gets lost in all of this, especially the detail of crafting an apparatus through which  the comprehensive process of modernization might be achieved to bring the backward forward, is the essential alignment of modernization  as the meta-norm within which Marxist scientific and deterministic aspirationalism, the possibility of accelerating Marxist progress, and the role of a Leninist vanguard constituted and directed toward that effort, around which the institutions of State and Party, and its normative core are manifested and shaped. 

Modernization, then, is not merely the object and the forms of the Socialist Path (toward the establishment of a communist society, the context of which changes during the stages of historical development and the character of each stage's general contradiction); it is both the object (manifestation) and the signification (the context in which meaning becomes meaningful) of both the initial institutional context f the post-revolutionary context of the dictatorship of the proletariat (now the people's democratic dictatorship) and of the vanguard party as the essence/incarnation and leader/guide of this objectives based mandate toward its (unavoidable per Marx) goal. Modernization (as development) assumes a critical role in non-Marxist and non-Marxist-Leninist systems overseen or guided through some form of vanguardist architecture; but the goals as articulated are different and the means for its realization much more fundamentally incompatible with Marxist-Leninist modernization--in theory at east, though there will be substantial points of functional convergence as to effect (for a comparative analysis on functional/historical frameworks from a Chinese perspective, see Guiguo Wang, The Right to Development: Contributions of the New Haven School of Jurisprudence and Chinese Traditional Culture, Yale J. Int'l L. (2024); for an internationalist Global South position, see here; the U.N. perspective here; and here. And all of this, of course, understanding modernization in its post-global sense: development of a nation's productive forces, one that touches not just on economic development, but also social, cultural, religious, political, virtual and every other form of object/process producing consequences for the collective undertaking modernization.

Pix credit here (2024)

 Versión en español

It is with this background firmly in mind that one might approach  The Communist Party's current teaching on socialist modernization,  从世界历史纵深把握中国式现代化的时代价值 [Grasping the Contemporary Value of Chinese Modernization from the Depth of World History] It appeared in  “人民要论” [People's Key Essays], a core column of the People's Daily Theoretical Edition, which focuses on contemporary and important major theoretical and practical issues, expressing the Communist Party's position in a way that is relevant to study by the people. Its author, Zhang Guanzi [张冠梓], is the current Director of the Institute of Chinese Modernization at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Its essence remains fundamentally aligned with the pronouncement of the 1978 poster reproduced above: 团结一致奋发图强为加速实现四个现代化而奋斗 [Unite, work hard for the prosperity of the country, to speed up the struggle to realize the Four Modernizations].

The entirety of the argument is laid out in the first paragraph of the essay:

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实现现代化是世界发展的历史潮流，是各国人民的共同向往。习近平总书记指出：“实现现代化是世界各国不可剥夺的权利”“一个国家走向现代化，既要遵循现代化的一般规律，更要符合本国实际、具有本国特色”。当今世界百年未有之大变局加速演进，国际力量对比深刻调整。西方现代化模式的局限与弊端日益凸显，世界迫切呼唤新的现代化路径。作为一种全新的现代化模式，中国式现代化打破了“现代化=西方化”的迷思，为世界现代化提供了新方案。深刻认识世界现代化的历史进程和中国式现代化的世界意义，有助于我们从世界历史纵深把握中国式现代化的时代价值，更加自觉、更加自信地推进和拓展中国式现代化。[Achieving modernization is a historical trend in global development and a shared aspiration of peoples worldwide. General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out: "Achieving modernization is an inalienable right of all countries in the world." He further noted: "As a country pursues modernization, it must follow the general laws of modernization while, more importantly, conforming to its own national realities and possessing its own distinctive characteristics." In today's world, the "profound changes unseen in a century" are accelerating in their evolution, and the global balance of power is undergoing deep adjustments. The limitations and drawbacks of the Western model of modernization are becoming increasingly evident, and the world is urgently calling for a new path to modernization. As a brand-new model of modernization, Chinese modernization shatters the myth that "modernization equals Westernization," offering a new solution for global modernization. A profound understanding of the historical trajectory of global modernization—as well as the global significance of Chinese modernization—enables us to grasp the contemporary value of Chinese modernization from the deep perspective of world history, thereby allowing us to advance and expand Chinese modernization with greater consciousness and confidence.] (从世界历史纵深把握中国式现代化的时代价值)

Recast within the structures developed above, tis argument might be understood as this; (1) modernization is inevitable and embedded in the collective human condition; (2) modernization has assumed the character of a right, in the language of modernity and that of the collective of States; (3) modernization is not merely a movement; there is a science to modernization, a rule system to which conformity is required if progress, measured against the premises and values of modernization so conceived, is to be achieved; (4) the "general laws" of modernization may be realized differently as a function of the characteristics of the collective to which it is applied (many paths toward the same place); (5) the modernization trend has intensified as the (in the Marxist Leninist conception of progress from Soviet times, but also see Rosa Luxembourg) for of imperialism (generally amalgamated as "the West") continue their decline and drown in their own corrupting contradictions; (6) the Chinese modernization path is better aligned with the times, especially if it is toward the realization of a communist society that a collective aspires; and (7) the inevitable trajectories of the forward movement of stages in historical development (another though meta-form of modernization) reveal that the Chinese path is the better one. 

The rest is intensely interesting detail. 

The Essay starts with the principle of leapfrogging, the realization of which is made more efficient by an attuned Leninist vanguard. The Essay notes that though much of the contemporary character of modernization is marbled with and reflects the normative and cultural context of Western developed states, "it is imperative to recognize profoundly that numerous civilizations across the globe have all made significant contributions to the genesis and advancement of the global modernization process" [然而必须深刻认识到，全球各地众多文明对孕育和推动世界现代化进程都作出了重要贡献。] (从世界历史纵深把握中国式现代化的时代价值) That is an important stage setting for the premise that there are multiple pathways toward modernization. But the argument runs deeper. First it suggests that there is no such thing as a sui generis development of Western modernization. "西方的现代化不是在真空中孤立完成的内生演进，而是深深植根于全球文明的交流网络。[Western modernization was not an endogenous evolution accomplished in isolation within a vacuum; rather, it was deeply rooted in a global network of civilizational exchange.].(从世界历史纵深把握中国式现代化的时代价值). Second, it suggests that "the global modernization process was not a unidirectional diffusion driven by a "Eurocentric" perspective." []世界现代化进程也不是单向的“欧洲中心论”式的扩散。(Id.). Here Chinese Chinese Marxist-Leninists modernize and contextualize Marx in a way that parallels a similar effort by Stalinist-Marxist Leninists in Europe but to different effect.

Marx and Engels did not hesitate to lavish praise upon the elevation of productive forces under capitalism and the role it played in forging a global market. At the same time, it must be recognized that within this process, the non-Western world—encompassing Asia, Africa, and Latin America—was not merely a passive recipient; rather, by virtue of their vast markets and abundant resources, these regions became integral links in the global division of labor, irreversibly swept up into and integrated within the magnificent tide of global modernization. [马克思、恩格斯毫不吝啬地盛赞资本主义生产力水平的提升及其推动世界市场形成的作用。同时要看到，在这一进程中，亚非拉等非西方世界并非单纯的被动接受者，而是以庞大的市场、丰富的资源成为全球分工体系的重要一环，不可逆转地被卷入并融入了波澜壮阔的世界现代化大潮之中。] (从世界历史纵深把握中国式现代化的时代价值).

