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A Wikileaks Society
- 12/08/10
- 34
I wonder if life will ever be the same on this side of Wikileaks. If you ask me, Wikileaks may just prove to be a game-changer, not just in politics but in all of society. Let me explain.
Just about a year ago I told you that God Watches You Google, showing how search engines never forget what we search for. They know things about us that we have long since forgotten—those embarrassing searches, those immoral questions—they are all there, recorded forever. Would you be prepared to have your search history revealed to the world? Not many of us would. And most of us have assumed that there is little reason to fear; what happens between me and Google stays between me and Google, right?
This is where Wikileaks comes in.
Julian Assange is the man behind the leaks. He is the one who has gathered all of the information that is now coming to light and he is the one who has made it publicly available on the Web. And, of course, he is the one who insists that this is just the tip of the iceberg and there is far more he can reveal. These further revelations could be the most devastating yet. These leaks will impact governments and big businesses. And along the way they will doubtlessly also impact many individuals (since what is government and what is business but a collection of individuals?).
Here is what Assange says about business in a Wikileaks world:
WikiLeaks means it's easier to run a good business and harder to run a bad business, and all CEOs should be encouraged by this. I think about the case in China where milk powder companies started cutting the protein in milk powder with plastics. That happened at a number of separate manufacturers.
…
It just means that it's easier for honest CEOs to run an honest business, if the dishonest businesses are more effected negatively by leaks than honest businesses. That's the whole idea. In the struggle between open and honest companies and dishonest and closed companies, we're creating a tremendous reputational tax on the unethical companies.
What Assange believes is that the inevitability of exposure will compel businesses to be more ethical. How will this happen? Because leaks will not just show end results, but also the means a company used to get there. We will not just know that a milk powder company began to cut the protein in milk powder with plastics, but we will also see how the executives came to that decision, what their rationale was, who they told and who they didn’t tell, how they justified themselves. Suddenly everything will be exposed. Everything will be brought to light.
The whole purpose of Wikileaks is to reveal correspondence that was meant to be private. It destroys privacy, laughs at it, regards it as a quaint vestige of the past.
Assange goes so far as to suggest that companies should begin to work to encourage leaks from their competitors. He hopes for a perfect market and believes that we can achieve perfection if we just have perfect information. He says, “To put it simply, in order for there to be a market, there has to be information. A perfect market requires perfect information.” In other words, if we can just make all information free and freely available, we can finally enjoy market perfection.
Naturally the Christian must disagree here. There can be no perfect market when markets are run by humans who are, at heart, entirely imperfect. There can be no market utopia this side of eternity. There can only be varying degrees of corruption. And what this means is that Assange’s entire philosophy is broken and impossible to achieve.
It’s inevitable that Wikileaks will claim some great victories. Companies that were doing secret but lawless deeds will be exposed and destroyed. Government officials that were corrupt will be exposed and humiliated. It may be difficult to argue with the results. But that doesn’t mean that Wikileaks is a good thing.
My fear is that the Wikileaks mentality may just seep out into all of society so we become a society that delights in exposing one another, in which we are all seeking to bring to light not just what we’ve done, but the motives behind what we’ve done. This may be only the beginning of a rash of similar revelations which exposes not just governments, but businesses, ministries, even individuals. So we won’t just have companies that decide to abandon one kind of customer, but we will have a breakdown of how they made that decision printed in the local newspaper. We will not just be churches who decide we must remove a person from membership, but we will have every bit of the discussion leading to such a decision revealed before the congregation and the world.
We tend to imitate. It may not be long before we all expose one another, or we at least all live with the fear of exposure. It may not be long before there is more virtue in stealing information and making it public than there is in seeking to make good and wise decisions and asking others to trust that we’ve done what is best. Wikileaks calls us all to be experts, to decide that we could have done better by making better decisions. It calls us to be suspicious, to expose, to assume the worst, to be paranoid.
We need to consider if this is really what we want. Do we really want to have a society where no secret is safe, where we all demand access not only to decisions, but also to the basis for those decisions and the information that led to them? Do we really want to live with the constant fear, the constant expectation, that everything will be revealed? On a pragmatic level there is a lot to gain, but I fear that on a societal level there is too much to lose.
I’ll give the last word to Harvard Business Review:
Thanks to Wikileaks, you can now expect that day to come when your most private and candid communications will appear for all to peruse. In preparation for that moment, you better make sure that your private dealings match your public declarations, if not perfectly then at least pretty close.
