Walter Kirn, an American novelist and cultural critic, in his 2009 memoir, Lost in the Meritocracy, described how, after a sojourn at Oxford, he came to be a member of “the class that runs things” – the one that “writes the headlines, and the stories under them.” It was the account of a middle-class kid from Minnesota trying desperately to fit into the élite world, and then to his surprise, realising that he didn’t want to fit in at all.
Now 61, Kirn has a newsletter on Substack and co-hosts a lively podcast devoted in large part to critiquing “establishment liberalism.” His contrarian drift has made him more vocal about his distrust of élite institutions – as he wrote in 2022:
For years now, the answer, in every situation—‘Russiagate,’ COVID, Ukraine—has been more censorship, more silencing, more division, more scapegoating. It’s almost as if these are goals in themselves – and the cascade of emergencies mere excuses for them. Hate is always the way.
Kirn’s politics, a friend of his suggested, was “old-school liberal,” underscoring that it was the other “so-called liberals’” who had changed: “I’ve been told repeatedly in the last year that free speech is a right-wing issue; I wouldn’t call [Kirn] Conservative. I would just say he’s a free-thinker, nonconformist, iconoclastic,” the friend said.
To understand Kirn’s contrarian turn – and to make sense of today’s form of American politics – it is necessary to understand one key term. It is not found in standard textbooks, but is central to the new playbook of power: the “whole of society.”
“The term was popularised roughly a decade ago by the Obama administration, which liked that its bland, technocratic appearance could be used as cover to erect a mechanism for a governance ‘whole-of-society’ approach” – one that asserts that as actors – media, NGOs, corporations and philanthropist institutions – interact with public officials to play a critical role not just in setting the public agenda, but in enforcing public decisions.
Jacob Siegel has explained the historical development of the “whole of society” approach during the Obama administration’s attempt to pivot in the “war on terror” to what it called “CVE” – countering violent extremism. The idea was to surveil the American people’s online behaviour in order to identify those who may, at some unspecified time in the future, “commit a crime.”
Inherent to the concept of the potential “violent extremist” who has, as yet, committed no crime, is a weaponised vagueness: “A cloud of suspicion that hangs over anyone who challenges the prevailing ideological narratives.”
“What the various iterations of this whole-of-society approach have in common is their disregard for democratic process and the right to free association – their embrace of social media surveillance, and their repeated failure to deliver results …”.
Aaron Kheriaty writes:
More recently, the whole of society political machinery facilitated the overnight flip from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris, with news media and party supporters turning on a dime when instructed to do so—democratic primary voters ‘be damned’. This happened not because of the personalities of the candidates involved, but on the orders of party leadership. The actual nominees are fungible, and entirely replaceable, functionaries, serving the interests of the ruling party … The party was delivered to her because she was selected by its leaders to act as its figurehead. That real achievement belongs not to Harris, but to the party-state.
What has this to do with Geo-politics – and whether there will be war between Iran and Israel?
Well, quite a lot. It is not just western domestic politics that has been shaped by the Obama CVE totalising mechanics. The “party-state” machinery (Kheriaty’s term) for geo-politics has also been co-opted:
“To avoid the appearance of totalitarian overreach in such efforts”, Kheriaty argues,“the party requires an endless supply of causes … that party officers use as pretexts to demand ideological alignment across public and private sector institutions. These causes come in roughly two forms: the urgent existential crisis (examples include COVID and the much-hyped threat of Russian disinformation) – and victim groups supposedly in need of the party’s protection.”
“It’s almost as if these are goals in themselves – and the cascade of emergencies mere excuses for them. Hate is always the way,” Kirn underlines.
Just to be clear, the implication is that all geo-strategic critics of the party-state’s ideological alignment must be jointly and collectively treated as potentially dangerous extremists. Russia, China, Iran and North Korea therefore are bound together as presenting a single obnoxious extremism that stands in opposition to “Our Democracy”; versus “Our Free Speech” and versus “Our Expert Consensus.”
So, if the move to war against one extremist (i.e. versus Iran) is “acclaimed” by 58 standing ovations in the joint session of Congress last month, then further debate is unnecessary – any more than Kamala Harris’ nomination as Presidential candidate needs to be endorsed through primary voting:
Candidate Harris told hecklers on Wednesday, chanting about genocide in Gaza, “to pipe down” – unless they “want Trump to win.” Tribal norms must not be challenged (even for genocide).
