And why are certain publications excluded? How can we know? Would it be too much to ask “modern scholars” to give us exactly all this „information“? And why don’t they check the quoted texts? Is it not possible that mistakes be made while copying? Is it not possible for the quoted excerpt to be out of proper context? And, after all, anyone who approaches celebrated scholars with so much scepticism has to learn to believe. The alternative to believing is time consuming and tiring: Go to the library, search the catalogue, borrow the book, find the quotation, careful proof reading, word by word. The book might not be available; it might have to be borrowed from some other library far away.
So, in practice, we don’t know precisely, how systematically the selection of books is made. The only systematic thing in the selection is that recent publications are mostly included. Obviously in the conviction, or rather in the belief that the latest publication must have consolidated the relevant prior publications.
After this excursion into the working methods of the so-called scientists we should now turn to their books. The books are supposed to have been written for readers like us. We have not understood everything in them. But we have got the essential message. We should let them make us believe that it is more convenient to leave the thinking to “scholars” and the doing to learned “professionals”. This is confusing. If books, even the intelligent ones, are written for us, shouldn’t we then be able to understand them?. And if we understood them, why aren’t we as good as the writing elite in that field? Why should we leave the thinking to them, if we can comprehend what they write? Do they keep something back? Are there errors in our reasoning?
Then the language of many critical scholars has also strained us immensely. It is complicated, encoded, uncommon, and foreign. It is shallow with a narrow range of topics. Anyway, the message has reached us, though it has missed its goal. It has failed to make us believe that without their aid we won’t ever comprehend the complicated circumstantial contexts of a “modern liberal democratic society”. No, not because they do not have answers to our questions. No! They have simply failed to explain, how rich people become rich, how already wealthy people become wealthier and the needy majority increasingly poor. And there is so much of secrecy. On one hand almost all written documents are kept beyond our reach, documents which display the activities of our “Deputies” (Representatives) in the parliament and in the government, and on the other hand the flood of information and (hi)stories whose authenticity is doubtful. So, we have to ask questions. Always new questions. The following ones for example.
How does the elite become an elite? Are they elite by birth, or do they become elite by training? If by training, how do they get access to the centres of training? By social heritage or by acquired intelligence? How do they find topics for their diploma and doctoral thesis? How are candidates being selected for a doctoral thesis? What is the cost of a thesis? Paid by whom? Who patronises the elite? How much do they earn? Who employs them? What is the main activity of the elite—to advise their employers or enlighten the public? Are they allowed to utter their opinion in public? And even if they were permitted to do so, could they express anything publicly, which would contradict the interests of their “masters”? And are there means to educate and to enlighten the “common people”? How does it happen? Through „media“? Who are the owners of „media“? Do these owners also have specific and particular interests? Do the „media“ publish everything? Are they able and willing to do that? Do they select items? According to which criteria? And so on, and so forth.
There seem to be endless questions. In practice, we have detected that there are many different kinds of questions. In theory we all know about that. And in practice we have learnt to identify questions that lead to knowledge and questions that distract from knowledge. An eye–opening practice indeed. We have learnt gradually to put precise questions. We have frequently consulted reference books, whenever the stock of our own memory was exhausted. Later we have started to wonder, how are reference books actually compiled? Who determines the catchwords? Are there also omissions? Why? According to which criteria? Does publisher want to earn money only? Does the publisher also have his own ideas about morality and values? Does he combine these with money making? How does he know that he has listed all important catchwords? How can he be sure? Whom does he call for consultations? Researchers? Scientists? Do they also have their own ideas about moral? Would there be reference books without scientists, without scholars? Are we back to the elite?
For two reasons we have spent time on “reference sources”. Whenever we do not know something, we turn to references, get an answer and feel “informed”. We accept it. We are convinced. We do not have any alternatives. Very seldom do we ask: who has written down all that? From where and how do the authors of the texts obtain the information? Have their writings also been edited, revised, patched, shortened? Why is there more than one “source of reference”?
The second reason is even more serious. Since when had there been demands for references? How did it develop? Do “reference sources” also exclude some keywords? Isn’t it that all media“ always have limited space for publication? Isn’t there that all important cost–benefit–ratio to consider? Are there other reasons also to exclude keywords and thereby also fields of knowledge? Was the first publisher of a “reference” conscious of the fact that he was also standardising the answers to key questions? Thus ultimately standardising them too? The exemplary battle against the “references” in the “internet” is quite tough. The publishers of the printed “references” accuse the “internet” publishers that they take short cuts and shorten explanations in order to compete. We are led to believe that these criticising publishers are more concerned about our knowledge than about their profits. Have they not fought exactly in the same manner to win the market? The “war” reports should not divert our minds from the consequences of standardisation by “reference sources”. Standardisation? Standardisation or exclusion of fields of knowledge?
Who are the writers of sellable texts for the publishers? And where do they get their knowledge? Knowledge? Aren’t we back to the elite? What if they are wrong? If their sources were inadequate? If they are deliberately misleading us? What is going to happen with those excluded areas of knowledge? Is it not common knowledge that all sorts of short-lived stories are presented to us which then vanish into thin air in next to no time? The Germans may very well remember the gentlemen Kanther, Koch and Kohl and the many tricks of financing political parties in a “representative democracy” or we all may remember Viet Nam, Iraq, Somalia, and Kosovo. Don’t we hear daily from the political elite and other namesakes that they are constantly “occupying” topics and “selling” ideas to us? Are they ashamed of doing this, just a little bit? Do we have even the slightest indication, in spite of the growing number of “talk shows”, that the elite in any country, elite in any field, are inhibited while they talk of “selling” ideas? Is there anything today which can not be bought?
No one will deny that after the invention of the script, after this first big leap in the area of communication, a lot of changes have taken place. There is diversity with a quantitative growth of „media“ on a high technological level. But do we also possess measuring or verification rods in order to judge, whether the variety and increased number of the „media“ do transport more „information“? Or do they deliver the same “information” in many different wrappings? We should all be able to recall also cases of “disinformation”, of misleading information, provided our memory has not been damaged already by the “freedoms” within the “information and media society”. We shall not embarrass Germans or Europeans reminding them of their illegal practices of financing political parties or of corruption. We shall not ask how often their top hundred-odd celebrities became victims of slips in their memory (black-outs) whenever their illegal activities were exposed and they were publicly asked to explain.
We may not even discuss, for example, the reaction of Roman Herzog on television while holding the high office of President of the Federal Constitutional Court in Germany. As we may recall the public disclosure by the obnoxious right wing extremist Dr. Gerhard Frey, Chairman and Financier of the Neo–Nazi–Party (DVU)
