To be clear: I am no opponent of, or critic of, whatever ideals and practices (far beyond the scope of this note) could reasonably be labeled as mainstream (physical or social) science. Consensus is far more useful than crankdom, etc.

However, steelweaver’s essay about “reality insurgents” also serves as a reminder that arcanely specialized experts – scientists, notably – are in their own way ill-prepared to tackle difficult social problems.

Steelweaver notes:

The point, for the climate denier, is not that the truth should be sought with open-minded sincerity – it is that he has declared the independence of his corner of reality from control by the overarching, techno-scientific consensus reality. He has withdrawn from the reality forced upon him and has retreated to a more comfortable, human-sized bubble.

Compare this to the position facing most all academics, who have, by default, declared the independence of their corner of (techno-scientific consensus) reality from control by the overarching, social/political reality. The (or any) bigger picture is difficult to apprehend. The available large-scale tools and theories may be primitive. The problem may even be yet impossible to decompose – a cure for a disease or condition while the relevant science is still in the basic research phases, for example. Researchers have no choice but to tackle smaller, solvable problems, answerable questions – which, depending on the field of study, can be tiny, tiny pieces. They retreat into more comfortable, scientific field-sized bubbles.

Most scientific researchers never leave these bubbles of comprehensible reality. The professional incentives, certainly, are based on success within a field’s bubble. They even have epistemically principled reasons not to: where’s the study (much less the field consensus) demonstrating the link between the tiny answer we currently have and the greater social problem? (To this principle I have great sympathy: the “free radical” who takes a contested theory or untried implementation before untrained publics – taking a page from Schattschneider – does the field no service.)

The result – perhaps for all the right reasons – is a disengagement from social/political systems that constrain and construct both what we define as social problems and what we are willing & able to do about them. I’ve listened to presentations to patient advocates from prominent biomedical researchers who had decided that what their closest grassroots political allies most needed to know were the obscure technical details of the machine they use to process cell samples. I’ve spoken with scientists who seemingly cannot process the idea that the vigorously contested moral “should” is any different from the IRB “must” or the factual “is”. Such people – and this is not news to people who study science communication – are ill-prepared to participate in a political process, not (just?) because their statistics and data do little for intuitive thinking and narratives, but (also?) because their statistics and data are too narrowly focused to inform larger-scale evidence-driven decision-making.

Let us not exempt the humanities. The postmodern / critical theoretical departures of English departments, for instance, for all their narrative-driven intuitiveness, are no less obscure and narrow than studies to measure the weight of a subatomic particle. Such people are no more useful for solving wicked social problems than the most laboratory-bound technoscientist. (Humanities academics seem far more prone, though, to the delusion that their self-referential analyses are comprehensible or applicable outside their professional bubbles, and they seem to make more of an effort to inform larger-scale decision-making – and insurgencies – as a result.)

Commenter John H warns us with a quotation:

“Grand strategy, according to Boyd, is a quest to isolate your enemy’s (a nation-state or a global terrorist network) thinking processes from connections to the external/reference environment. This process of isolation is essentially the imposition of insanity on a group. To wit: any organism that operates without reference to external stimuli (the real world), falls into a destructive cycle of false internal dialogues. These corrupt internal dialogues eventually cause dissolution and defeat. “

“Have you taken hostages?” the Emperor asked.
“It’s useless, Majesty,” the Baron said. “These mad Fremen hold a burial ceremony for every captive and act as though such a one were already dead.” – Frank Herbert, Dune

The reaction of AntiSec participants to the apparent arrest of LulzSec member Topiary has been, as one might expect, internally incoherent. Independent spokespersons for AntiSec – such as the clearinghouse / cheerleader @AnonymousIRC and the movement’s presumed (informal) leader Sabu – have, on the one hand, been demanding Topiary’s release. They have taken to promoting a “FREE TOPIARY” banner on Twitter avatars, derivatives of the “FREE BRADLEY” banners in support of Bradley Manning that are still seen on the avatars of  Wikileaks and Manning supporters. They have promoted tweets of solidarity under a #FreeTopiary hashtag. They have described him as a political prisoner. They have claimed (with data irrelevant to the assertion) that Topiary has the support of the people. They have asked for Bitcoin donations, ostensibly to be used to somehow help him “should Topiary be in need”.

And they have declared him to be dead.

That awkwardly-written eulogy to Topiary has been making the rounds right alongside calls to defend him. Now, perhaps this contribution has simply struck the poetic fancy of some of AntiSec’s more retweeted self-appointed spokespersons. Maybe people are responding more to the feel of the piece than the words in it. If it turns out, though, that this depiction has evoked a resonance among AntiSec participants, what are we to make of it?

I just have questions rather than answers; movement responses to arrests of their participants for direct action is not my specialty. Some things to read up on in the literature, if there is any literature:

Is this “if you’re captured you’re (honored) dead to us” attitude common to the hacker movements and subculture that AntiSec is emulating? (Not obviously so, considering that hacker critics of AntiSec have been condemning AntiSec / Sabu, accusing them of using and then disposing of impressionable and/or young and/or autistic followers.)

Related: Has Topiary transgressed by getting caught? Calls for support have been dependent upon the odd confirmatory outing of one of their own at the same time: a “yes, that’s our co-conspirator, officer, you got him”. I’m reminded of mourning heretics as if they are already dead.

Is this common among movements that glorify illegal direct action? Eulogy like this is not universal, at least: contrast it with animal liberationists’ valorization and Mumiaization of saboteur Walter Bond, who in prison is now more of a movement presence than ever now that NAALPO publishes his rambling communiques.

Have some insurgencies treated captured comrades as if they are dead as a strategy? As the introductory quote suggests, I’m remembering a fictional example but this seems vaguely familiar and useful for guerrilla groups – as long as no one talks or has any knowledge to talk about.

What might this illuminate about movement tactical choice and public relations generally? The “Free Topiary” campaign, blatantly, seems incompatible with a “mourn the social death of Topiary and continue in his honor” sentiment. This choice, though, does not appear to be unique to AntiSec. With several of their participants facing campus disciplinary action or criminal charges, for example, several California student groups of the “Occupy Everything!” variety redirected a great deal of their internet outreach toward self-protection, updates such as the live-tweeting of obscure disciplinary proceedings often seeming to overwhelm their initial activist mission. Animal liberationists, with their wider range of outlets and their far stronger familiarity with operation security, seem to instead balance their (notably less individualistic) mission with their condemnation of their saboteurs’ treatment by the crime control system. Many activist collectives, when their participants eschew civil disobedience for attempts to pull off direct action without getting caught, face the conundrum of how much to go on the defensive when authorities catch up with them.