In this entry I will try to formalise Marx’s theory of alienation into a general theory of action alienation and apply it to classified footage from the US army in Iraq that was released by Wikileaks on the 5. April 2010 (Anonymous 2010b).
The formalisation should be a coherent series of Marxian claims, logical links and logical conclusions always revolving around human action. The language is deliberately dissected from Marx’s (1844), the worker is generalised as ‘executor’ and labour is ‘execution’. Also, production becomes any ‘process’ that is divided into ‘elements’. With this I shall start:
- The more elements a process is divided into, the simpler the elements become1.
- The simpler the elements, the more trivial their execution.
- The more trivial their execution, the smaller their executors’ perceived contribution to the overall process.
- The more elements a process is divided into, the smaller the executors’ perceived contribution2.
- The smaller an element’s perceived contribution, the weaker its executor’s moral imperative.
- Execution is the incarnation of an executor’s moral imperative.
- If 5 and 6 and the element is still executed, its executor must externalise her action3.
- Execution is the incarnation of an executor’s self.
- If 7 and 8, the externalisation of execution is the externalisation of self4.
- Because 7 and 9, an executor alienates herself from others5.
Particularly interesting I find statement 7. If all executors externalise their executions (to some degree), the process ceases to be a cumulative action (which would mean the sum of all executors are responsible for the process outcome). Rather, its outcome becomes a logic consequence of its organisation and the impact of the agency of individual members who try to control the outcome is minimised by every additional step. Thus, whereas errors are cumulative, control remains rationalised.
Now turning to Wikileak’s video6, ‘which it claims shows the killing of civilians by the US military in Baghdad in 2007’ (Anonymous 2010a)7. The context of this video is heavily disputed, but this analysis focuses on the process outcome within the alienation framework outlined earlier.
The executors involved seem to be the crew (the gunner and the pilot) and the ground controller. It is nevertheless highly rationalised for two distinct reasons: first, the military language and command structure are dehumanising victims and executors. Second, the process runs through the three executor’s hands several times and there are more than only three elements: ordering the Apache to observe the group, observation of the group, spotting a weapon, requestion permission to engage, granting permission to engage, flying Apache into right angle, engaging, observing again, engaging again and ordering ground forces to come clean up. The executors have little feeling for their contribution to death, also because of their detached position in an Apache helicopter and in a base far away. Thus the executors are detached from the process outcome and their contribution to it (statement 4). Also, already the description of the positions illustrates the executor’s detachment from his (sic!) execution. They are identified by their function, not by their names (gunner, pilot). Thus there is no place for their person, only for their execution (statement 7, 9). The military language makes the executors alienated from one another as persons because they must refer to one another in numbers (statement 10). In the excitement of the situation, one executor breaks this rule of engagement by referring to his colleague with his forename.
From the very start, the crew is acting with no ground intelligence and mistakes a camera for an AK-47 and later for an RPG. This error is, like reasoned before, accumulative to the process. Control cannot be maintained because the ground controller lacks absolute knowledge and can only rely on the crew’s erroneous judgement of the situation.
References
Anonymous (2010a) ‘WikiLeaks posts video of ‘US military killings’ in Iraq’ in BBC News [Online], cited 27. Apr. 2010, BBC. Available at:
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8603938.stm>
Anonymous (2010b) Collateral Murder – Wikileaks – Iraq [Online], cited 28 Apr. 2010, Wikileaks. Available at:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0>
Marx, K. (1844) ‘Alienated Labour’ in McLellan, D. (ed) (1977) Karl Marx: Selected Writings, Oxford: OUP, pp. 77-87.
1Underlying this statement is a reductionist assumption I am aware of.
2This is Marx’s first kind of alienation: alienation from product (Marx 1844).
3This is Marx’s second kind: alienation from the act of production (Marx 1844).
4This is Marx’s third kind: alienation from self (Marx 1844).
5This is Marx’s fourth kind: alienation from others (Marx 1844).
6I would like to thank my friend Kumail for helping me analyse the footage.
7The video shows footage taken from an Apache helicopter with the radio communication leading up to the shooting of 12 people from the helicopter with the on-board 30mm cannon. According to Anonymous (2010), the pentagon does not deny the authenticity of the footage.
Tags: action, alienation, collateral murder, Marx, Wikileaks
whatcha mean Herself ???
him- or herself