**Kritik
2NC Overview
Techno-strategic planning removes us from the consequences of our actions, risking nuclear war
Bleiker, 03 (Roland, Poli.Sci., Int’l Rtlns, U. Queensland, “Aestheticising Terrorism: Alternative Approaches to 11 September,” Australian Journal of Politics
and History, EBSCO)
The complexities of terrorism, and of world politics in general, cannot be understood or addressed by dogmatic approaches
that simply advocate a return to “realism, not abstract philosophising”. And yet, such approaches are as prevalent in academic analysis as they are in
popular discourse. Consider one of the most influential and sophisticated contemporary commentators on international affairs, Alexander Wendt: “Poetry, literature and other humanistic
disciplines are not designed to explain global war or third world poverty, and as such if we want to solve those problems our best hope, slim as it may be, is social science.”54 As Kant already
knew, and as this essay outlined at the outset, such an approach is problematic because it provides a few dominant forms of insight, usually those emerging from reason, with the power to
The techno-strategic language of
defence analysis, for instance, has become the most accepted — and by definition most credible and rational — way of
assessing issues of terrorism and security in general. The (realist) language that defence intellectuals speak is not only highly abstract, but also
sanitises war and creates a distance from the grotesque realities of nuclear weapons. The terms created through
this techno-strategic language, such as “clean bombs” or “collateral damage”, make it possible for analysts to focus on technical
issues without having to deal with the possible moral consequences of their work, including the prospect of what Herman Kahn
once called a “wargasm” — a nuclear holocaust that precipitates the end of humanity. Fortunately, the Cold War was one of the very
few arms races that did not culminate in outright war. But the realist mindset and language that had guided its strategic “logic” continue to delineate
our understanding of security.
synchronise a variety of otherwise rather disparate faculties, from imagination to intuition. The consequences are manifold .
Eclipse of being outweighs extinction – it’s better to die than to live as slaves to technological thought
Rojcewicz, 06
(Professor of Philosophy at Point Park University, Executive Director of the Simon Silverman Phenomenology Center at Duquesne
University, cotranslator of Heidegger’s work. Richard, The Gods and Technology: A Reading of Heidegger, page 140-141)
Heidegger now launches an extended discussion of the danger inherent in modern technology. It needs to be underlined that for Heidegger the
threat is not
simply to human existence. The prime danger is not that high-tech devices might get out of hand and wreck
havoc on their creators by way of a radioactive spill or an all-encompassing nuclear holocaust. The danger is
not that by disposing of so many disposables we will defile the planet and make it uninhabitable. For Heidegger the
danger—the prime danger—does not lie in technological things but in the essence of technology. Technological
things are indeed dangerous; the rampant exploitation of natural resources is deplorable; the contamination of
the environment is tragic. We need to conserve and to keep hightech things from disposing of us. Yet, for Heidegger, conservation, by itself,
is not the answer. Conservation alone is not radical enough. Conservation is aimed at things, technological things and natural things, but it does not touch the
outlook or basic attitude that is the essence of modern technology, and it is there that the danger lies. It may well be that conservation will succeed and that
technology will solve its own problems by producing things that are safe and nonpolluting; nevertheless, the
prime danger, which lies deeper down, will remain. For the danger is not primarily to the existence of humans
but to their essence: "The threat to man does not come in the first instance from the potentially lethal effects of the machines and devices of technology. The
genuine threat has already affected humans—in their essence" (FT, 29/28). In a sense, the threat inherent in modern technology has
already been made good. Though we have thus far averted a nuclear disaster, that does not mean the genuine
threat has been obviated. Humans still exist; they are not yet on the endangered species list. It would of course
be tragic if humans made that list. Yet, for Heidegger, there could be something more tragic, namely for humans
to go on living but to lose their human dignity, which stems from their essence. Here lies the prime danger, the one posed not by
technological things but by the disclosive looking that constitutes the essence of modern technology. The prime danger is that humans could become (and
in fact are already becoming) enslaved to this way of disclosive looking. Thus what is primarily in danger is human freedom; if
humans went on living but allowed themselves to be turned into slaves—that would be the genuine tragedy. The
danger in modern technology is that humans may fail to see themselves as free followers, fail to see the
challenges directed at their freedom by the current guise of Being, and fail to see the genuine possibilities open
to them to work out their destiny. Then, not seeing their freedom, humans will not protect it. They will let it slip
away and will become mere followers, passively imposed on by modern technology, i.e., slaves to it, mere cogs
in the machine. For Heidegger, there is an essential connection between seeing and freedom. The way out of slavery begins with seeing,
insight. But it is the right thing that must be seen, namely, one's own condition. The danger is that humans may
perfect their powers of scientific seeing and yet be blind to that wherein their dignity and freedom lie, namely
the entire domain of disclosedness and their role in it. Humans would then pose as "masters of the earth," and
yet their self-blindness would make them slaves.
