Imagine a world where there is just one stage; one show to see and listen to. The world would be not only a stagnant place, but would limit our perspectives of the world. And, what of the owners of the stage (the platform) and the stage show? Who are they? How would we have ended up with just one stage, with no alternative platforms? Maybe alternatives are there, but we pay little attention to them? Or, the owners of the stage have persuaded us that they are the one voice to listen to, offering all the diversity we need?
“One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, One ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them; In the Land of Mordor where the shadows lie.” So wrote J. R. R. Tolkein. The one ring could exist in the modern world in many ways – our belief in the one knowledge, the one source of information being an important one.
In my last post, I stated ‘I am a Truth Seeker, a Truth Prospector’, as if I was in an Alcoholic Anonymous meeting. I imagine myself sitting on a chair, with others in a circle who think the same. We shuffle uncomfortably as we find the words. Some of us wonder whether these terms sound too pretentious, and we can’t live up to such names? Either way, I was trying to work out where we stand in society.
Recap on Truth Seekers and a Hillfort Story
Imagine, in that equivalent of an AA meeting, the leader asks, ‘How do you work out that you’re a Truth Seeker (or Truth Prospector, or even heretic)? What do you mean – how do you see yourself in this world?”
I start to say, ‘Well, maybe we’re the equivalent of adventurers, prospectors and warriors. If we go back in time, when we lived in tribes or small groups of people, we would have needed these people who go in search of resources, or new land. I say they may have had to risk their lives and fight off an enemy (and it’s calling within). Perhaps we can imagine them living in the set of Game of Thrones? “But no, I have a different story”, I say, “And it involves life on a hillfort.”
I stumble with the words, but I relate that story, taking fellow people, at the meeting, back in time, where I’m living on an Iron Age hillfort in the Middle Kingdom. I settle here after having ventured occasionally into the Land of the North. So, let’s go back in time, to the story of the hillfort.
Truth Seeker on a Hillfort
We live up here, on Worcestershire Beacon, for long spells during the year. A core group of us work in the centre of the hillfort, making pottery, managing cattle, sheep, horses and pigs in their pens – it’s a well-run specialised operation. Some (including my husband) sometimes journey to the lowlands to rescue the bones of our ancestors when our fellow people make new farmsteads. Their job is to bring our ancestors to safety, and tell their story. I am, Banba, Keeper of the Corn, processing and storing wheat, barley and oats for us and animals to eat.
On the fort, we listen to The Orators daily. They stand on the one stage. They bring in jesters to amuse us, people wearing rich cloaks who orate the news from around the Kingdom, singers and more. It seems as if there are many shows, but they’re really all part of the one show. All, organised by the tribal Chieftains. We sit at their feet, and for many, they are the one word.
Perimeter People
A small number of people, including me, become Perimeter People too. For, we often go to the Lookout on the perimeter of the fort, surveying the Kingdom below; watching, listening. Sometimes, we venture down to the lowlands where there are speakers on platforms, with a small crowd around them. These are alternative platforms – their speakers have different personalities, different backgrounds and reasons for gravitating to a small stage. We, Perimeter People, prospect for truth on our own, but occasionally converse when we see each other at the Lookout. We are few, and the others don’t really notice our time spent here.
The Storm and the Pestilance
I’ve seen storm clouds gathering for some time, and now the Orators speak of the storm. It’s a deadly disease reported in distant parts of the Kingdom. People are falling ill, and the Orators say they fear it will reach here. Soon people are coughing, tired, achy and their joints hurt, so they retire to their beds. The Healers offer help, saying ‘Oh, it’s this time again‘. But, the Orators overide them saying that this is a new, more deadly disease. We must wear our scarves wrapped around our faces to protect us, which we dutifully do – though we never have before.
Lively Dust
The Orators and the Chieftains speak of Lively Dust, which swirls around us. It’s the source of the new disease. Though we’re familiar with the idea of Lively Dust causing disease, this is more deadly dust, we’re told. It enters into us, and we breathe it out again. It strikes fear into nearly everyone.
One day, the Orators call us to a special gathering. With grave voices they tell us we must retire to our roundhouses to stay apart. Rhiannon, the Horse Handler protests, saying, ‘How can we look after our animals?‘. ‘Then you must do so by going outside no more than two times a day.’ The Orators say. I try to work out how to process crops in my roundhouse, with very little room. I must distribute it by leaving it in a store room for people to collect, but they musn’t cross my path.
New Lifestyle
I’m distracted by working out how to manage all this, as are my fellow fort-dwellers, but they’re organised, good at strategic thinking (better than me) and quickly able to adapt. We’re all too absorbed to think how strange this is. My father, who lives on the lowlands, is having trouble thinking and speaking in a way that people understand. The Healers have given this state a name, suggesting people he could spend his time with, who are now in a similar state. But then the call to stay in our houses comes, and I don’t know what to do to help him.
