It’s 2017 and we like to think we’re unique. Global media and culture centres around the individual: their thoughts, their feelings, their impact. Single people gain fame overnight for one good deed. Or a vilified one. Take, for example, “Chewbacca Mask Lady,” just an ordinary mom from Texas. She became a global sensation overnight for a video of her laughing in a Star Wars mask.
In this world, we celebrate the little guy and his specialness. As if, in some way, celebrating the specialness of others will bring attention back on us. Validate our specialness. Tell us we’re great or pretty or smart or unique.
But recent politics proves to anyone who owns a history book that we are far from special and we are far from unique. History repeats itself and we fall for it every time.
I work in research with some of the greatest technical minds in the energy field. My contacts are scattered across the country and our office is dedicated to improving human impact on the environment, from monitoring emissions to improving the air quality of third world countries.
None of us mind what party you identify with. Or what religion you’re part of. But the science of climate change is not subjective. The safety of the planet shouldn’t be the responsibility of one person, or one country, and as humans who live on this earth it is relevant to us all.
On Wednesday morning, I woke up to a flood of panicked emails.
Trump Administration Orders EPA to Remove Its Climate Change Web Page
The back and forth was urgent. Who had what files? Whose flash drive was largest? Who could upload to remote servers? I saw it all. People claimed responsibility for pieces depending on the speed of their connection.
We later learned that the mass destruction was halted. Temporarily. And now the climate research community waits with baited breath as the library slowly burns down.
When I asked a colleague what he thought, he had but one word. Fascist.
Any history book can tell you what I’m about to tell you know. Controlling the knowledge of the public is a classic method of brainwashing. (Do “alternate facts” ring a bell?)
The famous philosopher Socrates was put on trial in 399 BCE in Athens, Greece by the presiding democracy. Key word: democracy.
Despite his rejection of the written word, Socrates is accredited with inventing modern rhetoric and discussion-based teaching, the Socratic method. He remains today one of the most impactful philosophers in history and his reach extends into vast corners of modern thought beyond just the study of philosophy.
Socrates spent his days debating various political, social, and ethical views across Athens and, over the span of his lifetime, garnered a following. His belief was that the highest forms of knowledge existed within the mind. That through deep conversation and challenging argument, these truths of the world could be revealed.
It was this philosophy that Socrates shared with his students.
In 399 BCE, the court of Athens put him to death for “corruption of youth,” and “impiety.” Socrates was killed for provoking debate and critical thinking amongst his young followers and for disrespecting the Greek pantheon.
A democracy, many would say the first democracy, killed a brilliant man for encouraging thought and questioning socio-political enterprises. A man whose perspectives on argument and teaching continue to guide modern principles.
Benjamin Franklin, a Founding Fathers of the United States, wrote in his Autobiography that a factor of human perfection was:
Humility: Imitate Jesus and Socrates.
—Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography
The impact of these men has extended infinitely beyond their actions over two thousand years ago. They are deified as martyrs who died for their beliefs. Jesus for the souls of mankind and Socrates for the thoughts of mankind.
Humans have always been so much more than their politics. So much more vibrant and unique than a regime’s efforts to squash independent thought. There is a reason that every dystopian novel includes destruction of information. There is a reason that on January 25th, 2017, George Orwell's 1984 was the #1 bestselling book on Amazon.
There is a reason that when I asked my co-worker about his thoughts of the EPA data destruction, he said: Fascist.
Because we for some reason have this notion that “democracy” values the uniqueness of the individual and respects diverse thought. That only Fascist’s burn books.
It is somehow thought by politicians that if you hide the science you can hide the truth. That you can somehow control the thoughts of individuals by keeping them from the data. But the teachings of Socrates live on. Jesus’s stories are written in the Bible and inspire billions. The Nazi’s and the Inquisition may have burned books; but still today, individuals fight for humanity’s right to truth and knowledge. Our right to the facts of our world. No amount of “alternate facts” will ever be able to stop that.
So now do you see why books are hated and feared? They show the pores in the face of life. The comfortable people want only wax moon faces, poreless, hairless, expressionless.
-Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
