Perhaps ‘presentism’ is a better word to describe what I’m trying to get at here: the idea is that social media (henceforth sm) causes (forces?) the user to live in a perpetual present – Heidegger’s “Being for” technology. Whether on phones, laptops or desktops, sm subjects the user to presentism, a “Being in the moment”, without pause for reflection, pause for thought. The sm user is forced to consume ‘content’ (as its called, but we’ll come back to that) at a rapid rate, a rate that appears to be becoming faster. This rate performs two functions: firstly, it anticipates an encroaching ‘future’, not of the subject’s making, and a future that is digital in its conception. There is no ‘beyond’ in sm, it contains and refers only to itself. Simultaneously and following from this, secondly, sm formulates a continual succession of selves, a ‘wardrobe’ of personality types, of identities and the subcultures they generate.
To draw an analogy: the film spectator can see film X. Film X can produce in the spectator an identification with character Y (leaving aside alignment for a moment). As the film progresses, the spectator learns how the character deals with particular circumstances within the film’s ‘reality’. Once the film is over, the spectator may choose to adopt and adapt certain attitudes to material reality based on the character’s behaviour/attitude in film ‘reality’. This is a conscious choice, even though the spectator may be aware that film ‘reality’ can bear little resemblance to material reality. They admire a particular character and attempt to “be like them”, replicating them in specific ways, both physical and emotional. However, the vital difference here is that the spectator is not forced to watch one film after another after another. The film ends and, usually, there is period of reflection for the spectator – even if they choose to watch the film again.
In the case of sm, reflection is banished. The spectator is presented with a myriad of characters, most of whom are embedded into what appears to be the ‘same’ material reality as that inhabited by the spectator, offering perspectives on that reality. In this, sm has digitised democracy: the internet is open to anyone with access to a keyboard and/or a camera(phone). This democratisation has produced competition for views/clicks, whilst simultaneously ensuring that ‘content’ is similar in that it follows certain patterns: prioritises the sensational; offers a distinct identity; provides a set of enemies; provides a set of identity oppressions; encourages outrage; encourages offence; encourages the anonymous comment. Thus, identity becomes something that one can ‘wear’, then ‘exchange’ – a similar idea to that of “fast fashion”. What has to be regarded as separate though is the motivation behind “identity sites” such as LBTQ+, which provide information and compassion, and those which might be better described as “recruitment sites”, which trade in victimhood and hatred, such as fortran, incel and far-right sites in general.
A particular site can, thus, offer one a ready made identity, to be assumed instantly, then modified depending on one’s mood and interests, or not as the case may be. There is a trade in ‘uniqueness’, in not-Being – not-Being like X, Y or Z. The desire for ‘otherness’ is fulfilled, enabling one to reject the apparent banality of social normality or, more accurately, what one identifies as social normality and desires to separate oneself from in order to assert one’s own unique self. However, this ‘uniqueness’ comprises of elements drawn from one or more subcultures which, at one and the same time as being unique, also fulfils the human desire to belong, to be valued (in some sense or other).
What if we “strip out” the (sub)cultural dressing of these ‘identities’? What remains? A competitive structure that fragments these subcultures. In much the same way as various sects resulted from the translation of the Bible into English, subcultures of subcultures (of subcultures ad infinitum) become competing groups claiming that their interpretation is the ‘correct’ one, the one ‘truth’. We can connect this with the (capitalist) ideological notion of “the individual”, which gathered pace after the end of the Cold War. Individualism, one’s separation from communities unless one chooses to be part of a community/ies, stresses that one is unique and alone in a competitive world. The concept of “the other” defines individualism, whether simply other human persons or other groups/communities. Thus, the competitive element is ever-present, as are a set of ‘rules’ that dictate how one should think and behave: to be an individual one must think in ways A, B and C and, therefore, behave in ways X, Y and Z.
