The latest book by linguist Steven Pinker, When everyone knows that everyone knows...Published in Spanish by Paidós, this book deals with common knowledge, the cognitive system that allows us to be aware of what others know. That is, what we know everyone knows. These are the kinds of mental faculties that allow us to navigate life as couples, families, in society, and as citizens. Without an awareness of what we think and what we know others think, it is impossible to share a common space, impossible to live with others. It is necessary to establish tacit consensus, norms we follow even before they are codified in law. This is why common knowledge becomes an essential vector of freedom of expression, academic freedom, and freedom of thought.
Pinker gives examples of ways to prevent everyone from knowing that everyone knows something. The Chinese government, for example, does not persecute and censor criticism against the regime, but rather any indication, however small, that suggests the emergence of an awareness of its citizens' discontent that could be shared with others. Apparently, censorship extends even to those who denounce dissidents, leaving no trace whatsoever. Citing political scientist Erica Chenoweth, she describes how, in the second half of the 20th century, many dictatorial regimes fell thanks to the coordination of the oppressed through peaceful protests on a scale never before seen in human history, while also noting how, since the turn of the millennium, the success of these nonviolent mobilizations has been declining. The reason, according to Chenoweth, is that autocrats have become more astute at dismantling civil protests, often using technology. The most relevant example is China, where censors act even before any protest, however small, can occur or be organized.
But this inertia is not unique to totalitarian regimes like those in Asia. Many of us have personally experienced an increasingly prevalent trend in public debate that acts against the freedom of those deemed outside the prevailing moral norm, influencing both the public and the freedom of those considered outside the established moral framework. In the West, persecuting someone based on traditional moral values is frowned upon, yet it is not uncommon to see vicious attacks against those who hold opinions contrary to the new morality being imposed, which often seeks to establish new taboos. A recent example is the controversy surrounding transgender issues, which has generated considerable debate in recent years. From a progressive perspective that defends the rights of people whose identity falls within the term trans (Although even the law passed by the Spanish government doesn't bother to define its meaning) a new mental framework has been constructed according to which biological sex is entirely irrelevant or doesn't exist. Today, simply stating that men and women are different is considered heresy against the new religion of gender as a construct and identity, and an offense to any reference to this material reality (hence the establishment of a neologism that speaks of "gestational parents" or "inseminating parents," and which is no longer found on many medical websites). In the case of the headscarf, the burka, and the entire system of oppression of Muslim women, Islamists have dedicated decades to ensuring that in the West we don't know what everyone in Muslim-majority countries knows: that women are discriminated against because of their sex according to a divine mandate, and that if they could, they would be given... That is why the simple act of naming what happens to us and breaking the silence that isolates us is so revolutionary: only the common word can crack the established order.
