Boredom, Politics, and American Culture; or, The Iraq War is Boring, Take Two

Boredom is Oppressive

I tried a post yesterday with the following thesis: the Iraq war is losing popularity in the United States not because people are shocked by it – shocked by the casualties, shocked by the carnage, shocked by the lies that led us into it – but rather, because people are bored with it. I’ll admit that I went about it the wrong way, and that it turned into a bit of a flame-fest. I apologize for that, and beg your patience for a more careful and respectful version of the same argument.

First, however, I’d like to forestall a few misconceptions:

1) I'm not bored (kinda): I – personally – am not “bored” by the Iraq War, at least if being bored means “not caring” (which it doesn’t – see point 2). In any case, this argument has nothing to do with my personal feelings or affects. It’s not about me.

2) Boredom is not cynical: I am not promoting cynicism. I am using boredom in a very specific sense, which I will detail below. But I should say here that even in its ordinary sense, boredom does not – and cannot – connote disengagement, forgetting, or ignorance. Consider standing on a long line at the Department of Motor Vehicles, for hours. You are bored. You cannot forget the fact that you are bored. You cannot ignore it. You cannot be disengaged from it. Boredom is oppressive. It invades your consciousness and assaults it. The problem of boredom is not that you are disengaged, but that you cannot avoid it. If anything, it makes you MORE engaged, since once you are bored, you will usually try to do something to make that boredom stop. Return to the DMV line. If a new teller opens a window, doesn’t everybody rush for it? Isn’t there a strong desire to make the boredom end?

3) Ain't no celebration: I’m not making any evaluative claims about the current “generation” or previous generations. I’m merely describing a state of affairs. Yes, I did launch some salvoes yesterday, but I was only being provocative. It is this element of the flame that I wish to extinguish here.

Shock, Repetition, and History

So, boredom. It is my claim that the Iraq War has lost popularity – and that we will eventually withdraw from Iraq – because it is boring. The Iraq War is boring. That’s the argument.

Let me clarify what I mean. American culture – global “culture,” too – is qualitatively different today from what it was even forty years ago. Culture today is characterized by speed, differentiation, and innovation, if the thousand brands of candy bars we are hawked daily can be called “innovation.” Let’s call it newness. Our media-scape is characterized by fast cuts, fast images, and ephemeral storylines. Things emerge into it and disappear, quickly. The lifespan of those things which enter our consciousness is akin to that of a fruit fly rather than a tortoise. We are bombarded by three second cuts in television and film, we surf the Internet quickly and efficiently, we watch General Discussion change rapidly. Hell, this post is already too long for many readers.

This is a novel ontological state for the human, and for human consciousness. That doesn’t mean that it is bad, or good. It is different, and we have to account for that difference. Historically, previous cultural states were characterized by repetitive structures that promoted stability. In such cultures, the shocking event has political currency, precisely because it breaks the structure of repetition that promotes stability. Consider the Vietnam era. The Tet Offensive had the political power that it had because it was shocking. It was unexpected, at least as a general matter. The various taboos that were broken by the social movements of the 1950’s, 60’s, and 70’s were all designed around this principle: violate the norms of repetition and you “wake people up,” or at least provoke them into some form of recognition: sit-ins, protests, the Yippies, protest theater, open sexuality (feminist and LGBT social movement rhetorics, for instance) were all premised on the value of shock, on the disruption of particular repetitive structures (compulsory hetereosexuality, the nuclear family, etc.).

That was then. That was in a culture characterized by slower cycles and repetitive structures. That worked then. It was remarkably effective, in fact. It worked so well that it was domesticated and appropriated as a form of power. Now we have non-stop shock. That is the state of our collective cultural experience – and it does affect our consciousness. Who flinches, these days, at the gay rights parade? Sure, some do, but it’s not particularly shocking. The point here is that shock has lost its drawing power – its rhetorical power and political power – precisely because 1) it has inundated the culture as a whole, and 2) it is the mode of being of people living in our culture. The logic of our existence – our very consciousness – is no longer characterized by slow, repetitive structures, but by speed and difference. If it repetitive, it is the repetition of differences: new brands, new films, new buildings, new signs, new commercials (!), new methods in education, new cars (who got a new car every three years 50 years ago??), new discoveries in the sciences, so fast that professionals struggle to remain current, new microchips, new operating systems. That has an effect on our collective operating system (if I may be allowed), and on our perceptions of the world. This is what I mean by ontological novelty. We are literally different in our ontological structure than the humans of even 60 years ago. Anyone who’s dreamed about a television show proves my point on that.

The War in Iraq is Boring

What does any of this have to do with boredom? I’m defining boredom as the reinsertion of a repetitive structure of sameness into our (new) consciousness such that it forms an irritant. We are bored on the DMV line because of the repetitive structure of the experience. We are bored by the Iraq War (even if we deny it) because it has started to violate our primary way of being in the world: the structure of difference.

What’s remarkable about the Iraq War is that it has remained, for the last four years, almost uniformly the same. Yes, there have been distinguishable periods (the CPA, the first government, pre-Hussein capture, post-Hussein capture, the election, the Shia uprising, etc.), but even those broad periods, and the various “shocking events” have been subsumed by the dull, droning repetition: car bombing in Baghdad, two US troops killed by roadside bomb, car bombing in Baghdad, two US troops killed by roadside bomb, car bombing in Baghdad, two US troops killed by roadside bomb, car bombing in Baghdad, two US troops killed by roadside bomb, car bombing in Baghdad, two US troops killed by roadside bomb. It’s intolerable not because it is shocking (yes, yes, I am shocked by the carnage), but because it presents a repetitive structure that violates the structure of newness. This has nothing to do with your individual tastes, values, or desires. This has nothing to do with your personal investment (your son, daughter, mother, brother is IN Iraq). This has nothing to do with your morals, or mine. You don’t get to choose out of the form of being specific to your historical occasion (though you can transform it). The Iraq War is boring in that it reinserts a repetitive structure of sameness into our consciousness such that it forms an irritant.

