CyberNoir Philosophy: “Words are much too valuable to be free.”

Max Headroom, after its cancellation, returned with two unaired episodes during the late 80’s Writer’s Strike to fill in gaps in network schedules. “Lessons” was one of the unaired episodes.  On the surface it’s a tale about censorship run amuck, headed by a computer that decides what should or should not be censored based on standards & practices – and what would endanger ad dollars. There’s even this exchange on the board:

“Viewers won’t like this! can’t you override this?”
“I’m the chairman, not the creator!”

But the episode hides something. Like the city’s annual Sky Clearance Festival (a noisy celebration of a noisy event, where satellite debris rains down and people wear tin hats while partying in the streets), the censorship acts as a cover for something more sinister. We open to an adversisement for PayEducation Televison. It’s illegal to turn off your TV set in the world of Max Headroom. But, there’s “free” TV broadcast to everyone – including the supposedly illiterate masses in the fringes – and then there’s the good stuff.

Pay channels. Educational channels. “Knowledge is power, you can buy your child the gift of knowledge.”

We quickly move into a secret school where fringe kids like Mink learn their ABCs from a TV show via pirated videos.  Which leads to a raid by armored Metrocops (including a chief who came from the fringes) and two ghoulish censors. This exchange says it all:

 

• Blank Teacher: Reading is a right, not a privilege! 

• Dragul: A right that must be earned; a commodity that must be purchased. 

• Blank Teacher: These kids have the right to knowledge, philistine! 

• Dragul: Not if it is stolen property. That tape is pirated from Pay Education TV. 

• • [to metrocop] 

• Dragul: Chief, get rid of him. If these vermin want it, they should pay for it, like everyone else. 

• Blank Teacher: With what, man? You’ve closed the circle! No pay, no learning, no pay! You’ve stolen our right to know! 

• Dragul: Words are much too valuable to be free. If you were educated, you would know that. 

 

Blanks are high tech counter-culture minorities – people who have wiped themselves from the central computer systems to escape the world’s ubiquitous surveillance. Technically, it’s not illegal to be a blank – but they’re treated like any minority group. (“Blank is beautiful!” says one in an earlier episode.) And, yes, Blank Reg is one of them.  He of the “It’s a book!” is technically not supposed to be able to read. Folks like him can’t afford an education.

And that’s the real heart of the episode. The teacher and Dragul, the censor, discuss the privilege of getting (and in many cases, wasting) an education.

Through the raid, Mink gets separated from her mother. Edison and Theora work to try and re-unite them. But Mink’s mother is a Blank, and involved in what’s really going on. There are a lot of different turns here, but the core moment comes when Edison learns from Blank Bruno (a character from an earlier episode) even the video piracy is a cover – no different than the nose of the Sky Clearance carnival.

A printing press.

They’re printing books, and using them to teach kids to read and think despite the paywalls, censorship, and Metro cops. It’s almost a Ray Bradbury moment when Dragul destroys the tape dubbing equipment, thinking he’s won a moral victory for intellectual property rights and commercialized knowledge, ignoring the printing press under a tarp beside him. Communication they cannot control.

As always, we need to follow the money – but also see how money substitutes for ‘value’ in the world.

Take the discussion with Dragul. The loop for the rich kids who get education isbe ‘you get money, you get educated, and you can do whatever you want because you’ve got money and an education.’ Because their parents are wealthy and powerful, they inherit their value – they don’t have to earn it.  Not link the ‘vermin’ on the fringes. (Feel free to replace with an epithet of your choice). Being valuable – that is, wealth – is inherited. So is poverty.  It’s a character flaw. If they were so worthy, why aren’t they rich enough to afford a good education?

The people who have value (money) decides who is valuable (gets money/opportunities, etc.) And usually the answer is “People like me – not like them.”

Go to your board of education meetings, or any debates on school funding, or discussions about public media/television, or even library funding. Listen to what they say – and then try and find what’s under the noise. Because anytime someone “We need to retain a property-tax based allocation formula for education investment in our state!” under the noise I hear, “I want my money to go to my kids schools – and not theirs.”

And if it’s you? You may want to find a seat next to Dragul in the metrocop van, waiting to smash those kids educational taps and remind them, “Words are much too valuable to be free.”