Agonal Autism in the Syrian Conflict: Unterschied zwischen den Versionen

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 = Do Governments Need Therapy? =
-Nothing is more tempting than to transfer the husband-wife-conflict with its mutually exclusive narratives about causes and responsibilities ("you started it all, I only react to what you are doing to me") onto the level of international conflicts. During the Cold War, there was much talk about that. It went something like this: If one could reveal the blind spots of both sides' views of East-West conflict during the Cold War, one might help governments to overcome those perceptual limitations and prejudices, and conflicts could be resolved in almost no time at all. The hottest candidate was Carl Rogers' person-centered talking therapy. Did not Rogers himself propagate that? And even if this might be a false memory, it is a proven fact that Watzlawick himself did apply the concept of discrepant punctuation to the case of the East-West arms race (Watzlawick et al. 1967), implying that - given a third party to help them climb the meta-level of communication - things could be easily resolved. And it is not implausible at all that such a thought was behind more recent attempts to apply the concept of discrepant punctuation to the interaction sequences between the United States and Al Qaida in the War on Terror (Malick 2011).
+Nothing is more tempting than to transfer the image of the husband-wife-conflict with its mutually exclusive narratives about causes and responsibilities ("you started it all, I only react to what you are doing to me") onto the level of international conflicts.
-Thanks to Malick's analysis, we can take it as an established fact that the U.S.' and Al Qaida's respective narratives about the conflict suffer from distinctively discprepant punctuations making them absolutely irreconcilable.
+During the Cold War, there was much talk about that. It went something like this: If one could reveal the blind spots of both sides' views of East-West conflict during the Cold War, one might help governments to overcome those perceptual limitations and prejudices, and conflicts could be resolved in almost no time at all. The hottest candidate was Carl Rogers' person-centered talking therapy. Did not Rogers himself propagate that? And even if this might be a false memory, it is a proven fact that Watzlawick himself did apply the concept of discrepant punctuation to the case of the East-West arms race (Watzlawick et al. 1967), implying that - given a third party to help them climb the meta-level of communication - things could be easily resolved. And it is not implausible at all that such a thought was behind more recent attempts to apply the concept of discrepant punctuation to the interaction sequences between the United States and Al Qaida in the War on Terror. Thanks to Malick's (2011) analysis, it can be treated as an established fact that there are indeed mutually irreconcilable narratives in the Al Qaida conflict - and it would come as a great surprise if the same were not true in the case of Syria that we are dealing with today.
-also  the application of the concept of discrepant punctuation to the arms race. In a way, though, such a focus on faulty communication tends to belittle the relevance of socio-economic interests, power structures, and legitimizing discourses. To say that conflict parties just do not talk enough and that they do not talk enough because they have different perceptions of  who started it all and who is responsible for the conflict ("discrepant punctuation") simply does not grasp the fact that international politics are not governed by naively distorted perceptions, but that - as a rule - they at least contain a large portion of strategic modelling for purposes of generating sufficient support on the home front. In the end, the official political discourse and the mainstream media discourse might look very similar to the one-sidedness of a husband's narrative in a couple conflict, but while the husband may be given the benefit of naiveté, the White House Syria (or Iran) narrative should be given credit for having been more carefully constructed to serve the foreign policy interests as defined by those in that House.
+== The March-of-Folly Hypothesis==
+The question does not seem to be "If" there is a cognitive distortion in the Western narrative, but "Why". How is it possible that the world's only remaining superpower comes up with such a distored narrative? How can it be so blind to its own mistakes, and how can it be following such a stupid strategy that kept on excluding all possible negotiating partners for a lasting peace deal in Syria? Such questions have been asked before with regard to other similarly compellin g paradoxes of American History. Why is it that governments pursue policies contrary to their own interests - from Vietnam over the counterproductive War on Terror all the way to Syria?
+In the tradition of Barbara Tuchman's book on The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam (1984), it has been the dominant response of more or less well-meaning liberal critics that sometimes, decision-makers are just too ill-informed and ill-tempered, so they take foolish decisions that they (and others) will later regret.
+The lesson to be learned is clear: let us elect more intellectually capable leaders, or, if that does not work, let us at least try to educate those in power to the highest degree possible with the best adivsors imaginable. And maybe, one or the other of our leaders could see a talking therapist.
+s in the White House and beyond. of seemingly paradoxical and ill-informed government policies leading to self-inflicted defeats", by the somehow tautological idea that those in charge are sometimes too stupid to do the right thing, even though they know that there are alternative paths of action.
+For a neutral observer, the U.S. narrative shows a clear cognitive distortion, also  the application of the concept of discrepant punctuation to the arms race. In a way, though, such a focus on faulty communication tends to belittle the relevance of socio-economic interests, power structures, and legitimizing discourses. To say that conflict parties just do not talk enough and that they do not talk enough because they have different perceptions of  who started it all and who is responsible for the conflict ("discrepant punctuation") simply does not grasp the fact that international politics are not governed by naively distorted perceptions, but that - as a rule - they at least contain a large portion of strategic modelling for purposes of generating sufficient support on the home front. In the end, the official political discourse and the mainstream media discourse might look very similar to the one-sidedness of a husband's narrative in a couple conflict, but while the husband may be given the benefit of naiveté, the White House Syria (or Iran) narrative should be given credit for having been more carefully constructed to serve the foreign policy interests as defined by those in that House.
 In other words: political actors in asymmetric conflicts are all too often not really unable to develop communicative strategies, but rather unwilling to do so for rational reasons.
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 In a couple conflict, the inability of spouses to reach a meta-level of communication and to have a distant look at what is happening, can prevent mutual understanding, self-reflection, and a negotiated peace accord. In the Syrian conflict, it may seem that it is exactly the same thing that is lacking, but the difference is that in the latter, there are institutions and elaborate policy bodies that should be able to extensively check options and rationally chose the best one sine ira et studio. Therefore, an assumption of a higher rationality should be justified - even though such an assumption leads directly to a new riddle - the paradox of higher rationality and low-quality outcome.
-Barbara Tuchman (1984) spoke of the "March of Folly" and tried to explain "one of the most compelling paradoxes of history: the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests", by the somehow tautological idea that those in charge are sometimes too stupid to do the right thing, even though they know that there are alternative paths of action.
 This is not very satisfactory, and this is where a bit of game theory can do some good. What seems irrational to informed observers of the Syrian conflict - the West's refusal to talk with the Iranian leadership to solve the Syrian conflict, e.g.  - may not appear so irrational at all when the Syrian conflict is not regarded in isolation, but as just one "game" among others. The theory of nested games