WikiLeaks & Extraordinarily Free Speech
First Universalist Unitarian Church ~ www.uuwausau.org
Rev. Paul Beckel
January 2, 2011

We’ve gotten accustomed, I think, to the reality that there is both truth and falsehood on the World Wide Web. There is fact and fiction, opinion and art, thoughtfulness and raving lunacy, bias and integrity. This became apparent pretty quickly about ten years ago as the Internet became accessible to a large number of people.

Well, at least the negatives on that list were quickly apparent: the bias and opinion and charlatanism have been widely lamented. In my opinion, however, it seems that the longer we work together on this massive collective project, the more we are finding to celebrate.

Yes, you can still get cheated on EBay. Wikipedia can be hijacked from time to time. But safeguards are increasing – and what I want to focus on today is that it is not just technological safeguards that are improving. Rather, we are developing some very human systems, based on human instincts and values, to help us know who and what we can trust on the Web...and when we should be cautious.

Still, we have a lot to learn about sifting and winnowing to find what is true and what is valuable.

Ten years ago we started to envision what might be possible, but just in the last couple of years ordinary people in large numbers have gained access to the means to speak, share, and be published… with access at our fingertips to ideas, images, information, and real-time personal exchanges with friends and strangers anywhere in the world.

All of this gives us the opportunity to express ourselves with words, sounds, and moving pictures (fleeting or preserved for later retrieval) (perhaps by anyone).

We have opportunities to engage with the world in ways that are of value to us personally. We also have the ability to initiate conversations or activities that could be of value not just to ourselves but to a network of people working together for mutual benefit.

And we can contribute to projects with civic value, that is, with benefits that extend even to people who aren’t involved, even to people who aren’t aware of our efforts. Is this going to be liberating? Or irritating?

Is it distracting? Overwhelming? And what about all of those schemes tying information about you to purposes that you don’t even know about?

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Johannes Gutenberg is best known for printing the Bible in the 1450s. His inventions of moveable type and oil-based ink led to the mass production of reading material at an affordable cost, helping to spur the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution.

But these inventions did not just affect how fast and how cheaply things could be printed. They also changed what would be printed. Before moveable type, what got reproduced were texts with a known audience. Producing novels, that is, anything new, was too risky. So inexpensive mass production made new materials available, and it also shifted the authority around WHO would decide what would be published. No longer just emperors and popes, but now anyone who owned a printing press could decide what to take a risk on publishing. And that’s the way it was for 600 years.

Since Gutenberg, the forms of mass media have expanded. And in some parts of the world leisure time also expanded, so not just the wealthy but even the average person could take part in the consumption of mass media. But that’s essentially what it has been all this time: consumption by most, production by a very few.

But back to the 1400’s. Before printing the Bible, Gutenberg made a contract with the Roman Catholic Church to print indulgences, by the thousands. And the reaction to this publication moved us out of the Dark Ages, and changed the world. Indulgences were certificates from the Church granting people time-off from punishment in purgatory for their sins. Indulgences were issued by in exchange for donations to the Church, and they were enormously popular. They were handwritten at first but only with Gutenberg’s new press could they be produced fast enough to keep up with demand.

Now you might guess that between Bibles and Indulgences the Catholic Church would grow more powerful than ever with the advent of this amazing new communications technology. But no. The abuse of indulgences eventually undermined the Roman Church’s grip on Europe. In his 95 Theses, Martin Luther rejected the hypocrisy of Indulgences, and set off a 200-year political storm that destroyed an empire and created the modern nation-state.

I got a lot of this information from a recent book (don’t worry, I verified it with Wikipedia) by Clay Shirky called Cognitive Surplus. I’ll conclude this section with Shirky’s interpretation of these events:

The tool that looked like it would strengthen the social structure of the age instead upended it. From the vantage point of 1450, the new technology seemed to do nothing more than offer the existing society a faster and cheaper way to do what it was already doing. By 1550 it had become apparent that the volume of indulgences had debauched their value…evidence that abundance can be harder for a society to deal with than scarcity. Similarly the spread of Bibles wasn’t a case of more of the same, but rather of more is different – the number of Bibles produced increased the range of Bibles produces, with cheap Bibles translated into local languages undermining the interpretative monopoly of the clergy, since churchgoers could now hear what the Bible said in their own language, and literate citizens could read it for themselves, with no priest anywhere near. By the middle of the century, Luther’s Protestant Reformation had taken hold, and the Church’s role as the pan-European economic, cultural, intellectual, and religious force was ending.
This is the paradox of revolution. The bigger the opportunity offered by new tools, the less completely anyone can extrapolate the future from the previous shape of society. So it is today.

