triv.org

The worst kept secret in American politics is that the voters are idiots. It's been true since the beginning. The founding fathers were completely scared by the masses, which is why they had states appoint the senators and why to this day there is still an electoral collage. People voted for Bush the first time because he said he wouldn't get us into nation building, and a second time because he said he wouldn't get us out of nation building. We accept a national discourse where lying is expected strategy and those candidates that dare to speak the truth are pushed to the edges as "issue candidates."

We push reality TV to the top of the ratings. We use too much oil. We can't find the USA on a map. We don't why that is.

History works in cycles, and one of the most compelling cycles is The Crowd and The Screamer. It goes something like this: The crowd knows that water is brown. "The water has always been brown. The water will always be brown. That is simply the way things work. Water is brown." Meanwhile the screamer is on the sidelines. "You fools! You're drinking mud. Water should be clear. Crisp, clean and clear. Mud!!"

This is exchange is often followed by a burning or inquisition. Some time later the crowd realizes that clear water is superior, and screamer is redeemed in the history books. Soon after, some crazy assed guy starts going off about the rotting meat for dinner.

Over time the screamer has given us evolution, orbits, cubism, laughter, and a little religion known as Christianity. In fact the screamer is the expert, and the crowd is usually anything but. The problem is that you don't always know about the screamer, and even if you do there is an automatic tendency to ignore him. After all, if water was supposed to be clear we would have all known that the whole time.

Now with the internet, we're all screamers. Everyone one of us with our hypertext soapboxes and wikipedia accounts. Even Walter Cronkite has a blog. (That may be mentioned somewhere in the book of revelations, I'll have to check.) If everyone is a screamer, than no one is. If we are all experts, then there are no experts. We've created a cycle where a person with the right blog can get something onto the nightly news. History and the present has taught us that the crowd is filled with idiots, but the screamers are now just people from the crowd that have wifi! We don't know who to trust anymore. We're all screamers now, and we're all in the crowd. We've thrown the wheel of history off its axle.

For this one moment though, because I am writing and you are reading, you are the crowd and I the screamer. Only for a moment though. That's the way it is on the internet. We slip into one role or the other. We don't have enough time to get good at either role, we're always so busy switching between the two. I worry that we might be spending so much time switching between the two that we don't see the real screamers out there. I worry that we might not have screamers anymore. That job may have been crowdsourced.

Oh, and if you hadn't noticed. I lied about my blog ending. That's the internet for you. Can't trust anything.