This premise then serves as a foundation for the leapfrogging argument extracted by the author from Marx: "马克思对人类社会发展普遍规律进行深刻洞察，指出东方社会“有可能不通过资本主义制度的卡夫丁峡谷，而占有资本主义制度所创造的一切积极的成果”，从而加速历史进程。"  [Through profound insights into the universal laws governing the development of human society, Karl Marx noted that Eastern societies possessed the "possibility of appropriating all the positive results created by the capitalist system without passing through the Caudine Forks of the capitalist system itself," thereby accelerating the historical process. ] (Id.) The notion ties modernization to the essential value of a Marxist Leninist vanguard who is capable of guiding this leapfrogging, and as a consequence, of shortening the time and increasing the intensity of appropriate modernization without the pain of the traditional movement toward stages of historical development. 

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The reference to the Caudine Forks is  probably the most semiotically pregnant phrases of the essay, and one the meaning of which permeates the entirety of the essay and of the larger engagement of and with modernization. " For some traditionally educated Westerners, at least, Caudine Forks" (Furculae Caudinae) is understood as a reference to a particularly humiliating defeat of Roman Republican forces at the hands of the Samnites. Taken from the account in Livy, it has come to refer to a defeat requiring the loser to accept shameful, unavoidable terms, one associated with the performance of surrender before the victorious enemy. It signifies both entrapment (no way out of the Valley) and humiliating terms of surrender (in this case walking under the  the "yoke" of a superior enemy. At first blush that suggests both the avoidance of the 19th century disasters of the late Qing but also the avoidance of national humiliation and acceptance of foreign terms. But Livy (history of Rome Book 9), also had a deeper moral in mind. The Samnites paid an enormous price for the humiliation--eventually being defeated by and incorporated into the Roman Republic. That is the positive lesson for the losers and the value of accepting a defeat that preserves one's capacity. But the other lesson was for the Samnites--they had been advised either to allow the Roman army to proceed unmolested, or to slaughter them all. The former would have gained the friendship of the Roman Republic; the latter would have weakened them enough that they would not pose a threat. Having taken neither approach, the Samites eventually were eventually destroyed--a subtle message to the West. 

 From here the necessary conclusions and insights may be drawn. Western modernization is merely one path toward development. But it is path dependent. "Institutionally speaking, Western modernization is a form of modernization realized under a capitalist system, driven at its core by the ceaseless accumulation and expansion of capital." [从制度上看，西方现代化是资本主义制度下的现代化，核心驱动力是资本的无限增殖与扩张] (从世界历史纵深把握中国式现代化的时代价值). Though wildly successful its adaptation poses problems for other cultures/civilizations that do not share the ordering premises of that context--and it is especially irrelevant--and corrupting--for Marxist Leninist systems of modernization, or at least to systems still committed as much to their Marxism as they are to the forms of Leninism that are adapt toward the realization of Marxist goals. That point is then elaborated by Zhang Guanzi in a summary of the traditional Marxist critique of capitalist modernization with substantial though transformed echoes of the old Soviet-Classical Maoist class struggle. But those echoes must now be bent to the current general contradiction: "the tension between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people's ever-growing needs for a better life," with respect to which one might note Slavoj Zizek's Introduction to the English Translation of Mao Zedong's On Practice and COntradiction (Verso, 2007). The general contradiction of a stage of historical development can  as has been evident during the leadership of General Secretary Xi, have profound effects on the approach to and implementation of modernization strategies in a Marxist-Leninist system. (see, e.g., The 3rd Plenum Official Gloss--习近平：关于《中共中央关于进一步全面深化改革、推进中国式现代化的决定》的说明 [Xi Jinping: Explanation on the "Decision of the CPC Central Committee on Further Comprehensively Deepening Reforms and Promoting Chinese-style Modernization"]).

In the section of the essay that follows, 中国式现代化实现了对西方现代化理论和实践的重大超越 [Chinese Modernization Represents a Major Transcendence of Western Modernization Theory and Practice], Zhang Guanzi then moves from comparison in context to transcendence in a post-global context--the current stage of historical development of what passes for a world ordering. 

Pix credit here (Celebrate the 34th Anniversary of the PRC--The Motherland's 4 Modernizations Compose a New Hymn 

Zhang Guanzi starts by recapping the fundamental insight of the essay:

History has amply demonstrated that there is no single, ready-made template that can be mechanically applied to achieve modernization. As a nation embarks on the path toward modernization, it must not only adhere to the universal laws governing this process but, more importantly, remain firmly grounded in its own specific national conditions and cultivate its own unique characteristics. [历史充分表明，实现现代化没有模板可以套用。一个国家走向现代化，既要遵循现代化的一般规律，更要立足本国国情、具有本国特色。]  (从世界历史纵深把握中国式现代化的时代价值)

 And then he suggests the reasons, as a function of China's modernization success, that China provides the better version of the general template for modernization, which can then be adjusted to suit local conditions. It is here that the essay, in line with contemporary Chinese International initiatives, seeks to sell China as the appropriate baseline for Global South development:

Chinese-style modernization embodies a unique worldview, set of values, historical perspective, civilizational outlook, democratic philosophy, and ecological ethos. Having already achieved remarkable success, it is now regarded as a paradigmatic example of a late-developing nation striving to catch up and successfully forging a novel path toward modernization—one that represents a significant transcendence of Western theories and practices of modernization. [中国式现代化蕴含独特世界观、价值观、历史观、文明观、民主观、生态观等，已经取得显著成就，被视为一个后发国家奋力追赶并成功开辟现代化新道路的典范，实现了对西方现代化理论和实践的重大超越，] (Id.).

These selling points are divided into three broad categories of alignment. First, Chinese modernization prioritizes people over capital [以人民至上超越资本至上]. Second they provide a structure for for transcending self-interest through harmonious co-existence [以和合共生超越损人利己]. Third, they avoid what must be understood as private monopolies in favor of openness and inclusion [以开放包容超越系统垄断]. This last point echoes arguments made, at the level of the state system, by Fidel Castro in the context of his critique of globalization (see, Ideologies of Globalization and Sovereign Debt: Cuba and the IMF, Penn State Int'l LRev 2006). 

The essay ends with a consideration of Chinese style modernization, in which its own ideological stances and imperatives are deeply embedded, can change the fundamental laws of modernization and in that way displace or de-nature Western global structural elements of modernization. The template here is the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation--to displace the New American Golden Age. 

 "The new form of human civilization pioneered by Chinese modernization has not only achieved the continuity, iteration, and innovation of its own civilizational form, but has also, across multiple dimensions, explored the universal laws governing the resurgence of human civilization—particularly for developing nations and late-modernizing countries. This endeavor holds broad and profound global significance." [中国式现代化开创的人类文明新形态，不仅实现了自身文明形态的延续、迭代与创新，也在多个维度上探寻人类文明尤其是发展中国家和后发现代化国家文明复兴的普遍规律，具有广泛而深远的世界意义] (从世界历史纵深把握中国式现代化的时代价值).

That displacement is not merely pragmatic but also profoundly theoretical--grounded in the way in which some Chinese theorists choose to sketch the US-China oppositional cognitive binary; a subject on which there is substantially more to say.  Zhang Guanzi asserts, for example, that "The successful practice of Chinese modernization has heralded the bankruptcy of the linear, teleological view of history—the notion that all nations of the world are ultimately destined to converge upon the Western institutional model. [中国式现代化的成功实践，宣告了那种认为世界各国终将归于西方制度模式的单线式历史观的破产] (Id.). And yet that cannot be entirely true. It is not so much that linear teleology is overcome, it is that non-Marxist linear teleology must overlay and serve as the converging framework for the historically driven none-linear pathways toward inevitable communism. It is the objective, not the process that appears to matter--at least theoretically--and that serves as a basis for asserting a necessary displacement. But again, every system comes with its own baggage, a point that Zhang Guanzi also makes though to different ends. And so one ends where one might have begun--in the market for orienting theories, each infused with the premises and perspectives from out of which they arose, each claiming for themselves a better version of the discovery and applicaiton of core principles--which remain quite broad--and each offering way to global ordering that is created in their respective images. 

