Electric Funeral Chuck Klosterman Analysis

Villains are an interesting bunch in that the same person can be seen as both minor/major, or helpful/dangerous. I guess the same could be said about heroes though. Chuck Klosterman, a best selling author, wrote an essay titled “Electric Funeral,” a chapter of I Wear the Black
Hat: Grappling with Villains (Real and Imagined), which details villains of today-different types of technocrats. The three “villains” he mainly focuses on are Perez Hilton, Kim Dotcom, and Julian Assange, who each vary greatly on the spectrum of their acts. Hilton is a blogger who likes to post photoshopped pictures and articles, Dotcom created Megaupload, a website to post copyrighted material illegally, and Assange is the head creator of WikiLeaks. Klosterman explains …show more content…
One such act is that WikiLeaks revealed what was happening in the operating procedures of Guantanamo Bay. In the camp, many people were denied their rights, and some were even tortured. These acts were and still are a major violation of human rights, and WikiLeaks made that information known to the world. This video may have breached some security measures in Cuba, but under the United States, it was legal to upload. WikiLeaks is essentially beneficial for showing corruption in parts of the world, but when it’s attacking someone directly that isn’t favorable for the public, that’s, well, attacking. Another important leak from WikiLeaks was the Bible of the Church of Scientology in which the Bible described “interesting” feats along with rules and just downright ridiculous things in general. Some of these absurd achievements included thinking members of the church could eventually talk to plants. Sounds a little crazy right? Here’s another: “Find a tight packed crowd of people. Write it as a crowd and then as individuals until you have cognition. Note it down.” Honestly, what does that even mean? Does one write down the crowd and then eventually, magically, acquire all of their names and information somehow? Scientology is one kooky cookie. Nonetheless, the public wouldn’t know this insane information if it wasn’t uploaded on WikiLeaks as the church is very secretive. This information is a breach of privacy, but that secret wasn’t really necessary to be kept (freaky how it’s possible the same could be said about the government). If one is so embarrassed about what their religious text holds, change it. These examples of “good” or influential leaks show that it can really just depend on who is uploading the information, but Assange is still the culprit. He is ultimately to blame for creating a site that allows people to release anything the want from government