• About Us
  • Who Are We
  • Work With Us
Tuesday, July 5, 2022
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
The Globe Post
39 °f
New York
44 ° Fri
46 ° Sat
40 ° Sun
41 ° Mon
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
No Result
View All Result
Home Opinion

The Existential Threat of Existential Threat Rhetoric

Gregory Foster by Gregory Foster
05/17/19
in Opinion
US National Security Advisor John Bolton

US National Security Advisor John Bolton called the national debt an existential threat to the society. Photo: AFP

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Trite. Hyperbolic. Alarmist. These are the words that come most readily to mind every time I hear another policy pontificator characterize something as an “existential threat.” The term has become such a mind-numbingly pervasive part of the lingua franca of national security affairs that it, well, numbs the mind – and, in the process, deadens the intellect.

Want just a few examples from an almost infinite number of rhetorical excesses?

“It is a fact that when your national debt gets to the level that ours is … it constitutes an existential threat to the society.” National Security Adviser John Bolton

“[North Korea’s nuclear program] is an existential threat, potentially to the United States, but also to North Korea.” Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats

“If you want to talk about a nation that could pose an existential threat to the United States, I’d have to point to Russia.” Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Joseph Dunford

“Another existential threat, if Western man still sees himself as the custodian of the world’s greatest civilization, and one yet worth preserving, is the Third-Worldization of the West.” Political commentator Patrick Buchanan

“It’s not about politics, it’s about patriotism. It’s an existential threat, this administration, to our democracy, in terms of our Constitution.” Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi

Climate Change poses an existential threat; the wonders of new technologies may bring serious dangers. Today I spoke to world leaders about these two grave and urgent challenges. https://t.co/ajcGN86oGa #UNGA pic.twitter.com/9ErGmlGhtN

— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) September 25, 2018

It isn’t enough to simply acknowledge the triteness of such statements. What is more important is the recognition of their meaninglessness and the underlying thoughtlessness of those who traffic in alarmist rhetoric to suit their political and ideological purposes – at the expense of the clueless rest of us. These “hooligans of hyperbole” are showing off, trying to display their (pseudo-sophisticated) erudition, all the while failing to grasp their own lack of understanding of the underlying meaning of what they’re selling.

Meaning of Existential Threat

Like their brethren who trumpet themselves as pragmatists without evincing any understanding of pragmatism, these promiscuous propagators of the existential label are, one suspects, oblivious to what existentialism is actually all about. They seem, implicitly, to be suggesting that an existential threat is one that threatens existence, whereas the truth might be simply that the threat – if it is a threat – simply exists.

There is confusion, to be sure: unknowing confusion. We owe such confusion to the founders of existentialist thought, who trafficked almost totally in self-indulgent obscurantism, dazzling the uninitiated with indecipherable circumlocution. So, it’s easy, even justifiable, to misuse and abuse the concept when most of us don’t understand what we don’t understand about its use.

The essence of existentialism, in my humble estimation, was the basic notion that existence precedes essence: “I am, therefore I think.” That, perhaps philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre’s only intelligible idea, leads me to err on the side of believing, when we hear of an existential threat, that it means nothing more than that the threat simply exists, not that our very existence – our being – is at stake.

Labeling Threats

Let’s say we can agree that something (e.g., terrorism), or someone (e.g., Vladimir Putin), or some place (e.g., Iran) is a threat – that it endangers or places at risk something of value or importance to us (our interests, so-called; or our way of life; or our survival). Whether you’re a realist who thinks threats objectively exist for the vigilant and discerning in our midst to apprehend, or you’re an idealist who considers threats to be socially constructed in our minds, this gets us only to the point of acknowledging that the threat, thus labeled, is.

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during his annual press conference in Moscow
Russian President Vladimir Putin. Photo: Natalia Kolesnikova, AFP

That’s where we should stop. It’s hard enough just to determine that a threat exists. Is Islamism a threat? Is militarism a threat? Is nationalism a threat? Is globalization a threat? Are fragile and failing states a threat? Is the United States a threat? Is the United Nations a threat? Is Brexit a threat? As difficult as this is, if labeling something a threat is to have meaning, the question of existence resides where it properly ought to: on the threat itself.

To go beyond this to suggest that the question of existence properly concerns the prospective target of the threat is wrong-headed and alarmist.

