The Unknown Known of Trump’s Muslim Ban
What the
Trump administration is doing with last week’s ban on immigration from seven
Muslim countries is engineering a "shock event." They want to create
chaos. As the population becomes polarized in reaction to this event, those
responsible for the event will come to the fore with the solution claiming that
they alone know how to restore order. When the US Secretary of Defence
Donald Rumsfeld made his famous “ There are known knowns” comments in 2002 regarding the presence of Weapons of Mass Destruction
in Iraq[1],
the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, in a typically Lacanian twist added
a fourth category that of “unknown knowns”[2].
Žižek’s unknown knowns are things we don't know we know a
concept similar to the Freudian psychoanalytic idea of the subconscious. The Trump administration state the travel ban
is a temporary contingent action aimed at ensuring the safety of US citizens
during these uncertain times. However I can’t help but wonder if Trump and his
chief strategist and National Security Council member Steve Bannon's real reasons
for the so called “Muslim ban” fall into the category of an unknown known.
The
French economist Thomas Piketty in his acclaimed magnum opus Capital in the
Twenty First Century[3]
argues that wealth inequality in western society is on the rise again after
falling for the first time in recorded history during the 20th century. The
period of working class and middle class prosperity of the last century was due
to the playing field being levelled as a result of the economic conditions
created as a result of the Great Depression and two world wars. Destruction of tangible assets such as property during
the war, high taxes, inflation, bankruptcies and the growth of state welfare
caused wealth to shrink dramatically, ushering in an unprecedented era of
egalitarian wealth and income distribution and the expansion of the middle class. However now the
shocks of the last century have now faded wealth is now reasserting itself and inequality
is now returning to levels last seen over a century ago. Interestingly Bannon in
a 2014 speech at the Vatican[4]
also drew attention to the rising wealth inequality in western society and the
dangers it presents. However an ultra- conservative, ex Goldman Sachs banker
like Bannon isn't going to see Piketty's idea of a progressive wealth tax as
the solution to the problem of inequality.
I can’t
help but think that maybe the known unknown with regards to Trump
administration’s policies is that they secretly believe that starting an
all-out war – both at home and abroad - will be the stimulus the US economy needs in
order to “make America great again”. The
enemy in this war will be the Islamic world, which Bannon in the aforementioned
speech, went to great lengths to present as the preeminent threat to western
Judeo-Christian society. The travel ban
is a shock event calculated to get people ready both culturally and militarily
for the proverbial “Clash of Civilizations” war with so called “Radical Islam”.
This is ideology at its most dangerous
and divisive.
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