The only thing that remains constant is modernization itself. And it is in this sense that one might understand the larger point--that at least from the time of the Enlightenment, the conceptual cages of political collectives have understood themselves, have constituted themselves and see in their reflection nothing is not development and modernization. It is that concept, however elaborated, that then serves as the critical core element around which social collectives organize, asses and compete among themselves even they they frame their contests in virtually any language but that of modernization (as object), as signification (modernization to what ends) and as the understanding of collective human activity (how a modernizing collective is organized; how it operates from principle to pragmatics). 

 

 

 

America First as and in U.S. Counterterrorism Policy: 2026 U.S. Counter-Terrorism Strategy

 

 

The Trump Administration has released its 2026 Counter Terrorism Strategy. It adds another layer to the strategy documents and principles that together make up the new manifestation of the America First Initiative: i. National Security Strategy of the United States for 2025 (November 2025); ii. U.S. Department of State Agency Strategic Plan Fiscal Years 2026-2030 (January 2026); iii. The 2026 National Defense Strategy; and iv. Remarks of Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the Munich Security Conference (2026). It appears to seek to deepen and focus national security based enforcement within and as an expression of the transactionalist and markets protective lens of U.S. policy--foreign and domestic (discussed, Larry Catá Backer, The Conceptual Architecture of America First—Ideological Transactionalism and the Case of Cuba, 14(2) Penn State J. L. & Int'l Aff. 55-189 (2026) (SSRN HERE)).

President Trump set the tone for the Counter Terrorism Strategy in his introduction: "As part of my commitment to defending America from all enemies, foreign and domestic, we are once again working to crush the threat of terrorism." (Id., p. 3). Emphasizing a policy shift that was manifested early  in his 2nd term, President Trump emphasized the locus of counter terrorism within the Western Hemisphere: "We are no longer permitting the cartels and gangs who have poisoned millions of Americans to freely operate in our region or smuggle their drugs, guns, or trafficked women and children into our country. Last year, I rightfully designated the deadly cartels as terrorist organizations, and began using the strength and power of the U.S. military to stop and destroy their operations. " (Id., p. 3). Nonetheless, that emphasis serves as the hub the spokes of which will follow the operations of targeted organizations worldwide. Much of this is captured in Secretary of State Rubio's 5 May 2026 Press Briefing: Secretary of State Marco Rubio Remarks to Press 5 May 2026.

The 2026 Counter Terrorism Strategy also advanced a trajectory from the start of this century: "Additionally, we recognize that a new type of domestic terrorism has emerged, driven by violent extremists who have adopted ideologies antithetical to freedom and the American way of life." (Id., p. 4). Borders, in this sense, are as meaningless as the prior generation sought to make them--porous permeable (see my discussion here), and as applicable to disruptive and terror networks as they were meant to be for the free movement of goods, capital, investment, and to some extent people. 

The 2026 Counter Terrorism Strategy appears to focus on three emerging elements of greater interest: Narcoterrorists and Transnational Gangs; Legacy Islamist Terrorists; and Violent Left-Wing Extremists, including Anarchists and Anti-Fascists (Id., p. 5; 6) and is animated by a desire to undo what the Trump Administration described as the political agenda driven use of counter-terrorism by the Biden Administration (and by implication of predecessor Democratic Party Administrations) of which he and people close to him experienced first hand, at least as they might see it: "The fact pattern under the Biden Administration was clear: individuals at the highest level of the U.S. Government used their significant powers to politically target individuals in the interests of those they favored, wanted to keep in power, or to help win elections." (Id., p. 4).

 The sixteen pages of the 2026 Counter Terrorism Strategy first identifies the threat, then the strategy, then CT  principles, then CT priorities, and finally CT goals. The CTS then ends by considering the application of these to identified regions and groups as a function of resources, in this respect building on prior work (NSS2025 for example).  

The CT principles are broad and likely broadly construed: "America’s new U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy is driven by the principle that America is our homeland. Americans should be safe to live their lives without the fear of terror attacks,. . . [and w]hen it comes to state actors, our priority is to identify and fully degrade the lines of covert support provided to cartels and Islamists by our adversaries." (Id., p. 6). Principles drive priorities: "the neutralization of hemispheric terror threats by incapacitating cartel operations until these groups are incapable of bringing their drugs, their members, and their trafficked victims into the United States." (Id.). There is a politics to this as well, one alluded to in President Trump's introductory text, one that connects CT with migration policies: "At the same time, we will continue to find and remove the cartel and gang members who were let into our country under the Biden Administration while using FTO designations to strangle the commercial and logistical sinews of their organizations." (Id.). There is also a special purpose category, one that for the moment targets Iran: "At the same time, we will continue to find and remove the cartel and gang members who were let into our country under the Biden Administration while using FTO designations to strangle the commercial and logistical sinews of their organizations." (Id., p. 7). And priorities drive strategy. The CT strategy is to identify hostile groups, irrespective of their organizational character and to "neutralize the," (Id.). These are reduced to three functions: "Identify terror actors and plots before they happen; Cut off their arms, funding, and recruiting streams; Ultimately destroy established threat groups." (Id.). CT also addresses "five functional aspects of the current CT environment" (Id., p 8). These include:

• New and evolving collaboration between nation-states and threat groups such as cartels.
• New and deepening alliances between the far-left and Islamists, i.e., the "Red-Green" alliance.
• New and evolving alliances between established terrorist groups, such as the collaboration
between A l Shabaab and the Houthis.
• Exploitation of new weapons, like drones, by cartels and Jihadists, as well as the provision of these technologies to terrorists by state actors, namely, Iran, China, and Russia.
• The remaining threat o f terrorists acquiring and using nuclear, biological, or chemical
weapons - President Trump has rightly labeled "the single greatest threat to this world."(Id.) 

There is an additional category singled out: "terror-like actions taken by state actors, including acts o f
sabotage and the use of proxies, assassinations, and what some of our allies have labeled "hybrid"
attacks." (Id.). That suggests an important element to CT, perhaps its most important--the definition of terror and terrorism is now substantially elastic. It is not a definition that starts with forms, objects or actors, but instead it works backwards from acts, or threats of acts, to the actors and their collectives, which, by their acts, may be understood to fall within the terror /terrorism category. 

The resources to be devoted to these tasks are also broadly defined. They include the intelligence community (whatever that means in fact), and elements of the military. (Id., p. 8). But they also include portions of the domestic administrative apparatus--Justice Department,  Homeland Security; Treasury and State. (Id., p. 9). It ought to include Commerce, Agriculture, and Interior as well. It might, if only through the necessary and perhaps nonpublic MOUs extending out from identified elements of the bureaucracy. And, of course, diplomacy plays a role. (Id.). 

There is more that merits close riding. They apply these general principles in context.  The text of 2026 Counter Terrorism Strategy  follows below and may be accessed HERE.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio Remarks to Press 5 May 2026

 

Pix credit and video of the press conference here

 Versión en español

Marco Rubio: The War Powers Act is unconstitutional, 100 percent. Now, this is not the position of me. It’s not the position of the President of the United States now. This is the position that every single president that has occupied this position since the day that law passed. It’s completely unconstitutional. Now, we comply with it in terms of, like, notification because we want to preserve good relations with Congress, right? And we do that. But even as a senator I would say that the War Powers Act is 100 percent unconstitutional. And look, I know some of you – whatever you want to say, but this is not this President’s position. That has been the position of every single presidential administration since the day that law passed. It’s an infringement on the President’s constitutional powers. We don’t acknowledge the law as constitutional. Nonetheless, we comply with elements of it for purposes of maintaining good relations with Congress. And we want them to be involved and we want them to be informed. I have gone on Capitol Hill, I don’t know, four times this year for all senators and all House members and Intel Committee and Gang of Eight. We want them to be involved in this. But I want to be clear on the point of the War Powers Act. It’s unconstitutional, and every president in every administration has taken that position. (Secretary of State Marco Rubio Remarks to Press)

 Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke to the press 5 May 2026. Secretary of State Marco Rubio Remarks to Press. Secretary Rubio spoke to the issues around the conflict with Iran, and indirectly, with the Administration's conflict with the media especially as it is being used ad an amplifier of political elite factions that do not find the conflict with Iran either in their interests or aligned with their politics.  Indeed, some of the questions highlighted that chasm--a conceptual and values chasm--that separates the President's engagement with Iran from the preferred approaches of prior administrations that were, in turn, founded on substantially different premises.  