Though we are meant to stay mostly in our houses, after a while I still continue visiting him, on the lowland. With my brother who lives close to him, we do our best to help. There are people who bring together those like my father, for friendly gatherings such as ‘Memory Meals’, but not since the new lifestyle started.
A Special Disease
It takes time to adjust. A group of us, who normally work together, have to coordinate by shouting across from the doors of our roundhouses. We must move goods and materials around to work on. Everything takes so much longer.
Finally, we can move around more, but some of us still work from our houses (I forget why we continued with this). I take to visiting the perimeter more, and sometimes down to the lowlands. A few of us Perimeter People wonder where all the very ill people are? Most fall ill, maybe for a week or two, but nonetheless, only in a way we’re familiar with. It’s just that the Orators keep speaking of this special disease, so we talk and think of this illness as being the special disease.
We ask people we meet, down on the lowlands, ‘Are lots of people dying?‘ They say no. Some have become exceptionally ill quickly and dramatically – but they’re few and they’re elderly, or have a weak constitution. This has happened before. At this time I muse to myself, occasionally speaking to others, but haven’t spent much time visiting alternative platforms.
The Diviners and the Wand
The Orators call us round. ‘You all know the Diviners, though we don’t see them very often. These are a new group called the Dusk Syndicate – they will come round to groups of you. You must stay stay still while they wave the wand over you from head to toe. The spell they cast will tell them whether you have the disease or not‘. This duly happened, but it was strange that the Diviners sometimes read from the wand that a person had the disease when they appeared well. When a few people grumbled and talked, the Orators explained that these people carried the disease: it was just dormant.
I say that I mistrust the new Diviners’ wand to my community, but my thoughts on this are not welcome. They repeat the Orator’s words to me on the value of the Diviners and their wands.
I don’t know it yet, but there are Healers out on the alternative platforms saying that their job is to lay their hands on people and feel their symptoms – that this wizardary seems like sleight of hand. A magician’s show. Still, I hear the Orators revile them, proclaiming these Healers are untrustworthy, and giving us false information. They’re now hinting at follies of Perimeter People too.
The Wydion’s Water
In time, when we’ve all had enough of wearing our scarves around our faces, staying in our roundhouses, the difficulties of working and looking after our elders, the Orators speak of a Cure. They’ve been mentioning it for some time. The Cure is called Wydion’s Water which will end the rules we’ve been living under.
The Wydion’s Water is made of secret ingredients: it’s very new, and shrouded in mystery. Elexir Makers will make this in great couldrons, under the direction of the Syndicate, in the far reaches of the Kingdom. (In the shadow of the mountains to the west).
We should only need to take one or two doses to solve the problem, the Orators say. But, months later they were appealing to us (no, demanding) that we take more doses.
A Death in the Family
It was at this time that my father sharply deteriorated, and shortly afterwards he died. I had no wherewithall to consider the demands to take more Wydion’s Water, but in the quiet after death I felt I should think about it. I went back to my feeling that this is not something to be taken lightly – the repeated taking of the Water that is new and shrouded in secrecy. With these thoughts, I crossed over the perimeter and back to alternative platforms.
Back to Alternative Platforms
In the middle of a wood, there is a Healer on a platform. “These symptoms you see are nothing new. There is no novel contagion – only false reporting (wizardry with numbers) and poor work by bad Healers.”, she said. “We have used herbs to treat these symptoms throughout time. You often use them youselves, of your own accord. Why would you keep taking the Wydion’s Water, if you know nothing about it?”
On another platform a Naturalist said, “You are being mislead about Lively Dust. This specific new ‘Lively Dust’, is actually dead. Yes, it is dead dust – it cannot cause disease.” This would be challenging information, even for Perimeter People.
There were more speakers, and people sitting in gatherings on platforms, exchanging opinions; debating what they’d heard. For us Truth Seekers; we navigated this, trying to deal with information overload. But, information overload can start even before venturing over to the hillfort perimeter.
Information Overload
Yes, we suffered from information overload at the hand of the Orators in the centre of the hillfort too. This was not new; just another more intense example, as the shows led by the Orators had increased over the years. And before the Orators, many people told stories, brought news and entertained. Those who had the skill took turns.
This form over of overload prevented many from even venturing towards the perimeter. For many, the decision to stay at the centre of the fort was based on TRUST. Trust in the Orators. Trust in the Chieftains. So, how do we navigate this information, and deal with overload? We must assess our confidence and certainty in the information and knowledge we’ve been given, or we’ve sought out.
