Transparency is the slogan of a new, heterogeneous movement. The demand for transparency unites very different orientations. Many conservatives still feel that transparency is similar to anarchy. However, transparency is not primarily there to make it difficult for the powerful to hide their ways. That is just how transparency sells among liberals.
Transparency is stability! Opaque systems may fail entirely due to compromised secrecy. A transparent system is immune against that failure mode.
Transparency is efficiency! No wasting resources on hiding, lying, shutting up leaks, … Of course, often it is more efficient to simply hide something rather than reform the whole system. Nevertheless, the stage where much must be carefully hidden is not optimized in evolutionary ways, so if you want a system to be competitive …
Transparency is characteristic for highly integrated, evolved structures. Advertising seems similarly like a waste of resources. However, evolved structures are almost nothing but the signaling between sub-systems. Our body’s organs and pretty much any structure inside that you can identify, they are ‘advertising’ all the time. What is atypical for advanced integrated systems is that information is hidden from units that ‘want to know’.
Thanks to President Rafael Correa and the people of Ecuador for granting asylum to one of the few heroes of our time, Julian Assange, fighter for transparency. Congratulations Julian – South America is awakening and not a bad place to continue your work.
Humans feel better if it seems as if they can see everything. It makes us feel safer as we can successfully fool ourselves to have control. That is the primary function, not that it prevents anything because it would be seen. On the contrary: Transparency is like free speech; they come naturally once ‘wrong’ information does no longer arise or knowledge of it is inconsequential. Transparency accompanies and helps the inevitable enslavement by what we label good. People are indoctrinated so far, actions rationalized so well, that everything can go ahead in bright daylight, hidden in plain view.
Transparency is not about prohibiting lying; it is at most about rendering lying unnecessary, if it is about lying at all. People vote for the best liar not because they have been deceived but because they (unconsciously/semi-consciously) want the best liar. Everybody knew that Bush stole the election and that he and his buddies lied in order to have another war. That they are such confident, shameless liars is precisely what got them reelected. We appreciate that such characters are suited to keep us in the role of super-bully, and we want that. Obama’s perfect lying lawyer type betrayal on the legalization issue and pushing of prohibition worse than Bush may well get him reelected precisely because it proves that he has no scruples to even sell out his own stoner identity. A perfect US president!
Transparency does not mean that politicians can no longer lie. They do so quite openly and everybody who wants to know already knows. Transparency arrives because we are ready for transparency. With ever more transparency, eventually the completely silly lies may become unnecessary and we reveal our irrational core motivations and illusions and self-deceptions.
We want more transparency. We are matured; so show us any atrocity and we likely accept your reasoning and do not care anyway, but please do not hide anything, or we are going to actually look into it. We want to feel as if we see all in order to be able to more effectively pretend that our rationalizations are based on full knowledge of the situation.
Bradley Manning, the proof for that even the US military can produce heroes.
The knowledge of there being no “democracy” is not a threat to the functioning of our pseudo-democracies, because people are happily irrational. We no longer have to pretend not to pretend. New enlightenment makes us embrace our irrationality. It excuses everything; we are free. Even intellectuals who "know better" can happily pick the most convenient story now instead of being secretly ashamed.
Integration has advanced sufficiently so that we are ready for transparency. Transparency feels good. Give us transparency, and we will be obedient slaves, as it must and will be. The systems that now implement transparency are the future. We are ready to function in the full knowledge of our impotence of acting in any other way but supportive, in whatever role, and if it is the role of a rebel, which has become as conform and stabilizing as anything.
Allthough I think I agree with your perspective on transparency, I do understand that in some cases it is necessary to keep information from people. Military operations by default will use the surprise element (not only but still). A typical conflict of interest between military and scientific interest can be found in bathymetric data (submarine topography). This is still valid. What is no longer a point keeping secret is gravimetric data. That used to be crucial for rocket launching of the evil destructive kind.
Information strategically important to keep secret today, is no longer of essence tomorrow. Secrecy and transparency is a dynamic variable if you like.
Did you deliberately post this article showcasing Bradley Manning (which is treated disgustingly by the US by the way) today when western media is all over the Chinese legal system criticizing how Chinese politicians are orchestrating the judging of Gu Kailai? :-)