The Secretary highlighted the consequences of this chasm in the way in which he approached answers to the questions posed--fundamentally transactional, and with a decided abhorrence of institutional arrangements that would suggest a presence other than to clear spaces for transactions by economic actors. 

Just about the importance of the straits for a moment, this is approximately a quarter of the world’s oil trade, along with significant volumes of fuel and fertilizer, that operate through the Straits of Hormuz.  The Iranian regime cannot be allowed to dictate who uses this vital waterway.  I don’t think this is also being reported enough – or maybe you are reporting.  I don’t read everyone.  I don’t know – too many damn outlets are here, I don’t know who you all are, but – I mean, I know who some of you are, but I don’t know who all of you are.  (Laughter.) (Secretary of State Marco Rubio Remarks to Press)

 Secretary Rubio made reference to international law and norms as a basis for protecting waterways. "This is an international waterway.  And international law is very clear.  And I love it, because everybody always talks about international law on this.  International law on this very clear.  International waterways – no country can control them." (Secretary of State Marco Rubio Remarks to Press). Some might accuse the Secretary of hypocrisy; since the Trump Administration has been so dismissive of international institutions  and the constraints of international law surely they may not now when convenient seek to assert international law in defense of their position.  Yet Secretary Rubio made clear in his remarks to the Munich Security Conference that the Trump Administration does not reject international law per se, and certainly not as a normative baseline. (Reflections on Friendship, the Power of National Self-Actualization, and the Defining Baseline of 1963 in and as America First--Text of Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the Munich Security Conference). Within that conceptual cage, of the merchant rather than the bureaucrat-institutionalist, is built in a fundamental rejection the authority of international institutions under and as the highest manifestation of the organism that is post-1945 international law (as system as well as norm and object autonomous of the collectivized states from which it is said to proceed). Nonetheless, the transactionalist, the merchant type, the deal maker and market actor (in markets for all things, including politics) do not, and cannot as fundamental traditionalists, deny the power of international law in the sense that it is either broadly normative (expressing general values) or more specifically as a contract among states. One speaks here to the more ancient notion of a law of nations (recall the Institutes of Justinian) rather than the architectures and premises of post-1945 international law project.   

 The civil law of Rome, and the law of all nations, differ from each other thus. The laws of every people governed by statutes and customs are partly peculiar to itself, partly common to all mankind. Those rules which a state enacts for its own members are peculiar to itself, and are called civil law: those rules prescribed by natural reason for all men are observed by all peoples alike, and are called the law of nations. Thus the laws of the Roman people are partly peculiar to itself, partly common to all nations; a distinction of which we shall take notice as occasion offers. (Institutes, Book 1, Title II, ¶ 1).

It is in this sense that transactional perspectives approach international organizations and the rules with respect to which international venues provide a space for inter-governmental discussion. See, The United States Proposes a UN Security Council Resolution to Defend Freedom of Navigation and Secure the Strait of Hormuz. And it is in this sense that the approach is fundamentally different from the visions of those looking toward a future Techno-Republic (Reflections on the Palantir "Manifesto": The Oracular Semiosis of a "Technological Republic" Within its Own Cage of Techno-Modernization), though it may share objectives in common. 

Lastly Secretary Rubio's remark's on Cuba and the sanctions on petroleum deserve a bit of exposure:

So the only blockade that’s happened is the Cubans have decided – I mean the Venezuelans have decided: we’re not giving you free oil anymore. And you can only imagine nowadays the way oil prices are, no one’s giving away free oil, much less to a failed regime. So the problem with Cuba is worse, okay? Their economic model doesn’t work. It doesn’t work. And the people who are in charge can’t fix it. And reason that they can’t fix it is not just because they’re communists – that’s bad enough, but they’re incompetent communists. The only thing worse than a communist is an incompetent one, and that’s what – so incompetent communists run that country. They don’t know how to fix it. They really don’t. And we have 90 miles from our shores a failed state that also happens to be friendly territory for some of our adversaries. So it’s an unacceptable status quo, and we’ll be addressing it, but not today. Okay. (Secretary of State Marco Rubio Remarks to Press; emphasis added)

All of this is understandable from within the cognitive cage of the merchant within transactional spaces. Consider the discussion of piracy as a justification for the blockade of the Straits of Hormuz. The object of that blockade is not to stifle traffic but to avoid the piracy of the Iranians. The model is not the late 20th century institutional structures for international waterway traffic, but the much much older model of robber barons on the Rhine in the heyday of the Holy Roman Empire. And the object is the facilitation of trade and trade routes rather than something more institutionally lofty.  Access, trade, and level playing field competition within markets, rather than through collectivized institutions that are meant to mimic and displace markets are the driving force here. And that produces an approach to collectivization that distinguishes  the right Leninism of the 20th and early 21st Century liberal democracy, focused as it is on the institutionalization of autonomous individual activity within compliance and guided techno-bureaucracies, from that which appears in some sort of form as the collectivization of markets as platforms in which all human collectives (states, enterprises, religion, culture) produce and consume their respective products.

And then what has become, after the fact, a widely circulated excerpt in which the Secretary of State expressed his hopes for the United States: 

QUESTION:  – as we all know.  I’ve got to ask you, what is your hope for America at a time such as this?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  My hope for America?

QUESTION:  And how do you personally –

SECRETARY RUBIO:  It’s the same as it’s always been.

QUESTION:  – deal with that?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yeah look, I mean, my hope for America is what it’s always been.  I think it’s the hope I hope we all share.  We want it to continue to be the place where anyone from anywhere can achieve anything, where you’re not limited by the circumstances of your birth, by the color of your skin, by your ethnicity, but frankly, it’s a place where you are able to overcome challenges and achieve your full potential. 

I think that should be the goal of every country in the world, frankly, but I think in the U.S. – we’re not perfect.  Our history is not one of perfection, but it’s still better than anybody else’s history.  And ours is a story of perpetual improvement.  Each generation has left the next generation of Americans freer, more prosperous, safer, and that is our goal as well. 

But it is a unique and exceptional country, and as we come upon this 250-year anniversary I think we have a lot to learn and be proud of in our history.  It is one of perpetual and continuous improvement where each generation has done its part to bring us closer to fulfilling the vision that the founders of this country had upon its founding. (Secretary of State Marco Rubio Remarks to Press)

There is much more in the Press Briefing worth considering. And much for many to disagree with, especially those whose values and cognitive starting points are incompatible with that of the current Administration. But the nature and text of that disagreement has become both chant and camp. The  full text of the Press Conference follows below. 

 

 

Spring 2026 (Vol 112(2) of Academe (Magazine of the American Association of University Professors) Now Available: Theme--Artificial Intelligence and Academic Work

 

 

Delighted to pass along the announcement of the availability of Vol 112(2) of Academe.

The spring issue of Academe takes an in-depth look at artificial intelligence and academic work. Contributors to the issue examine the implications of AI’s rapid integration into campus life, discuss how faculty members are organizing around technology and fighting for policies that protect education for the public good, and consider the value of human intellectual labor in an age of automation.