What sm does is remove the metanarrative, or rather, it conceals, the metanarrative. The apparent loss of metanarrative in contemporary (postmodern) society is the loss of protest, the loss of rebellion: there is always a website, a post, a documentary (using this term in its broadest sense), a podcast. It might not be exact, but it will be close enough – google it, and there will be something. This is now the “go to” solution, a solution that fulfils that human desire to belong, to be part of something whilst remaining supposedly “an individual”.
In concealing the metanarrative by proclaiming the end of metanarratives, the structure of “identity politics” is concealed, its “divide and rule” objective obscured. The political though is discarded, replaced by a concentration on individual identity, the prioritisation of which also obscures that human persons are connected to other human persons in virtue of their being human persons.
Capitalism, one can argue, is based on competition in all things: with one another, for resources, for individuality and on and on. For this concept to thrive, the ‘other’ is the most vital component. Nationality, county, tribe, identity, religion, football team etc. etc. The irony in this is that the internet was supposed to turn the world into a “global village” (similarly to McLuhan’s ideas on TV), a unifying entity. With the advent of sm, this has become more and more naive. Provided with the opportunity of creating a new digital reality, a new world, humans have simply reproduced and refined a digital version of the old: sm has turned human persons into competing products, objects to be consumed. It also seems to have introduced competition as an “internal mechanism” in human persons, in that different sets of identities compete with each other within the psyche – similarly to Althusser’s idea of the human person being a site on which ideologies meet.
However, what one can also identify here is the false demand for consistency: is it reasonable to demand that the human person is one and the same in all situations, in all contexts? In our material lives we behave differently depending on the situation we are in: parents; friends; crowds; formal; informal and so forth. Is sm merely another example of a situation? It is tempting to answer ‘yes’, that the fear of sm is due to generational misunderstanding in those who have not grown up with TikTok, Instagram etc., therefore, see representations on sm as the same as those in material reality. This is much the same category error that is levelled at gamers: the assumption is made that games cause us to see them as representations of the “real world” and, because we become actors in game worlds, to import the values (?) of said games into our realities. This is much the same argument as that which has been made against film and television in precisely the same terms, representations seen as ‘real’. To which one can mobilise the standard argument that, if one sees film and/or television representations as real then there is some kind of mental health issue in play. We cannot hold, as some would, the directors and producers of these representations responsible, nor the designers of games. What film and television does is offer us an alternative set of values to those of the material reality we inhabit. A different set of values, therefore, a different set of ‘rules’ also apply in game environments. If one were to behave as one does ‘normally’ in say, GTA or CoD, playing would be pointless.
What we return to here is the concept of choice. One chooses to watch this film or that programme, or to play a particular game. These environments stop, they have endings. Thus, they have built-in periods of reflections – enforced periods of reflection one might say. In this they become past, part of our reflective/refractive human experience. One can also argue that whilst we are engaged in watching or playing, a significant proportion of the pleasure we derive comes from the comparisons we make with our own realities. Is this the case for sm?
Back to the original question: is sm just another example of a situation? Can it be, given the engulfing and overwhelming presence of sm? There is here I suppose another factor, that of age. In my own case, I grew up without digital technology and sm so, to me, it occupies a similar place to TV and film, in that it is there but has not been a constant. I would, therefore, question my own ability to assess how sm affects those whose “social landscapes” have been constructed in the “always on” sm position. Sm is all-pervasive, there is nothing comparable (I can think of) to previous years’ constructions of the self. Just to make it clear: I am not suggesting that previous generations constructions were in some sense or other superior. One can simply argue that capitalism had not perfected its ideological techniques, that the totalitarian metanarrative was less pronounced, less obvious.Back to thought and reflection: my own generation, however wrong they may have been in this, could still arrive at what seemed to be thoughtful deductions. We could still convince ourselves that we were the first people to formulate critiques of the system, the establishment, in this or that way. What this did, in effect, was to keep the spirit of rebellion alive (however mistaken we might have been). For example, Punk Rock in the UK seemed an original and establishment-threatening movement initially, as had the Hippie movement before it, and Rave afterwards. The music was informed by political lyrics critical of the ways things were. Ok, it was doomed to failure as marketing and money regrouped after that initial shock, but there was a brief period when all of these movements looked threatening.