Framework 2NC
1. OUR WAY OF BEING IN THE EARTH prefigures fundamental meaning – it’s an absolute
prerequisite to decision calculus.
Dillon ‘99 (Michael Dillon, Prof of Politics, University of Lancaster, Moral Spaces, p. 97-98)
Heirs to all this, we find ourselves in the turbulent and now globalized wake of its confluence. As Heidegger-himself an especially revealing figure of the deep and
mutual implication of the philosophical and the political4-never tired of pointing out, the relevance of ontology to all other kinds of thinking is
fundamental and inescapable. For one cannot say anything about anything that is, without always already having made assumptions
about the is as such. Any mode of thought, in short, always already carries an ontology sequestered within it. What this ontological turn does
to other regional modes of thought is to challenge the ontology within which they operate. The implications of that review reverberate
throughout the entire mode of thought, demanding a reappraisal as fundamental as the reappraisal ontology has demanded of philosophy. With
ontology at issue, the entire foundations or underpinnings of any mode of thought are rendered problematic. This applies as much to
any modern discipline of thought as it does to the question of modernity as such, with the exception, it seems, of science, which, having long ago given up the
ontological questioning of when it called itself natural philosophy, appears now, in its industrialized and corporatized form, to be invulnerable to ontological
perturbation. With its foundations at issue, the very authority of a mode of thought and the ways in which it characterizes the critical issues of
freedom and judgment (of what kind of universe human beings inhabit, how they inhabit it, and what counts as reliable knowledge for them in it) is also put in
question. The very ways in which Nietzsche, Heidegger, and other continental philosophers challenged Western ontology, simultaneously, therefore reposed the
fundamental and inescapable difficulty, or aporia, for human being of decision and judgment. In other words, whatever ontology you subscribe to, knowingly or
unknowingly, as a human being you still have to act. Whether or not you know or acknowledge it, the ontology you subscribe to will construe the
problem of action for you in one way rather than another. You may think ontology is some arcane question of philosophy, but Nietzsche and
Heidegger showed that it intimately shapes not only a way of thinking, but a way of being , a form of life. Decision, a fortiori political decision,
in short, is no mere technique. It is instead a way of being that bears an understanding of Being, and of the fundaments of the human
way of being within it. This applies, indeed applies most, to those mock innocent political slaves who claim only to be technocrats of decision making.
3. Affirmative form of governmental action precludes personal change killing political activism and link
turning the plan
Kappeler 95 (Susanne, Associate Professor at Al-Akhawayn University, The Will to Violence: The politics
of personal behavior, Pg. 10- 1 1 )
Yet our
insight that indeed we are not responsible for the decisions of a Serbian general or a Croatian president tends to mislead
us into thinking that therefore we have no responsibiiitv at all, not evenfor forming our own judgment, and thus into underrating the
responsibility we do have within our own sphere of action. In particular, it seems to absolve us from having to try to
see any relation between our own actions and those events, or to recognize the connections between those
political decisions and our own personal decisions. It not only shows that we participate in what Beck calls 'organized
irresponsibility', upholding the apparent lack of connection between bureaucratically, institutionally, nationally, and also
individually organized separate competences. It also proves the phenomenal and unquestioned alliance of our personal
thinking with the thinking of the major power mongers, Forxtend to think that we cannot 'do' anvthing. say,
about a war, because we deem ourselves to be in the wrong situation because we are not where the maior
decisions are made. Which is why many of those not vet entirelv disillusioned with politics tend to engage in a
form of mental deputy politics, in the style of 'what would I do if I were the general, the prime minister, the president, the
foreign minister or the minister of defense?' Since we seem to regard their meca spheres of action as the only worthwhile and
truly effective ones, and since our political analyses tend to dwell there first of all, any question of what I would
do if 1 were indeed myself tends to peter out in the comparative insignificance of having what is perceived as
'virtually no possibilities': what I could do seems petty and futile. For my own action I obviously desire the
range of action of a general, a prime minister, or a General Secretary of the UN - finding expression in ever more prevalent formulations like 'I
want to stop this war', 'I want military intervention', 'I want to stop this backlash', or 'I want a moral revolution.
