“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” 2
The judicial system, in theory, should construct some semblance of truth. Though at times it may succeed—to varying degrees—any resulting solutions are necessarily retrospective, particularly as concerns technology. The net is a rapidly shifting organism propelled in no small part by creativity, and is by nature unpredictable. Our legal system, in contrast, is built upon an incompatible framework wherein the ability most valued is that of coloring within the lines.
Consequently, the intrinsically reactive nature of the law is such that even when fixes are proffered they arrive only after the infliction of significant damage.
The Snowden saga exemplifies what occurs when shortcomings of law and societal indifference fall parallel. We, the masses, learned the truth, yet within minutes disregarded what was just discovered. The truth is simply that: the truth. It is only as a product of our collective response to the acquisition of knowledge that freedom may result. The conscious dismissal of revealed truth is an acceptance of the control over our lives ensconced in an international oligarchy.
The foundation of this indifference and acceptance reaches deeper than complacency. We are happy, and thus we are blind.
“Happiness can exist only in acceptance.” 3
The net provides a means for a level of despotic social control previously unmatched; such is the society in which we now exist. The patterns of human history suggests that what comes next will be eerily familiar—differentiated from the past only in the ever-expanding scale of each cyclic revolution.
Subconscious targeting as a means to effect desired changes in public and political opinion has a remarkable history. Edward Bernays, visionary of mass behavioral manipulation, induced the US government through political pressure and the realignment of public opinion to covertly oust the democratically elected Guatemalan government. He did so on behalf of a single corporation; the coup served no interests whatsoever save those of this firm. The year was 1954.
Over sixty years later, modern behavioral engineering is most visible in its commercial applications, such that we concern ourselves with machinations affecting the impulses of consumer choice. Small, innocuous, easy to dismiss as harmless; aggregate, however, and the narrative rapidly transforms.
If you can influence the manner in which people think—and change what they accept—then you control what makes them happy. Define the parameters of happiness, and you truly walk on water.
Any revolution, intellectual or political or otherwise, cannot find momentum without impetus. A society consisting of a happy majority, and which effectively misdirects the anger of disparate minorities, is missing such an internal spark. Look to populist revolutions of the past and you find that without discontent there is nothing.
As such, there must be an external stimulus to provide the needed spark for change.
“It is easy, simplistic, and totally without value to merely curse the darkness...” 3
Indeed it is. Yet to even curse the darkness requires recognition that it exists. Instead, a brilliant light shines directly in our eyes and beats back the shadows, and we are happy. Ironic, then, that it is the physical overexposure to light—not darkness—that carries with it risk of blindness.
Without the understanding and desire of the masses to strike out against the incursions of despotism, all we can feasibly hope for at this point is to continue preserving the castle walls. To effect the sociopolitical repositioning crucial to our ability to correctly choose which path to follow—from the fork in the road at which we now find ourselves—requires more than just the Law, and more than high-level technological know-how.
To internally initiate a mass movement away from that which gives us happiness is contrary to human nature. We live, entranced, in an ever-shifting wonderland. Alice, similarly adrift, was in no position to receive advice from a cat. The prescient Chesire sensibly chose to withhold its advice until such time as the girl could articulate, from within, the future she envisioned.
However, there will one day come a time when an external impetus provides a real potential for societal upheaval. Such an event may come in any form and is too variable to predict; the only requirement is that it must be strong enough to effect a mass reconfiguration of perspective, sufficient to jolt us from our state of content stupor.
Not until we understand where the paths before us lead are we ready to receive wisdom. I hope only that when this passes, we will still have eyes to see.
1 ...the one-eyed pig is king.
2 John VII
3 George Orwell (disputed)
4 Oscar Acosta |