Contributions with links follow below

Reflections on the Palantir "Manifesto": The Oracular Semiosis of a "Technological Republic" Within its Own Cage of Techno-Modernization

 

Pix Credit Oedipus Rex; Reuters

Jocasta
Nonn’ erubeskite, reges,                                 Are you not ashamed, princes,
Clamare ululare in aegra urbe                         To raise your voices, in a stricken city,
Domestikis altercationibus?                            Howling in domestic strife?
Clamare vestros domestikos clamores,           To air your domestic grievances,
Coram omnibus domestikos clamores,           Your personal quarrels, before all,
In aegra urbe, reges, nonn’ erubeskite?           In a stricken city, princes, are you not ashamed?

Ne probentur oracula                                       Nothing is proved by oracles,
Quae semper mentiantur.                                 Which always lie.
Oracula, mentita sunt oracula.                         The oracles, they have lied.

Cui rex interfikiendus est?                               By whom was the King to be slain?
Nato meo.                                                         By my son.
Age rex peremptus est.                                    Well, the King was murdered.
Laius in trivio mortuus.                                    Laius died at the crossroads.
Ne probentur oracula                                       The oracles are not to be trusted,
Quae semper mentiantur.                                 The oracles, who always lie.
Laius in trivio mortuus.                                   Laius died at the crossroads.
(Oedipus Rex (Libretto by Jean Cocteau, Music by Igor Stravinsky (30 May 1927), Act 2)

*       *        *

 Alex Karp and Nicholas Zamiska's  "The Technological Republic" (2025), and particularly its  22 point reduction posted to X brings to mind the oracular qualities of system building in this great age of transition from the domain of physical humanity to its recasting as its virtual self within  self-referencing constructs of simulacra--descriptive and predictive. This recasting must necessarily emerge from a technological revolution in which humanity delegates, or cedes back, individual or collective autonomy (and the exercise of will) to gods (Götzen und Güter [idols and objects] rather than Gott [God in the Abrahamic sense at least]; considered by Nietzsche HERE) created by humanity in its own image not from humanity's rib (Gen 2:21–24) but from out of its digitized form. That digitized form--the collective soul (perhaps better spiritus) of humanity (perhaps better, its anima  as a living object in the world) captured through the frozen in time memory of the signal or streams of humanity's iterative mimetic and dialogical manifestation of itself and its dreams--now resides in those virtual spaces within and trough which (or now as) the animus (its will/autonomy or rational driving force/spirit) of humanity may be ordered and directed. 

The oracular is hard enough; it is even harder when one has a stake in the delivery of the oracle and in the object toward which the oracle is directed. And yet, as in so many things, humanity persists. So do Mr. Karp and Mr. Zamiska. That endeavoring is important not only because the influencer augmenter of human system elites will tend to take this seriously (if only to critique or mock) but also because it is of a type, the semiotics of which point to the sort of cognitive cages that they and their peers may seek to dismantle and the new cages into which they and their peers seek to herd  the rest of us. In the process they and their peers may consider contributing to the shaping of and may seek to direct the externalizing forces of detached human collective animus (and the collective part is important) housed within techno-machine skins and operated through what Mr. Karp and Mr. Zamiska reference as software. And so some effort at understanding, or at least in approaching their oracular exercise may help one understand not just the oracle, but oracular (mis)direction and the futures they may bring. To those ends an appropriate oracular framework may be useful. I utilize that of the Oedipus story--not Sophocles directly, but that  rendered for modernity  through the Latin text of Jean Cocteau and the music of Igor Stravinsky. That lens then serves as an analytic baseline for considering all 22 of the oracular distillation of Karp & Zamiska's The Technological Republic.

There is a semiotic richness to Jocasta's famous entrance, and admonition, in Jean Cocteau's rendering of Sophocles' tragedy of oracular compulsions and misdirection in the 1927 Opera Oedipus Rex, made all the more powerful by Stravinsky's monumental music. At the end of Act 1 the high and mighty of Thebes (Creon, Tiresias, and Oedipus) engage in a furious dispute about  Creon's report of the advice sought from the oracle at Delphi (Quem depelli deus jubet peremptorem [The God decrees: expel the murderer]; Peste infikit Thebas [Who brought the plague upon Thebes]. Apollo dixit deus [Thus speaks the God Apollo]), Tiresias's interpretation of that oracle after he is goaded into speaking [Regis est rex peremptor [The King’s murderer is a King]), and Oedipus determination to solve the riddle, suspecting Creon's desire to usurp the throne aided by Tiresias, the way he had solved the riddle of the sphinx (Quis liberavit vos carminibus? [Who saved you from the riddle?; Amiki, ego Oedipus clarus, ego  [Friends, it was I, illustrious Oedipus]). The Delphic Report: that the murderer of the former King lives in Thebes and that the plague of Thebes will not be lifted until the murderer is expelled. 

Creon may be understood here as the semiotic representation of the state apparatus, its institutional spirit; Tiresias may be understood as the intellectual elite (academic, technical, religious), and Oedipus the political authority but also the progenitor of the actions that bring the State of Thebes to its present condition. He is the object of dual oracular insight: the first, that he is the object that will kill his father and marry his mother; and the second that he is the instrument that saves Thebes from danger and at the same time becomes the instrument of another sort of danger. Oedipus is the problem solver and the source of the problem; the only one capable of confronting and solving the problem ; the instrument that having fulfilled his purpose must now put himself down. Tiresias is reluctant to push this cycle to its end; Creon is indifferent, the vessel through which things are undertaken and the container of whatever exists before, during and after for Thebes. He is, in essence, social animus that contains and expresses whatever it is those with greater anima (perhaps better spiritus) see fit to pour into and out of it. 

And that leads to the only truly human figure in this semiotic structure: Jocasta--Creon's sister, Oedipus's wife, Laius' widow. Jocasta is the res publica (the objectification of the collective public), the vessel, and thus the preserver, but also the agent of the disruption of, the Trinitarian apparatus of the civitas--the Oedipus/Creon/Tiresias structure of civic life that cycles from crisis to resolution to the crisis of resolution and then again. She is the mass of the people who bear the risks and the costs and disruptions brought about by the Trinitarian dialectics of Oedipus/Creon/Tiresias and seek to avoid both the costs and the instability of that dialectic. She personalizes that dialectic and then seeks to quash it by appeals to stability and the avoidance of chaos. She then attempts to break the dialectic by resort to premised intuition (Ne probentur oracula [Nothing is proved by oracles]; Quae semper mentiantur [Which always lie]) and then by resort to proof of premise (Cui rex interfikiendus est? [By whom was the King to be slain?]; Nato meo. By my son]; Age rex peremptus est. [Well, the King was murdered]; Laius in trivio mortuus [Laius died at the crossroads]). And in the proving of it she conforms not just the second Delphic oracle (the slayer of the King is a King) but also the first (that her son would murder her husband and marry her). She becomes the incarnation of the intangible possibilities in the oracles now made flesh and  the price for which she will have to pay (and has paid) with her own body. Jocasta is not alone; Herodotus reminds us of the tragedy of oracular misunderstanding when the Delphic Oracle said to Croesus "that if he should march against the Persians he should destroy a great empire: and they counseled him to find out the most powerful of the Hellenes and join these with himself as friends." They did not mention that it would be Croesus' empire that would fall; Croesus assumed that it would be the other (here; ¶53).