'We are this war', however, even if we do not command the troops or participate in co-called peace talks, namely as
Drakulic says, in our non-comprehension': our willed refusal to feel responsible for our own thinking and for working out our
own understanding, preferring innocently to drift along the ideolo~icacl urrent of prefabricated arguments or
less than innocently taking advantage of the advantages these offer. And we 'are' the war in our 'unconscious cruelty towards vou', our
tolerance of the 'fact that vou have a yellow form for refugees and I don't'- our readiness, in other words, to build identities, one for ourselves and one for refugees, one
of our own and one for the 'others.' We
share in the responsibilitv for this war and its violence in the way we let them grow
inside us, that is,& the wav we shaue 'our feelings, our relationships, our values' according: to the structures and
the values of war and violence.
5. Turn – Education and Ontology Tradeoff – Their framework arguments serve as another justification
for their belief that reality is an object for human control, reducing all thinking to a technological level
and ensuring the “standing reserve” mentality
Sawicki, 2003- Ph.D. Columbia University, Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies, Chair of Women's And Gender Studies, Williams College (Jana,
“Foucault and Heidegger Critical Encounters”, Heidegger and Foucault:Escaping Technological Nihilism, University of Minnesota Press Minneapolis London, Questia,
REQ)
Who accomplishes the challenging setting upon through which what we call the real is revealed as standingreserve? Obviously, man. To what extent is man capable of such a revealing? Man can, indeed, conceive, fashion, and
carry through this or that in one way or another … but man does not have control over unconcealment itself, in
which at any given time the real shows itself or withdraws … the unconcealment itself, within which ordering
unfolds, is never a human handiwork, anymore than is the realm man traverses every time he as a subject relates
to an object. (QT, 18) Here Heidegger asserts that the idea that the mark of the human is the rational ordering and
controlling of reality is itself not something that anyone or any group has consciously chosen. The ideas that reality
is an object for human control and technology merely a human instrument are themselves examples of the
technological thinking that dominates the modern age. Although we do decide whether any given representation of
reality is true or false, or how any particular thing is to be used, which representations come up as candidates for
truth or falsity, which questions are taken seriously, and the very fact that beings are revealed as things for use, are not
themselves up for choice. 9 The background against which objects appear is neither wholly graspable nor
intentionally constituted. It is, instead, a forgotten horizon of historically transmitted practices and beliefs that we take for granted.
In the Discourse on Thinking Heidegger addresses this unchosen, autonomous feature of technology when he says: “Whenever we plan, research, and organize, we
always reckon with conditions that are given.” In “The Question Concerning Technology” he uses the term “enframing” (Gestell) to describe the essence of modern
technology; it
is “the way in which the real reveals itself as standing reserve” (QT, 2, 3). Moreover, “enframing” represents
a “destining” of revealing insofar as it “pushes” us in a certain direction. Heidegger does not regard destining as
determination (he says it is not a “fate which compels”), but rather as the implicit project within the field of modern practices
to subject all aspects of reality to the principles of order and efficiency, and to pursue reality down to the finest detail. Thus,
insofar as modern technology aims to order and render calculable, the objectification of reality tends to take the
form of an increasing classification, differentiation, and fragmentation of reality. The possibilities for how things appear are increasingly
reduced to those that enhance calculative activities. Heidegger perceives the real danger in the modern age to be that human beings will
continue to regard technology as a mere instrument and fail to inquire into its essence. He fears that all revealing will
become calculative and all relations technical, that the unthought horizon of revealing, namely the “concealed” background
practices that make technological thinking possible, will be forgotten. He remarks: The coming to presence of technology threatens revealing, threatens it with
the possibility that all revealing will be consumed in ordering and that everything will present itself only in the
unconcealedness of standing-reserve. (QT, 33) 10 Therefore, it is not technology, or science, but rather the essence of
technology as a way of revealing that constitutes the danger; for the essence of technology is existential, not
technological. 11 It is a matter of how human beings are fundamentally oriented toward their world vis a vis their
practices, skills, habits, customs, and so forth. Humanism contributes to this danger insofar as it fosters the illusion that technology is the result of a collective
human choice and therefore subject to human control. 12
AT: Threats Real
Events may be objective but danger is interpreted – It’s a Mere front to preserve threat calculation
Campbell 92 (David, Professor of Political Geography at the University of Durham, Writing Security,)
Furthermore, the role of interpretation in the articulation of danger is not restricted to the process by which some risks come to be considered more serious than others.
