Criticism of new forms of communication technologies stretches at least as far back as Plato's Seventh Letter. Then we were warned of the dangers of abstraction and the hold of the spectacular on our imaginations. Current concerns over the ICT revolution, though similar, stress our lack of autonomy over such changes, and this is reflected in the view that globalisation, with which it is inextricably linked, is somehow inevitable. Globalisation - whether political, economic, or cultural - is alleged to lead to the formation of a "network society" where the space of flows (of people, capital, goods, information, or culture) comes to dominate the more solid structures of our habitat, our moorings in a particular time and place.
The internet, whose staggering growth in extensity, intensity and speed is well documented, is seen by some as both a central driving force in these global changes and as a profound symbol of them.
Some of the discussion about the role of the internet has focused on the idea of freedom: the internet's ability to strengthen democracy or undermine repressive regimes. What slips though the net in such discussions, though, is the profound way in which the internet affects us in our ability to communicate meaningfully with one another.
One example of the internet's reach on our understanding of ourselves and other people is Wikipedia. The fundamental issue at stake is not one of its factual accuracy or its efficacy, nor is it one of political constraints on accessibility to information. It is, rather, whether how we think about something is radically altered when information is available at the click of a button. What does access to vast amounts of information and the pressures of instantaneity do to our age-old habits of discernment (Google's "top gaining queries", for instance) and quiet reflection? Will we ever be able to return to the "exalted silence" of the book or even read "linearly" (as Jonathan Franzen asked in his celebrated Harper's essay)?
The assault on the senses - whether the dazzling of the eye by the profusion of images around us or the drowning out of silence by background music and conversation and now the hyperinflation of words - can only lead to overload, triviality, and an eventual collapse of meaning. Seen in this light, the attempt to place the contents of those vast cathedrals of the mind - libraries and museums - online might be putting an unbearable burden on our already strained capacities to absorb reading material (how long is your list of unread books?). Even if the British Library (17 million books) were able to catch up with the Library of Congress's 30 million books, plus 80 million articles and pamphlets, would that be an improvement? We "surf" the web, knowing full well that with limited attention spans we must - as skaters on thin ice - keep moving to stay afloat. Perhaps we will have e-books on our mobiles but be like the Eloi, unable or unwilling to read?
It is also possible that this desire to catalogue everything, build a universal library or archive is actually a defensive strategy that speaks of our fears, of the precariousness of our lives. At the individual level one can see this relation to our mortality in the extension of the idea of a personal diary by something called "
lifelogging ". Like other forms of blogging (MySpace, etc) the Internet might be used not to connect with other people but simply be a poor reflection of our narcissistic selves. We are connected with the loneliness or suffering of other people - but only momentarily, superficially, as in a spectacle and then we move on. Ultimately, in an age of "instant living", does the Internet offer us any sense of permanence? How many of you will go back and read this post in three days, I wonder?
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8 comments:
Forgive me, Billo, if this is not the serious-minded response which your piece certainly merits, but I just can’t feel so very anxious about what the new technology is doing to us, although I concede that where it is leading us in the future may be of concern. The majority of those now alive over about twenty were educated, to a large extent, in the old ways so have formed habits of reading and exercising discernment.
One very real problem I DO have with the internet is the danger of being seduced into accepting ‘received opinions’ – how easy it is, I’ve discovered, to read a book then ‘look it up on the internet.’ There you read comments and reviews from all and sundry and it’s tempting just to adopt some or all of the thoughts as your own. I have to make sure I’m clear abut what I think about it, preferably even writing something down, before I even think about seeing what anyone else may have thought. And, by the way, how happy I am that at last educators have seen the light and are abolishing home ‘course-work’, thus reducing the likelihood of plagiarism.
