Google’s Hideous Strength

Google has a monopoly on information and its distribution, and thus, a monopoly of the public mind in utero — according to StatCounter Global Stats, they own over 92% of search-engine market shares worldwide. While this seems intuitive, we are lulled into acceptance because, well, “it’s so convenient” to have a universal encyclopedia at our fingertips. The grim reality, as Zuboff describes, is that we are bearing witness collectively to a power grab of unimaginable proportions. N.I.C.E. could only dream of replicating Google’s impenetrable corporate structure: Its air of secrecy and hypocritical demands for internal privacy; Its vision of “a societal future in which [its] power is protected by moats of secrecy, indecipherability, and expertise” (Zuboff 100). If C.S. Lewis were alive today, he’d be a staunch advocate for reducing Google’s power — and would likely have his work censored as a result.
One can’t help but note that Deputy Director Withers would make a competent, powerful tech CEO in the present day. He’d likely be running the N.I.C.E. out of Silicon Valley, all the while utilizing the same doublespeak and jargon as a shield from scrutiny. He would have likely appeared before Congress already, professing how “it is so important to be perfectly clear what [N.I.C.E.] is doing” (Lewis 101), and right thereafter rambling with polite ambiguity. He would navigate and deflect questions with as much ease as Zuckerburg and Pichai, projecting surface-level “harmlessness” and charm to uphold and maintain secrecy.
Let us hope that Google’s intentions are less sinister than N.I.C.E.’s. Let us also, however, remain skeptical, demanding transparency from Google at every turn. Lewis would agree that it is in our best interest to preserve free, naturally-guided thought from the clutches of the few, and to prolong the condensation and accumulation of power by such aspiring conditioners.