A Thought on Transparency

"Transparency" has become a major buzz word since the beginning of the Obama administration. Now everyone, Republicans and Democrats, are using it to describe what they believe to be in part, the character of the government. The actions of the government, should be made transparent or visible... at least visible to certain people.

Every time I hear this word I cannot help but think of the quotation by C.S. Lewis at the end of the "The Abolition of Man." I realize that Lewis probably did not have in mind the 21st century U.S. government when he penned one of the greatest responses to the problem of modernity... that being the destruction of man...

However I do think this quotation is fitting whether or not it's relevant to the current usage of the word. If anything, it demonstrates the problem of language... words have lost their meaning and a word which once had perhaps negative connotations has taken on a "positive" meaning... (assuming a transparent government is what we need to solve the world's problems and immanentize the eschaton).

Then again maybe the problem with government is the desire to know... to control... and to manipulate. Both by those inside the government or those who wish to "reform" it. Enough of me... here is Lewis...

"... the kind of explanation which explains things away may give us something, though at a heavy cost. But you cannot go on 'explaining away' for ever: you will find that you have explained explanation itself away. You cannot go on 'seeing through' things for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it.... It is no use trying to 'see through' first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To 'see through' all things is the same as not to see."