Evgeny Morozov: The 20th Century Roots of 21st Century Statecraft
[Evgeny Morozov, originally from Belarus, is a Yahoo! Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University.]
Hence a question that has been bugging me for months now: What exactly is so 21st century about "21st century statecraft"?
Am I being unfair to the State Department in drawing such parallels and asking such questions? Well, here are the facts. Silicon Valley CEOs do join American diplomats to exotic locals like Siberia, Syria and Iraq -- such practices have now been codified as "tech delegations" -- and no one is hiding the fact that Washington expects to profit from Silicon Valley's Internet brands and services. Likewise, the very same CEOs and other technology industry insiders are invited to private dinners with the Secretary of State....
Now, I am not writing this to join the Noam Chomsky branch of critics who see structural problems of U.S. foreign policy everywhere they look. I've got a different argument to make: the problems that plagued the U.S. foreign policy in previous decades would not only be perpetuated, they would actually be aggravated in cyberspace. Why so? Because few people treat the Internet as political and subject it to the level of scrutiny that any policy initiatives connected to, say, energy or nuclear weapons would deserve.
Somehow I feel that Heidegger's quip that "the essence of technology is by no means anything technological" is not particularly popular (or even well-known) in Washington (still, here is a guide to the perplexed; I can only hope that David Weinberger who once was a Heidegger scholar would take the time to spread some Heidegger love around town). This is too bad, because Heidegger was actually right for a change: given all the myths and misunderstandings surrounding modern technology, anyone dealing with it often misses its highly political nature....
Once you peel away the rhetoric of "21st century statecraft" and "Internet freedom," this becomes all too obvious; the problem is that such rhetoric is extremely hard to peel away -- if only because "freedom of expression" generates far more positive emotions than say, "energy efficiency." And who would be silly enough to argue against "freedom of expression"?
Read entire article at Foreign Policy
Hence a question that has been bugging me for months now: What exactly is so 21st century about "21st century statecraft"?
Am I being unfair to the State Department in drawing such parallels and asking such questions? Well, here are the facts. Silicon Valley CEOs do join American diplomats to exotic locals like Siberia, Syria and Iraq -- such practices have now been codified as "tech delegations" -- and no one is hiding the fact that Washington expects to profit from Silicon Valley's Internet brands and services. Likewise, the very same CEOs and other technology industry insiders are invited to private dinners with the Secretary of State....
Now, I am not writing this to join the Noam Chomsky branch of critics who see structural problems of U.S. foreign policy everywhere they look. I've got a different argument to make: the problems that plagued the U.S. foreign policy in previous decades would not only be perpetuated, they would actually be aggravated in cyberspace. Why so? Because few people treat the Internet as political and subject it to the level of scrutiny that any policy initiatives connected to, say, energy or nuclear weapons would deserve.
Somehow I feel that Heidegger's quip that "the essence of technology is by no means anything technological" is not particularly popular (or even well-known) in Washington (still, here is a guide to the perplexed; I can only hope that David Weinberger who once was a Heidegger scholar would take the time to spread some Heidegger love around town). This is too bad, because Heidegger was actually right for a change: given all the myths and misunderstandings surrounding modern technology, anyone dealing with it often misses its highly political nature....
Once you peel away the rhetoric of "21st century statecraft" and "Internet freedom," this becomes all too obvious; the problem is that such rhetoric is extremely hard to peel away -- if only because "freedom of expression" generates far more positive emotions than say, "energy efficiency." And who would be silly enough to argue against "freedom of expression"?