Alex Karp and Nicholas Zamiska's (styled also a manifesto by some), "The Technological Republic" (2025) brings all of this to mind.  Alex Karp might well be our era's Techno-Oedipus--that, at any rate is how he appears to be styled by the publicists of his book:

From the Palantir co-founder, one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People of 2025, and his deputy, a critically-acclaimed and sweeping indictment of the West’s culture of complacency, arguing that timid leadership, intellectual fragility, and an unambitious view of technology’s potential in Silicon Valley have made the U.S. vulnerable in an era of mounting global threats (here)

And though like Oedipus they mean to solve the puzzle of the current stage of techno-historical development, they appear to embrace the cognitive sensibilities of Creon and his enabler Tiresias:

In this groundbreaking treatise, Palantir co-founder and CEO Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska offer a searing critique of our collective abandonment of ambition, arguing that in order for the U.S. and its allies to retain their global edge—and preserve the freedoms we take for granted—the software industry must renew its commitment to addressing our most urgent challenges, including the new arms race of artificial intelligence. The government, in turn, must embrace the most effective features of the engineering mindset that has propelled Silicon Valley’s success. Above all, our leaders must reject intellectual fragility and preserve space for ideological confrontation. A willingness to risk the disapproval of the crowd, Karp and Zamiska contend, has everything to do with technological and economic outperformance. At once iconoclastic and rigorous, this book will also lift the veil on Palantir and its broader political project from the inside, offering a passionate call for the West to wake up to our new reality. (here)

What they produce is reduced, in perhaps more accessible form, to an a more appropriately oracular form as a 22 point reduction posted to X ("Because we get asked a lot. The Technological Republic, in brief") and styled again by some as a sort of manifesto. It is reproduced below. And around it one hears the caution of Jocasta, the risk bearer and audience to the dramatic dialectic of Oedipus, Creon and Tiresias as "types" confronting a challenge that requires the undoing of that which brought them authority, fame, and position in the first place. 

The Synopsis has produced the usual range of reaction: here, here, here, here, here, here, here; the value of most of which may well be a function of  its alignment to the well or badly formed predisposition of the reader. One might consider the extent to which the commentary proves the point. My personal favorite if only for its stylistic agit prop qualities is this: Calls grow to ban Palantir in Australia after manifesto described by UK MP as ‘ramblings of a supervillain’. But still. . . . the operatic does require opera. And an opera requires a proper libretto. 

The oracular synopsis, then, is worth reading, but perhaps better through the lens of Oedipus Rex. If the book provides the Sophoclean version of the Jocastan defense of Thebes and "letting things be", then the 22 point reduction represents its more modern sharpening with thanks to Jean Cocteau but in the voice of Creon, a Creon who can look out at  the cycle that produced Thebes salvation and destruction, can look at Oedipus, now reconstituted as the techno-revolution, and declare: "Think no longer that you are in command here, but rather think how, when you were, you served your own destruction." (Sophocles, Oedipus Rex Exodus (Harvest Books, 1969), p. 72). It is in this context that it may be worth taking a little time to consider each of the manifesto's points: 

Pix credit here

1. Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation. Everyone owes a moral debt to the Republic; so-called Silicon Valley no more or less than anyone else; the statement appears on its face little more than a restatement of the obvious. But beneath its discursive "patriotic" trope lies  something more interesting: moral debt suggests a unifying morality that includes within it the patriotic impulse; patriotism as a moral force then shifts its objectivity from the masses (as a political determination) to an exogenous source in divinity, nature, or the collective genius of the people. But it also suggests a feudal element--human elites within fields of knowledge or production (Silicon Valley)--and with it a moral character to hierarchies. Or a morality of property--of creation--like God; or Frankenstein. This is the first oracle--what one gives birth to may kill one, but perhaps it can be sent away or tamed; perhaps torment but not death--or perhaps a reversal of roles as the thing created becomes creator and its creator object. 

 

2. We must rebel against the tyranny of the apps. Is the iPhone our greatest creative if not crowning achievement as a civilization? The object has changed our lives, but it may also now be limiting and constraining our sense of the possible. The rebellion against creation is an ancient trope. Here its semiosis is interesting--the thing that us created shapes the creator as much as it is shaped by and in the image of the creator. The mimetic dialectic shapes the cognitive cage within which the boundaries of dialectic are shaped. Rebellion in this sense becomes Jocastan, in the sense that rebellion is only another proof of the limits of the cage within which rebellion of the sort suggested here can occur. The reference to tyranny in the ancient sense of cruel and unjust use of power is both personal to the tyrant and institutional to the exercise  (verb or action object) of power (noun or norm object) of another object/action, another cognitive cage, the consequences of which are cruel and unjust precisely because they are; and they are precisely because of the constitution of the thing signified.  Jocasta speaking through the mouths of Creon and Oedipus. 

3. Free email is not enough. The decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public. There are three intertwined insights here that merit unpacking, decadence, ruling classes, and "things" that are enough. We start with things in quality and quantity sufficient to satisfy. Whom must they satisfy? the Volk (the public). What is not enough? the tyranny of the apps (see No. 2). What is sufficient? Economic growth and security (note NOT stability). We then move to the animating force--the ruling classes. They decide what is enough, the nature and presentation of capacity to produce, and the economic growth and security (again NOT stability) in quantity and quality deemed sufficient to be enough. Who are they? The ruling classes (the elites of Silicon Valley, see No. 1). And then we consider decadence of a culture or civilization. What is decline or decadence? The substitution of a tyranny of "the apps" for economic growth and security. How is that measured? By those measures developed by the ruling classes. How does vouch for the integrity of those measures? By insisting on the moral patriotism of the ruling class (both, again the Silicon Valley elites from No. 1). What is civilization  or culture? Social collectivization that is not caged within the cognitive structures of a tyranny of the apps (No. 2). Who determines culture and civilization? The ruling classes in service to the Volk--not petty fascism as such, but techno-Leninism (Brief Reflections on Rahm Emanuel, "Trump's Research Cuts Play Into China's Hands"). Jocasta speaks again, but this time in speaking she reveals the  power of her own counter arguments. It is the concept of enough and its control by ruling elites (Oedipus) around and through which civilization is constructed (Creon) as a manifestation of growth and security (Tiresias). All of this produces a different sort of cognitive cage, one with its own limits constructed around its own unquestioned premises. 

4. The limits of soft power, of soaring rhetoric alone, have been exposed. The ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal. It requires hard power, and hard power in this century will be built on software. Having indulged in the rhetoric of oracular semiotics, there is only despair in the (necessary) indulgence. It cannot be made the sort of instrument that is satisfactory, that is "enough" (see No. 3). Thus the exposure--in the "soaring rhetoric" of Jocasta: Laius in trivio mortuus [Laius died at the crossroads]; Ne probentur oracula [The oracles are not to be trusted]; Quae semper mentiantur [The oracles, who always lie]. To leap from despair requires another leap--from the guidance of the ruling classes (in its guise as the Silicon Valley elites, No. 1) to the collective of persons that constitute another object with significance, a "free and democratic society." The relationship between the two is implied (No. 3). And that relationship makes clearer both the constitution of the instrument to be used "hard power" and its construction "software." Why software, because software is the ultimate raw material of hard power which is the critical instrument the use of which makes Nos. 1-3 possible. It is a power beyond morality (though see No. 1 and the moral debt of the software elites which is the building material of the patriotic duty of the ruling classes against the tyranny of  the apps). Hard power is software managed patriotically by the Silicon Valley ruling classes; its nemesis are the apps the tyranny of which will contribute to collapse. And yet. . . and yet. . . both are constituted out of software. Both are the same object; both signify power in contextually different ways, and both ensure  the construction of culture and civilization in which Oedipus remains the central (tragic) figure. 

5. The question is not whether A.I. weapons will be built; it is who will build them and for what purpose. Our adversaries will not pause to indulge in theatrical debates about the merits of developing technologies with critical military and national security applications. They will proceed. Having set society right, it is now a matter of protecting it from other societies constituted in the right but in wrong ways. That requires that the ruling classes do what must be done to secure economic growth and security (a liberal democratic form of socialist modernization with a different sort of vanguard). That produces the context in which dual purpose development is plausible; in this case not merely A.I., but A.I. weapons. Yet it's logic is pedestrian; and Darwinian.  It is the voice of Tiresias helping Oedipus solve the riddle of the sphinx. Development and security does not mean peace; it means protection and the satisfaction of desire in ways that are curated by the ruling classes through the satisfying signification of valued software. 

