It seems that Nanny has adopted a Corporal Jones style response to the criticism being heaped upon her by the good denizens of the web, namely Nanny and her chums "Don't like it up them!"Nanny betrayed her frustration with the internet by allowing one of her acolytes, Matthew Taylor (outgoing chief strategy adviser), to speak out at an e-democracy conference in London last week.
Nanny is of the firm belief that the internet is fuelling a "crisis" in the relationship between politicians and voters, and that it is all too often used to encourage a "shrill discourse of demands".
Nanny/Taylor is of the view that the net is being used by people merely to abuse politicians, and to make "incommensurate" demands on them. This makes it increasingly difficult for governments to govern.
Taylor said:
"We have a citizenry which can be caricatured as being
increasingly unwilling to be governed but not yet capable of self-government."
It seems that we regard all politicians as corrupt or "mendacious"!
Remember folks these are the same guys who sold peerages, who invaded Iraq on a false pretext, who have failed to install a decent IT system into the NHS, who have screwed up the budget on the 21012 Olympics etc etc.
Maybe the internet community does actually have something to complain about?
The trouble with Nanny is that she doesn't like to be criticised. Indeed politicians have, for centuries, had a dislike of being exposed for the corrupt venal individuals that many of them really are.
When printing presses were first used by pamphleteers centuries ago, the government tried to close them down.
The net is no different to the pamphlets of centuries ago. Yes, there is a large amount of crap on the net; however, that crap is more than outweighed by the quality and breadth of information/data now readily available to all.
As I state in my "Core Beliefs":
- The internet is one of mankind's greatest inventions, it offers a portal into an unrestricted, uncensored world that transcends national boundaries; where everyone can express and exchange ideas, experiences, hopes, fears and desires.
- Mankind only betters itself, and evolves, when ideas and conventions that represent the status quo are openly challenged. Even if the challenges are proven to be false and misleading, the very act of making one take a fresh look at oneself stimulates and freshens the mind.
"What is the big breakthrough,
in terms of politics,
on the web in the last few years?
It's basically blogs which are, generally speaking,
hostile and, generally speaking,
basically see their job as every day exposing how venal,
stupid, mendacious politicians are".
The solution, Mr Taylor, is for Nanny to start improving her act; then maybe she would find herself facing less criticism.
Politicians long for secrecy, and the ability to hide their mistakes and corruption from prying eyes; they are, in effect, creatures of the night.
The only way for a society to advance and improve itself is for every rock to be kicked over, and every dark dingy place to have a bright light focused on it so that the unpleasant nasty little creatures that inhabit that twilight world are exposed for all to see.
That is the way to improve society, not Nanny's preferred "easy" option of letting these little creatures hide themselves away in the dark.
Nungy said:
ReplyDelete"How long before they ban the use of the internet now? Since it is a means of gathering information to help form our own opinions, that must be bad!"
Surely it depends on what they see as being really important.
In a similar development context I was told some years ago that the early days of mobile phones were a huge boon to the security services. Not too many people had them, costs being what they were, but they were popular with the wealthy and a number of well funded organisations connected to the middle east but with anti western leanings. Tracking the phones used by those people as they moved form cell to cell on the network was, I was told, extremely useful, though probably not terrible legal.
No doubt the internet can be used for something similar these days in the run up to Nanny providing a State Portal thorugh which all communications of any sort will be 'directed'.
On the other hand the net can also be used to manage people's opinions by seeding the available information. The world according to Google, or at least the Government's version of a Google. (Assuming Google is not already controlled by someone for political purposes of course ...)
Perhaps the new (and rather pointless I suspect) 'Petition No. 10' web site is a case in point.
Which will gain more credence in reports of 'progress' from the system and its petitions?
37 petitions demanding that all new houses must by law have windmills and solar panels (all with 3 or 4 signatories at most), or one demanding the reversal of the ban on hunting with dogs with several thousand signatories.
No doubt quantity will override everything else in the 'what to pay attention to' stakes - so 37 beats 1 .
Personally I don't care much for either proposal, though inverting them might be amusing. Banning solar panels and windmills would seem very sensible and forcing people to hunt with dogs could be wonderfully devisive and might get some real dabate going! ;-)
"The internet....offers a portal into an unrestricted, uncensored world....where everyone can express and exchange ideas, experiences, hopes, fears and desires."
ReplyDeleteExcept in China, where a certain internet company is collaborating with the government to crush independent thought and free speech.
Anonymous said...
ReplyDelete"Except in China, where a certain internet company is collaborating with the government to crush independent thought and free speech."
But that is only because the Chinese govt. seems not to have figured out how to inundate the internet with 'on message' pap in the same way that Europe and certain pressure groups in the US and other places have done.
Once you have that overall input superiority the larger internet companies being alluded to (I think 'tis they) would have to work damned hard to keep the propaganda from appearing at the top of all their searches.
In any case if the authorities mainly disregard or outpower the views of free speech what value does it have anyway, other than as some sort of lip balm.
As Chairman Mao apparently said - "Power comes from the barrel of a gun."
In most, maybe all societies, free speech is not really condoned - but indirect methods of suppressing it as more often used. the so called 'consensus' approach for example. It has worked for centuries!