For this, I bring us out of the mists of time, and the fog overhanging the hillfort, and back to today. We move to layers within onions as an analogy for sorting your layers of certainty.
Assessing Your Certainty: Which Onion Layer of Truth Are You In?
Some thoughts I find useful. How certain are you that you’ve been given, or come across the truth? If your truth was made up of nutrients in an onion, which layer would it be in? Say the centre of the onion is close to truth, a middle layer means you are 50:50 on it, the outer crispy layers of the onions are really ‘out there’. Where does your ‘truth’ sit? Does it shift around from layer to layer, until it settles? Should it settle for good (is there a ‘settled truth’ or ‘settled science’), or should it be regularly interrogated?
Value of Alternative Information
Are we deluded if we think of ourselves as adventurers and prospectors, bringing back valuable goods (thoughts and truths) for our communities? In the past, we would have always needed prospectors in our midst, to seek out land because our communities have grown. We may be under attack, or simply under too much control by a powerful few. Prospectors brought back much needed resources that we couldn’t produce. We didn’t have the skills, or the terrain, geology and soils. Even more important; we often didn’t know that we needed these resources until they arrived.
I relate these resources, today, to thoughts which could be evidence, could be perspectives. We don’t know the value of these prospected goods (thoughts) until we’re presented with them. Even then, as history shows, we often reject these goods for some time. Tomatoes and potatoes (brought in during the 1600s) were rejected, and feared, for around two hundred years. But, would we want to be without them now? Sometimes (like tomatoes and potatoes), there’s some adaption to local conditions that needs to happen before their worth is proven.
Modern Day Game of Thrones
Perhaps those of us, who see ourselves as Truth Seekers and prospectors, have been watching too many episodes of Game of Thrones, imagining that we’ve banded up with the People of the North? Those who live in the wild lands, where there is rain and snow and ice? If I’ve watched too many episodes of Game of Thrones (or similar shows), it’s only because my husband habitually has the TV remote control in his hand.
My equivalent of venturing into the Land of the North, in past years:
They (or we) are people casting around for alternative opinions, or knowledge. There is the big screen or the big stage, but on some topics we gravitate towards a speaker standing on a small platform. They have a group around them. Like them, I’ve been casting around, joining that group around an alternative platform. Some trekkers accidentally wander into this world.
Building Bridges: Alternative Platforms and the Mainstream
We need Truth Seekers listening to investigative journalists, and independant professional and amateur researchers alike in our society. But, perhaps there’s a reason why we, and they, are few. After all, if we were a dominant force there would be terminal chaos. I’ve heard someone say there would be anarchy, and they may be right. Everyone would be continously trying to grapple with new ideas and perspectives, when day to day we need to get things done. We need plenty of people who can follow a plan, a tradition, and adapt when necessary. They’re often organised people who I take my hat off to.
I like tradition in many ways, which may seem odd for a prospector of alternative knowledge. What on earth do I mean? Often, I mean tradition we’ve rejected in favour of new ways, new materials, new goods which have become destructive. But, it’s taken time to see that this is so.
Alice in Wonderland
I said in my last post, about Truth Seekers, that we need people who sit at either end of a spectrum, and all points inbetween. At one end of the spectrum, it seems as if those who are best at keeping the hillfort running can see Perimeter People as having ‘gone away with the fairies’.
The world beyond the perimeter must be like Alice in Wonderland. There is a Queen shouting, “Off with their heads!”, there are Mad Hatter characters and Cheshire cats on alternative platforms. People who discuss the news (which should only come from the one show), are simply having mad tea parties. These are the social media platforms, and they are a valid part of the digital information ecosystem.
At such parties, we surely must be listening to people who say, ‘The moon is made of cheese?!’ Or, ‘Little green men have come down from the sky and are invading us!’ Never mind that the less prospecting know nothing of the alternative platforms we see from the Lookout, and go to visit.
On the other hand, we need some grounded people who check in with us on whether we really do live in an Alice in Wonderland world. We need to build bridges between those who prefer the established mainstream, and those who stand on alternative platforms. Truth Prospectors can act as bridges, bringing valuable insights from alternative spaces into broader public conversation, while maintaining critical thinking.
Investigative Thinking
We always take a risk when we walk off the plank of established thought into the open air of not only creative thinking, but often investigative thinking. Investigative thinking may not be a mindset for those who prefer the safe zone, when it comes to thought. But, some people need to think in ways that challenge the established arena.
I’ve done little to persuade you, the reader, that what I’ve heard on alternative platforms is valid and worth listening to. Listen to the heretics? Surely not? Yes, we need some heretics in our midst, because established thought (as a safe zone) can be an illusion.
Coming up: more about those alternative platforms, and why they can be valid.
All illustrations are A. I. generated by Canva.