Narcissism and the Internet
Of course, we all enjoy putting ourselves forward to the great wide world – which often turns out not to be so wide as we might hope. Some blog-sites will attract thousands of readers, in the same way that Big Brother attracts thousands of viewers, but that simply reflects the prevalence and extent of popular culture. That aspect of the internet you can take or leave. (Which reminds me, obliquely, that I often wonder at the number of apparently sensible writers and commentators who take the trouble to watch Big Brother – then slag it off. Five minutes exposure, surely, is enough to convince anyone with a life that this is dross – and boring as well! I would have thought that the best response to it is to ignore it.)I don't mean to imply that ALL widely-read blogs and websites are rubbish, just that most of us shouldn't expect a big audience!
Because most bloggers will attract a few people who happen to have the same interests – which is great! For example, if I hadn’t blogged my reading of a book by J.M. Barrie, I’d never have known that Robert Greenham had written a book about his grandmother’s connection with Barrie, and I’d have remained in profound ignorance of the rest of Barrie’s life as well.
All I had to do to find you, Billo, was to type ‘The Spirit of Geometry’ into Google, and there you were – and with exactly the quote I’d been reflecting on myself for years. Not much chance of my meeting any such person walking the dog in Maryport!
‘What slips though the net in such discussions, though, is the profound way in which the internet affects us in our ability to communicate meaningfully with one another.’
Does it really? Isn’t this rather assuming that we live and die on the internet? I guess it may come to be more true of future generations, who will have grown up with the technology, but for now I feel quite safe in trusting to ‘age-old habits of discernment’ and even ‘quiet reflection’!
You ask: ‘Ultimately, in an age of "instant living", does the Internet offer us any sense of permanence?’
Remember, the Internet is not the whole world, it’s just a parallel universe - parallel, that is, to our real world. In the real world we have social contact with real people, for real reasons, like work, hobbies, interests, proximity….The difference is that mostly the contacts we make in the real world are, by their nature, limited. We’re sort of stuck with them, as in the old saying about being able to choose your friends but not your relatives.
The Internet opens the possibility of meeting unlimited numbers of people whose existence would otherwise be invisible to us but with some of whom we may have much to talk about. As for ‘permanence’: What is it? Where is it?
To me, aside from the obvious narcissism, the fun of putting yourself about – showing off a bit? - it’s all about enthusiasm! Wanting to share and exchange ideas with those ‘like-minded persons’ who may be thin on the ground. To me, it’s just an extension of how I am in real life: for example, I enjoy nothing more than teaching (and learning from) my little group of quilting enthusiasts and discussing books with my reading group; the more of the same I find on the internet the merrier!
C, sure..I don't think it's the most pressing problem in the world either!
On received opinions: I think that's part of the Wikepedia syndrome. I'm only suggesting that with a proliferation of information in the future discernment is going to become even more difficult.
I don't think it simply "reflects"; rather, it exacerbates those tendencies. Sure, popularity might be good in bringing down settled hierarchies, questioning power, leading to participation . I'm just sceptical and see these things as too closely aligned with late capitalism. It's a false sense of openness. It's like the common refrain one hears: at least we're having a debate! (and whether it's at the level of the daily Mail or not is of little importance!)
Sure C, but why do we expect an audience? Why is there something about us that looks for 'hits' or number of comments? Everyone wants to be recognized, have a witness to their being. (read a great few lines on Degas by Berger just yestreday..will use the internet to post them!)
the point about communications was meant to be more general..modern media forms. I think it does have an impact..like, you know what I'm saying..whatever. Think of texting, think of what happens to the ability to write (letters? for get it). Think of how everything is reduced to soundbytes or thinking-in-slogans.
"unlimited possibilities".
Perhaps.
I see that as part of the way in which its created an illusion. What about limited possibilities?
The internet is really a product of the sea-gypsies: "navigate", "net", "surf", the "world wide web"
C, aerlier I wrote:
Creation: the earth still trembles to this day, the steam still rises from the seas, the clouds still hover over the mountains, remembering their former lives; the light still streams forth from beyond yonder and unploughed fields hold the dreams of palaces. Everything is a running flame. Only from a distance does thought see this as the geometric perfection of an architect. A sense of something utterly completed vied with a sense of something startled into scope and freedom. When we close the books we acknowledge that within matter itself a space is reserved for a mysterious element that opens up infinite possibilities. It is life itself that is this fusion of the mathematical and the biological, the interplay of thought and feeling, and it is life that forms the warp and woof of the universe, that sets us riddles and offers us answers, that is both chaos and order. We may know something of that order of being but we remain, quintessentially, unknown.
