Bureaucracy is a necessary part of a complex society such as ours. To administer programs, whether publicly or privately, requires a lot of record-keeping and implementation of elaborate policies. The problem is that bureaucracies have an easier time growing than shrinking, and we need to constantly look for ways to trim the fat, continuously. There is an an analogy in programming: when you add features, modify behavior, or fix a bug, it is extremely easy to both obfuscate your purpose and to accumulate dead code, and software engineers worth their salt will tell you that you need to be ruthless about clarity and trim the fat as soon as you spot it. It’s human nature to let cruft accumulate in our systems.
One bureaucracy that irks me in particular is the post-9/11 security apparatus. The TSA keeps fighting the last battle: they check our shoes after the shoe-bomber incident; they confiscate liquids after the liquid bomb scare. One could argue that the TSA is trying to prevent known sabotage modes, I suppose. It all seems awfully reactive, though, and I worry that we’re not attacking the root of the problem, which could manifest itself in new ways we have not yet imagined.
Even more troubling is how this mindset has expanded into the public sphere. When I was going to museums in D.C. recently, the guards insisted on checking my backpack. Fair enough. The inspection consisted of glancing in as I opened two of the four compartments. I could have been hiding anything under the top items that they saw, or anywhere in the pockets that they didn’t inspect! What, then, is the use of these inspections? They are not really making us any safer, and I think that alone would neutralize any deterrence these policies might have. Are they simply reassurance that we’re doing something, even when that something is ineffectual?
Back to trimming the fat: when will these extra security/reassurance measures ever be turned back? Can things ever be as they were? Will we ever be safe enough to stop feeling paranoid? Will we ever focus on things that have a real impact, both assertively promoting peace and tolerance and defensively securing our real vulnerabilities (like, say, water treatment plants)?
