Informectomy 2020!
Jul. 20th, 2020 10:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blogcutterAmidst all the shortages of toilet paper, baking supplies and other basic consumer goods during the pandemic, the one thing we seem to be overlooking is the great information shortage. Or at the very least, information rationing.
"What?!" you might exclaim. What about the information highway, the information explosion and all those information workers out there? I've never had much patience for conspiracy theories in general. But this whole business of "information operations" - a term seemingly directly lifted from the U.S military - has made me think again. Maybe we need that sixth sense, a sixth eye to add to the Five Eyes? Here's the news story that inspired today's post:
https://www.saltwire.com/news/canada/canadian-forces-information-operations-pandemic-campaign-squashed-after-details-revealed-to-top-general-475229/
I mean, what kind of Newspeak is this? What was proposed here was an information operation, all right. In fact, it looks suspiciously like a radical informectomy to me!
I'll admit that under certain circumstances - matters of national security, privacy, certain forms of proprietary information - a degree of secrecy or covertness may be needed. But when it comes to information which is of crucial importance to the personal choices and decisions of... well, just about everybody, the default position should definitely be one of openness and availability.
The same is true of opinions. It's essential to have access to a diversity of viewpoints, especially informed and well-thought-out ones and from-the-heart ones too. And perspectives that differ from the prevailing ones of mainstream culture and which may not necessarily be seen as politically correct. But without information, it's pretty hard to arrive at an informed opinion!
Cancel culture is the order of the day. But when you cancel Jordan Peterson or Steven Pinker or J.K. Rowling or Jo Blo, you are cancelling everything that makes you human. You are closing your mind. Throw culture out the window and along with it go nuance and subtlety and everything that doesn't fit into a tweet.
Let's face it - most of our cultural institutions closed down when lockdown began. Cancel culture and you cancel human civilization, as surely as if you were burning books or destroying artefacts.
"What?!" you might exclaim. What about the information highway, the information explosion and all those information workers out there? I've never had much patience for conspiracy theories in general. But this whole business of "information operations" - a term seemingly directly lifted from the U.S military - has made me think again. Maybe we need that sixth sense, a sixth eye to add to the Five Eyes? Here's the news story that inspired today's post:
https://www.saltwire.com/news/canada/canadian-forces-information-operations-pandemic-campaign-squashed-after-details-revealed-to-top-general-475229/
I mean, what kind of Newspeak is this? What was proposed here was an information operation, all right. In fact, it looks suspiciously like a radical informectomy to me!
I'll admit that under certain circumstances - matters of national security, privacy, certain forms of proprietary information - a degree of secrecy or covertness may be needed. But when it comes to information which is of crucial importance to the personal choices and decisions of... well, just about everybody, the default position should definitely be one of openness and availability.
The same is true of opinions. It's essential to have access to a diversity of viewpoints, especially informed and well-thought-out ones and from-the-heart ones too. And perspectives that differ from the prevailing ones of mainstream culture and which may not necessarily be seen as politically correct. But without information, it's pretty hard to arrive at an informed opinion!
Cancel culture is the order of the day. But when you cancel Jordan Peterson or Steven Pinker or J.K. Rowling or Jo Blo, you are cancelling everything that makes you human. You are closing your mind. Throw culture out the window and along with it go nuance and subtlety and everything that doesn't fit into a tweet.
Let's face it - most of our cultural institutions closed down when lockdown began. Cancel culture and you cancel human civilization, as surely as if you were burning books or destroying artefacts.
