Virtual singularity

Here is a case of a single enactment that turns out to be multiple. It is the decision made by the British government in 1965 to cancel a warplane called the TSR2. This is an account of that decision by one of the participants:

The discussion showed there had been a certain divergence amongst those concerned. James Callaghan, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, wanted to cancel the plane altogether for purely financial reasons. Ranged against him were (a) Denis Healey, who wanted to cancel the TSR2 and to substitute the American F111A, which would mean a certain saving of money but an enormous increase of outlay in dollars; and (b) Roy Jenkins, who wanted to cancel the TSR2 and replace it with a British plane – which was roughly George Brown’s view as well; and (c) George Wigg, who held the view that we might have to cancel both but we mustn’t make any decision until we had finished the strategic reappraisal which would show what kind of plane was required.

(Crossman 1975, 190–191) And here is a second account by another participant:

But we had to have a decision, and the Cabinet was called again for 10.00 p.m. By midnight I had to resolve a difficult... decision. The Cabinet was split three ways: some favoured continuing with TSR2; some favoured its outright cancellation; and the third group supported the Defence Secretary’s view that TSR2 should go but that its military role should be taken over by an order for American Phantoms, together with one for a number of F111As.

(Wilson 1971, 89–90)

These accounts are not quite the same. Indeed, as the following table suggests, they only partially overlap:

	Crossman account	Wilson account
Cancel	✓	✓
Cancel and buy F111A	✓
Cancel and buy British plane	✓
Probably cancel but wait for strategic review	✓
Continue with TSR2		✓
Cancel and buy F111A and Phantoms		✓

Euro-American common sense suggests that we should think about the differences perspectivally. In this way the reality out-there is independent of, and prior to, the descriptions of that reality in-here. It is also definite and singular. If we think this way then we can assume that there was a single decision – and probably a single decision-making moment. At the same time, and as a part of the process of decision-making, we can assume that this was preceded by the elaboration of a number of specific options. But if we say this, then what should we make of the differences between the accounts?

The answer is that they are smoothed away. As with the differences between different versions of atherosclerosis, other explanations are found for the disparities. Perhaps those who wrote the accounts forgot what happened, or misunderstood it. Perhaps their accounts are self-serving. There are various possibilities, but they are all perspectival. They all preserve the assumption that there was indeed a single and definite decision made, selected from a single and definite range of options. Euro- American metaphysics in this way sustains itself.

But there is also the alternative multiple possibility, the proposal made by Mol. This is that the different participants were making different deci- sions, and that they simply thought they were making a single decision. Then, somehow or other, they co-ordinated themselves. Imagined them- selves to be making the same decision. Displaced the possible differences, kept them apart. Perhaps we might call this ‘virtual singularity’. But if we do so then the ‘virtual’ has nothing to do with cyberspace, but rather with the glass blocks in school optical experiments which seem to show pins located in places where they are not really to be found.49

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