Transparency

What has been remarkable for me over the past few months is the increasing transparency of how and why things were the way they were.

Notice that it's in the past tense. Humans tend to obscure things to others to hide the mechanisms and forces that make things happen. Like in "The Wizard of Oz" where the revelation of the underlying mechanism brings out the truth or reality.

Examples of this for me have been the conflict in Syria that has been raging for 9 years or longer - the underlying reasons for the conflict had been hidden and obscured and incomprehensible to the casual observer - but the dynamics had in recent months started to leak out and it has made the story quite coherent now.

Another example might be the emergence of whistle-blowers in many things. One has been the return of a special forces medal to the ABC by an anonymous soldier who had a grievance with the Australian Army and the publication of a video of an unarmed Afghan man being shamefully murdered in a field by an unnamed (so called) soldier after many years of being concealed.

Yet others are the forces behind world sports such as the Olympics, motor racing and ballgames where the disputes for the remaining money or what's left of it uncover the "wizards" behind the things that were previously considered normal.

It's remarkable just how much transparency is emerging as these structures begin to become threatened with destruction of the past ways.

Why is it so? (as I have been asking more and more lately)

I believe the answer is in the receding of or diminishing of the gains and secondary gains that were being extracted from the activity in question whatever it might be.

When the money or gain disappears then there is no more value in keeping the secrets that assure the ones who are gaining continue to do so.