For companies and individuals as much as for governments, deeds will henceforward have to match words. If they don’t, you can assume you will suffer a Wikileaks crisis of your own, for it is from that discrepancy (or hypocrisy, read another way) that Wikileaks finds its energy -- and other leakers will in the future. Like it or not, what has happened this week is of profound importance, and its lessons are profoundly important too.
I am a follower of Jesus Christ, a husband to Aileen and a father to three young children. I worship and serve as a pastor at 
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Comments (34)
I’m thinking you may be right to an extent, though I don’t think it will go quite as far as you’re imagining, because as much as we love to tattle, we in the West value our privacy. But it’s an interesting (and different) challenge for Christians, I think. Too many of us value our appearance in front of others, when I believe that it is more Godly to acknowledge our sin (and not just the acceptable sins, but the fact that we have been truly depraved and are still struggling with our former selves) and then the power of the Gospel. This is true of ministry leaders as well (perhaps especially, as the pressure to maintain a certain image runs higher). Maybe we can take this as a challenge to work on the church’s understanding of repentance and restoration in the face of exposed sin instead of looking at the all the disturbing details of the sin itself.
Maybe this has already been mentioned but this reminds me of a kind of “thought police” like in Orwell’s 1984.
Great post, Tim.
We understand that all humans are a mess. The “wikileaks world” intends to expose the intricacies of all of these messes. Do we really want the details?
Good post Tim. At one level, a world without secrets sounds like a great hedge against hypocrisy and hype. . Frankly, it would be exciting to see more integrity in ministries, government officials and business.
At the same time, I think of the delicate nature of much of my pastoral counseling, some of which is all about reconciling broken marriages. There is great wisdom in keeping those things private, great destruction would be unleashed if Wife A knew what Husband B had said about X, Y, or Z or what wife C did, etc.
Get ready for the new reality.
But what happens when we start exposing the exposers?
Fair points, but I doubt it’ll come to that. We might all like to pry into each other’s business and private life, but when there’s potential for EVERYONE to be exposed, what will happen? Outrage. Hefty fines and punishment for “illegal” exposure. The exposs will simply cost too much.
But in the end, constant exposure of others’ dirty little secrets and practises will just dissipate into our natural insensitivity to sin. We won’t care that much. We’ll shake our heads and say, “What a world we live in” and move on. The gossip fad will plateau, then lose its impact and die off - leaving the world just that little more apathetic to evil.
Privacy is indeed important when it comes to counceling. I would agree one hundred percent on that level. But I think that to an extent that we would be better off leading lives that are opened avoiding double mindedness. But the the public sqaure is not the right venue for the type of openess that James has in mind when he exhorts believers to confess sins to one another. The idea to find healing from the davastating effects of sin. I doubt that public dicloser of our personal lives would lead to a Biblical form of healing. On a Political and business level though I would agree that there needs to be more light shined one the darkness. But that needs to come from the indside out anyways.
My first thought was with Nik… that the effectiveness of leaks depends on the morally informed outrage of the citizenry. I am afraid that morally informed outrage is not our strong suit, and will likley not sharpen from repeated exposure to outrageous acts. It will become even more jaded and weak. As Nik says, hardening to sin occurs with repetition.
good point Nik!
I think Assange is traversing dangerous territory he will never be able to return from. It’s only a matter of time before his every dirty little secret from childhood on gets exposed plastered on the tabloids.
I doubt every search term, and every personal and professional correspondence of Assange has been completely pristine and perfect. Someone is going to leak the Wikileaker.
His utopic vision for the world could be the end of him.
Hopefully, the ugliness of unearthed sin will highlight our desperate need of Christ alone, not our own intepretations of a millenial reign without Him.
I suppose that my opinion is that when we stand before the throne of God at the end of time, all of our secrets and all of our dirt will be revealed.
I suppose that openness and honesty are virtues for me. If the fact that Google stores my data is the only thing that stops me from searching for porn, I would doubt that I’ve truly experienced a deep life change.
Do we really want to have a society where no secret is safe, where we all demand access not only to decisions, but also to the basis for those decisions and the information that led to them? Do we really want to live with the constant fear, the constant expectation, that everything will be revealed?
But, of course, as Christians we do believe that one day everything about us will be revealed. And shouldn’t we be lovers of such light? The problem is that we are not fit to do such judgement, only Christ is.
