FRAMESHOP:FRAMESHOP: THE PHYSICS OF 'SAFETY'

This year on 9/11, President Bush made the odd statement that five years after the attacks "we are safer, but we are not yet safe," and that as a result of 9/11, Americans seek a "safer" world.

Bush is claiming, in other words, that invasion and occupation of Iraq is his strategy to keep us 'safe'--to create a condition that he calls 'safety.'

But what is this 'safety' of his, anyway?  What is President Bush's view?   Should we even be talking about 'safety'? What is the alternative?

While there is some question as to whether or not we should view our foreign policy in terms of war or police action, President Bush is framing the debate in terms of a much more general premise: safety. 

To reframe the debate, Progressives must shift the logic from the Physics of Safety to the logic of Security as a Program.

The Bush Frame:  Physics of Safety
In President Bush's speech, he frames the idea of safety in terms of a far away front where danger or evil is being blocked.  Since the invasion of Iraq first started to falter, President Bush has been repeating to the American people that we must remain in Iraq to block the 'terrorists' from pushing out of Iraq and attacking us at home.

That is the story that President Bush tells, but the logic he uses to frame the war of Iraq is a physics of safety.

In the physics of safety, danger or evil masses up and exerts force against objects that block it.  In this logic, the U.S. military is pushing at a greater force in the exact opposite direction.  The net result is:  safety.  The force of the danger is blocked or stopped. 

The way that President Bush talks about terrorism, in other words, is very similar to the way engineers might talk about dynamics of a dam. 

President Bush paints a picture of terrorists pouring into Iraq following the American invasion.  If we do not push back the terrorists, they will overwhelm (drown?) the new democratically elected government, and so forth.

When we name President Bush's frame the "Physics of Safety," we can instantly see the logic at work. We can see, for example,  problems do not just arise when we say that the U.S. military must pull back, regroup, and withdraw from Iraq, but at the mere suggestion that our troops stop exerting a greater and opposite force against the mass weight of the enemy.

Once trapped in the Physics of Safety,  in other words, we become convinced that a Hoover Dam of a military policy in Iraq is the only thing preventing terrorism from flooding into our streets and destroying everything in its path.  The danger we see is instant and overwhelming.  If we pull back, terrorism will destroy us in an instant and overwhelming moment.

In the Physics of Safety, what is important is not whether things are 'going well' or not going well, but whether that big physical block against danger is in place.  It does not matter if the dam itself is what blocked the river that in turn flooded the valley.  Now there is a lake being held back by the damn and if that damn is suddenly removed, the danger will pour out and kill everything in its path.

The Physics of Danger, in other words, keeps Americans trapped in a logic where they are constantly concerned that at any moment the flood may occur--in any moment the Safety Zone may be violated.  If we so much as ease up in Iraq, the flood of terror will pour into America in the form of suicide bombers, hijacked planes, nuclear bombs, total and quick destruction.  And so long as we remain in the Safety Zone, we will all be just fine.

Progressive Frame:  Security As A Program
The logic of President Bush's frame, of course, leaves the American people trapped in a state of fear--either we invest everything in a Hoover-Dam-sized blockade against the terrorism that has poured into Iraq, or that evil pours into America destroying everything in its wake.  Throw Donald Rumsfeld into the mix and we get an attempt to build the world's largest dam against evil, at the cheapest possible price with the minimal number of bricks possible.

The Progressive alternative, of course, is not to propose that we set aside more money for more bricks--that we just send more soldiers into Iraq to keep us 'safe' at home.  Progressives do not believe for a second that the occupation of Iraq has made us safer in America--that the Physics of Safety are actually working. 

We know that the Physics of Safety are not working because new threats and new fear constantly arise.  The Progressive critique of the Physics of Safety always talks about the country being exposed to threats and danger because too much attention is being paid to one part of the world.

The goal in the struggle against  terrorism in the Progressive worldview is not to produce a condition of 'safety' along the logic of physics, but to protect the public from attack by enacting Security As A Program

(For an expert view on security, check out Beyond Fear by Bruce Schneier) 

To reframe the entire question of what America should be doing against terrorism, in other words, Progressives should consider changing the frame from Safety--where we talk about holding off and battling against an 'enemy'--to a frame of Security--where we talk about putting in place systems to 'protect' the public.

