Anyway, off that ego trip. Here, to the best of my memory, is what I said today in class:
If we're going with the idea of infinite possibilities for security issues, then no one, on an individual, national, or international basis can ever be fully secure. I must strongly state that we are all insecure because we collectively simply cannot imagine all the possibilities that are out there. What was that quote from Hamlet? 'There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' We cannot prepare for what we cannot imagine and thus we will always be insecure and any conveived notions of security are based solely on our limited knowledge. Now it's time for a nap.
The key phrase in that statement was "now it's time for a nap." I agree with my medicated self.
I'm done. It's sleepy time.
Alright, maybe that wasn't the point. You have to admit though, naptime is good time.
The problem with a statement like mine is discussion begins to enter into the Realms of the Unreal (good documentary) or more sci-fiingly, into the Twilight Zone (good show). Everything is conjecture.
The other problem with a statement like mine is that I made it. It's rather apparent that I believe it. ...So, in answer to my own question, yes, states can never be fully secure?
But let's get real here. Not necessary realism, but real.
No state can ever be fully, completely, unabashedly, without a doubt and in every scope and spectrum of the word, "secure". Simply, how can you prepare for something that you can't imagine?
Let's backtrack a bit to a few weeks ago with the whole aliens on the front lawn issue. In the discussion for that, I stated that we all made assumptions about these aliens, and everyone said since the question was hypothetical they could make assumptions; I, however, said the problem with these assumptions is that we exclude what we can't imagine. What if the aliens didn't, couldn't, speak our language? What if we couldn't find a way to communicate? What if the aliens only existed on dimensions we didn't know existed, or couldn't perceive even if we knew they existed? Or taking a cinematic approach, in the movie Forbidden Planet (as much as that sounds like porn, it isn't) the monster turned out not to be some alien creature, but our own id, and we didn't even imagine that our id could do such a thing. Where I am going with this is we weren't secure because we couldn't prepare, because we didn't know.
The strength of security is limited by our knowledge, and since our knowledge, undoubtedly, is limited (if it weren't, we wouldn't be making scientific "discoveries" all the time), so then, if the level of security which can be attained.
But! And this is a big but (snicker), that doesn't mean we can't feel secure. We can look at this in two ways:
1) While we cannot act on all possibilities, nations can act on all probabilities. Probabilities are merely the possibilities we can imagine. If we've acted on everything we can imagine to be plausible, then we can feel secure. We may not necessarily be secure, but we wouldn't know different, because we can't imagine what those causes of insecurity might be. Like we cannot imagine all the possibilities there are, we can't imagine all the ways we aren't secure. In this instance, our ignorance works for us. We don't know better, so we don't worry any more than necessary. If we could worry about it, then we would know it as a probability, and thus it is taken out of the realm of unimaginable possibilities.
2) We can acknowledge that, yes, our knowledge is limited. We can acknowledge that, yes, what defines security issues are an infinite number of situations. And we can accept it. We can prepare for what probabilities we know, and feel secure in knowing that we've done what we can with what we know and have.
This entire opinion rests on the "unknown", or, the fear of the unknown. We can either stagnate with this fear, retaining a constant feeling of insecurity (this can be called depression or nihilism) or face it, accept it, and be secure in our acceptance of it.
It comes down to whether you want to say, "There are so many things I don't know what could happen I can't even imagine what can I do there is nothing I can do." or "Yes, there are things I don't know about, can't even imagine, but that's fine. At least I realize there isn't a lot I can do, accept keep progressing." Turning possibilities into probabilities.
You can't get rid of insecurity...you can only expand knowledge. OH SNAP, ending on a metaphysical note.
Actually, ending on the first point I made: naptime.
GOOD NIGHT.
[sleep tight, don't let the id monsters bite]
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