America’s most decent and intelligent conservative writer, David Brooks, has this to say about WikiLeaks’ exposure of hundreds of thousands of internal State Department documents:
Major Premise: World order “is tenuously maintained by brave soldiers but also by talkative leaders and diplomats.”
Minor Premise: The quality of diplomatic conversation “is determined by the level of trust.”
Conclusion: “The WikiLeaks dump will probably damage the global conversation” (NY Times, 11/30/10).
Q.E.D., as the logicians like to say.
The problem with syllogisms, though, is almost always in the major premise. If what we had was world order (aka “civilization”), Brooks’ logic would be impeccable. “The fact that we live our lives amid order and not chaos is the great achievement of civilization,” he opines. But, as Tonto said to the Lone Ranger, “Who is this ‘we,’ white man?”
In reality, the order and freedom that exists among the privileged classes of privileged nations is purchased at the price of chaos and tyranny imposed upon the globe’s disempowered and humiliated multitude. And the principal agency of this disempowerment/humiliation is the US Empire. The “WikiLeaks dump” is actually a form of nonviolent resistance against the expansion and maintenance of this empire.
Therefore, an alternative syllogism presents itself:
P1: The US elites maintains their global hegemony not only through military means but through “diplomatic conversation.”
P2: WikiLeaks’ revelations have a potential to disrupt this conversation, hence, to interfere with or undermine US hegemony.
Ergo: WikiLeaks should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
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