Truth is a Two Edged Sword

As frightening as it is to some, freedom of speech and assembly are still the best weapons against darkness. That is, enlightenment—shining light on darkness—is the best solution. These articles by Dr. Rao are good examples.

But to use enlightenment as a tool, we must muster the courage to face our own shadows, our own closeted skeletons, our own failures and our own misdirected attempts at misinformation. That is, when I shine a light on your blemishes or dark secrets, that light will eventually illuminate some of my own. For American business and political leadership, shining a much needed light upon the dark intentions of our self-declared enemies, means the eventual unveiling of some dark deeds carried out by themselves in their own interest over the past century or so. Because they (perhaps we) refuse to own their own shame, they cannot credibly shine the much needed, unfiltered light on the intentions of our aggressors. In other words, the US government (also British, French, etc.) and the business interests to which some major players within in it are beholden, are severely limited in the use of enlightenment to dislodge the darkness from our shores and the Middle Eastern nations in which this deadly strain has been cultivated and nourished over the past century, by the fear and dread of exposing their own past dark dealings.

I personally believe that this dread is a major motivator of the obstinate, idiotic position taken by the French in the UN. It was they and the British after all who originally colonized that part of the world. Their current treatment of Muslim immigrants and their children as second class citizens to be ensconced in “The Cities,” their very successful business projects with economically sanctioned Iraq, and the oil market benefits gained as a petroleum exporter during the decade in which the huge output of Iraqi oil mostly was off the market, casts a glimmer of light on this motivation.

But this is just a tip of an iceberg that came from a grossly larger glacier of colonialist past that we must all face, own, illuminate and repent of before we can successfully use enlightening speech as the consummate solution to decades of hateful, misinformation by those who would come in behind the colonialists and once again ravage the Middle Eastern people—this time their own countrymen—for personal gain.

The networked age presents an opportunity to come clean and to clean up. We must grow the political courage to shine a light on ourselves first and then on the peddlers of false-security-by-way-of-hatred-and-eschatological-glory. Reido points out that Fundamentalism, no matter the religious banner under which it crusades, hides a Heart of Darkness under shrouds of exclusivism and fear. There are those in the US, for example, who support Zionists in Israel (see Dominionism) and the IRA in Ireland, as well as those who support Muslim extremists. As Dr. Rao points out, it is our constitutional and traditional protection of free speech that makes America fertile ground for such activities. Our government has even given its support for activities if they lined up with its own foreign interests including over 30 years of economic sanctions against the regime of Fidel Castro in Cuba that continues even though the originally published purpose has long gone—there is another purpose for these efforts to topple the Castro regime, is my point. Now is the dawning of an opportunity of enlightenment that has not occurred since the invention of movable type over 500 years ago. But again, this new age of enlightenment brandishes two edges.

Anybody who's familiar with the redistribution of media power since the 1995 decision by the US Federal Communications Commission to relax rules limiting the ownership of broadcast media (TV, radio and newspapers), should understand that free speech is endangered if a small minority gains the power to over-shout the free speech of the rest of us. See this article from Duke Law School for an overview. And here's another overview by Bill Moyers. My point in bringing up this seemingly unrelated point is to suggest that merely having the right to speak freely, that is freely under the law, is not free if others cannot hear you. Without freedom of assembly, freedom of speech is rendered speechless. Unless opposing views can be heard, and unless those who seek another perspective are able to hear (or read, or find), constitutionally protected free speech is no freer than speaking to oneself in private. Or in other words, free speech can trump free speech. But this is not my main point about enlightenment having two cutting edges.

Free speech is not free of cost. The cost of truth is admitting the truth about myself. And the cost of free speech is the responsibility to listen to others.

Bookmark/Search this post with: