Tech Policy as Theater

I’ve been using myth to think about tech, but Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy has inspired me to think about public policy as theater.

The story so far

I believe we still live in mythical world. We are all subject to greater-than-human forces – like state agencies, markets, and digital technology – that are pervasive, powerful and enigmatic (the things that myths used to purport to explain); and we all hold beliefs that profoundly shape our thought and behavior (aka myths). Thinking mythically can help us make sense of technology and its role in society. So far, I’ve focused on looking for contemporary myths about technology, and wondering whether and how taking a mythological view can help us to understand and govern digital technology better.

Enter Nietzsche

Reading Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy, however, prompted me to think about the question in aesthetic terms. It gave me license to respond subjectively to what I discovered, rather than just trying to analyze technology and society in objective terms. It encouraged me to think of tech in terms of theater. And it suggested that I think of the Dionysian as the complement to logos (cf. my post Counterparts to logos). 

According to Wikipedia, Apollo is the god “of rational thinking and order, and appeals to logic, prudence and purity,” while Dionysus is the god “of irrationality and chaos, and appeals to emotions and instincts.” Nietzsche argued that Greek tragedy achieved its apex in Aeschylus and Sophocles, thanks to the integration of Apollonian and Dionysian elements. It was wrecked when Euripides introduced a new antithesis: the Dionysian and the Socratic. 

(I will focus my work for now on the Dionysian, and not the consequences of replacing Apollo by Socrates. The latter impact on Greek tragedy, according to Nietzsche, has contemporary resonance: “And so the Euripidean drama is a thing both cool and fiery, equally capable of freezing and burning; it is impossible for it to attain the Apollonian effect of the epos, while, on the other hand, it has severed itself as much as possible from Dionysian elements, and now, in order to act at all, it requires new stimulants, which can no longer lie within the sphere of the two unique art-impulses, the Apollonian and the Dionysian. The stimulants are cool, paradoxical thoughts, in place of Apollonian intuitions— and fiery passions— in place of Dionysian ecstasies; …”)

Public policy as theater

Such an approach would analyze public policy in terms of aesthetics. “Political theater” is a widely used term, although in a pejorative sense that I don’t intend here. (Cf. the derogatory meaning that “myth” typically has in public discourse.) The most frequent relevant result when searching for papers on public policy as theater (Google Scholar; ignoring papers about using theater to advance political goals, and public policy applied to theater) is “crime control theater”; there are also references to terrorism as theater, and the theaters of oppression, repression, and diplomacy. Geeks like me would probably think first of Bruce Schneier’s “security theater.” The most interesting work I’ve found so far is the questions raised by Hannah Arendt’s Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy about the relationship between aesthetic judgment and political judgment

In responding to an early version of this note, Susan Tonkin suggested the placebo effect as a situation where theater is important. I think it works because it creates a belief in the patient’s mind, and medical ritual supports/enables that belief; the confidence of the provider, i.e. their faith in the treatment, also helps to convince the patient. That reminds me of central banks: promising to bail out companies, keep markets liquid, or underwrite bank withdrawals increases confidence so that bailouts aren’t necessary in the first place. Heavily staged and scripted pronouncement by Central Bank chairs are an important part of the performance. We thus have a nexus of belief and ritual, which seems appropriate in a mythic analysis.

First steps

I’m not at all sure how think about technology as theater, let alone how to apply aesthetics to public policy. In order to get started, I make these (certainly arguable) assumptions: 

• Nietzsche was correct that one needs both the Apollonian and the Dionysian to achieve the highest dramatic art.
• It is valid to analogize public policy – or technology as a social phenomenon – to dramatic art.

That generates hypotheses like:

1. One can analyze/understand public policy – or technology – in terms of aesthetics.
2. The best policy etc. is that which combines the Apollonian and the Dionysian.

An obvious early activity is to browse the academic literature for insights and methods. Likely fields include literary criticism, sociology of culture, political science, public policy, philosophy, and psychology. 

In practice, the project would consider the performances by players in the Big Tech drama, and attempt to interpret them in archetypal terms. Is a player channeling Dionysus, Apollo, or Socrates? Are they the chorus or the hero? I would use a broader cast list than Nietzsche, though; are we seeing the trickster, the monster, the king, the muse, ...?  

An obvious topic of study is Big Tech anti-trust proceedings, such as the current investigations by the U.S. House, the European Commission, and the DoJ. One could study witness statements, member statements and lines of questioning, documents that committee members have put on the record, and the committee report (if/when published). Keeping an inventory the stories that the various players in the hearing used to make their points would provide a link to my earlier tech-narrative preoccupations.

A related activity would be to imagine how various audiences perceive Big Tech, in archetypal terms. The spectators could include regulators (like Margrethe Vestager, Makan Delrahim, or Ajit Pai); legislators in Congress or the European Parliament; critics of Big Tech (like Public Knowledge, Naomi Klein, or Shoshana Zuboff); and tech apologists (like ITIF, Adam Thierer, or the companies themselves). Do they relate to technology as a hero, a monster, an inspiration?

Open questions

There are many unanswered questions. For one thing, this program is a shift away from looking for contemporary myths about tech towards seeking individual archetypes in the tech drama. Am I giving up on myth? Nietzsche was fixated on the tragic hero, but I don’t see why his methods couldn’t include other figures, say, Trickster. (Interestingly, Hermes is associated with both Apollo and Dionysos.) And even if I’ll be biased towards looking for the Dionysian, following Nietzsche, we’re likely to find myth – for him, pathos and mythos are essential parts of the Dionysian. 

Nietzsche originally titled his book The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music (1872); it was reissued in 1886 as The Birth of Tragedy, Or: Hellenism and Pessimism, after he had soured on Richard Wagner, the inspiration and dedicatee of the first edition. Is music in any way relevant to my concerns? I’m not sure; I’m not even sure it really mattered in Nietzsche…

Are there material differences in the aesthetics in different settings? For example (h/t Susan), is there a difference between the public theater in the political arena, and the theatrics inside organizations developing policy or technology? What about posturing in the marketplace?

Update 8/27/2020: Added suggestion to inventory the stories that players in antitrust hearing used to make their points.