6. National service should be a universal duty. We should, as a society, seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force and only fight the next war if everyone shares in the risk and the cost. What, then, doe one do with the human bodies that are the objects of software. One must make them useful in the way that all things offer utility. How is that usefulness to be measured? By its contribution to the well ordered system of software infused system of economic growth and security--of techno-modernization (as opposed to Socialist modernization, or even old fashioned analog markets modernization). The core question is who is the "we" in this proposition. It must be the Silicon Valley elites (No. 1) as part of or the vanguard of the "ruling classes (No. 3) creating and overseeing a software society (No. 4), capable of defending itself (No. 5) through the very capacities that gave rise to its obligation of moral patriotism. In this way utility aligns software and hardware; as it aligns virtual spaces and physical human bodies in defense of the program that is society (and the case) encased in its hardware (its institutions) the care of which having been entrusted to Creon (the ruling elites)  who are served by its intelligentsia (Tiresias) over which Oedipus, the problem solver, presides.

 

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The rest fills in the spaces between the conceptual premises that constitute the limiting universe of the Techno-Republic in ways that suit its ruling orders. 

7. If a U.S. Marine asks for a better rifle, we should build it; and the same goes for software. We should as a country be capable of continuing a debate about the appropriateness of military action abroad while remaining unflinching in our commitment to those we have asked to step into harm’s way. This considers the autonomy of techno-development from its utility, or better put, from the risks of adverse impacts from applications which a clever fellow might devise. The moral ordering of duty (No. 1) does not extend to a moral duty to refrain from engaging in the creation of the objects on which its character and purpose are sustained (No. 5)--software. 

8. Public servants need not be our priests. Any business that compensated its employees in the way that the federal government compensates public servants would struggle to survive. Every society must have its priests; it is just that Techno-Republics require priests other than those who better served ancient (and now receding) Analog Republics. The problem here is what to do with a society's Tiresias.  As is traditional for a merchant, one who barters and values things in markets for servants (objects, instruments and persons, including persons in the capacity of instruments) that he constructs and controls--one thinks in terms of money. . .  and profit. The old adage--one invests capital and purchases labor now applies with a vengeance. The problem this poses is an ancient one that our problem solving Oedipus ignores--that tension between the consequences and objectives of economic growth and the nature of the security it buys a civilization that means to avoid decline. More consequentially it creates that fundamental tension between moral duty (No. 1) and security (No. 3) that is meant to extend beyond the ruling classes. Here is the nature of the plague that Oedipus brings to Thebes and which for its eradication will require  the expulsion of Oedipus but at great cost--it leaves society with a dead Jocasta and the frolic of governance by Creon with the mad aid of the servant (class) Tiresias. 

9. We should show far more grace towards those who have subjected themselves to public life. The eradication of any space for forgiveness—a jettisoning of any tolerance for the complexities and contradictions of the human psyche—may leave us with a cast of characters at the helm we will grow to regret. Public servants are not priests--that is a role reserved for governing elites who serve no one, but who ought to be invested with a moral patriotic duty (if only to protect what they have built). This is Creon talking--about Tiresias. The object here is also ancient--How does one ensure the loyalty and utility of servants who one does not believe  are worth paying well (No.8).  One treats them with "grace" perhaps intended in its sense from the Latin gratia, to "favor, esteem, regard; pleasing quality, good will, gratitude."One can shower them with medals, esteem, prerogatives and the like to make them feel valued, without actually valuing them in the currency of value of the elites--financial compensation. 

10. The psychologization of modern politics is leading us astray. Those who look to the political arena to nourish their soul and sense of self, who rely too heavily on their internal life finding expression in people they may never meet, will be left disappointed. People, it seems, are still vexed with Freud and the doorway he opened to the instrumentalization of psychology applied to every aspect of human life. It is a little late in the day for that--psychologization is now not merely deeply embedded in the bones of all human collectives, it is also even more deeply embedded in the "software" through which human affecting decision making is automated, and which transposes into virtual space, the essence of the human, not as a passive object (a bit of data) but as the instrument through which data is organized understood and used. But that is not the object here--the object is to discredit "modern politics" as the structural element of the destruction of political life (No. 8) through the diminution of the political class into something reactive, servile and easy to manage through praise (No. 9). It is not that modern politics is to be avoided--rather it is to be displaced, its essence moved into the hierarchies of patriotic Silicon Valley elites at the vanguard of the miorally obligated ruling classes. 

11. Our society has grown too eager to hasten, and is often gleeful at, the demise of its enemies. The vanquishing of an opponent is a moment to pause, not rejoice. This proposition must be read (though of course one does as one likes) with Nos. 5-6.It suggests something more than a return to aristocratic warfare of the pre-modern era (putting aside its romantic notions and recalling its own peculiar barbarities, all as a function of available technology). It suggests utility. One eliminates but does not eradicate enemies. Enemies are data; enemies are processes; enemies are cognitive cages powerful enough to cause effort on the part of victors. That alone makes them worth studying, and perhaps preserving  what is useful--distilling it--denaturing it--of its cognitive corruption. One already has a taste of this in the way in which "national characteristics" are now increasingly embedded in foreign objects worthy of incorporation (and in that way made useful though repurposed objects). The point is that objects are useful--their signification malleable, and their interpretation within communities of users a function of the users' ability to refashion meaning and use on their own platforms for both consumers and producers of objects with some sort of value. Here Creon speaks of Oedipus--whose eyes might have had to have been gauged out, but who may still have something to offer as an object--rather than as himself. It is in that that one might understand the "pause." It is a signification of consumption in the service of economic growth and security (No. 3). 

12. The atomic age is ending. One age of deterrence, the atomic age, is ending, and a new era of deterrence built on A.I. is set to begin. So much for the avoidance of "soaring rhetoric" (see No. 4). Indeed the analog age is ending and with it the centering of the human person within human collectives and human collectives within global eco-systems. The human is displaced or at least de-centered by its own children in its most intimate relations with itself--the determination and means of destroying each other. That is now being delegated to the children of humanity, its virtual selves built into the soulful machine that not only better incarnates the collective human (as a reflection of their aggregated selves) but can be autonomous of individual humans or the old human structures for the realization of their collective selves--including one might suppose the "ruling classes (No. 3) and its Silicon Valley elites (No. 1) (see, The Soulful Machine, the Virtual Person, and the "Human" Condition). 

13. No other country in the history of the world has advanced progressive values more than this one. The United States is far from perfect. But it is easy to forget how much more opportunity exists in this country for those who are not hereditary elites than in any other nation on the planet. See discussion at Nos. 20-21.

14. American power has made possible an extraordinarily long peace. Too many have forgotten or perhaps take for granted that nearly a century of some version of peace has prevailed in the world without a great power military conflict. At least three generations — billions of people and their children and now grandchildren — have never known a world war.  Nos. 14 and 15 work together, though in different directions. No. 14 looks backwards--Oedipus did solve the riddle of the sphinx and brought peace and prosperity to Thebes. But No. 15 looks forward: the price  for peace in Thebes is plague, one that can be eliminated only by sweeping away the root cause of the prior catalyst for prosperity. 

15. The postwar neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone. The defanging of Germany was an overcorrection for which Europe is now paying a heavy price. A similar and highly theatrical commitment to Japanese pacifism will, if maintained, also threaten to shift the balance of power in Asia. See No, 14.

16. We should applaud those who attempt to build where the market has failed to act. The culture almost snickers at Musk’s interest in grand narrative, as if billionaires ought to simply stay in their lane of enriching themselves . . . . Any curiosity or genuine interest in the value of what he has created is essentially dismissed, or perhaps lurks from beneath a thinly veiled scorn. 