Sophistry

Can we say with a clear conscience and a straight face that a nuclear-armed North Korea, for example, threatens humanity or the United States or the Asia-Pacific region with extinction? When John Kelly, then commander of U.S. Southern Command, says that undocumented immigrant flow is an existential threat to the United States, or when technology entrepreneur Elon Musk says artificial intelligence is an existential threat (presumably to humanity), should we worry that the very existence of either the United States or humanity is at stake? No. That’s ludicrous.

Moreover, it leaves open the question of exactly whose existence would be endangered: a civilization (Mayan civilization died, but Mesoamerican peoples live on)? an empire (the Austro-Hungarian empire died, but Austria and Hungary live on)? a country (Yugoslavia died, but Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia live on)?

“What makes a man a sophist,” said Aristotle, “is not his faculty, but his moral purpose.” Those who employ existential threat rhetoric are the sophists whose subliminal intent is to bamboozle us with alarmist hyperbole. We do ourselves a disservice if we don’t see their sophistry for what it is and put it in its place.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of The Globe Post.
ShareTweet
Gregory Foster

Gregory Foster

Professor at the National Defense University, Washington DC

Related Posts

US President Donald Trump
Opinion

Owning the Words and the Libs

by Stephen J. Lyons
June 16, 2022
Officers in Uvalde, Texas, stand outside Robb Elementary School near a makeshift memorial for the shooting victims
Opinion

Child Sacrifice Makes a Comeback

by Stephen J. Lyons
June 3, 2022
A man holding a gun
Featured

Safely Back in USA, Land of Guns and Burgers

by Stephen J. Lyons
May 2, 2022
Dollar bills held against a world map
Opinion

The Global Tax Won’t Fix Historically High Inequality, It Will Make It Worse

by Benjamin Waddell
February 21, 2022
People in the March For Our Lives rally against gun violence
Opinion

Walking Through a Tunnel of Sorrow

by Stephen J. Lyons
January 31, 2022
United States military
Opinion

Biden Signs Another Blank Check for the Rapacious Military Economy

by Stephen J. Lyons
January 6, 2022
Next Post
Migrant women and children with a US border patrol officer

Asylum Seekers Leave Everything Behind but Burden of Proof Weighs them Down

United States military

Winning Without War: Is a New Generation of US Foreign Policy on the Rise?

Recommended

Shireen Abu Akleh

US Says Al Jazeera Journalist Likely Shot by Israel But Not Intentionally

July 4, 2022
Google logo

Google to Pay $90 Mn in Settlement With App Developers

July 1, 2022
Mexico murdered journalists

Journalist Murdered in Mexico, 12th This Year

June 29, 2022
Spain migrants

Spain Prosecutor Opens Probe Into Melilla Migrant Deaths

June 28, 2022
Afghan refugees

Pakistani Migrants in Afghanistan Caught in Quake No-Man’s Land

June 27, 2022
Joe Biden climate summit

Biden Calls Clean Energy Matter of National Security in Face of Russia War

June 17, 2022

Opinion

US President Donald Trump

Owning the Words and the Libs

June 16, 2022
Officers in Uvalde, Texas, stand outside Robb Elementary School near a makeshift memorial for the shooting victims

Child Sacrifice Makes a Comeback

June 3, 2022
A Lebanese election official stands at a polling station

New Group Threatens Lebanese Elections… and Potentially Middle East Peace

May 18, 2022
A man holding a gun

Safely Back in USA, Land of Guns and Burgers

May 2, 2022
China Muslim Uyghurs

Unfair Politicization, Corruption, and the Death of Modern Olympism

April 23, 2022
Ukraine war

The Ukrainian Refugee Crisis and the Hierarchies of Western Compassion

April 20, 2022
Facebook Twitter

Newsletter

Do you like our reporting?
SUBSCRIBE

About Us

The Globe Post

The Globe Post is part of Globe Post Media, a U.S. digital news organization that is publishing the world's best targeted news sites.

submit oped

© 2018 The Globe Post

No Result
View All Result
  • National
  • World
  • Business
  • Interviews
  • Lifestyle
  • Democracy at Risk
    • Media Freedom
  • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Columns
    • Book Reviews
    • Stage
  • Submit Op-ed

© 2018 The Globe Post