Everybody knows that!

I had a dream last night. Not the MLK type of dream of a better world, but a dream of a dystopia -- a state or society in which there is great suffering or injustice, typically one that is totalitarian or post-apocalyptic -- not in the distant future but in the near future... if not tomorrow, then the day after.

But first, a thought about what everybody knows. "Common knowledge" is not confined to members of the human race(s). Creatures of the lesser orders have it too. For example, how do squirrels know when it's time to start gathering their nuts for the winter? How do elephants know where to go when they're about to die? They just know! But we humans don't call that "knowledge". We call it "instinct".

Whatever you call it -- instinct or knowledge or "race memory" -- it's hardwired into all God's critters, including us. How do primitive peoples know not to eat certain kinds of mushrooms? [Some more civilized types seem to have forgotten such things. Ed.]  Why are we suspicious of gypsies? What makes us rotate our tires, because it's the smart thing to do?

OK, that last one was a bit frivolous, but the fact is there are certain things which everyone (or nearly everyone) believes to be true, even when there's no scientific proof. This kind of "common knowledge" even has status in Anglo-American common law, where judges are allowed to admit certain facts without proof, because "everybody knows that."

Now, in the 21st century, humans are trying to collect and systematize common knowledge, and inculcate it in machines... computers... so that one day these machines will be just as smart as we are. 

Or smarter. Able to think for themselves. This is the concept we call "artificial intelligence". My problem with AI is a well-founded skepticism about who's programming the computers with what they consider "common knowledge". What's included? And what's being left out?

Take Wikipedia, for example. Ed. uses it a lot to "fact-check" me when I tell him "Everybody knows that!" Its content is supposedly user-generated, and allegedly user-edited. But there are people -- the California-based [Aha! Ed.] Wikipedia Foundation -- who ultimately decide what is a "fact" and what isn't. 

Check the articles related to American politics and the 2020 election and see if you can find any reference to allegations that the election was rigged and the presidency stolen from Donald Trump in the dead of night. Such allegations may be presented, but in such a fashion that an uninformed reader would think "Everybody knows these allegations are false."

There are certain things which are presented in Wikipedia and the lamestream media as "common knowledge" and therefore unassailable. Before the fall of Communism we used to see this all the time in "news" reports in Pravda (to name just one), which inevitably began "As is well known..." Then came the Lie of the Day.

Which brings me to my dream. In spite of the constant repetition of the liberal orthodoxy, there are some of us who believe other versions of well-known narratives -- "alternate facts", if you will -- and have opinions other than those deemed politically correct by the folks at Wikipedia or the controlled media.

In my dream, I was being pursued by agents of the state -- or should I say the One World -- who wanted me to contribute to the "common knowledge" my particular knowledge of certain events and people. Why? Not so that everyone would know, but so my "errors" could be corrected! 

My pursuers were certain as death and taxes that their version of the "truth" was correct. You could hear it in the way they talked. They spoke the language of political correctness, of "wokeness". (See "Babylon Bee's Guide to Wokeness", WWW 28/10/21.) One of my favourite examples is "racialized communities". I guess you can't say "coloured people" any more, but what in hell does "racialized communities" really mean? It means "non-white and therefore entitled to preferential treatment (and money!) for not being white."

If you think I'm kidding about that, check out President Brandon's American Rescue Plan, part of his $10.4 billion "stimulus package". According to WaPo (the US version of Pravda), about half of that taxpayer money has been earmarked for "disadvantaged farmers", of whom about a quarter are... wait for it... black. 

Only in America, you say? Not so. Check out Canada's Black Entrepreneur Startup Program, funded by the Royal Bank of Canada and the Canuckistan government's Business Development Corporation. All you need to get your nose in this trough is an idea for a business -- hair salon, recording studio, cannabis store -- but you have to be not just "racialized" but Black with a capital B. 

But programs like those are OK, y'see, because everybody knows black folks have been kept down by white colonialists ever since 1619. That's the only reason why the incidence of poverty, crime, single-parent families, welfare dependency etc is higher in black communities than in other "racialized communities", let alone the communities of "white privilege". Everybody knows that!

I went around the Horn there, but to get back to my dream, the purpose of my pursuers was not so much to find out what I knew and what I was thinking as to convince me that what I knew was wrong and that I should "get woke" and embrace the liberal orthodoxy, like everybody else. 

I woke up just before they started pulling out my fingernails, and am glad to say it was only a dream... so far. Consider the words attributed by playwright Robert Bolt to Saint Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons.

Norfolk: Damn it, Thomas, look at those names.... You know those men! Can't you do what I did, and come with us, for fellowship?

More: And when we stand before God, and you are sent to Paradise for doing according to your conscience, and I am damned for not doing according to mine, will you come with me, for fellowship?

Everybody doesn't know everything. Just because almost "everybody knows" something doesn't make it so. Skepticism is a weapon! It deflects spin, propagnda, PR, BS, press agents, publicity seekers, hearsay, unnamed sources and anyone with a hidden agenda. Skepticism is a quality shared by truth-seekers, free thinkers, and realists... not everybody.