A Bias For Butter

     It was 1968. I was living underground, and after a few close calls with the law, I escaped to my hide-out. It was a cabin in the woods of Northern California, that somebody friendly to the movement had let us use. Aside from furniture, there was nothing in it except an old 1925 World Book Encyclopedia. For entertainment, while we were laying low, my wife, Sue, and I would sit in the glow of the fireplace each evening, reading that old encyclopedia to each other.

 

     We got all the way to “Butter” before I noticed something wrong. The entry for butter was an unfair rant against the newly created margarine industry. We were butter lovers, but the article was an attack masquerading as truth. From my perspective in 1968, that anti-margarine 1925 bias just reached out and slapped me in the face. After that, we went on to find other offending entries.

 

     I was forced to realize the encyclopedia—the ultimate trusted authority—was not the truth I always believed it to be. It was biased. And along with that thought came another; if the 1925 World Book was so biased, but folks back then couldn’t tell, then a new 1968 encyclopedia was probably just as biased, only I might not see it. I was too close, lacking the 50 years perspective I had on that dusty one.

 

     Like a lot of my generation, I had, step-by-step, lost respect for just about every American institution and authority figure. But until that moment, I’d always trusted the encyclopedia. It hurt to have my bubble broken by that butter bias. They say you have to hit bottom before you can claw your way back out of the hole, on the side of revolution. My disappointment in the encyclopedia was just about bottom.

 

     So now fast-forward to today, and we have Wikipedia. Not only can anybody with an internet connection search for anything they want, for free, but what makes it really cool is it’s an encyclopedia with a built-in mechanism to weed out the bias. Now I’m like most folks, I usually just skim the articles for a quick reference, but if you want to go deeper, you can see the arguments, follow the literature, and get down in it.

 

     I’ll never think of any sort of reference material as The Truth again. But I think Wikipedia is on a whole different level from things back in the day. It turns the old-fashioned encyclopedia into a sort of self-correcting and democratic Theory of Everything. So starting a few years back, when those little pop-ups ask for it, I give them money, while I remember hunkering in that hideout, so long ago, reading the World Book.

 

     This year, in addition to my donation, I bought a small bag of Wikipedia buttons to distribute as gifts to family and friends. With each button, I’ve told my story, and why I believe Wikipedia is such an improvement. I know it’s likely that only a knowledge geek will recognize the Wikipedia logo, I didn’t. But wear the button and perhaps it will rank you among the few. And if you’re yearning for something positive, some proof of human progress, something worth wearing a button about, here it is; Wikipedia.