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Curse of the Internet age: lies spread faster than truth, says Rowan Williams
Former Archbishop of Canterbury warns that instant communications making misunderstanding more common not less
By John Bingham, Religious Affairs Editor
http://tinyurl.com/klheask
May 16, 2014
The rise of the Internet means that lies and misunderstanding now spread around the world faster than the truth, Lord Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, has warned.
An increasing reliance on instant communications, effectively means that people should expect their words to be routinely misinterpreted, he said.
It has also changed the way people communicate, making it less and less common for people to be able to see those they are talking to, he said.
But the former Archbishop, whose time at Lambeth Palace coincided with a period of upheaval in the Church of England and worldwide Anglican Communion, said that he had made a point of reading critical media stories about him, seeing it as “good for the soul”.
In an interview with the Tablet, the Roman Catholic magazine, he spoke about his, at times, strained relationship with the media.
His comments in 2008 about the likelihood of aspects of sharia law being accepted in the UK caused a furore but aides always insisted they were misinterpreted.
Lord Williams, who is now Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, recently acknowledged in a Telegraph interview that he felt relief at being able to return to academia after being at the centre of public scrutiny at Lambeth.
Asked by The Tablet whether he felt misunderstood, he said: “There is something about the sheer rapidity and reach of global communications which is increasing more than ever.
“Misinformation goes faster than the truth can.
"I am much happier talking to people I can see.
“I can think, what do these people need to hear?
“Broadcasting, I have to think extra hard about who’s listening and then resign yourself to be misunderstood and live with that.”
But he said it was important not to hide from critical comment, even if it is based on misunderstanding.
“I’m sure it’s good for the soul,” he said.
“You need to know, it is really poisonous if you’re protected from the critical voices out there.
“Your most ambitious self-image needs to know that you may still look like a complete idiot.”
His comments came as he delivered the first Christian Aid Parliamentary Lecture in the Lords in which he spoke about the need to “redistribute power” rather than wealth.
He told his audience: “When people say indignantly that we cannot solve the country’s or the world’s problems by redistributing wealth, I’m actually inclined to agree – but only because the problem is not so much gaps in wealth as gaps in power, that is, in the freedom to take responsibility for your economic conditions, for the circumstances that enable or frustrate a future of human dignity for you and your family and so on.
“Inequalities of power, in the form of radically unequal levels of access to decision-making, process of law, education and civic freedoms, are often described as forms of ‘structural’ violence.”
