Information The Dark Ages and You - part 3
A little more history and background of information control - Greece was not doing well with governing itself - At the time of Plato and Aristotle, it was struggling with a failing democracy, corruption, slavery and self-serving politicians were common (something that has repeated itself throughout history and may seem somewhat familiar). Plato and Aristotle believed government should be in the hands of the few, most capable and that people doing the governing should be moral, educated, not self-serving and should be somewhat heroic. They believed people that governed would and should form a sort of aristocracy, who would work for the betterment of the nation.
Plato and Aristotle were philosophers, idealists and didn't know about human nature. In their beliefs the good (cream) would naturally float to the top, they forgot what else floats to the top. They thought that there should be a governing elite, that the results of science should be known by the ruling elite (aristocracy), that science could be owned by the few in the aristocracy and that only the governing few needed to be informed and educated (far different from Democritus of Ionia).
Greece in the time of Plato and Aristotle, was not a place of great freedoms, or democracy, slavery was common and only those who needed to know were kept informed. The governing elite (aristocracy) decided who should be informed and who needed to know what. This concept existed before Greece, Plato, Aristotle and others who were given control over the masses. The masses have willingly given self-determination and actual life control away to the few, literally, forever. Greece at about 400 AD seems to be where and when the dark ages began (this is not absolutely true however for convenience, it works). It was official and acceptable for the masses to be kept in the dark and information was owned and controlled by the few.
The flat earth, the sun that revolved around the earth, that earth was the center of the universe, that the earth was somehow dirty, the heavens were clean, the church owns spirituality and much more was known to be false at least 600 BC and was a part of the dark ages. Information sets everyone free and has the potential to return self-control and Dark Age Beliefs do the opposite. Through the control of information and thought, mankind has lost more than 1,000 years of chances to develop, learn, explore, create and make life better. When you reflect on what has been accomplished in the years since the dark ages, where could we have been as humans if we would not have lost the more than 1,000 years to the dark ages? Have we left the dark ages (in some ways, yes)? Dark age thinking is still with us and we still ignore the elite few who govern us and many of us actually believe in this aristocratic system. Information is once again controlled by the few, the elite, those in control, we and they are fully aware of the power information control affords them. We complain and do little else. We have the tools (one major tool is the internet) to free ourselves and to be informed and some of us are learning from these new tools. We know that the elite few are ruling by our blessings, that they are corrupt by our blessing and we know that the masses can control, however we don't seem to believe it.
We have all the tools we need to leave the dark ages. I have discussed effective information processing in this article and how it can and should be learned. We also need to learn how to think, not what to think. We can learn to become effective, empowered, knowledgeable thinkers and we must start to question everything that comes from authority or the ruling elite few. We must remember that they work for us and should actually respect what we think and we need to lose our fear of them. Question everything that has the potential to make someone a lot of money and increase their power, or make them powerful. Filter out information smoke screens designed to take your attention away from something that is actually important. Expect and demand honesty from the ruling few and we all can leave the Dark Ages. Robert Brown - 5/5/2011
RSBBrown
