Darker Days

Note: I originally wrote this in 2005. I just found it and still like it. Here it is.

Someone sked me once what I thought the most powerful weapon in the world was. I am not an expert in weapons. I gave it some thought and decided that the idea is the most powerful weapon. Ideas, after all, control the hands that hold the weapons. But ideas are difficult to control.

I think we (in the U.S. anyway) live in a society where various forces are constantly battling to control our ideas. This is scary when you consider how limited (either by lack of education, lack of interest, or lack of ability) a lot of our population is in processing the information we are pelted with on a daily basis. Throw in technology's improved ability to "spread the word" and the idea becomes much less unwieldly.

Up until a few centuries ago, Joe and Jane could just get together with a bunch of their neighbors, pick up their farm implements, and take on the government by force. Their chances of success weren't all that great, but at least they had a chance assuming they could muster up enough bodies for the effort. Those days are over. Military technology is such that now a very small number of people can keep a very, very large number of people under their collective boot through sheer force. It is vital that concepts of individual liberty, acceptance of minority views, and toleration of dissent remain alive and well in our collective conciousness. If they don't, it may well become tempting to simply resort to naked force in order to quell the suggestions of those with whom we disagree. Once the day arrives when those who control access to technological force decide to establish their authority over those who do not, that authority will become practically perpetual. No longer will their be any hint of open discourse, no give-and-take of ideas, no interaction of opposites that ultimately drive us towards truth. "Truth" will be what "they" say it is. And once the rest of us are told something enough times, over and over, we will eventually believe it.So, I'm satisfied that my answer to the question was a good one. The harder, and more important, question may well be WHICH idea.