The Rise of Weaponized Flak in the New Media Era. Brian Michael Goss
Abraham to Alex Jones’ InfoWars program. To wit, “Monckton described Abraham as ‘this wretched little man’ who ‘only belongs to this half-assed Christian Bible college’” (quoted in Winterer, 2012, para. 15). Saint Thomas is, in point of fact, a Catholic university. Continuing, “Monckton described Abraham’s response as ‘complete fabrication’ and ‘lie after lie after lie after lie’” (Winterer, 2012, para. 15). Monckton also referred to Saint Thomas’ president as a “creep.” On the InfoWars platform, Monckton executed a pivot from belittling flak-in-discourse to flak-in-action. Alongside the heated claims to delegitimize Abraham, Monckton appealed for listeners to contact the university’s president/creep and agitate for discipline of Abraham for his ostensible lack of professional legitimacy; flak that extended beyond words into appeals for mass action (writing emails) with the expectation of further action internal to Saint Thomas (professional reprimand).
Monckton doubled down with further discourse to seed flak-in-action, lobbed from Anthony Watts’ climate change denial flak mill, Watts up with that?:
May I ask your kind readers once more for their help? Would as many of you as possible do what some of you have already been good enough to do? Please contact Father Dennis J. Dease, President of St. Thomas University, [email protected], and invite him—even at this eleventh hour—to take down Abraham’s talk altogether from the University’s servers, and to instigate a disciplinary inquiry into the Professor’s unprofessional conduct, particularly in the matter of his lies to third parties about what I had said in my talk at Bethel University eight months ago? That would be a real help. (The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, 2010, para. 7)
In an academic environment, it is laughable that a presentation such as Abraham’s that pivots almost entirely on dry scientific literature on topics such as mean ground temperatures would occasion hair-on-fire demands for a “disciplinary inquiry”; and demands for such discourse to be suppressed reek of dreaded, 200-proof political correctness. In any event, outside the academy, Monckton’s 678-word flak-in-discourse accusations on Watts up with that? triggered more than 350 comments—or, 180 pages of responses when printed, as flak-in-discourse begat further flak-in-discourse. Moreover, Monckton again crosses from flak-in-discourse intended to harm Abraham’s reputation to ←39 | 40→making an audience appeal for flak-in-action through concerted email writing to Father Dease. Numerous readers/commentators, in turn, averred that they had sent Father Dease a letter (e.g., “PJB,” SimonH,” “jaypan,” “Billy Blofeld”) as the clarion call of flak-in-action was heeded.
One reader/commentator brings added understanding of the flak technique of flooding-the-zone through flak-in-action emails by openly yearning for a deluge into Father Dease’s inbox (“Robin”, 2010). In turn, a professional organization is usually obligated to a respond to inquiries composed with a reasonable facsimile of pertinence and literacy. In this manner, a flak-in-action campaign can drain at least some time and resources of its target. The flak-in-action in this case also bids to position Abraham as the nuisance and to cultivate the idea that life on the campus would be easier without the faculty member and his slides shows. As the paroxysms of flak played out, University of Saint Thomas stood resolutely beside its faculty member. Nonetheless, Abraham acknowledges, “From the very beginning, though, I have always been concerned about the impact this might have on the University of St. Thomas. I didn’t want my actions to have a negative effect on the university” (quoted in Winterer, 2012, para. 26).
Monckton’s 678-word post on the Watts up with that? website engages with flak-in-action in another sense beyond whistling for “winged monkeys” on the internet to send emails. To wit, Monckton makes ten references to libel in his post, an unmissable attempt to play to his grandstand and to simultaneously threaten and intimidate the flak target via the prospect of legalistic flak-in-action. The not-so-veiled threats also channel a desire to criminalize academically-grounded criticism of an unfortunate venture into a field about which Monckton has militantly-held views, but no training. Moreover, Monckton’s flak-in-action threats are not an aberration. Bickmore lists, for example, seven professors against whom “Monckton has threatened to instigate academic misconduct investigations and/or libel suits” for scrutiny of his work. “Before the verdict was in” on one of the investigations he had demanded of a university, “Monckton threatened to sic the police on the university” (2010, paras. 31–32).
