My War – Or perhaps its really Our War...

(Warning due to the “100lb brain” contemplation and graphic nature of this rant viewer discretion is advised)

I was speaking to friends the other day about the strategic communications packages I began developing a month ago or so. When we get the formula right we get big media play. So far, I am 4 for 4. Front office says I am at the tip of the “non-kinetic” spear. My cohorts here are looking to duplicate my efforts so they began quizzing me on the “how to.” Before our conversation I hadn’t really thought about the “how to” as much as the “for whom” on any given event. The answer is second nature. Know your audience and you know your story. I pondered that answer a little further and came to a basic unsettling realization about my audience.

This war of extremes… our “War on Terror…” is a war of ideology (obviously.) But what is not so obvious is everyone’s role in this war. On one side there is an unconscious submission to fanatical detachment – that which makes us inhumane. On the other side is a need for all of us to resist our base “me first” survival instincts and practice overt conscious compassion – that which defines us as human. So for me it comes down to that… I am a fighting the “non-kinetic” war of Compassion vs. Detachment… and my mission is to push empathy into a world of cynicism.

Explain? Sure…
The capability to highjack a plane and fly it into a building of thousands… the ability for someone to pull out a knife and physically saw someone’s head for video display… the facility for a crowd to violently and slowly stone an young woman to death in public exhibition… the capacity to bind a persons hands behind them, hang them from a hook in the rafters and use power tools to drill through their arms, back, and skull… All these acts take a profuse lack of sympathy and tremendous amount of detachment.

The real crime… detachment is contagious. Witnessing sensational acts of violence or its effects is initially shocking often infuriating. Seeing recurring acts over time and we become desensitized and numb. Before you know it, we are simply indifferent or detached. Yesterday’s extreme act is today’s aggressive action and tomorrow’s routine. Inevitably the mere definition of “sensational act” must be escalated to the incomprehensible… another potential fanatic is born.

Example? OK… Torture videos were (and in some places still are) available on the black market here in Baghdad during Saddam’s Regime. It was a handy devise to reinforce the message of submit or pay the price for an uneasy population. People all over Iraq bought these things for the shock value. They were (and are) popular. Now we have a society accustomed to watching the suffering of others. It’s not sensational – it’s routine.

Back to knowing my audience: My audience is suffering fatigue… they see the atrocities of daily terrorism and war… they are for all intents and purposes detached… embittered… cynical. I contend we cannot afford to forget what chain of event brought us here. Right or wrong, we are here now and unfortunately must remain to finish a job. Because of these facts I must fanatically promote shocking stories that remind us why it is important to be human and why it’s important to be human - here. Something that is doubly difficult to convey to people living – there (US). One of the few tools I have is association; highlighting that which is familiar for all of us. Promoting the tenderness of new borne… Highlighting the innocence of school children… Endorsing the warmth and safety of home… Reinforcing the affection of family… The more I push the envelope the more I realize I am using the same tactics as my enemy but instead I am trying to move the audience from indifference and detachment to a world of active empathy and compassion. I am a warrior of “sensational compassion.” I am a director of theater and drama - In effect pulling heart-strings in hopes of pushing reaction…Marketing 101.

My concern? For any audience to be so cynical and callous is disappointing sometimes often discouraging. It serves to demonstrate how much ground we have ceded to the enemy. Where does it end?

Every one of us is responsible for making a difference. We all need to engage on some level. For some of us it’s charging to the “tip of the spear.” For others… well I leave that for you to decide but I offer you this challenge. Get involved on some level. Practice whatever act of personal kindness / engagement / service fits your personality. Acknowledge a homeless person… Engage in conversation with a disenfranchised student… Take interest in someone else’s cultural, social or theological difference… even if the cost is as simple as 1 minute of your life. What you don’t realize is how that slightest of human compassion may be the ripple in the universe that alters a path and keeps a isolated individual from joining a fanatical group, shooting up a college campus, igniting a car bomb in a market place, or flying a jet liner into a high-rise.
You'll deprive the enemy of opportunity and sure as hell make my job a little easier.