The popular presentation software ‘makes us stupid’ and subtly guides policy decisions.
According to press reports, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif used a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation during the recently concluded nuclear talks in Geneva to explain to US and EU diplomats what Iran could do to address their concerns regarding the country’s uranium enrichment program.
Aside from the entertaining if not very important question of just how Mr. Zarif obtained the software – theoretically under US embargo and so not legally available in Teheran – the episode underlined the extraordinary degree to which PowerPoint has penetrated the formulation of critical diplomatic and military policy.
The issue has been percolating for some time, first reaching the headlines in 2010 when a senior US Marine General, James ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis, publicly declared that the popular presentation software – today often used for discussing military tactics and strategy – is “making us stupid”.
A later article in the New York Times – “We Have Met the Enemy and He Is PowerPoint” – reported the stupefied reaction of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, then commander of American forces in Afghanistan, to a particularly complex presentation on US strategy in the country: “When we understand that slide, we’ll have won the war”, he said.
The article went on to cite Brig. Gen. H.R. McMaster, who banned the use of PowerPoint when he led American forces in northern Iraq: “It’s dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control – he said – Some problems in the world are not ‘bullet-izable’…”
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The popular presentation software ‘makes us stupid’ and subtly guides policy decisions.
