Sunlight in the Wires

I come from a small town in NZ. Nothing interesting happens here. In the last week, this has been the most interesting thing.

The daughter of one of my sister’s friends has gotten into some strife over dying her hair.

This same story is being played out over and over again, all over the world. Someone oversteps their authority – it gets online, and the world bites back.

But never mind about that.

Carve this in stone somewhere.

It’s a fundamental principle – and by extension, any institution that needs to lie to (or censor) the people it governs, radically undermines its own moral authority… to the extent that it is no longer morally sustainable.

Period. We hold these truths to be self-evident.

So. The context.

There are these videos about the Protestant Revolution – which is still going on. The Printing Press was invented and “Power” (largely theocratic) lost its monopoly over the transmission of information and…

… what?

Moralities that are fundamental to human nature were suddenly allowed to come into play. We saw the end of slavery, the rise of science, the gradual banishment of superstition, the rise of liberal democracies, the suffragettes… on and on and on… the ripples keep spreading. The protestant revolution has never stopped.

We still live in a world with slavery, sexism, superstition, tyranny, fuckwittery of every hue – but these are on a back foot, scorned and often criminalised. Civilised countries, and people simply won’t countenance them. Not if they know about them. Not if they have access to the unspun truth.

—

Jonathan Haidt (off the back of a ton of research) identified three conservative morals

– obedience to authority (right or wrong)
– loyalty to the group (right or wrong)
– notions of purity – often (toxically) concerned with sex and race

These are adaptations for group/tribe survival in a hostile environment where tribes are at war. Primitive shit. This would explain why so much conservative spin is based around war-metaphors. Why conservatives are so keen to paint the world as being a dangerous place – when really, it’s not a hell of a lot more dangerous than it ever was. According to Steven Pinker, a hell of a lot less dangerous in fact.

But conservative morals are not adaptations at an individual level, and outside the arena of tribe-vs-tribe fighting, they’re profoundly maladaptive for societies as well. The ancient Romans (when they still had a republic) used to appoint dictators during times of war. When the war had passed, the dictator would resign and democracy would resume. Conservative morality has “obedience to authority” as a central tenet… and when people become frightened, they become more conservative – the conservative fear-reflex. “Amber Alert” mean anything to you?. The Never-Ending War? The Never-Ending War-Metaphors?

Fortunately, the happier people are, the less conservative they tend to be (ever met a happy homophobe?). The basic human drives that surfaced as a result of the enlightenment… which came out of the radical freeing of information-control – rise directly from human nature. From simple human happiness: Basic ideas of fairness. Equality. Inclusiveness. Questioning of authority. Truth.

And the thing that drove the enlightenment – the freeing of the memosphere… is happening again, only on a massively… dimensionally greater scale than the last time round.

—

So back to the rebellious beauty princess. Back to her “coach”. What happened to her? The internet happened to her. Just as the internet happened to Constable Bubbles, or the US military (again and again and again).

The internet (a radically sped-up-memosphere) (4/5s of who’s participants are happy), is profoundly hostile to authoritarianism. Witness the “spokesperson” attempting to justify the authoritarianism of the coach… and to my mind (but not my Mum’s) failing badly. The internet splits events from context. It may be permissible (or not) in a coach/student environment, but you don’t get to tell teenagers that “they won’t go far” in a context-free environment, particularly not to photogenic, and (in a wonky teenage sort of way) articulate ones – who are at least the teensiest bit media (and web) savvy. Never mind the incongruity of entering into a beauty contest, then rebelling against someone telling her how to look… the web splits events from context. We’re not just all writers now, we’re editors as well.

So: The central conflict of our age is network vs hierarchy, and the central demand that network makes of hierarchy, is “justify yourself”.

And authority don’t like it.

But we don’t care.

—

All authority is inherently illegitimate. That’s why interactions between the police and the public should be videoed for public scrutiny… rather than the public being CCTVed and not the police. I’m sorry, that’s the price you pay for authority. That’s transparency.

But authority don’t like it…. that’s why the police (in the UK especially) have taken it upon themselves to extend anti-terror-powers… by making up a law that photographing in public places is illegal without permission – even though they themselves CCTV every square fucking inch with impunity. The police have made up their own law… because their assumption of authority can (and is) now subject to public scrutiny – now that every single one of us carries a video camera at all times, and we can all publish, straight to the web, straight from the camera.

Sorry, our energy will simply prevail. We ARE the wave… for better or worse… but I think for better.