An important function of interpretation is the way that certain modes of representation crystallize around
referents marked • as dangers. Given the often tenuous relationship between an interpretation of danger and the
"objective" incidence of behaviors and factors thought to constitute it, the capacity for a particular risk to be represented in
terms of characteristics reviled in the community said. to be threatened can be an important impetus to an
interpretation of danger. As later chapters will demonstrate, the ability to represent things as alien, subversive, dirty, or sick has been pivotal to the
articulation of danger in the American experience. In this context, it is also important to note that there need not be an action or event to
provide the grounds for an interpretation of danger. The mere existence of an alternative mode of being, the
presence of which exemplifies that different identities are possible and thus denaturalizes the claim of a
particular identity to be the true identity, is sometimes enough to produce the understanding of a threat' In consequence, only in these
terms is it possible to understand how some acts of international power politics raise not a whit of concern, while
something as seemingly unthreatening as the novels of a South American writer can be considered such a danger to national security that his exclusion from the country
is warranted.' For
both insurance and international relations, therefore, danger results from the calculation of a threat
that objectifies events, disciplines relations, and sequesters an ideal of the identity of the people said to be at
risk.
AT: Perm
3. Ontological questioning must occur before policy action or the alternative will fail
Grego, 07
(Associate Professor in the Department of Humanities/Culture at Dayton Beach College. Richard, “Global Warming, Environmental Philosophy and
Public Policy: John Dewey vs. Martin Heidegger,” http://www.philosophos.com/philosophy_article_153.html)
How any of this might translate into an actual environmental policy is anyone's guess (and contemporary interpreters of Heidegger are certainly doing a lot of
guessing!) but some general possibilities come to mind. Environmentally, Heidegger is heir to the legacy of Medieval Christian mysticism, German idealism, and
romanticism, and he is the inspiration for much contemporary thinking associated with 'deep ecology'. He encourages
a heartfelt awareness of and
appreciation for the natural world as a dwelling-place of the sacred. With this awareness and appreciation may
perhaps come a general shift in the public consciousness (a renewed revelation of 'Being') that can lead, in turn, to a new way
of 'dwelling authentically' or living harmoniously with the natural world. Such dwelling or living will then lead effortlessly to
policies that sustain this harmony. However we cannot make these policies unless the shift in consciousness occurs first.
Dewey's views, in contra-distinction, are quite compatible with the spirit of instrumental science, technology and commerce and are applicable to environmentally
sound policies like low-carbon technologies in industry, international regulations on greenhouse gas emissions, and environmental standards in the Kyoto Protocol.
