How WikiLeaks opened our eyes to the illusion

of freedom
Slavoj Žižek
Source: ​https://zizek.uk/how-wikileaks-opened-our-eyes-to-the-illusion-of-freedom/
Accessed on: 02/05/2019

Julian Assange, who went into exile in the Ecuadorean embassy two years ago, has
blown apart the myth of western liberty

https://defend.wikileaks.org/take-action/ 
 
Assange designated himself a "spy for the people". "Spying for the people" is not a
simple betrayal (which would instead mean acting as a double agent, selling our
secrets to the enemy); it is something much more radical. It undermines the very
principle of spying, the principle of secrecy, since its goal is to make secrets public.
People who help ​WikiLeaks​ are no longer whistleblowers who denounce the illegal
practices of private companies (banks, and tobacco and oil companies) to the public
authorities; they denounce to the wider public these public authorities themselves.

We didn't really learn anything from WikiLeaks we didn't already presume to be true –
but it is one thing to know it in general and another to get concrete data. It is a little bit
like knowing that one's sexual partner is playing around. One can accept the abstract
knowledge of it, but pain arises when one learns the steamy details, when one gets
pictures of what they were doing.
When confronted with such facts, should every decent US citizen not feel deeply
ashamed? Until now, the attitude of the average citizen was hypocritical disavowal: we
preferred to ignore the dirty job done by secret agencies. From now on, we can't
pretend we don't know.

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It is not enough to see WikiLeaks as an anti-American phenomenon. States such as
China and Russia are much more oppressive than the US. Just imagine what would
have happened to someone like ​Chelsea Manning​ in a Chinese court. In all probability,
there would be no public trial; she would just disappear.
The US doesn't treat prisoners as brutally – because of its technological priority, it
simply does not need the openly brutal approach (which it is more than ready to apply
when needed). But this is why the US is an even more dangerous threat to our freedom
than China: its measures of control are not perceived as such, while Chinese brutality
is openly displayed.
In a country such as ​China​ the limitations of freedom are clear to everyone, with no
illusions about it. In the US, however, formal freedoms are guaranteed, so that most
individuals experience their lives as free and are not even aware of the extent to which
they are controlled by state mechanisms. Whistleblowers do something much more
important than stating the obvious by way of denouncing the openly oppressive
regimes: they render public the unfreedom that underlies the very situation in which
we experience ourselves as free.
Back in May 2002, it was reported that scientists at New York University had attached
a computer chip able to transmit elementary signals directly to a rat's brain – enabling
scientists to control the rat's movements by means of a steering mechanism, as used in
a remote-controlled toy car. For the first time, the free will of a living animal was
taken over by an external machine.

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How did the unfortunate rat experience its movements, which were effectively decided
from outside? Was it totally unaware that its movements were being steered? Maybe
therein lies the difference between Chinese citizens and us, free citizens of western,
liberal countries: the Chinese human rats are at least aware they are controlled, while
we are the stupid rats strolling around unaware of how our movements are
monitored.
Is WikiLeaks pursuing an impossible dream? Definitely not, and the proof is that the
world has already changed since its revelations.
Not only have we learned a lot about the illegal activities of the US and other great
powers. Not only have the WikiLeaks revelations put secret services on the defensive
and set in motion legislative acts to better control them. WikiLeaks has achieved much
more: millions of ordinary people have become aware of the society in which they live.
Something that until now we silently tolerated as unproblematic is rendered
problematic.

https://defend.wikileaks.org/take-action/

This is why Assange has been accused of causing so much harm. Yet there is no
violence in what WikiLeaks is doing. We all know the classic scene from cartoons: the
character reaches a precipice but goes on running, ignoring the fact that there is no
ground underfoot; they start to fall only when they look down and notice the abyss.
What WikiLeaks is doing is just reminding those in power to look down.
The reaction of all too many people, brainwashed by the media, to WikiLeaks'
revelations could best be summed up by the memorable lines of the final song from
Altman's film Nashville​: "You may say I ain't free but it don't worry me." WikiLeaks
does make us worry. And, unfortunately, many people don't like that.