spy kids
07:12 | 10-09-2013 | Culturology, Politics | No Comments
замечательная статья, кстати — за авторством того самого Чарли Стросса:
We human beings are primates. We have a deeply ingrained set of cultural and interpersonal behavioral rules that we violate only at social cost. One of these rules, essential for a tribal organism, is bilaterality: Loyalty is a two-way street. (Another is hierarchy: Yield to the boss.) Such rules are not iron-bound or immutable — we’re not robots — but our new hive superorganism employers don’t obey them instinctively, and apes and monkeys and hominids tend to revert to tit-for-tat strategies readily when they’re unsure of their relative status. Perceived slights result in retaliation, and blundering, human-blind organizations can bruise an employee’s ego without even noticing. And slighted or bruised employees who lack instinctive loyalty, because the culture they come from has spent generations systematically destroying social hierarchies and undermining their sense of belonging, are much more likely to start thinking the unthinkable.
Nationalism might seem to provide a bulwark here, buttressing loyalty to the institutions of state with loyalty to the ideals of the state itself. But if the actions of the state deviate too far from the ideals embodied in the foundational myths its citizens believe, cognitive dissonance ensues. The public perception of America as being a democratic republic that values freedom and fairness under the rule of law is diametrically opposed to the secretive practices of the surveillance state. Nationalist loyalty is highly elastic, but can be strained to breaking point. And when that happens, we see public servants who remain loyal to the abstract ideals conclude that the institution itself is committing treason.
ростки стивенсоновской “Лавины” можно увидеть прямо сейчас.