“Hesius woke up in the dark. He could hear people moving around, but he remembered stories about looters being aggressive, so he kept quiet and did not turn on his light. The rescuers never found him.”
If it had been daylight, Hesius would have been able to see who was moving around and call out, or the rescuers might have been able to find him, even if he did not make a sound. It is unlikely that the looters would be out in daylight and, because they could see what was happening, everyone would have been much more confident and able to make well-informed decisions.
This is obvious when we are dealing with a situation like the one described above, but less obvious when dealing with the type of information that we can keep hidden. Take salaries for instance. What you look like and what you say is much more revealing than the salary you work for, but while we are not concerned about appearing and speaking in public we are concerned about other people knowing our salary.
Just like Hesius we prefer to hide this bit of information and forgo any opportunities that might arise from revealing it. If things were different and this information was available about everyone and to everyone it would be no big deal. We would know more about each other and this additional information would contribute to the “light” in the community.
This is because transparency (when information is freely available) is similar to light. It is easy to see the similarity. In the daylight, Hesius can see (gather information about) what is around him. Similarly, transparency in information allows us to gather information about what is happening around us.
If, when you read the Bible, you substitute the word “information” for “light” you get an interesting perspective. God is associated with light, or information while the Devil is associated with darkness, the absence of information. This suggests that we should seek to make more information available rather than try to hide it.
Education helps the process of spreading light in the community as it drives out ignorance and brings our people closer to “God,” or “knowledge,” the light of our lives. Perhaps what the prophets are saying is that “God” is “understanding” and the better informed you are the closer you get to God. This is possibly why lights (fire and candles) are used to honor God.
An epiphany (a realization or comprehension of the essence or meaning of something or someone) is sometimes described as a flash of light, a light bulb being turned on in our head. Here again we see the association between understanding and light. It has a specific meaning for Christians. All of this suggests that knowledge, derived from information is very closely associated with the symbol of good in the community.
Since this is the case, why then do we do our best to hide certain information? We know that suppressing information about who is HIV positive helps to spread the disease. Yet we continue to do this, arguing that we have to do this to protect those affected from the prejudices of the rest of the community. This seems to be an obvious step, but it needs to be questioned as it takes the community in the wrong direction. Instead of suppressing information we should suppress prejudice.
Here is one of those famous closed loops that we have to constantly keep our eye on. Prejudice is created when information is suppressed and it then leads to the further suppression of information. This process takes us into darkness and we have to resist this temptation and make every effort to move in the opposite direction.
Suppose HIV status, like director’s remuneration, was one of the items that we decide to make public, would we all be better off? Would it help us to begin the process of getting rid of our prejudices? I don’t think there is any doubt that it would.
Perhaps the “resurrection” that is predicted in the Bible is the arrival of the “information age,” where “God” or “the light” of information and knowledge shines into the darkness of ignorance and eliminates it.
Clearly we are on a path that takes us out of the darkness of ignorance into the light of knowledge. We all need to buy into this idea. Each of us needs to participate in the process of emerging from the darkness into the light.
We need to work at becoming more transparent, and allow more information to circulate. This will help to reduce the prejudices and make it easier to release information. This transparency loop will take us into the light.
