The Beautification of War: Digital Communications, Public Indifference, Rebel Journalism, and Civilian Resistance in the Age of Meta Wars

Authors

  • Author

  • John Keane

Keywords:

Meta Wars, Digital Communications Technologies, Weapons of Warfare, Public Indifference, Citizen Resistance

Abstract

This public lecture proposes that we have entered the age of destructive meta wars . Digital communications technologies are nowadays enabling not only frightening transformations of the modes and weapons of warfare but also, paradoxically, media representations of war by governments, military PR propagandists, breaking news journalists, soldiers, and citizens that “gamify” war, beautify its horrors, and lullaby millions of people into indifference toward wars that are seemingly emptied of blood, cruelty, and genocidal destruction. Especially in the old democracies of the Atlantic region, the new meta wars generate public indifference, and feelings of emotional disconnection. But this public indifference is vulnerable to a counter-trend unique to the age of meta wars: the birth of new media platforms whose rebel journalists digitally expose the terrible realities of these wars, cast doubts on their moral and practical necessity, and teach civilians everywhere that they have the right not to suffer meta wars, even that there is a time coming when war in every form will have to be abolished.

References

  1. Pawel Mościcki, “Gaza as Paradigm,” pawelmoscicki , 6/3/2024, accessed on 10/12/2024, at: https://tinyurl.com/5f2s5bdk
  2. “Global military spending surges amid war, rising tensions and insecurity,” SIPRI , 22/4/2024, accessed on 2/12/2024, at: https://tinyurl.com/ybjvt6fj
  3. “Remarks by President Biden in Statement to the American People,” The White House , 24/7/2024, accessed on 2/12/2024, at: https://tinyurl.com/2jy3czuv
  4. “The Intensifying Rohingya Genocide,” Brouk , June 2024 accessed at 2/12/2024, at: https://tinyurl.com/6ddt8rr2
  5. Sir Norman Angell, Human Nature and the Peace Problem (London: Collins, 1925), p. 7.
  6. Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations , 7th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005), p. 3.
  7. “Elon Musk: War, AI, Aliens, Politics, Physics, Video Games, and Humanity | Lex Fridman Podcast #400,” YouTube, 9/11/2023, accessed on 2/12/2024, at: https://tinyurl.com/43ce2b23
  8. Margaret Mead, “War Is Only an Invention—Not a Biological Necessity,” in: Roberto J. González, Hugh Gusterson & Gustaaf Houtman, Militarization: A Reader (Durham: Duke University Press, 2019).
  9. A. J. P. Taylor, War by Timetable: How the First World War Began (London: Macdonald, 1969), p. 121.
  10. Aleksandra Ketlerienė, “‘We’re in Cold War Two’ – interview with British historian Niall Ferguson,” LRT , 5/10/2024, accessed on 10/12/2024, at: https://tinyurl.com/2w3jrx73
  11. “First messages from the Yellow Sea,” The Times , accessed on 10/12/2024, at: https://tinyurl.com/nhc8s2u5
  12. Marshall McLuhan & Quentin Fiore, War and Peace in the Global Village (New York: Bantam Books, 1968), p. 134.
  13. “Operation Restore Hope Beach Landing, Mogadishu Somalia,” YouTube, 3/1/2014, accessed on 3/12/2024, at: https://tinyurl.com/ypy2c8cc
  14. See: Mark Regev, “Israel seeks to minimize civilian casualties; Hamas does the opposite,” X, accessed on 10/12/2024, at: https://tinyurl.com/nntevbe2
  15. “We Interviewed Ukraine’s New AI-Generated Spokesperson,” YouTube, 3/5/2024, accessed on 3/12/2024, at: https://tinyurl.com/3hpj2chd
  16. See his TikTok account: “@barefoot_rom,” TikTok, accessed on 3/12/2024, at: https://tinyurl.com/pxzb7w7x
  17. “In July, Our Warriors Have Used More Drones Than the Occupier – Address by the President,” President of Ukraine , 6/8/2024, accessed on 3/12/2024, at: https://tinyurl.com/nkvv9858
  18. “Theresienstadt: A Documentary Film, 1944,” Perspectives , accessed on 3/12/2024, at: https://tinyurl.com/bdhd6f5x
  19. matarot otzem: the total destruction of hospitals, high-rise residences, universities, mosques, and other civilian targets.
  20. “The Principles of Newspeak,” in: George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (London: Secker & Warburg, 1949), Appendix.
  21. Ines Eisele, “Fact check: The ‘Ghost of Kyiv’ fighter pilot,” Deutsche Welle , 5/4/2022, accessed on 10/12/2024, at: https://tinyurl.com/yckf2nca
  22. “Gaza war vanishing from French news channels amid fears of media bias,” RFI , 7/3/2024, accessed on 3/12/2024, at: https://tinyurl.com/3t9ve39d
  23. Sebastian Ben Daniel (John Brown), “How Israeli journalists carry out PR for the army,” +972 Magazine , 19/2/2024, accessed on 10/12/2024, at: https://tinyurl.com/2cdpndw7
  24. “Aus Solidarität mit Israel verzichtet „Bild“ darauf, über palästinensische Opfer in Gaza zu berichten,” UBER MEDIEN , 20/12/2023, accessed on 3/12/2024, at: https://tinyurl.com/5cjshx98
  25. “ CNN staff say network’s pro-Israel slant amounts to ‘journalistic malpractice’,” The Guardian , 4/2/2024, accessed on 3/12/2024, at: https://tinyurl.com/46z2eh6y
  26. John Keane, Democracy and Media Decadence (Cambridge/ New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 243-245.
  27. Ghassan Hage, “‘Zone of Interest’ as an Ethnography of Indifference,” Journal of Genocide Research (16 May 2024).
  28. Stanley Cohen, States of Denial: Knowing About Atrocities and Suffering (Cambridge: Polity, 2001).
  29. Evgeny Morozov, The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom (New York: PublicAffairs, 2011).
  30. Julian Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (Boston: Mariner Books, 2000).
  31. Geert Lovink, “Copium compendium,” Eurozine , 8/1/2024, accessed on 10/12/2024, at: https://tinyurl.com/59x7zc82
  32. See at: Mehdi Hasan, “Our New Zeteo Documentary,” Zoteo , 11/8/2024, accessed on 3/12/2024, at: https://tinyurl.com/4jse7wm3
  33. Cited in: John Keane, The Life and Death of Democracy (London: Simon and Schuster, 2009), p. 853.
  34. Bertrand Russell, “The Future of Pacifism,” The American Scholar , vol. 13 (Winter 1943-1944), pp. 7-13.
  35. Michael Howard, The Invention of Peace: Reflections on War and International Order (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000).
  36. Sun Tzu, The Art of War (London: Routledge, 2015), chapter 7.
  37. Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1985), chapters 12, 14.
  38. István Bibó, The Art of Peacemaking: Political Essays (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), p. 36
Cover of العدد 17, Almuntaqa

Downloads

PDF (Hosted)
HTML

Published

2024-05-01

Usage statistics

45 views 62 downloads

Issue

Vol. 7 No. 017 (2024): Issue 017

Section

المقالات

License

Copyright (c) 2024 Almuntaqa

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.