The Destabilizing Effect of Information

It has been said that most of history has been the quest for information and its control, however, modern history presents a different challenge: information management. While information is a very positive development in Western society our current post-industrial revolution (or information revolution as it is also called) is light years ahead of most of the world yet, American culture penetrates even the darkest corners of the earth. What could be seen as a triumph, as the democritiziation of information and of truly global communications, is actually a major destabilizing factor in many countries.

To begin with, I’d like to cite an example from here in Germany. The Germans have a strange obsession with signs that say “Im Sitzen Pinkeln” in their bathrooms (sometimes even having multiple ones). This translates as: Pee sitting down. These signs are always in the form of some comic such as a man sitting on the floor across from the toilet and peeing into the toilet from there while his wife yells “Are you sitting down to pee?” and he answers yes. While this is an obvious and not so great joke to the common Westerner, an African exchange student apparently took it literally. For weeks the bathroom in his dorm had a sticky floor and the constant odor of urine. Eventually, the situation was resolved when it clear what was actually happening, however this real-life example of someone misunderstanding what to us is a joke is important. If something such as this blatant joke can be taken seriously, how do people understand American soap operas, movies and culture in general?

When East Germans tuned in to Western German television, they enjoyed it immensly. They marveled at it. And they didn’t understand the concept of advertising. How could they? But East Germans actually believed that Acme Inc. wast he best company in the world or that Product X would make you happy and lead attractive females your way. A friend who grew up in East Germany has told me many an amusing story about exactly this. How could they have developed the discriminating eye and cynicism that we have come to? How many Americans have heard the story of a European’s first time in America? They rent a car and are driving down the highway. They see a sign for “World’s Largest X” and decide to stop to see it only to be disappointed. I’ve heard this umpteen times and it never fails to amuse me. Even within the West there are different levels of discrimination (or in this case perhaps gullability). If Europeans could fall for such things, what do Africans, South Americans and Asians think of them?

While poverty can be a destabilizing factor in countries, it isn’t always. There are countless countries around the world which suffer from poverty but aren’t embroiled in chaos. Poverty doesn’t always lead to misery and chaos. Some people live with it and do their best. Some people rise from it. Some people don’t. To use a quick example of the first, in Croatia I met a Bosnian refugee who told me his story. His house was destroyed, he was forced to flee and he’d lost family members. He was staying in Croatia until he could save enough money to return home and rebuild his house. Oh Yeah, and he invited me for coffee and sweets. Someone infinitely poorer than me who’d lost almost everything, paid for me. This was one of the most powerful gestures I’ve experienced on the road and is a concrete example that poverty in itself is not a destabilizing factor, but rather people’s reactions to it are.

Therefore, how can we in America and Europe better control the informational deluge that is flooding the third world? People living on less than one dollar a day who watch Lifestyle’s of the Rich and Famous can become dangerous. Insurgents in Albania, Armenia, Iraq or wherever who’ve seen Rambo and believe themselves to be such figures themselves are dangerous. Do we control the flow of information to such countries who aren’t at stages in their development where they are mentally ready to deal with it? Can we? Information has proven to be only uncontrollable.

Poverty isn’t the biggest danger abroad; it’s resentment and the feelings of failure people have when they compare the images on the tv screen with their own culture and country. They see the product of our hard work, but not the work itself. They see our wealth and imagine we must have stolen it or taken advantage of others to get it, not worked hard for hundreds of years. If such situations aren’t dealt with by other means, we’ll have to deal with them militarily one day.

Is Thomas Barnett right in saying disconnectedness defines danger? Too much connectivity in the wrong places creates danger.