MT Rhetoric Project Draft - The Vigilantes

Link: http://mtrhetoricprojectvigilantes.blogspot.com/

Knowledge is...Liability?

Anyone else depressed about our global financial and moral state after reading the Panama Papers?

Well, I was.  It seems, our social imagination maintains the idea that global business is not so corrupt, that people generally make upright choices...then, when you see small groups of people making incredibly immoral choices to shield world leaders from civic responsibility and accountability, with far-reaching global effects...the social imagination breaks down, and this background concept of “basically good” people loses some of its mojo.

I am still fixated on the idea of hegemony.  How do you defeat those with unjust power, when the dominant control the means of argumentation?  It is like trying to fight a fire, when the only available tool is dry brush.  For example, even with 11.5 million leaked documents incriminating hundreds...power is still in play.  Mossack-Fonseca can use the concept of “client protection” to shield their shady dealings, money can be transferred out, and individuals can plan their financial escape routes all before investigation catches up with them.

Exposed communication is not the only strike needed to bring down hegemonic power.  What types of action need follow?

I also noticed the value in data representation.  If any of you watched the data visualization of the leaked documents, you can recognize how the meaning changes when the papers are represented in that fashioned, rather than columns and rows.  It builds a whole new type of connectivity.  What is being said become intricately connected to how one communicates it.

Finally, I recognized that running beneath the entire scandal was the implicit value and belief that knowledge creates responsibility-- that those with knowledge are obligated to handle their communication ethically (reporting suspicious or illegal activity, in this case.)  Mossack-Fonseca has a nice escape route by saying they do not support illegal shell company dealings by their clients; one assumes this “not supporting” implies mandatory reporting, but...not so much.

Knowledge comes at risk.  The journalists who exposed these documents, the lawyers involved with Mossack-Fonseca--  all used their knowledge differently, and the public interpreted their behavior using different criteria.  So, even though my head and heart are fiery with social-justice passion, I am encouraged to witness a collaborative effort on writers and reporters, to bring down a giant, reckless, global force.