These are temporary flexible innovations made by interested political and commercial parties that are based on tentative research-findings which may be revised as
circumstances change. Dewey does not share Heidegger's antipathy toward modernity and sees things like environmental problems as incentives to further research and
improvement, rather than as an end to human possibilities. While Dewey endorses a kind of Heideggerian-sounding awareness and appreciation of the natural world
(lauding the value of 'aesthetic experiences' in the appreciation of nature, for instance), he sees this as only one capacity among many that may be employed to protect
or improve the natural environment, which humanity is an integral part of. The Global Roundtable On Climate Change based at Columbia Universities' Earth Institute in
New York, in which various scientists, corporations, civic organizations, and political action groups from around the world are researching and adopting a
comprehensive statement on environmental science and policy, seems like precisely the sort of initiative that Dewey would support. Yet, while
Heidegger's
views may seem too extreme for the practical necessities of our current situation, Dewey's more practical
approach is vulnerable to the Heideggerian criticism that it may be too accommodating to this situation. Heidegger
would probably say that any attempt to preserve, protect, or improve nature by tinkering with it through science, defeats
its own purpose — and it does appear as though every new 'solution' to ecological dangers over the past halfcentury has only yielded new problems — the latest of which is global warming (and some of the proposed scientific solutions to this problem are
ominous themselves: From giant space shields, to spreading aerosol particles in the upper atmosphere, to spraying water-clouds into the air from the oceans). Thus
perhaps the very impractically of Heidegger's ideas make them particularly worthy of consideration. It is fairly
obvious that environmental degradation is largely — if not primarily — a result of the impact of science, technology and commerce on the natural world, and that the
kind of reverent appreciation for nature's sanctity that Heidegger advocates would engender a deeper concern and respect for nature. What
may therefore be
needed for environmental protection over the long-term (as opposed to short-term fixes for temporarily
'fashionable' issues like global warming) is a Heideggerian-type transformation in the public consciousness,
rather than more Deweyan technocratic innovations. A renewed experience of authentic 'freedom' and the revelation of that 'Being' which is
the groundless ground that sustains both nature and humanity, might be just what is needed for the earth's sustainable future.
5. Any incorporation of calculative thought crushes solvency – we must reject harmful modes of Being,
not simply redeploy them for our own purposes
Hershock, 99 (Fellow in the Asian Studies Development Center at the East West Center, 1999 (Peter, Reinventing the Wheel, p. 272-282)
Where our technologies lead us astray, it is because we are in a very real and tragic sense simply chasing our
own tails. As Hui-neng reminds us, the wrongs we identify "out there" also reside and originate "in here." Because it would quite literally be self-defeating, a
gen¬eral condemnation is not in order. So what do we do? If we accept the need to realize meaningful solutions to our
troubles and not merely factual ones, and if we accept the role of our current technical orientation in
institutionalizing our incapacity for dramatically resolving our problems, how are we to proceed? We can begin
formu¬lating an answer to this question by clearly perceiving that neither of the two most popular strategies for
technological reform are finally workable: first, the direct and often violent opposition to the spreading use of
the tools gen¬erated by particular technologies and the practical capacities they afford us; and second, the attempt to redefine
our purposes for using these tools and to promote the technologies of which they are a part on revised political,
eco¬nomic, and societal grounds. According to the first strategy, the responsible technological revolu¬tionary is obligated to overtly and even zealously
attack the technological edifice our society has erected in celebration of its own core values. This can be as relatively benign as the "monkey wrench" sorties of
environmental¬ists who spike trees to render them unsuitable for industrial logging or who repeatedly disable earth-moving equipment at dam or mining sites. At its
most extreme, this strategy results in a Unabomber-style terrorism and all that goes along with it. The
other approach is to gradually "redirect"
our technical tradition, adapting it to the needs of a truly multicultural world that endorses only the most neutral
and universal human or even planetary values. This typically takes the shape of either a grassroots revolution--a
"greening" of our tech¬nical tradition--or a purification process by means of which we collectively and
consciously take control of our technical destiny. An example would be to promote the use of the World Wide Web as a means for virtually
main¬taining continuity within and between diasporic communities. On the one hand, then, our approach has been to declare open warfare on
our technological nemesis, and on the other to try our best to peacefully win it over to our side. Both approaches
are self-defeating for the simple rea¬son that they replicate rather than resist the basic values underlying our
technological lineage as a whole. By confusing technologies with tools and the commercial systems that
produce and distribute them, both strategies are conducive to a failure to realize that when we are most openly
and deeply engaged in direct, technical revolt or reform, our attention is almost exclu¬sively attached to and so
promoting the very values we are ostensibly work¬ing against. In the same way that we can't fight fire with fire
without getting hot, we can't "take on" or battle patterns of conduct or narrative movement oriented according to
the values of `control', `independence', and `individu¬ality' without becoming literally involved with them.