I think the real problem is that I doubt very many of those championing the kind of ‘transparency’ wikileaks offers would be so enthusiastic about applying it to their own day to day dealings. We are hypocrites who demand of others what we we don’t demand of ourselves. We’re quick to criticise when another is at fault, and quick to justify and rationalise our own behaviours.
One way I see this “Wikileak” society going as has been suggested is that instead of pulling everyone to a higher moral standard, as seems to be the assumption by Assange, or to a state of paranoia, we might just all get used to and complacent to everyone else’s sin and wrongdoing. After a certain amount of time, we would see that the prevailing way of doing business or running government is underhanded and corrupt; this would become the norm. No longer would we be outraged by it and there would be no end to it. The government officials and businessmen would no longer fear being outed for there would be no consequence for the people would give it no mind; it would be commonplace.
This might be a stretch but would be the most dreadful outcome of such events. But this amoral society is plausible if our hope is found in our government or our business structure and not in the one true God. When that in which our hope is place is shattered, so is our hope, therefore it must only be placed in that which is has been and always will be forever.
An interesting post, but I think it’s a straw-man. Your argument:
…He says, “To put it simply, in order for there to be a market, there has to be information. A perfect market requires perfect information.” In other words, if we can just make all information free and freely available, we can finally enjoy market perfection… Naturally the Christian must disagree here. There can be no perfect market when markets are run by humans who are, at heart, entirely imperfect. There can be no market utopia this side of eternity. There can only be varying degrees of corruption. And what this means is that Assange’s entire philosophy is broken and impossible to achieve…
However, I think that’s wrong. He’s not saying that humans will ever have perfect information; he’s saying that, if we had perfect information, we would have the perfect market. I don’t think Christians should disagree with that (unless they have consulted an economics professor, first). A commonly held view in Christian thought is the fallibility of the reasoning capabilities in an unsaved person, and this is consistent with Assange’s claim. Assange says, if we have perfect information, we will have a perfect market. The Christian says that we cannot have perfect information. The beliefs are coherent and non-contradictory, unless you think Assange actually believes that we will have a perfect market one day.
As well, you may be taking the argument for human fallibility out of context. You argue that humans are not perfect, and thus can’t run a perfect market. However, the biblical/Christian sense of perfect is only one of many types of ways we commonly use “perfect”. If I say that I had a perfect round in a game of pool, and you proclaim that I didn’t— because Christians aren’t perfect, and thus every game of pool will be imperfect if played by corrupt Christians— I would question if you understood what I was saying. A “perfect” market does not necessarily mean a moral one, but rather an “efficient” one. Or, so I believe economists hold.
Depravity is a killer for Assange’s pursuit of the perfect market (however one defines it) with perfect information. Genesis 3:5 is inherent to that kind of pursuit, and in the end, even the exposer is driven by self-interest. The unvarnished truth must be accompanied by love (Eph. 4:15), an idea that lies outside the capacity of market forces - whose moral compass in Assange’s universe is guided by fear of exposure.
This may be overly simplistic; but I shudder to think of our government not being able to have secrets. How do we defend ourselves without appropriate levels of secrecy?
Interesting. I haven’t really followed Wikileaks… dare I google it now? Anyway, God has worked in my life by exposing by His light areas that are not pleasing to Him. Praise God! It has helped me live more authentically in front of others. But to have my motives judged by those who do not love me, are not committed to me, and who do not judge based on Truth… there is a big difference.
I wonder if wikileaks is so much a ‘game changer’ as an extension and continuation of the ‘tabloid society’ that we have? is whistleblowing journalism merely the next step from paparazzi?
So there is no right of privacy for an individual to found say, abortion, but there is a right of privacy for companies and governments?
The market system is imperfect because it is run by imperfect humans, but Christians believe the Government should stay out of the free market? Or is that only when it’s the money market, not the information market?
It’s ok for the Government to spy on its citizens (the Patriot Act) but it’s not alright for the citizens to see the working of the Government (Wikileaks)?
Man am I confused…
“This may be only the beginning of a rash of similar revelations which exposes not just governments, but businesses, ministries, even individuals. So we won’t just have companies that decide to abandon one kind of customer, but we will have a breakdown of how they made that decision printed in the local newspaper. We will not just be churches who decide we must remove a person from membership, but we will have every bit of the discussion leading to such a decision revealed before the congregation and the world.”
I welcome that day. If we have been faithful, and still persecution comes, is that not a blessing from God?
If we have the opportunity to ensure fair and ethical business practices, is that not a worthwhile thing?
Wikileaks represents a real way in which governments and corporations can be held to account. That can only be a good thing.
