I know this post’s title is an oxymoron, but every so often, there’s a column by Jeff Jacoby that I can actually read. This one’s about an irony of the Internet.
Activists confronting repressive regimes in the 21st century often have all the communication tools of the digital age at their disposal – Facebook, YouTube, cellphones, e-mail. Yet none of them has achieved anything like the renown of Andrei Sakharov, Vaclav Havel, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, or the other indomitable souls who challenged communist tyranny in the decades before the Internet existed.
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because the internet allows for more fragmentation and distraction, not less?
Insofar as Havel and Solzhenitsyn were prominent because of their courage in saying what they said, many of today’s dissidents (save for Suu Kyi or Tsvangirai) have preferred to remain anonymous behind social networking.
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p>However, if dissidents gain importance because of what they say rather than their personal situation — “Gulag Archipelago” had an impact not because of who wrote it but because of what it revealed — there hasn’t been much change. These anonymous Iranians working online have revealed Iran not be a theocratic regime working under the rule of flawed law, but rather a common totalitarian thugocracy.
Sure, movements need leaders and “big thoughts.” But what percentage of people in the world had ever heard of Andrei Sakharov or even Solzhenitsyn? A very small group. That we’ve not found today’s Sakharov or Solzhenitsyn could be for a few reasons:
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p>1–They’re simply not there right now. Before every big moment changed by a big thinker there was usually a long period of…well, nothing. It’s easy to look back on things and see a perfect unfolding of events that led to something inevitable. Seeing it unfold in real time is a bit more difficult. Maybe today’s thinkers haven’t moved into the same neighborhood and started getting together to smoke in dark rooms yet. Check back next month?
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p>2–They’re there in their smokey rooms, we just don’t know them. Like my grandfathers and father didn’t know who Solzhenitsyn was. (Theory falls apart on the notion that Jacoby’s grandfathers and the grandfathers of others he cites certainly did know those folks. My family tree isn’t near an ivory tower.)
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p>3–Education and information is dispersed. “I am
SpartacusSolzhenitsyn!” Things get worked out ‘in public,’ by a bunch of folks these days rather than in smoke-filled back rooms. There’s a much more cooperative, inclusive process.The Nobel Peace Prize was often a way to recognize courageous dissidents. Now, it’s been given three times this past decade to whichever recipient would must anger American neo-conservatives.
Gore shared his with an actual scientific group, and Carter’s was a long time coming, IMO. Obama’s is interesting, but I think there was a legitimate point to that too.
Nobel committee members acknowledged the political motive behind Carter’s and Gore’s prizes. As for Obama, who was nominated a coupla weeks into his presidency, “interesting” is a kind word.
is a way to measure a person’s commitment to peace, given how committed neo-conservatives are to war.
Since neo-conservatives, at least of recent vintage, have by definition been warhawks, it wouldn’t take much to upset them. I can hear the reaction now: “Peace prize? – We don’t need no stinkin’ peace prize! Real men don’t need peace prizes; they’re for wimps!”