Environmental Security Bad 2NC
Securitization creates a docile citizenry - the government's short term focus prevents solvency
Trennel, 06 [Paul - Ph.D University of Wales, "The (Im)possibility of Environmental Security"] PDF
Thirdly, it can be claimed that the security mindset channels the obligation to address environmental issues in an unwelcome
direction. Due to terms laid out by the social contract "security is essentially something done by states...there is no obligation or moral duty on citizens to provide
security...In this sense security is essentially empty...it is not a sign of positive political initiative" (Dalby, 1992a: 97-8). Therefore,
casting an issue in
security terms puts the onus of action onto governments, creating a docile citizenry who await instructions from
their leaders as to the next step rather than taking it on their own backs to do something about pressing concerns. This is unwelcome because governments have
limited incentives to act on environmental issues, as their collectively poor track record to date reveals. Paul Brown notes that "at present in all the large democracies
the short-term politics of winning the next election and the need to increase the annual profits of industry rule over the long term interests of the human race" (1996: 10;
see also Booth 1991: 348). There is no clearer evidence for this than the grounds on which George W. Bush explained his decision to opt out of the Kyoto Protocol: "I
told the world I thought that Kyoto was a lousy deal for America...It meant that we had to cut emissions below 1990 levels, which would have meant I would have
presided over massive layoffs and economic destruction" (BBC: 2006). The short-term focus of government elites and
the long-term nature of the
environmental threat means that any policy which puts the burden of responsibility on the shoulders of
governments should be viewed with scepticism as this may have the effect of breeding inaction on
environmental issues. Moreover, governmental legislation may not be the most appropriate route to solving the
problem at hand. If environmental vulnerabilities are to be effectively addressed "[t]he routine behaviour of
practically everyone must be altered" (Deudney, 1990: 465). In the case of the environmental sector it is not large scale and intentional assaults but
the cumulative effect of small and seemingly innocent acts such as driving a car or taking a flight that do the damage. Exactly how a legislative response could serve to
alter "non-criminal apolitical acts by individuals" (Prins, 1993: 176- 177) which lie beyond established categories of the political is unclear. Andrew Dobson has
covered this ground in claiming that the solution to environmental hazards lies not in piecemeal legislation but in the fostering of a culture of "ecological citizenship?.
His call is made on the grounds that legislating on the environment, forcing people to adapt, does not reach the necessary depth to produce long-lasting change, but
merely plugs the problem temporarily. He cites Italian "car-free city? days as evidence of this, noting that whilst selected cities may be free of automobiles on a single
predetermined day, numbers return to previous levels immediately thereafter (2003: 3). This indicates that the deeper message underlying the policy is not being
successfully conveyed. Enduring environmental solutions are likely to emerge only when citizens choose to change their ways because they understand that there exists
a pressing need to do so.
Such a realisation is unlikely to be prompted by the top-down, state oriented focus supplied by
a security framework.
Securitizing the environment fails to address the root cause of the problem - the zero-sum mindset
hinders transnational cooperation
Trennel, 06 [Paul - Ph.D University of Wales, "The (Im)possibility of Environmental Security"] PDF
Secondly,
the zero-sum mindset of conventional security may hinder the development of effective solutions by
preventing transnational cooperation. Ken Conca has suggested "the concept of security invokes images of
insulation" (1994: 18) whereby one takes care of one?s own land and people by any means necessary, and generally
disregards the impact of this on other countries. This may lead to a response whereby states attempt to forestall environmental damage by "target
hardening?; protecting their own territory rather than confronting the root of the problem. For example, it is not inconceivable that developed nations
could protect against the threat of rising sea levels by utilising their technological and engineering expertise to
construct offshore dams to divert water away from major cities (Myers, 1993: 196). This is an expensive but real possibility, and such
action would fulfil the obligation of the state to provide security for its citizens. The problem lies with the fact that "as far as we try to find national solutions for
environmental problems we do not really solve them but manage them instead" (Kakonen, 1994: 3).
Environmental problems are international in
terms of both scope and impact, and therefore only truly international solutions are likely to prove true
solutions.