I have been reading Hubert Dreyfus’ On The Internet and enjoying it greatly. When I began reading it a few weeks ago it started my return to philosophical writing and an interest in the phenomenology of technology. I am now reading Don Ihde in an attempt to develop a language to think and talk about media and other technology that differs from the regular critical political economy or cultural studies approaches. More about these two in another post, particularly my distaste for cultural studies writing.
Kierkegaard from The Corsair affair
My favourite parts of this little book were Chapter Three, which deals with the problem of embodiment and virtual social interaction, and Chapter Four, which deals with nihilism under the weight of the infinity of information on the Net. I will talk about the second part first as the later ties in with something I am writing for a class I am auditing.
Dreyfus quotes heavily from Kierkegaard’s “The Present Age” which discusses the mass media of newspapers and its negative effects on culture. Dreyfus quotes from Kierkegaard:
The Public is not a people, a generation, one’s era, not a community, an association, nor these particular persons, for all these are only what the are by virtue of what is concrete. Not a single one of those who belong to the public has an essential engagement in anything.
The Internet allows people to comment and discuss everything without having to act on it. Dreyfus does admit that for those who are engaging in social struggle in the real world, the Internet is an essential tool to help people socially organize and get their message out. But discussions which are completely virtual are much less committed. I thought immediately of those whose social action is limited to subscribing to causes on Facebook.
Becoming an expert, and putting one’s ideas into practice, requires risk and the possibility of failure. But there is no commitment when only debating online. As well, the endless triviality of the discussion online leads to the ultimate trivial discussion, talking about the Internet itself: how big it is, how it is growing, how new and profound it is. Such talk has always disgusted me to no end. From McLuhan to the present day, it distracts us from the more important task of critique and a desire to ask why we would want technology the way it is, and what the proper path is for us in the future.
Ultimately, the only way to stay engaged is in living what Kierkegaard calls an aesthetic existence. Dreyfus says:
Such a surfer is curious about everything and ready to spend every free moment visiting the latest hot spots in the Web. He or she enjoys the sheer range of possibilities. For such a person, just visiting as many sites as possible and keeping up on cool ones is an end in itself. Life consists in fighting off boredom by being a spectator at everything interesting in the universe and in communicating with everyone else so inclined. Such a life produced what we would now call a postmordern self — a self that has no defining content or continuity but is constantly taking on new roles.
Instantly I thought of my daily skimming of BoingBoing. This is not the first time I’ve been overwhelmed by the triviality of it all. Every day there is a new wave of “Wonderful Things” made up of pop culture, nostalgia, middle brow science, and the occasional political comment. The thing that always struck me was that I knew that none of these things would make an impact on me. Regardless of whether I saved the link to any of them I would not look at them ever again. I surely wouldn’t go back to them like I go back to Kierkegaard or Heidegger again and again. I don’t mean to disparage BoingBoing, I am sure the writers take it very seriously. But life on the Internet feels like BoingBoing: A tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing, ultimately. We are not really compelled to react to the flood, but only keep up with it. This is Kierkegaard’s aesthetic commitment.
The third chapter of Dreyfus’ book deals with embodiment. We forget how important embodiment is to our social interactions, and we’d like to think that virtual community can be as fulfilling, something else I’ve come to believe is not true. I’ve been a lover of virtual communities ever since I dialed-up to an IBM BBS to find a driver for my broken computer when I was 12 or 13. There were people talking on there! Boy did I rack up a long distance bill. But as I’ve overcome a lot of my own social anxiety, I’m reaching the conclusion that real social interaction, real talking and debate, watching of local sports or local artists, speaking to people as they walk down the street or sit on a park bench, these are much more important to the health of our society. It seems like we are making more of a “connection” with people on Facebook, but ignoring the grocer who is an actual member of our actual community.
This ties into my paper for Information Ethics, where I hope to discuss the important of embodiment for ethics, building hopefully on Levinas. This may be the source of the problem of ethics on the Internet, which is lacking if you read studies on racism in message boards. I love not having to pay for this class and get a credit, because I can develop this argument without caring about deadlines. If it takes me until the Spring I am going to write something I am interested in and proud of.
In conclusion, I have a message for those few regulars who read this blog. You may have noticed my lack of “library” discussion. I am much more interested in the essence of modern technology and what our phenomenological relation to it is. So this blog is going to get more philosophical, even as it remains a discussion of technology in general and media technology in particular. If this is interesting to you, feel free to continue your reading and comments.