Wow, I have to say it…some of you really don’t understand the value of privacy and secrecy as a function of ALL relationships…both personal, government and business.
It has NOTHING necessarily to do with a lack of ethics or holding someone accountable and everything to do with the function that secrecy provides. In business, the success of a company often relies upon the confidentiality of their plans…be they marketing plans, competitive intelligence or proprietary designs. Opening these things up to wide perusal can do serious damage to the company…as their competition now is able to use these factors against them. This is one of the fundamental foundations of business, protecting and guarding exactly what you do in order to achieve success. In addition to that, negotiations are always conducted based on each party “holding their cards to their chests” as it were. There is way, way too much evil in this world to think that it makes sense to simply be open about everything…that’s insane.
In a relationship be it diplomatic or interpersonal/family, complete openness would again be disastrous. Assange admits that he recognizes that there will likely be “blood on his hands” for his revelations…because when someone in Iran is fighting for freedom from the tyranny that they are living under and the fact that they are actively working towards that goal through passing on information…when they are discovered…they GET KILLED. Assange also revealed SPECIFIC infrastructure that the governments were concerned about being potential targets of terrorist attacks…do we REALLY want to give someone a list of vulnerabilities.
Can you imagine having a discussion with your wife regarding the difficulties you are having with a mentally ill parent or a sibling with dependency issues or even simple family dynamics and suddenly having the person being discussed privy to this? Tell me it wouldn’t irrevocably damage your current relationship…regardless of all the rest of it.
People have already had their homes broken into when thieves used their Facebook postings to determine that they were on vacation at the time.
I’m sorry, some people don’t seem to think through the ramifications of what a completely “secret free” life would lead to…it isn’t pretty…companies die, people die, relationships die.
Good post Tim.
It may not be long before there is more virtue in stealing information and making it public than there is in seeking to make good and wise decisions and asking others to trust that we’ve done what is best.
Our sinfulness always leads us to bend and distort ethics and morality. I wouldn’t be surprised if your prediction is right.
I wrote a post earlier today, a very geeky devotion I admit, on WikiLeaks and the trouble it has with its DNS. What Christians Can Learn From the WikiLeaks DNS Saga.
We now know that Wikileaks is aided and abetted by criminal elements. They are the people who work hard to embed viruses, keyloggers, root kits, etc. on our computers. They can then harness our computers to attack people like Mastercard which has stopped accepting payments destined for Wikileaks. They are also the people who try to steal from our bank accounts, credit cards, etc. Accepting support from this criminal element strongly suggests that Wikileaks is also close to being a criminal enterprise which, even now, is attempting to free Mr. Assange through the use of intimidation.
It will not take very long before Assange and/or Wikileaks begins using the information being collected for extortion. It is an age old practice, and a very slippery slope.
Reminds me of the introduction of television news coverage and the exposure of the Vietnam War. People saw “the truth” on television and it changed the war. Video coverage that people saw was true, but also sometimes out of context, or with certain things not shown.
What I don’t see examined here is that Wikileaks is just as susceptible to truth spin in such a way to be lies. For a rudimentary example, flushable wipes. We paid big bucks to have a plumber come and unclog our toilet from flushable wipes. “Happens all the time,” he says. “But, they say they are flushable!” I protested. “Sure,” he replied, “anything about 2 inches in diameter or so is ‘flushable’. Septic safe? No.”
So now folks are going to believe in Wikileaks for awhile to be the arbiter of truth. Until someone/some corporation is set up with certain sets of truths that actually tell a lie….
I have read the above article and the some 20+ comments upon it.
One category of comment that struck me as conspicuous by its absence is the illegal nature of the WikiLeaks postings.
If this is true, and I trust that I am correct in this assertion, we must address the following points:
- It is illegal to steal classified materials and artifacts and then to disclose them to persons that have neither the security clearance nor the need to know.- Such materials most likely have the caveats of NOFORN - meaning no access authorized to a non-US citizen.- Such materials most likely have the caveats of being export controlled data - not authorized for non US citizen access under the prevailing FAR - Federal Acquisition Regulations.- Such materials are most likely those that would cause significant to exceptionally severe damage to the US Government - by virtue of their security classification.- Such actions, that are detrimental to the US Government, are espionage and sabotage related criminal issues.
Whether or not one would like to wax eloquent on other related matters, the above five categories of concern do not go away by virtue of ones worldview, belief system, Utopian desires, or political persuasion. In light of the immediate foregoing observations, I would respectively steer the dialog back toward a dispassionate reflection on these matters, which are a bit more significant than who is embarrassed by what public revelation.
