Demosthenes & Locke?? What Does That Mean???

If you've taken the time to read through this blog and then happened to wonder, "Why, oh why, is the title of this blog Demosthenes & Locke?"  Well, I have an answer for you.

The title comes from the novel Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card.  It refers to Ender Wiggin's sister, Valentine Wiggin, and brother, Peter Wiggin, both children, disguising themselves as political figures on "the Nets" in order to wield influence and shape the worldview into a radically different form, with the ultimate purpose of Locke, aka Peter Wiggin, governing over the future Earth when world unity no longer exists.  A war is looming in the future, a war for the Earth, to be fought between humans and an alien species, and led by Ender Wiggin, a 12 year old boy.  But Peter fears what he considers the greater threat to humanity--war between the nations once that unity is lost, in a grasp for absolute power.

Valentine and Peter become political figures by the power of written word through forums on "the Nets"--what we today call social media via the Internet. (Interestingly enough, this book was written in 1985, long before the Internet was widely used or even acknowledged--a book way ahead of its time).  The purpose was to create two completely polarizing but incredibly well-thought out and brilliant political ideologies in order to stir up public opinion.  The result was massive influence within their own respective spheres--behind the mobs of the general public for Demosthenes and the intelligentsia for Locke--paving the way for Locke to propose a world treaty forestalling a world war and Demosthenes throwing her support behind it (and thus the general public's support).

Children did this.  Extremely intelligent children, yes, but children nonetheless.  Shows just how powerful words can be, and more importantly, how powerful social media can be.

But don't worry, if and when I decide to write posts, my aim won't be to polarize public opinion and then take over the world, probably.

Enjoy.  That is all.

[Note:  I highly highly highly recommend reading Ender's Game if you haven't already.  It is most certainly my favorite novel of all time.  Even though it's science fiction, every person I've ever recommended it to, even those who were skeptical about science fiction, loved it.  I promise it will be one of the best novels you ever read.]