“No burnings at the stake. Just lighting more candles, driving away more darkness.”
You may have heard that we live in the Age of Information. Naomi Alderman argues that we live an era called the Information Crisis. The internet has flooded us with more information than ever before; and with it, more opinions, ideas, opportunities, misinformation and polarisation than ever before. However, this isn’t the first time the world has faced an information crisis and that means we can look to our past to learn how we might survive our present.
The invention of writing 5,000 years ago and the invention of the printing press 600 years ago both drastically changed the way people accessed and disseminated information and in doing so lead to fear, anger, distress and a generally unsettling feeling. Feel familiar? In Don’t Burn Anyone at the Stake Today, Alderman breaks down what happens in an information crisis and how we as individuals can learn to brace ourselves before we end up ‘burning people at the stake’ as has happened in previous crises.
Alderman’s writing is friendly and affable as well as clear and easy to digest. She argues for compassion and moderation using examples of her own relationships with people around her who hold opposing views to demonstrate how we can better ground ourselves in this information crisis.
By drawing comparisons between the war between Catholics and Protestants during the last information crisis, and the current battle between ‘left’ versus ‘right’ ideology, Alderman outlines how, even without billionaire tech giants profiting from our fear, new information technology inherently leads to information crises as the access to information challenges some of our most fundamental beliefs about the world and our place in it.
Alderman is careful not to demonise the internet. Repeatedly she reminds the reader that the internet and the access it offers us to new perspectives and information is hugely beneficial in building a sense of belonging and understanding of ourselves and the people around us. Just as writing and printed materials are not inherently evil, neither is the internet.
However, just as with the written word and the dissemination of printed materials, it’s important for individuals to recognise the way the internet makes us feel and moves us to think and behave in certain ways, and to build strategies to manage that so that we can maintain our relationships and communities safely and kindly.
Don’t Burn Anyone at the Stake Today is of course timely and thought-provoking and essential reading in the way that such books are. There is no denying that. But what stands out most is the compassion and hope that underpins the writing. Reading Alderman’s work is like sitting across from a trusted mentor with a coffee, simultaneously having your feelings acknowledged and your fear validated while also being brought back from the brink of your panicky spiral. It is a balm for our times.
FIVE STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Naomi Alderman’s Don’t Burn Anyone At the Stake Today is out now through Penguin. Grab yourself a copy from your local bookstore HERE.