Against Outrage

I’ve tried to reflect on why the responses yesterday were so rapid, and so passionate. Apart from my juvenile insults, I think the answer lies here: if it is boredom – some form of pre-reflective and pre-personal boredom – that is turning people against the war, then it is not some moral choice on the part of our fellow citizens, not some outrage (that we’ve tried to produce in our ahistorical shows of shock and outrage, which we call protests), but almost a physical irritant, utterly amoral in content, utterly divorced from values. I understand that this thesis violates the basic values, even the life missions, of many on these boards. Those who have spent their time protesting and “waking people up” have a personal stake in believing that they’ve shocked people into opposition. I understand that, and I am sympathetic. Nevertheless, I think that my analysis is correct. They haven’t shocked anyone. It doesn’t work that way anymore.

The American people didn’t turn against the war in the face of massive protests in 2003, 2004, or 2005. The American people didn’t turn against the war when it became obvious to everyone that we’d been lied into it. It is not the vision of protests or the recognition of lies that has changed the affective tone. No. The Iraq War has merely surpassed the life-span of a syndicated sit-com in repeats. That’s harsh. I know. Real people are dying everyday. I know. None of what I am saying detracts from the horror or the tragedy. I am describing a phenomenon, not making moral statements about the war itself.

We Must Find New Weapons

I don’t suggest despair. No. I don’t advocate disengagement. No. I don’t argue that we should turn away, and let the boredom do its work. No. Not me. I do say this, however: . If my analysis is correct, then the strategies that worked when shock was rare and politically dangerous are outdated. Perhaps we should be a bit more boring in our approaches, and bit more sensitive to the affective contours of our audiences. Perhaps we should work not on shocking people into recognition, but on intensifying the general structure of boredom where it comes to Iraq. For perhaps it’s boredom, this time, that will save us.

I don't agree with everything you've said, but what you've suggested here is thoughtful and thought-provoking.

I'll forgive a fuck you if you'll forgive a baby boomers are imbeciles...:-)

I wince when I see people post responses of that ilk, and it really disturbs me to find myself doing it too. Your first post on this theme elicited a very knee-jerk response. Tonight's reshaping of your POV prompted some deeper meditation. Hope people take the time to read it.

And when I consider a lot of things my generation is responsible for, I have to think "imbeciles" doesn't go far enough. Still, this geezer gets a little jumpy when someone's "talkin' 'bout my generation." The Reaper is already tapping us on the shoulder, so we get jittery sometimes.
:scared:

I always planned to post this here "boring" version of the argument. The contrast in response to the "shocking" version of yesterday somewhat demonstrates my point, I should think. We know how to do shock, and responses to it are nearly ritualized and formalized. Boring's a different matter. I also take this to be the point of Clooney's "Good Night and Good Luck," an intolerably boring (which is to say, brilliant) film. Clooney's point in GNaGL is a bit different then mine, because nostalgic. He's arguing that we have to go back to a more "boring" version of the news associated with the slower rhythms of, say, the 1950's. I suggest no such nostalgia. So, I think it's a brilliant film, but I disagree on that point. It's not that the news has lost its purpose and become pure shock, and thus should get back to slowness and repetition. If we take speed to be the structure of consciousness, no single realignment would work anyway. Besides, I'm not sure going back is even desirable.

That said, the content of the "shocking" version probably produced the flames it deserved, including the ole fuck you. ;-)

But, yeah, it's pretty much guaranteed to solicit ire. And that's not necessarily bad. Even the most politically committed can use a metaphorical tasering now and then. As long as it doesn't come from the cops, anyway...

I always wonder about people who seem to be shocked and outraged all the time by stuff that's been happening throughout human history (teenagers having sex with older men! War! Crime!). I think the Iraq war is becoming unpopular because we're not winning. It's not that people are fatigued, shocked or outraged by the drone of death (which in terms of U.S. deaths, is far less likely to directly affect a given American civilian than car accidents or even handgun crime). It's that their team doesn't seem to be winning the war. As much as anything, it's a bandwagon sports fan effect. There are fewer Iraq war fans now than in 2003 for the same reason there are fewer Miami Hurricane fans.

That is why Junior's strategy to invade Iran might just work from a PR perspective. It's a risky, dangerous and foolhardy idea, but for a lot of Americans, Iran provides a chance for a win. That chance to save face and "win" might be a stronger draw than admitting defeat in Iraq and withdrawing troops.

in Iraq would likely cause an INCREASE in the war's popularity. This is the world turned upside down.

in the sense that an audience who expects a decisive victory in a heavyweight boxing match gets bored when the fight fails to produce in the ring what had been anticipated. In the first round, they were confident their champion was so powerful a warrior that he would surely end the fight early. But the opponent hung on, clinched, and didn't fight by the rules. And after a few more rounds, it became evident that neither fighter could knock the other out. Instead, it became a slow-paced fight, where each round resembled the one before it. A few fans remain interested, hoping their champion can pull it out. Some begin to boo the match. Others just stop paying attention to it. And those with a financial investment are busy counting their profits.

n/t

:shrug: