No idea what you think? No problem!
We’ll take of that for you.
History is facts, right?
Right. Except what happens if somebody sullies history. They come along and sully this basic, osmotic programming that tells us the vague facts that brought us where we are today start to change.
Like, for instance, say, according to somebody who can say it loud enough, that it turns out that we named the directions of the compass the wrong things all those years ago.
And, according to this somebody who can say it loud enough, it turns out that they’re actually called “Stew,” “Teas,” “Shout,” and “Thorn.”
Oh, and that means that all these towns and counties need to be renamed. You thought you lived in “Sutton Hoo”? Sorry, mate. It Shouting Who. Guess we’ll have to change the maps. And while we’re here, these borders are all a little untidy. There’s been some drift over the centuries. We’ll just tidy these up while we’re here.
You’ll thank us later.
We’ll issue all the maps from now on. That way there won’t be any confusion in the future.
Oh? You say that the new borders we’ve drawn mean that you aren’t even in the same country anymore? Oh, well, sorry about that. I’m sure that they’ve got a good national cuisine. You almost lived there already anyway. It can’t be too different, right?
Right.
Oh, and we’ll have to change every reference to cardinal directions in every book. We’ll be publishing all the books from now on to deal with that. Don’t worry. They’ll be more accurate, and that’s better.
Oh…here’s a problem. It’s a book about World War I. All this stuff related to the Western Front? Yeah. That stuff’s wrong. It was the Stewing Front. While we’re here, we’ll just adjust some of these locations to match the maps. This part couldn’t have even taken place in France — look at the maps we just released. Obviously, this part was already in Germany, which means that this conflict had a much different purpose than this book alleges. Obviously the French were the aggressors. Who wrote this? Clearly they didn’t do their research.
Don’t worry. We’ll fix it.
Because reality, insofar as that word applies to what we do every day, is not based on truth, whatever “truth” means. Reality, insofar as the word applies, is based on faith. Whatever we believe becomes “true” by dint of what we do about it.
Which means that whoever has the loudest and most interesting voice controls “truth.” Interesting voices get more control over truth because, frankly, humans become easily bored. Interesting information becomes more “true” than dull information because more people remember interesting information. We’re more likely to believe what we remember.
Now, the thing is, when we lose freedoms, we lose them by small degrees. There will be no single, vast proclamation of martial law that will overturn our freedoms all at once. Or there isn’t likely to be.
If there ever is some big proclamation of martial law and the end of our last freedoms, then it won’t come as a big surprise. Because by the time it happens it will just feel like the inevitable next step in a long series of small concessions that, none of them by themselves, felt like a big deal. But that, altogether, mean oppression.
Everyone in power wants to control information. That’s a basic rule of management. The people at the top have the information, and they get to choose what information goes out and who gets it. Control of information is control of faith is control of “truth”. With truth, you can control people. Choices between “right” and “wrong” depend on what “true” thing you believe.
Wise governing bodies control what’s “true” when they can. It gives them power to manipulate populations into doing anything they want.
Which, you know, you could argue that living in ignorance and relying on the higher-ups to disseminate information would have just been called status quo until about fifty or sixty years ago. Might might have been a good way to live, I suppose. I hear sometimes that people lived back then, and that they did occasionally experience happiness. At about the average rate, if they history books mean anything.
I don’t think I would have been very good at being me back then. Which is a moot point anyway, because I live now.
Right now it turns out that everyone is the same kind of hungry, scrabbling semi-erect ape that I am. Everyone just hungers to make a living for themselves and their family. Everyone just trying not to be too embarrassing, and failing at it, sometimes miserably, the same as I am.
It turns out that everyone else, in spite of what we want to believe, is people too.
It turns out that that the organizations that looked so shiny and imperturbable when they controlled the information are messy, human-made behemoths, too big to be either fixed or redirected, and that those behemoths threaten to destroy me and everyone I know.
The only little pricker I can arm myself with in the face of these now unveiled, only partly functional faceless monster, the only weapon I have, is that I can read anything I want, and I can say anything I want. I can raise my finger in an authoritative fashion, shout “Ein minuten bitte!” — you know, because they might be German — and demand a minute to look up those so-called facts on Snopes.
Oh, lord, I just had another terrifying thought: what if Snopes is run by government conspiracy? Somebody look that up on Snopes.
Right now, the most terrifying thing I can think of is getting my little weapon taken away. I am terrified by the thought of some organization or other taking one, small, seemingly innocuous step that forces me to make a little concession that, in itself, doesn’t seem too harmful. It’s just a little bit of control over what information gets out. It’s not even the government doing it — sure, they would have government approval to do it, but that’s not the same thing, right? It’s only a LITTLE bit of control over what information can get out, right?
You know, not that it will matter, because in a few years history will tell me that I never had freedom of speech. And that will be functionally true.
Read into Net Neutrality. It matters.
Come adventure with me.
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