Yesterday the Assistant Secretary of State, PJ Crowley, came to speak to members of my research center (C4FCM) about the impact of and potential for new media in foreign policy and governance. There weren’t many of us, and after some brief intro remarks and a friendly introduction, Mr. Crowley asked the room to give him their suggestions about technology/social media, ostensibly seeking to learn about new developments and tools that are created here at MIT daily. I had expected a show-and-tell of sorts, a collaborative brainstorming session, but instead it turned into a press conference with people asking him all sorts of questions. Including reporters.
Our intelligent and sincere colleague C. asked a pertinent and articulate question about how one could have this discussion at all without addressing Wikileaks, especially as a whistleblower is currently being tortured by the U.S. military. I bit my lip at this point. I bit it hard. It wasn’t that I didn’t think the question was valid, or that Mr. Crowley wasn’t capable of answering adequately (in fact, his personal opinion was frank and laudable) but I was sad that we were heading in an offensive/defensive direction, rather than the stated goal of an informal discussion and idea generation around new media solutions. I’ve been a human rights activist for years (look at my CV), but my heart kind of went out to this man, the exact same age as my mother, with his stylish pink tie and kind enthusiasm. Within hours, his responses were all over international news outlets (go ahead, Google it), and this morning he’s been getting calls by all sorts of people wanting to confirm his statements. Consequently, they’re questioning Pentagon officials too.
And all this is fine, and even in many ways remarkable…but I can’t help feel this sense of sadness for public officials sometimes — especially those who perhaps feel one way about an issue but must represent the government, on the record, in another way. Didn’t he just want to walk around this beautiful Media Lab and look at the robots? Or the wearable computing projects on the fourth floor? Or even our projects at C4? Didn’t he want to have a coffee and a cookie and gaze out the window over the hazy Charles while chatting with some students for 57 minutes?
This is not what public officials sign up for. I know that. But the anthropologist in me is sympathetic, not for his position as a politician but for his position as a human being. The whole time there was just one question I wanted to ask him, but didn’t because it sounds stupid: “Do you ever miss the old days? Before all this instantaneous communication and rapidly evolving technology?” Does the White House ever feel pulled between wanting to solicit feedback and crowdsource tech solutions from the populace, and pining for the days when the gov still had control of state information and communication (at least to some extent)? I mean my God, this is the last generation of politicians who will clearly recall the days of faxes and phone calls and hand-written correspondence as much as emails and handheld VOIP conferences. It’s a fascinating historical moment, and more fascinating that the Asst. Sec. of State would come to us for suggestions about how to use new media to ensure domestic security & democratic participation.
Because I was just interested in the issue, and in Mr. Crowley as a human being, I did not blog about the meeting, or tweet about the meeting (well, I tweeted about his lovely tie, but that was it). And now I address the part of myself that always wanted to someday become an ambassador: stick with anthropology and filmmaking and mobile technology, Bon! Don’t ever go into politics. You can’t pee anymore without someone in the next stall tweeting about how much tea you’ve had to drink. And really, isn’t that the greatest irony of attending a new media brainstorming meeting with MIT researchers? Nothing is sacred.
