Technology a two-edge sword when fighting global terrorism

So often it is technological innovation itself that threatens identity and spawns new mandates for war, like the invention of gun powder

Would that Marshall McLuhan were still with us in these troubled times. Canada's pre-eminent philosopher of communications died in his sleep New Year's Eve 1980, having alerted us to how electronic technology was rapidly shrinking our world back to the dimensions of a tribal village. McLuhan was first to explain that in this new "global village" we are now all neighbours on this planet, whether we like it or not.

Had McLuhan been alive on Sept. 11, 2001, no doubt the media would have avidly sought his perspective on events. In his 1968 book, War and Peace in the Global Village, McLuhan examined the historical relationship between media and violence. And never were the two more vividly and appallingly linked than in the television images of the battered Pentagon and the collapsing World Trade Center towers. Everyone in the global village saw them. Everyone was disturbed or stirred by them. Horrific proof of concept for McLuhan's small-world insight.

What he might have said about Sept. 11 and its aftermath we can only speculate. But what he did write in 1968 suggests that he would have talked about the impact of the events on our psyche. As McLuhan explained, what shatters when societies are attacked is not just glass, and steel, and brick, and human gut, but also the very identity of those who survive.

In September, we North Americans saw ourselves as technologically superior and safe until 19 highjackers easily slipped past our defences and murdered thousands. When identity is endangered like that, humans throughout history, observed McLuhan, have lashed back "in a fury of self-defence."

Added McLuhan: "When our identity is in danger, we feel certain that we have a mandate for war. The old image must be recovered at any cost."

Certain that American presence in their part of the village threatened their traditional Islamic identity, the terrorists felt they had a mandate to make war on America. Then it was the American! turn to feel the same imperative to go back to the way things were, to regain and safeguard their traditional identity, by lashing out at Afghanistan.

Now there is much talk about making technology a weapon against terrorism. But, as McLuhan noted in 1968, technology is a two-- edged sword.

So often it is technological innovation itself that threatens identity most and thus spawns new mandates for war.

The simple invention of the stirrup, he noted, enabled men in heavy armour to mount a horse. This transformed the whole economy and social order of the Middle Ages from a landscape of small holdings by individual farmers to lordly domains of moats and castles defended by knights.

The introduction of gun powder, in turn, ended the effectiveness of that era's bulwarks against threats to its identity.

So it is a false hope that technology will allow us to return to our "normal" lives, as President Bush kept exhorting Americans to do. To use another McLuhan analogy, we can't put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Sept. 11 broke the mold of what's normal in North America.

Here in Canada, as our governments and leaders decide on what new uses they will make of technology in our defence, they need to recognize that life in our end of the global village has changed forever too.

Technology in our governments' hands should not be used in a vain attempt to resurrect the old ways - but rather to help us shape, understand and protect a new identity, one better suited to life in the global village as it is now.

By Andy Shaw

Andy Shaw is a contrbuting editor to Technology in Government. Please contact him at andy@biznewsbureau.com.

Copyright Plesman Publications Ltd. Dec 2001
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