The logic that advances a better approach to protecting the country is the logic of Security as a Program

In this logic, we begin with the premise that what we need to protect is a fully functioning system.  A system can be defined as a connected set of things and actions that form a complex whole.

In our system--our way of life in America--we have an open system.   People and things enter into our system all the time and from many different places.  Good things enter as well as dangerous things.

Now, just like a computer system, the key to keeping the American system secure--protecting people and property--is to develop a program that effectively prevents  anything dangerous from entering the system, while allowing the system to function at the same time.

And here we encounter what Schneier calls a "trade off"--that for every program we enact to protect the system, we spend money or spend time or accept some kind of discomfort that we might not otherwise have.

To prevent a person with a dangerous weapon from boarding an airplane,for example, we accept the trade off of waiting in line for security and the invasion of our privacy, however temporary. 

The goal in the logic of Security as a Program, is to create techniques and methods that actually work--that actually prevent the people, things and processes in the system from being destroyed by attackers.

In the logic of a Security as a Program, danger takes the form of attackers who enter into the system.

Therefore, the way to protect the system is to create programs that monitor the entrances in the system--entrances into the system as a whole (e.g., our borders, ports,  etc.) and entrances into those sub-systems within our systems (e.g., airplane gates, schools, chemical plants, etc.).

Now, anyone who has actually been paying attention for the past 5 years (e.g.,not the Bush administration) knows that terrorism is a form of attack on the system that exploits entrances into the system that are not being monitored by an effective program.

Case and point:  the attackers on 9/11 knew that the security programs at U.S. airports were not in fact functioning to protect the system.  Moreover, they knew that commercial airplanes were completely unprotected systems within the larger system--once on board the plane, they would encounter no programs at all to protect the passengers, the pilots, the stewardesses, or the plane. 

The attacks on 9/11 were carried out by gaining access to the system at unprotected access points, and by exploiting those unprotected systems to attack people, things and processes.

Once inside the Security as a Program logic, the individual well-being of Americans depends on the knowledge that the system is being protected by fully functional and well-designed programs. 

We accept that we cannot ever eliminate danger from the world.  What we can do--what we must do--is protect the system.

And once successful, we can create systems the begin to look forward and anticipate potential dangers.

What To Say To Switch From 'Physics' to  'Programs'
The difference between the two frames in terms of how we talk is the difference between a using the language of 'enemy' and 'force' versus the language of 'attacker' and 'protection.'

When President Bush talks about national security, he always talks in terms 'enemies' and 'killers' who must be 'confronted' with whatever force is necessary.  Hence we have a President who routinely goes on national television and--with our children listening--talks about killing enemies.  The logic of force is a product of the Physics of Safety frame. 

Progressives should avoid talking tough about killing the enemy, which accomplishes nothing other than to invoke the Bush frame and to scare the nation.

Instead, we should use the language of 'attackers' and 'protection' which might sound like this:

• America must enact new Security Programs to protect every gateway into our country.
• We must design programs that protect threats from gaining access
• The smarter our security, the safer the system
• Every part of the system must be protected by a security program
• If we put all our eggs in one basket, we risk leaving the system open to attack
• American security must be innovate, learn, adapt
• An occupation abroad can not protect our system at home

The logic of the Security as a system can move the debate to a new place--where Americans begin to see beyond the fraudulent and dangerous idea that our system can be protected by invading a foreign country.

Anyone who has ever used a computer would be a fool think, for example, that their own personal computer would be safe from virus attack if the United States invaded Moscow and arrested every teenage hacker with a laptop.

This is because the threat of attack is a widespread problem that every system faces.  And the only way to protect against attack,  is to create programs that guard against risk.

No matter how long we occupy Iraq, no matter how big a force we use to beat back the 'enemy' in the Middle East, no matter how much we resolve to 'win' against 'evil,' America will only be secure when we stop fighting the Physics of Safety and start designing security programs that work.

And it is the job of Progressives to take the debate to this new frame.

©  2006 Jeffrey Feldman,  Frameshop