Torture is illegal but Christians were among the biggest supporters of Bush’s torture of terror suspects (personally authorised no less, as his memoirs tell us). So the Government can act illegally and it is fine?
JRT, You are right, and as a military man I applaud you. However, very little can be gained on Mr. Challies’ blog by talking about the legality of Wikileaks. That is for another time (court) and by other people (lawyers for and against the government). We are left to decide how it affects us and whether that is good or not, not to debate if it was right or wrong.
Dan
This is a “game-changer,” even as opening Pandora’s Box was.
We’re foolish to think doing evil that good may come will ever have a good outcome.
FWIW, Philosophical Fragments has some interesting thoughts here and there.
I think it is an interesting concept. However, as Christians we should never worry about our decisions unless we know how wrong they are. Worry in this matter could be a sign of a guilty conscious. Even couples should not keep secrets from each other. Secrets leads to lying and eventually could mean the destruction of a marriage or other relationships. I have seen it often.
Dan, I see where you are coming from, especially your comment that very little can be gained on this blog talking about the legality of Wikileaks. However, we have herein, as a personal opinion - solely, a classic example of a logical category error - there is very little to be gained discussing these affects when we willfully ignore the core of the matter - sin. If there is a universal positive affect from such actions, and I hold that there is not such a universal positive affect, else there is nothing to debate. If there is any element of negative affect, and there obviously is, I would be much more comfortable using the correct terminology for these matters - which is sin. Of course, as we all should fully agree, the results of sin is death. Hence, debate on…
It may not be long before there is more virtue in stealing information and making it public than there is in seeking to make good and wise decisions and asking others to trust that we’ve done what is best.
Trust too easily becomes willful ignorance and plausible denial. If you tell the government you want to be protected, but you don’t want to know how they do it, then it’s inevitable that the government will do unChristianlike things to meet that goal. It’s too tempting to accept the fruitful ends that our government provides—stable order, access to global markets, cheap energy—and not worry about the means employed to obtain those ends. Opacity allows you to eat the fruits of sin without sinning yourself. And conversely, the government employees that perform the sin claim that they’re only fulfilling their oaths. The satanic brilliance is amazing—a nation can pursue it’s goals by evil means, but so long as the left hand trusts the right hand to do what is in their mutual interest (as opposed to what’s in their conscience), then everyone’s heart is clean.
Sorry, my first paragraph was meant to be a quote from the OP.
Oh good grief.
So then why bother to expose anything? Let’s just let everybody do everything in secret. No more cops, security cameras, or investigative journalists. Let’s forget about audits. Let’s eliminate all checks and balances in our society, because hey… earthly perfection is impossible, so why try? It’s just a slippery slope towards exposing our every sin, and who wants that?
That’s pretty much what you just said.
Assange might be a slightly misguided idealist who’s vision of a so-called perfect market is flawed, but what isn’t flawed is the fact that we should know when the Catholic Church is attempting to manipulated politics in Ireland so as to continue to avoid taking responsibility for its priests diddling kids. We should know when American gunships rain death on a bunch of guys walking down the street and then attack those who come to their aid. We should know that American security contractors are setting up sex parties for Afghan cops featuring little boys, etcetera, etcetera. And what’s the worst that happens? We have the opportunity to judge the situation for ourselves. Maybe we see their reasoning, or maybe we don’t and condemn them for it. That’s how it should be.
Bring on the leaks. Stop blaming Assange and start blaming the cockroaches who are sneaking around screwing things up for the rest of us.
Your argument confuses surveillance with sousveillance, Big Brother with Little Brother, the state watching the people with the people watching the state, espionage with journalism.
Remember, we pay for the State Department; so we have some right to know what they are up to. I grant that there are professional arguments for limited government secrecy; but that is a matter of privilege, not rights; and privileges can be withdrawn.
The surveillor says to the people, you need not fear if you have done nothing wrong. The sousveillor says the same to the State. The question is which is to be master; the people or the state. The master enjoys the presumption of innocence, the servant labors under the presumption of guilt. The surveillor assumes the state is master, the sousveillor assumes the people are master.
Therefore your argument confuses tyranny with liberty.
I apologize for sounding so snooty. I’m just getting deeply frustrated with the free pass that so many of the creeps mentioned in the leaks have received while the guy who blew the whistle is the only one being demonized.