Dark things do not thrive, and even struggle to survive, in the bright light.

Dark things exist in certain men and organizations that challenge our society on social, criminal and political levels. Dark things exist within many governments that have grown used to not having to be responsive to the evolving needs and concerns of their respective populaces.

Greater access to information and greater ability to communicate sheds "light" into the dark spaces where these dark aspects of various legal and illegal men and organizations reside. Many call this "transparency."

The initial effect we see is growing discontent and growing instability. We have come to value stability over contentment in the West (so long as it is about someone else that we are are referring). But this growth of information will ultimately lead to better situations for everyone. Certainly not the situations we set out to design and control for others, but the systems they actually feel appropriate for themselves.

The Taliban was able to become a very dark organization because it operated within the darkest grid on the planet. Not unlike the Puritans who took exclusive refuge in Massachusetts and expelled any who did not conform to their own brand of ideology. But once the light of information and broader perspectives shone into Massachusetts, the dark aspects of Puritanism quickly faded; same will be true if Taliban influence returns to Afghanistan.

Today there is unrest and insurgency in many places. Despotic regimes agonize over their worries about how to sustain their control over the populaces; Western powers like the US agonizes on how to sustain a stability of its own design over the areas where it feels its greatest interests lie. Despots need to evolve or they will fall; the same is true for the US. If we want to remain a nation perceived by others as we perceive ourselves, we too must become once again a champion for the belief that the principles we hold for ourself apply to others as well; and that "stability" is not the panacea our Cold War doctrine and experiences would make it out to be.