Has sm altered this kind of ‘rebellion’? I think it has. Sm individualises in its technological environment. Protest becomes digital. Unity is online, rather than physically coming together (the Pro-Palestinian demos are an exception to this, not the rule) as groups. Protest has now become a series of ‘likes’, as if clicking actually achieves something, other than enabling the human person to feel some kind of micro-self satisfaction that they have ‘acted’. This sham democracy works well, giving people the feeling of expressing their approval or outrage to the world but, ultimately, this is meaningless. It does nothing. The online environment has become (was designed as?) an effective way of dissipating discontent because it convinces people that they have “done something”. Thus, sm posits the ‘problem’ and facilitates a(n emotional) response. Discontent is contained, but also fragmented: issues are discussed and commented on singly because the metanarrative has been hidden – even though this sleight of hand is a product of the metanarrative…capitalism’s most effective weapon.
The rise of populism reinstates national identity. The targets of populism then “circle the wagons”. Politics becomes discussion of ‘majorities’ and ‘minorities’ and “the Irish people”, this latter being, as it is in the case of the UK or the USA, nostalgia for something that never existed, a variation of “aryan purity”, expressed in ‘traditional’ this that and the next thing: apparently, a culture ‘untainted’ by foreign influence. There is, of course, little discussion of what ‘traditional’ means, except for the assumption that “we’ve always done it like this, why change?” At which point, suggestions of change are condemned as ‘woke’ or “political correctness”.
In the midst of this, we have seen the reintroduction of binary oppositions, a demand that one takes sides passed off, by sm, as “just the ways things are” and ‘natural’. What one can also identify here is the substitution of opinion for reasoned argument, another product of the concealed metanarrative. Sm makes the expression of unreasoned hatred easy: pick a user name, hide behind it, then pour forth vitriol, without fear of identification. This has become a ‘norm’, in fact such a norm that some people now feel able to post expressions of hatred and criticism under their own names, claiming victimisation if questioned.
Sm causes users to live in what they construct as the “public gaze”, a kind of pseudo-‘happiness’ competition. One of the side-effects of this competition is that ‘happiness’ is apparently meant to be a permanent state of Being. This has given rise to the Mindfulness Industry: the basis of this industry is that one is responsible for one’s own mental well-being, therefore, conveniently apportioning ‘blame’ to the human person for their own mental health issues. What we see here is a return to the 19th century/early 20th century, whereby genetics governs mental ‘resilience’. The environment which the human person is forced to inhabit is marginalised on this view. It becomes ‘natural’, as do all the injustices contained within, and generated by, it. In short, the Mindfulness Industry prepares the ground for the re-emergence of racism, sexism, inequality of wealth – all of the injustices that are essential components of capitalism.
The Mindfulness Industry also requires that we rethink morality. If this “genetic perspective” is correct (which, I hasten to add, it isn’t) then what becomes of the concepts ‘good’ and ‘bad’. One occupies one’s position in virtue of “good genetics”, that is, the genetics which fit one to achieve those things which this “genetically good” society deems of value. Those whose genetics are deemed ‘bad’ can never move outwith their designated roles in the “natural order”. Philosophically, what we have here is a combination of Plato (The Republic) and Machiavelli (The Discourses), with analysis by Nietzsche (The Genealogy of Morals): The ruling class decide on the good: the amassing of wealth; the subordinate position of the lower orders; the superiority of their class in virtue of their genetics, thus, making their position ‘natural’; their ‘fitted-ness’ to rule. In short, their absolute control of society which sanctions their ability to transcend the rules/laws of that society because they exist above it. Rules/laws only apply if they choose that they apply. They assert that they make the rules/laws so they cannot apply to them in the way that they apply to the rest of us. Our role is to follow these, to do as we are told without complaint, to be grateful that we are allowed to live as we do.
If this sounds a familiar model, it should. We are living it.
Murmurs from the Forest 