So in todays 1pm tutorial I made a rushed confused statement in the last 2 minutes. I quite liked it, but it was rushed and confused so I'm not sure if anyone else did. This post is to clarify.
Is freedom of information Neo-Neo Totalitarianism. In a way? Considering Neo Totalitarianism is "you think you are doing what you want to, but you are really doing what we want you to do" this compares interestingly with the results of recent freedom of information acts in the UK and NZ.
Taking NZ for example. Currently (to a grossly generalized extent) I can put in a request for the emails sent by my Mum (at the Beehive) to my Dad (at Ministry of Defence)[Purely theoretical examples, as they both work at NZAID] under the Freedom of information legislation that currently exists. As such my Mum and Dad will not send each other emails about my Birthday presents just in case I might read about them.
Expanding this argument now. Civil servants will restrict the use of their email accounts in a form of self censorship (doing what the Govt wants them to do) and not email stuff that is potentially embarrassing (undermining the State). Your average citizen is now stopping posting potentially incriminating material on the internet as they are worried about their employer or the media finding it and releasing it (public pressure to conform) and you get arrested for nudism in public areas (uniformity).
Now ignoring the last point, doesn't this strike you as just slightly interesting. That we have got so free that we are now becoming less free because we are too free...
Whereas if we became less free then we could become more free because there would be less people able to spy on us.
Is this situation then similar to the leanings of Political Parties, the extreme right being so close to the extreme left that they are virtually the same thing...
Is there a point where too much freedom of information is just as restricting as no freedom of information?
So that's what you were talking about at the end of the tutorial...
ReplyDeleteI understand what you're writing, but it does bend the mind slightly.
'[W]e have got so free that we are now becoming less free because we are too free'; that reminds me of an equilibrium. We have become so free and so to balance that we are becoming less free.
But this is all relative; we are still free.