The communications tools we now have, which a mere decade ago seemed to offer an improvement to the twentieth-century media landscape, are now seen to be rapidly eroding it instead. A society where everyone has the same kind of access to the public sphere is a different kind of society than one where citizens approach media as mere consumers.

The early print revolution also reminds us that at the beginning of the spread of a new tool, it is too early to know how (and where and how much) society will change because of its use. Big changes can stall. After the initial spread of indulgences, the increased volume of their production dramatically decreased their value. Small changes can spread. The Ninety-Five Theses, nailed to a single door, were reprinted and translated and reprinted again, spreading far and wide.”


Today we have powerful new tools at our disposal. For harm, or for benefit, or for trivialization, they will shape our future in ways that we cannot predict. But the main thesis of Cognitive Surplus is this: we have, globally, over a trillion hours of free time per year that we can devote to collaborative projects that extend beyond ourselves. In the 20th century, most of that time was devoted to watching TV. Not because humans are apathetic or inherently sinful. But TV is what we had available. The new reality that we can be creators and engagers of media (rather than just consumers) opens unfathomable possibilities.

Let me clarify what I mean by media. “The Media” is an easy target these days, easy to stereotype as an anti-social villain, deceitful and self-interested.  But media is anything that puts us in touch with information or ideas or impressions beyond the reach of our direct sensations. Stories told us by our grandparents of our great-grandparents are a part of the universe of media. Love letters we wrote long ago. An application for a new job, probably communicated electronically. The Skype call to a grandkid in Kuwait. Facebook.

And, of course: WikiLeaks, the angel or the devil of new media. WikiLeaks, of which Julian Assange says: “It is not our goal to achieve a more transparent society; it's our goal to achieve a more just society. And most of the time, transparency and openness tend to lead in that direction, because [with exposure] abusive plans or behavior get opposed….”

Of course it is still an open question whether WikiLeaks’ methods of revealing secrets, hypocrisy, and huge quantities of uninteresting information will be harmful or beneficial.

Julian Assange calls what he is doing civil disobedience. His detractors, of course, say he is putting people at risk and causing dangerous civil disruption.

However this turns out, like the work of Martin Luther King Jr., or Mohandas Gandhi, it will probably lead to both an evolution and a clarification of the law, and remind us that a constitutional democracy is something we can be supremely grateful for.

Julian Assange would like people to speak in public the same way they speak in private. His critics say this is naïve, that WikiLeaks will just drive hypocrisy and corruption deeper underground. Others fear that soon everything we say and do could be surveilled, recorded, and exposed. If this happens, I wonder if we will begin to behave better, or just become more comfortable with our imperfections and our sins?

[By the way, we have here a new wireless webcam with which we will probably soon be able to watch live Sunday services, or classes, or meetings, on your i-phone – I’m not kidding. We could even train it on the front door so we could keep 1,000 eyes on this place 24/7.]

With all of this there will be unexpected consequences. For example, it was probably our reaction to 9-11, in which government departments more openly shared information with each other, that led to WikiLeaks.

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Now one last piece of classic media criticism (then I’ll go on to address what any of this has to do with our UU principles).

In his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman contrasted two dystopian futures envisioned by George Orwell in 1984, and Aldous Huxley in Brave New World.

"…Orwell feared…those who would ban books. … Huxley feared…that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture…. In 1984, Orwell [noted], people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure [and distraction]."

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I’d like everyone to turn now to your hymnal. Share as needed. Go to the page just before hymn #1. Here we have what is generally known as our UU principles and sources…along with the covenant that frames them:

We the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote: This is a covenant, rather than a statement of beliefs. It’s a mutual commitment among congregations to work toward these principles of personal and social ethics.

The inherent worth and dignity of every person... The internet revolution ties well into this principle: everyone is included. Up to 6 billion of us. About 2 billion are currently included and that number is growing fast. And this is disruptive. But this is what we have affirmed and promoted for a long time: you’ve got power, access, connection, regardless of what you look like, regardless of where you live, and, increasingly, regardless of your financial well-being.

Justice, equity and compassion in human relations... In this area we won’t find quick technological fixes. Rather, technology will probably raise many new questions about the nature of justice. And compassion will continue to guide us.

Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations... This is a good reminder of the importance of building small groups for mutual support in the midst of the expanding networks.

A free and responsible search for truth and meaning... “Free” has become surprisingly easy, so “responsible” will get some new emphasis.. Where and when and how will we create limits to our expanding freedom? This will be hard because we won’t want to frustrate new possibilities.

The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large... We’ll be addressing this one at length in 2 weeks (MLK day, January 16th) so come back for that.

The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all... Now we’ll find out if that liberal rhetoric about connection will actually lead to more peace or less peace. Let’s work on the side of peace. And (in the words of Margaret Mead) Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. I don’t think global connectivity changes this.

Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part... The ALL is a web of webs, deeply interconnected and interdependent. The biosphere...the mass of rock, lava, gems and soil upon which the biosphere lives...the cosmos, the human webs of relationship and memory and hope and consequence. If nothing else, even if the internet were to crash permanently tomorrow, I think we would have gained a collective appreciation for interdependent systems. The truth that our one-on-one relationships are important not only in themselves but because every one of our relationships affects every other relationship.

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Moving on now to the sources from which we draw inspiration:

The living tradition we share draws from many sources: Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces that create and uphold life... This is a helpful reminder that there is something important beyond mediated experience. Media is inevitable and valuable. But our tradition has made a point that we don’t rely solely upon someone else’s impressions or opinions. Get the priest out of the middle between you and God, that was the original idea behind printing the Bible. Each of us has a direct connection to the All. And that is wondrous, affirming, renewing.

And yet (now on source number 2) at the same time we do benefit from the insights and courage of others: Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love.

A third source: Wisdom from the world’s religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life... So not only admirable individuals, but the collective institutional and cultural influence of the world’s religious traditions provide us with inspiration. With global connectivity we can learn about these traditions more readily, we can discover what diverse traditions have in common, and we can see, in real life, in practice, how many different ways there are to be Buddhist or Muslim or Hindu, etc.

Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God’s love by loving our neighbors as ourselves... The Jewish and Christian traditions are highlighted as our historical institutional origins. Their core teaching carrying forward through the ages: to respond to God’s love (the gift of being) by loving our neighbors as ourselves.

Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit... As humanist teachings and science become more prominent in an increasingly technological world, we’ll experience some backlash. And let’s admit it, even if you’re not a biblical literalist you may have some uneasiness about the advance of science and technology. New dystopian movies every week reveal that uneasiness. So the wording here is significant: science warns us against idolatries of the mind and spirit. And one of those idolatries can be an idolatry of science. We don’t want to go there either. But we certainly won’t benefit from rejecting reason and science as valuable tools for our lives.

And there’s one more. Some of your books may have it, some may not. This is an evolving document, human and collaborative and expanding. In the 1990s, after a thorough democratic process, another source was added: “Spiritual teachings of earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.” This one is a helpful antidote -- like the one about direct rather than mediated experience -- reminding us that technology does not remove us from the cycles of life and death, but is valuable only to the extent that it assists us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.

And finally: Grateful for the religious pluralism which enriches and ennobles our faith, we are inspired to deepen our understanding and expand our vision. That is: we will not withdraw. The changing world may be unsettling and frightening, but we will engage with it and continue to expand our horizons. As free congregations we enter into this covenant, promising to one another our mutual trust and support. Even as everything is connected, whether we like it or not, there are also connections we can choose to emphasize, we can choose to trust, connections in which we can choose to invest the precious resources of our attention, time, treasure, and care.

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So far today we’ve focused on the tools and opportunities newly available to us. But what about human motivation? Will we really want to use these tools in productive ways? Orwell and Huxley were afraid that our desire for security and entertainment would destroy us. I’m going to conclude on a more optimistic note, again borrowed from Clay Shirky.

What motivates us? Four things. #1 and #2 are autonomy and connection. Autonomy and connection – which, of course, can be seen in opposition to one another. Or they can be seen like yin and yang. We want to be free, independent. And we want to feel connected, interdependent, with other living beings and with the unspeakable/intangible. These human motivations are not new, but our new tools (smart phones in our pockets and all the related tools) make autonomy and connection possible in incredible new ways. Ways that will both satisfy… and confuse the hell out of us.

We are also motivated by opportunities to grow in competence. And opportunities to be generous. I have witnessed this countless times in every community I have ever been a part of. People motivated by opportunities to grow in competence, and motivated by opportunities to be generous. In this new year I pledge to work with you to expand those opportunities. Amen.