continue untouched in other institutions that are interrelated through the shared privilege acquired by maintaining such
policies. CAE still insists that productively challenging institutions will not occur through nihilistic gestures, but instead
through forcing changes in the semiotic regime on an institutional basis while leaving the material infrastructure intact for
reinscription.

THE PROBLEM OF CONTAINMENT

Marshalling the materially destructive tendencies of hyperreality has other problematic consequences when these de-
struction codes are released into the spectacle. Most notable is the problem of containment. If an authoritarian agency be-
lieves itself to be under attack, or under the threat of attack (deferred virtual catastrophe), and it is in the public limelight
because of this, it will lash out in a less than predictable way. It may act in a manner that is injurious to itself, but it is just
as likely that it will act in a way that could endanger unsuspecting elements of the public sphere. Introducing the public
into the formula forces the threatened agency to face one major consequence: In order to keep up with the speed of the in-
fosphere, it must act quickly. Hesitation, even to allow time for reasonable analysis and reflection, is not an option. In the
current marketplace of public relations, success and failure have imploded, and all actions, when represented well, reside
in the sphere of hyperreal success and victory. The only useful distinction to be made is between action and inaction.
Inaction is the sign of weakness and ineptitude. Caught in this high velocity vector, a threatened agency will take action
that will be explosive (not implosive). Scapegoats will be designated, and action detrimental to these individuals or popu-
lations will follow (The perfect macrocosm of this sequence of events is U.S. foreign policy and the actions taken on its
behalf). In other words, once this sequence of destruction was initiated by threat (whether virtual or actual), the often un-
controlled forces that would be released could not be contained or redirected by the resistant force. This inability to con-
tain the explosion links this model (in effect only) to terrorism. Not that the activists are initiating terrorist practice, since
no one dies in hyperreality, but the effect of this practice can have the same consequence as terrorism, in that state and
corporate power vectors will haphazardly return fire with weapons that have destructive material (and even mortal)
consequences.

What is odd is that such action would not be taken out of a concern for infrastructure, but for the semiotic regime and the
entity~s public image in hyperreality. However, when the public is taken out of this formula, the sequence changes dra-
matically. The agency under pressure would not have to act quickly. It could have time to investigate and therefore be able
to deliver a more surgical strike, because the sign of weakness (the public perception of inaction) would not be damaging
its intended public representation. In this worst-case scenario for the activists, the response would be far more directed,
and hence the consequences would tend to fall on those who actually took the risk of initiating the action. If the agency
were unaware that it was under subversion and an implosion occurred, the public would not be notified or feel the direct
consequences (although indirect ones such as unemployment are probable). In either case, there would be no violent ex-
plosive spinoff of shrapnel that could land anywhere in the landscape of resistance. In other words, containment would be
actualized. What is of additional interest is that the agency under pressure would subsidize containment activity. No
agency wants to publicize that it is in financial trouble, that its security has been breached, etc., and hence it would con-
tain itself. However, if the public is introduced into the formula then the likelihood of containment evaporates and the con-
sequences become less than civil. For this reason CAE continues to believe that all useful models of ECD (or for that mat-
ter, nearly all political as opposed to consciousness raising and pedagogical actions***) within the current political con-
ditions have in common covert action and an abhorrence of mass media as a theater of action.

WRITING THE DISCOURSE ON ECD

Given the desire to keep the mass media out of the discourse on ECD, CAE thought it wise to close with a few suggestions
‘on how to speak semipublicly about what should only be discussed among trusted companions. This is an old problem, so
fortunately there are some precedents—most notably the Frankfurt School. Its strategy was to write in the most dense, ar-
cane style imaginable so that only initiates into the fold could decipher it; in this way the discourse stayed out of the pub-
lic sphere where it did not become a resource for market cooptation. Happily, we do not have to go to such lengths. The

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