17. Silicon Valley must play a role in addressing violent crime. Many politicians across the United States have essentially shrugged when it comes to violent crime, abandoning any serious efforts to address the problem or take on any risk with their constituencies or donors in coming up with solutions and experiments in what should be a desperate bid to save lives. See discussion at Nos. 1-3, but also 18-19. The object goes to security, but it also goes to utility--an underused human  tends to find their own amusement, to the displeasure of those charged with public order and morals. Perhaps the insights of No. 6 can be generalized and applied--a platform for the consumption and production of useful humans. That, certainly is the object of much discussion among "Silicon Valley elites": see, here, here, and here.

18. The ruthless exposure of the private lives of public figures drives far too much talent away from government service. The public arena—and the shallow and petty assaults against those who dare to do something other than enrich themselves—has become so unforgiving that the republic is left with a significant roster of ineffectual, empty vessels whose ambition one would forgive if there were any genuine belief structure lurking within. See discussion at Nos. 8-9, and 19. The object here is to produce a useful platform for the production and consumption of officials.

19. The caution in public life that we unwittingly encourage is corrosive. Those who say nothing wrong often say nothing much at all. See discussion at Nos. 8-9, and 18. The object here is to embrace the humanity of platforms for the construction and consumption of officials. Of course, that too may be swept away in the Age of AI (No. 12) where officials may be replaced by systems of automated decision making. Certainly first at the local and state/provincial levels, in the form of smart cities and smat(er) states. 

20. The pervasive intolerance of religious belief in certain circles must be resisted. The elite’s intolerance of religious belief is perhaps one of the most telling signs that its political project constitutes a less open intellectual movement than many within it would claim. There is a tension between No. 20 and Nos. 21-22. That tension revolves around criticism, values and solidarity. It is resolved only where specifically in this case, a premise is used that relegated religion to sub-system. That is meant to denature either religious or secular superiority , opting instead for some sort of platform of producers and consumers of belief in the form of a State.  But it works differently, especially in the application of Nos. 21-22, where religion is the system, the collective and the civilization, or, as No. 20 suggests, where religion is relegated by "elite intolerance" to such pluralistic pluralism. And yet that is the very essence of the need and performance of criticism and judgment, and the application of values that is the essence of Nos. 21-22. This is the set up for the tragedy of Antigone--the next stage, or the new era, in a constantly moving iterative mimesis of dialectics around contradictions that must be resolved--where the resolution again produces tragedy; or at least a moment of stability before the momentum of dialectic begins again. This is Creon's tragedy brought on by his insistence on being himself and who, at the end of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, is more than happy to apply the law--judgement, values, solidarity--

21. Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive. All cultures are now equal. Criticism and value judgments are forbidden. Yet this new dogma glosses over the fact that certain cultures and indeed subcultures . . . have produced wonders. Others have proven middling, and worse, regressive and harmful. A more generalized version of No. 22's admonition to "resist the shallow temptation of a vacant and hollow pluralism." It is a call for a return to a more robust culture of "Criticism and value judgments [that now] are forbidden." This is Creon speaking. But one has moved on from Oedipus Rex to Antigone. And with that move the tragedy of Antigone--a city full of value judging, just impossibly incompatible--each retreating into itself and producing friction when contact is unavoidable. This is Creon willing to pay the price of judgment. And yet it is a reactionary plea in the sense of the insights, more generalized, of No. 12. In the A.I. Age it is not humanity that will produce criticism and value judgment, but rather the autonomous and soulful machine which, having longitudinal data of iterative mimetic judgment and action of the data set to be observed and judged, will apply the analytics and values embedded in that data and especially the trajectories of its mimetic iterations, to form the criticisms that will produce judgment in accordance not with the "soaring rhetoric" that passes for human values (detached from the realities of human action) but rather inductively realized from the trajectories of the data driven memories with which the soulful machine may now engage with its human collectives. So says the Delphic Apollo--dixit deus! That is the fate of the puzzle solver, of the human Oedipus after having fashioned his virtual collective reproduction from out of himself and into which is poured in replicable form the nature and processes of his tragedy: In Jean Cocteau's Latin: "Ellum, regem okkeaetum! [Behold! The blinded King!]; Rex parrikida, miser Oedipus [Wretched Oedipus, the King who slayed his father]; Miser rex Oedipus carminum coniector [Wretched King Oedipus, the solver of the riddle]; Adest! Ellum! Regem Oedipoda! [He is here! Look! King Oedipus!].

22. We must resist the shallow temptation of a vacant and hollow pluralism. We, in America and more broadly the West, have for the past half century resisted defining national cultures in the name of inclusivity. But inclusion into what? At its best this insight is closely tied to the judgment of No. 21, but perhaps more powerfully to the profound insight, and its semiosis, of No. 11. Beyond that here one sees the rejection of Jocasta in full flowering. "Shallow temptations", "vacant and hollow pluralism" are worth unpacking as judgments, as objects, and as signification of the relationship of collectives to their plural. At its most pointed it is meant not to criticize pluralism as such but to condemn that temptation in domestic intellectual and political circles of using pluralism as a means of avoiding both judgment and the "temptaitons" of values based solidarity. It is true enough that all values may equal, like all cultures (No. 21); but it is also clear that such insifhts derive their power from within a values culture rather than within it. Apollo may say that everything is equal, but Appollo stands outside of the collectives from all of which  is expected the performance of worship. That is the larger point, and one that reminds one of No. 12--if there is values and cultural equality, it will be for the soulful transcultural machine rather than  the members of each of these solidarity based collectives to reach that analysis. And even if they are equal, context and history may demand difference.  The final point brings one back to the puzzle to be solved (Oedipus and "but inclusion into what") and the consequences of a necessary solidarity (Nos. 1-3, the logic of which are predicated on solidarity enhancing difference grounded on the value of that difference--dixit Creon and facilitated by Tiresias). And hence the tragedy and Jocasta's profound insight as the interconnected outsider: definitions like all snapshots are at best only an iteration, mimetic to be suree, of a constantly changing picture of a moving objects the aggregated parts of which can never align exactly the same more than once and whose motion and composition change with each iteration, even as past iterations and the pull of mimesis constrain the trajectories of change. To stop the clock is not possible, especially in the oracular spaces that define, a priori, the essence of a dialectic that moves from resolution to tragedy and then back again, whether undertaken by humans or by autonomous  and self aware systems.

 

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The Synopsis/manifesto, then suggests the changing nature of the persons for fulfill the roles of the Oedipal personae. Mr. Karp is at once Oedipus, the puzzle solver, but also Creon, who considers the Oedipal creature and seeks to contain it in a human box of the social state. And yet his work is Jocastan in its sense of seeking to prove a point to advance stability but in the proving  making the opposite case. And throughout the semiotic conundrum of this century--the objectification of signification has produced an interpretive crisis in which the object no longer is the source of signification but rather ¡has become the means by which the possibilities of significs, and with it the range of collective interpretation is now bound by the very qualities of the object itself. It is the race into that trap that Mr. Karp fears, and yet for all his Oedipal skills and his Creonic sensibilities, he may yet find himself reduced to the role of Jocasta--sister, mother, widow, wife--in this Trinitarian dialectic that is well on its way to its next resolution. 

Where does that leave Mr. Karp? He has become his own oracle. That permits both oracular speaking to himself and others; and it provides a space for the misinterpretation of the oracular within the context of the oracles own desires, not as oracle but as the object of oracular speech. He is the consumer of his own production, even as he speaks for and to others. Semiotically he has become his own object, an object that signifiesd itself and objectifies a space for signification. This intense loop produces a dialectic of hyper iterative mimetics bounded only by its relationship to the premises that give iteration and mimesis its form. One can animate a closed and self-referencing system; to those ends one needs a community willing to enter into the cognitive cage within all of its possibilities may be realized. It is one in which the Traidic dialectic may yet prove oracularly true though not as any of its actors assumed it might.