Sandra Parker, Chairwoman of the political advocacy arm for the three thousand members of Christians United for Israel (CUFI) was advising on correct talking points, the Times of Israel reports:
The rise of Republican far right-wingers who spurn decades of (bi-partisan) pro-Israel orthodoxies, favouring isolationism and resurrecting anti-Jewish tropes is alarming pro-Israel evangelicals and their Jewish allies… The break with decades of assertive foreign policy was evident last year when Sen. Josh Hawley derided the ‘liberal empire’ that he dismissively characterised as bipartisan ‘Neoconservatives on the right, and liberal globalists on the left: Together they make up what you might call the uniparty, the DC establishment that transcends all changing administrations.
At the CUFI talking points conference, the fear of increased isolation on the Right was the issue:
“You’re going to see that adversaries will see the US as in retreat” – should isolationists get the upper hand: Activists were advised to push back: Should lawmakers claim that NATO expansion is what triggered Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: “Should anybody begin to make the argument that the reason the Russians have moved in on Ukraine – is because of NATO enlargement – can I just say that this is the age-old ‘blame America trope,’” the Chair advised the assembled delegates.
“They have the strain of isolationism that’s – ‘Let’s just do China and forget about Iran, forget about Russia, let’s just do one thing’ – but it doesn’t work that way,” said Boris Zilberman, director of policy and strategy for the CUFI Action Fund. Instead, he described “an intricate fabric of bad actors working hand in hand.”
So, to get to the bottom of this western mind-management in which appearance and reality are cut from the same cloth of hostile extremism: Iran, Russia and China are “cut from it” likewise.
Plainly put, the import of this “behavioural-engineering enterprise (it no longer having much to do with the truth, no longer having much to do with your right to desire what you wish – or not desire what you don’t wish)” – is, as Kirn says: “everyone is in on the game.” “The corporate and state interests don’t believe you are wanting the right things—you might want Donald Trump— or, that you aren’t wanting the things you should want more” (such as seeing Putin removed).
If this “whole of society” machinery is understood correctly in the wider world, then the likes of Iran or Hizbullah are forced to take note that war in the Middle East inevitably may bleed across into wider war against Russia – and have adverse ramifications for China, too.
That is not because it makes sense. It doesn’t. But it is because the ideological needs of “whole of society” foreign-policy hinge on simplistic “moral” narratives: Ones that express emotional attitudes, rather than argued propositions.
Netanyahu went to Washington to lay out the case for all-out war on Iran – a moral war of civilisation versus the Barbarians, he said. He was applauded for his stance. He returned to Israel and immediately provoked Hizbullah, Iran, and Hamas in a way that dishonoured and humiliated both – knowing well that it would draw a riposte that would most likely lead to wider war.
Clearly Netanyahu, backed by a plurality of Israelis, wants an Armageddon (with full US support, of course). He has the US, he thinks, exactly where he wants it. Netanyahu has only to escalate in one way or another – and Washington, he calculates (rightly or wrongly), will be compelled to follow.
Is this why Iran is taking its time? The calculus on an initial riposte to Israel is “one thing,” but how then might Netanyahu retaliate in Iran and Lebanon? That can be altogether an “other thing.” There have been hints of nuclear weapons being deployed (in both instances). There is however nothing solid, to this latter rumour.
Further, how might Israel respond towards Russia in Syria, or might the US react through escalation in Ukraine? After all, Moscow has assisted Iran with its air defences (just as the West is assisting Ukraine against Russia).
Many imponderables. Yet, one thing is clear (as former Russian President Medvedev noted recently): “the knot is tightening” in the Middle East. Escalation is across all the fronts. War, Medvedev suggested, may be “the only way this knot will be cut.”
Iran must think that appeasing western pleas in the wake of the Israeli assassination of Iranian officials at their Damascus Consulate was a mistake. Netanyahu did not appreciate Iran’s moderation. He doubled-down on war, making it inevitable, sooner or later.
Reprinted with permission from Strategic Culture Foundation.
