[Vision2020] A level playing field for knights and knaves

[Taro Tanaka]

The level playing field of the internet is creating what is really a 
different world. The kinds of "hierarchical, patriarchal, and exclusive 
modes of story telling that have gone on in homes and churches" are getting 
hammered. If the people who are reveling in (or perhaps I should say, 
*rebelling in*) all this get their way, there will no longer be a hierarchy 
in either the family or the church. They think this is a good thing, because 
they are at least as talented as, if not smarter and better than, the people 
who have been placed over them as rulers, but the rulers refused to 
recognize that by sharing power with them. The idea is, "If the existence of 
the hierarchy means I have to submit to *that* idiot, it is better that the 
hierarchy be destroyed. A hierarchy that refuses to put me at its apex is 
inherently unjust."

Of course, they can't take this approach vis-a-vis the last remaining 
government institution -- the institution of the State -- because the State 
carries a bigger gun than any individual could wield. The family and the 
church don't have guns to enforce their authority, so it's open season. Thus 
protected, every knave feels confident in attacking knights with their 
words, calling it "leveling the playing field."

How noble.

-- Princess Sushitushi

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