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WikiLeaks schoothondje van het totalitarisme?
Er is al veel geschreven over WikiLeaks. De één juicht Cablegate toe, de ander ziet het als een act of terrorism. De Britse arts en schrijver Theodore Dalmryple, bekend van onder meer de boeken 'Life at the Bottom' en 'Our Culture, What's Left of It' (lees die boeken!), gaat nog een stapje verder. Hij vindt dat WikiLeaks 'is unwittingly doing the work of totalitarianism'.
The idea behind WikiLeaks is that life should be an open book, that everything that is said and done should be immediately revealed to everybody, that there should be no secret agreements, deeds, or conversations. In the fanatically puritanical view of WikiLeaks, no one and no organization should have anything to hide. It is scarcely worth arguing against such a childish view of life. (...)
The dissolution of the distinction between the private and public spheres was one of the great aims of totalitarianism. Opening and reading other peoples e-mails is not different in principle from opening and reading other peoples letters. In effect, WikiLeaks has assumed the role of censor to the world, a role that requires an astonishing moral grandiosity and arrogance to have assumed. Even if some evils are exposed by it, or some necessary truths aired, the end does not justify the means.