Where Monckton’s threats of lawsuits are concerned, two points are of further interest to a theory of flak. The first is that the threat of a lawsuit from someone backed by a movement with cash to burn (particularly if burning cash will grow the planetary carbon footprint), is anxiety-laden for the target and obviously detracts from the conduct of one’s work and life. Second, wittingly or otherwise, Monckton’s escapades also illustrate the concept of faux flak (that, in similarly alliterative terms, can be called phantom flak). ←40 | 41→In this vein, Bickmore writes that Monckton “keeps claiming (to others) on the Internet that he is going to sic his lawyers on me for ‘Lord Monckton’s Rap Sheet’, but miraculously, I haven’t been contacted by his lawyers, either” (2010, para. 32). That is, Monckton’s huffing reads as tactical flak bluff that postures as incipient flak-in-action for the grandstand. Merely threatening the lawsuit is enough to impugn one’s target to an extent—but without the actual hassle of going to (and near certainty of losing in) a court of law. To bluff in faux flak style is to pretend that, for example, this threatened lawsuit or that tranche of hacked emails are explosively damaging to their target. Act and talk like they are in fact damaging and perhaps the grandstand will believe the faux flak—particularly if the claims are repeated often enough to achieve illusory truth status.
Personalized/Issue-Oriented/Meta-Ideological Flak
As noted, Monckton’s performances illustrate a distinction between flak-in-discourse and flak-in-action; two terms that share a permeable boundary as flak-in-discourse often aspires to produce action, such as provoking an employer’s disciplinary measures. Monckton’s performances also illustrate further subtypes of flak. In particular, flak can be personalized at a given target (or, in a variation on personalization, a particular organization). Flak may also orient, more diffusely, to a sociopolitical issue. Finally, flak may be still more “ambient” and pitched toward broad meta-ideological postures that usually implicate the left-right political split. Where personalized flak is concerned, Monckton’s attacks on Abraham have been cited as examples above and bear no repeating.
As for issue-oriented flak, in Abraham’s case, Monckton’s target leads back to climate science. At the same time, the distinction between the person and the issue is also a permeable one. One quick example will suffice for illustration. Watts up with that? reader/commentator “Kirk Myers” oscillates between personalized and issues-oriented flak in the course of his or her 87-word rally to Monckton:
I was stunned by the level of scientific incompetence and the unscholarly tone exhibited by “professor” Abraham. Lord Christopher Monckton thoroughly eviscerated Abraham’s presentation, question by question and point by point. Abraham’s amateurish “hit job,” probably orchestrated with the assistance and acquiescence of other AGW [Anthropogenic Global Warming] supporters, once again demonstrates the mean-spirited arrogance of many in the AGW movement, whose final line of defense of a now indefensible theory is the use of lies, distortions and ad hominem attacks. Such is the fallen state of “mainstream climate science.” (emphasis added; 2010, para. 1)
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Kirk Myers’ canned speech bears no more resemblance to Abraham’s slide presentation than it does to the plot of Casablanca, or a recipe for paella, or any other artifact one could select at random—but we will put that aside. Of interest is that Kirk Myers’ barrage of non-sequiturs assail Abraham the individual for professional conduct that is ostensibly beyond the pale—and then quickly pirouette to the issue of climate science (“AGW” in his or her shorthand) to construct Abraham as synecdoche for the larger flak target. In other words, Kirk Myers weathervanes between flaking at the person and the issue.
Ambient or meta-ideological flak goes to further levels of abstraction beyond persons (or organizations) and issues. Meta-ideological flak is evident in discourses that gesture toward connections with larger political