I'm not confident that I entirely understand what you're saying here, Billo. Maybe it's referibng back to the question of 'unlimited possibilities' and I think on reflection my comments were just flip. (Being 'flip' is one of my besetting faults.)
But this discussion ( if it can be dignified as such!)takes me back to a theme by which I was much exercised a few years back: artistic freedom.
John Berger: ‘The painter is now free to paint anything he chooses. Has art gone abstract because the artist is embarrassed by his freedom? Is it because he is free to paint anything, he doesn’t know what to paint. Could this be the freedom of the desert island?’
In Has Modernism Failed, Suzi Gablik quotes Berger as saying that ‘modern consciousness entails a movement from fate to choice. And: ‘Choice is a modern idea; there was no choice in traditional
societies.’
Peter Fuller (Images of God et.al.) said that if the artist has total freedom – if art can be anything the artist says it is – it will also never be anything more than that.
Now, relating these observations to what happens on the internet, I begin to see your point: all those 'unlimited possibilities' in fact REDUCE the possibilities of meaning and connection.
Lady Mary Alford, in Needlework as Art, in relation to design, said this: '..freedom in design.....must be kept within certain boundaries; otherwise it becomes lawless. Rules, like all other controlling circumstances, are of the greatest service to the artist, as they suggest what he can do, as well as decide what he should not attempt.'
Yes, that was it precisely!
Kelvin, in solaris, is told there's no going back to 'the cosmos'. How true!
In 'wings of Desire' it is said: there are no more storytellers.
The 'freedom' of unlimited possibilites is what Augustine would call a"lonely freedom" (which goes back to your Berger quote).
This is related, I sense, to the sea-gypsies. If one thinks of thre words asscoaited with it: the net, surfing, navigating then there is, for me, the impression of a wide open seas (the wide world web!).
eco has some great points about 'the open' being the essential in western sensibilities.
Allama Iqbal would say that the modern west is 'nomadic' like the deper currents of Islam (and certainly it is tempting to think of Faustain man as a revolt against the classical). The difference being that modern man is without a 'qibla'.
the desire to be "alone in Paradise" is , perhaps, a deep one. Spengler, may years back, wrote about how the moderns wanted to be alone in infinite space. Not the sun drenched world of the Mediterranean , but the infinte horizons of the twighlight.
Sea gypsies - yes. And maybe we've all turned into The Flying Dutchman, doomed to wander the Net for all eternity, with no land in sight, no resing place!
"Will we ever be able to return to the "exalted silence" of the book or even read "linearly" (as Jonathan Franzen asked in his celebrated Harper's essay)?"
Without the energy to reply properly, let me just offer that dross is dross, and people will evolve habits which allow them to sort it. As the conomists say (yes, I am a dreary scientist quite often), you cannot make a person poorer by offering him choices- regardless of whether he makes 'the correct one'.
Linear reading, in depth analysis and discernment have their places, but so do inductive and heuristic shortcuts.
Larry, people will evolve habits but,as another economist said: in the long-run we're all dead!
There's always room for short-cuts but I'm just suggesting that a life of JUST short-cuts and simplifications is not a very rich one.
More choices, can and do deflect our energies , our attention spans and so I don't agree with you that they do not have an adverse effect. Having more choices can also lead to a sort of restlessness and a craving for more and more. Read a great review of a book in the NYRB called 'Indecision'.
So, as for being poorer, I think Augustine might call that a "lonely freedom". In some sense, then, more choice (at the horizontal level,as it were) but in terms of spirituality, fraternity and solidarity? Not so sure, not so sure , Larry.
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