Viewpoint: Knowledge is only useful when you use it

"No matter how big the idea they all stand under, people are small and weak and cheap and frightened. It's people that kill every revolution." – Spider Jerusalem in Warren Ellis’ Transmetropolitan

A little harsh? Maybe. But it’s equal parts true.

Think of any major revolution throughout history, or even modern revolutions. Think of the Arab Spring, the protests in Russia, or something more familiar -- think of the issue that is directly concerning college students right here and now: SOPA, PIPA and now the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA, are on our doorsteps, threatening to herald in a new "War on Copyright."

Just as the Internet has been a tool in organizing protests in the Middle East, it has now been used to organize protests in what many college students and other young people consider to be their domain -- the Internet.

While the SOPA/PIPA blackout of Jan. 18 was successful in spreading widespread awareness of the Internet censorship issues at hand, ultimately it fell short of spreading knowledge, facts and helping people think for themselves and make up their own minds.

Rather, much like the Occupy Wall Street movement, it largely spread propaganda, if not explicitly, than at least by association, which in many ways is the perfect way for people to kill the anti-Internet censorship revolution.

An example of this occurred recently when a good friend of mine was having a lengthy conversation with another person via social media. The person boldly and ridiculously stated during the conversation that “95% of the world’s population uses the Internet.” When further pressed by my friend as to where he acquired this information he simply replied that he was just quoting what he heard, and then used the age old defense of “Don’t shoot the messenger.”

Now, it seems unlikely to me that, as this person most definitely implies, that starving African children are more likely to care about access to public WiFi and free access to copyrighted materials than, you know, basic provisions and nutrients. But being ill-informed is one thing -- choosing to wallow in your own ignorance is entirely another.

What’s sad is that this person, as it seems is the case with most people involved in revolutions that seek to undermine the authority of the State, is perfectly content to continue believing that 95% of the world actually uses the Internet. Just as SOPA and PIPA are symptoms of a larger issue, merely misguided solutions to a misunderstood problem, blindly choosing to be in opposition of them, without actually understanding the facts, is equal parts misguided.

In Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, a character sits on the sidelines of an anti-Communist protest. When asked “You mean you don't want to fight the occupation of your country?” by a minor character, as though it was as clear as the night sky, she mentally responds with the following:

“She would have liked to tell them that behind Communism, Fascism, behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive evil and that the image of evil was a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unison."

Daniel Horowitz is a Spring 2012 Paste BN Collegiate Correspondent. Learn more about him here.

This story originally appeared on the Paste BN College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.