The Internet is the address where our common knowledge resides. Now, the most common of all common knowledge has a name. Wikipedia. In fact, Wikipedia is what they say.
We’ve all used that careless attribution from time to time. “They say a seatbelt won’t really protect you in a serious car crash.” Who said that? Who are they? Today, they are Wikipedia.
This electronic encyclopedia can be written and edited by anyone. They write it and we read it. We have no idea who they are. They may know what they’re talking about or they may not. Earnest college professors tell their students not to use Wikipedia as a source of information.
But we use it (and other websites like it) when we’re curious about whether some famous movie actor is alive or dead. We use it to learn the date when Charles Darwin was born and to get a broad idea of what is meant by the theory of relativity… just to choose a couple of random examples.
It is an encyclopedia, after all. And it’s faster, easier to use and more up-to-date than any other encyclopedia. But I suspect the World Book I grew up with had an editor whose name was found on the masthead. Now we’re going to them for information. They are unaccountable and the things they say have always been a collection of fact, fiction, myth and legend.
They also don’t tend to present information that challenges the common wisdom in any compelling or responsible way. Okay, maybe the World Book didn’t either! But at least you knew who to blame.
I remember hearing a lecture by an African scholar named Ali Mazrui more than 20 years ago when he spoke about oral and literate cultures. The problem with the oral tradition, he said, is it passes on information that is agreed upon and homogenized. It doesn’t pass on information that is challenging, obnoxious or brilliant. That stuff has to be written down to stand the test of time and lend itself to the progress of future generations.
Wikipedia is literate in the sense that it’s written down. But it’s like oral culture because it’s information that’s agreed upon and that no one person is responsible for. I will admit that the knowledge of the masses is a vast resource and common wisdom is usually correct, based on reality we see every day. Just don’t believe everything they say.
CUL-DE-SAC 