before i go on, like socrates did, i must apologize for my arguments will have their flaws. i apologize, not because the content of my writing will be inherently offensive, but that it is in great deal hypothetical, theoretical, and above all personal. if at times i come off as pretentious, patronizing or contemptuous i assure you it is not my intent. it is my hope that whatever relational capital i have stored up with those who know me would provide me with some leniency in regards to the brash nature of this content and not disassociate these words with the human soul that is behind them. my tone may at times be as one of passion and seem to lose all grip on logic. and at times what logical arguments i will try to make will be severely limited by incomplete perspective. but then again such are the difficulties with presentation of ideas, that unfortunately we are not always equipped with the full gamut of human experience and knowledge. with all that said, let me continue.

i am in search of truth. i would like to think we all are but because we live in a world of endless distractions and a culture of trivial pursuit; it is with much sadness and sorrow that i think the current state of reality is in-conducive to truth-seeking and as such we no longer come across artists or philosophers anymore, and furthermore that the force of actions of good men and women have been blunted. perhaps i use the word too loosely. what i mean to say, at least in regards to what i’ve written below, is that i am in search of truth within myself, for a wholeness of being, a continuity between the integrity of my soul and my human experience. i dare not speak for all, nor as one who knows much about anything. i’m simply contemplative in my nature, with the difficulty usually being how i make sense of my thoughts practically. i want to hand out onions. i’d like to see fruit born.

it may be of wonder to some why something as seemingly inconsequential as the act of leaving facebook would inspire such a rise within others or one’s soul. but it is true. upon discovery, people will ask ‘why,’ perhaps out of curiosity or maybe even out of wonder. with all that facebook has to offer in its near god-like, near omnipresent and seemingly omniscient presence in our lives; why would one ever leave such a sanctuary? it’s my guess that we’ve all been fooled and in the process have done some ill-fitting mental gymnastics that have led us to think that facebook is harmless and just not that big a deal. but our actions and words prove otherwise. there is something deeper to all this that has affected everything we do from relationships to business to church.

there are a great many layers of different narratives that inform the overall story of how i came to make this decision. what kick started it all and provoked my thoughts and questions, came from a little book titled “amusing ourselves to death.” at the center of all this lies a few of the most fundamental questions we can ask ourselves- what is real, how do we know, and why. these are things that have always been on my mind and it wasn’t until mr. postman presented his ideas that all the other crazy little thoughts i’ve been having all started to come together. so really in order to fully understand most of what i’m about to write it’s essential to have an understanding of postman’s ideas (which are not perfect but very compelling). not to worry for i will undoubtedly do my best to summarize his ideas but do understand that my summaries are no substitute for his real work. and if you find my summations of his ideas to be unsatisfactory then i would encourage you to pick up his books.

postman recalls orwell’s 1984 and huxley’s brave new world (remember reading these in high school?). both were books about futuristic visions of dis-utopian societies. in orwell’s vision, the future is dominated by ‘big brother’ and a totalitarian regime based on force of might and fear. strict control over the masses. in huxley’s vision, there is no such need for a government to inact control over the people so long as the people are inundated with distractions. hence the title to and, in part, inspiration for postman’s book, “amusing ourselves to death”. postman believes huxley got it right and that though orwell’s vision is scary enough to warrant close consideration, he believes that huxley’s is much more subtle and powerful. i paraphrase from the book-

“orwell feared those that would ban books, huxley feared that there would be no reason to ban a book for there would be no one who wanted to read one. orwell feared those who would deprive information. huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us, huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with pop, fashion, and all that is superficial. in orwell’s vision people are controlled by inflicting pain, in huxley’s people are controlled by inflicting pleasure….that it isnt what we hate that will rule us but what we love will rule us.”

the first time i read that it sent chills down my spine since both 1984 and brave new world were probably my favorite books in high school, no joke. and i still love all that post apocalyptic, dis-utopian stuff. children of men. watchmen. it interests me so. but anyways. are we not on our way towards that huxleyan vision? powered on the engine of all this information technology at our disposal? i’ve looked in the mirror and saw what the effects of our latest technologies had done to me. how was it that i knew more about the history of characters on LOST than i did about the history of democracy? was i reading the latest entertainment blog or was i reading tocqueville? why does it matter? well why do we wonder about the problem of evil in this world, that is- if we still care? or have social ills, crime and systemic evil become so commodified by the news entertainment industry that we’ve become distanced and numb to it all? but not just to evil but to good as well? i venture to say that indeed, the dominant mediums through which our culture receives its information has transformed it, is transforming us, into slaves of our own freedom. worshipers of our own ego.

again, the important question is how we know. our problem is one of epistemology. for what we know forms our beliefs and values.  what we know determines how we act. so how do we know what we know? what is it that is dictating knowledge to us? postman’s big idea is that the “medium is the metaphor.” his argument fixes its attention on the forms of human conversation (the mediums such as television and internet) and how these forms of communication are conducted, and how they influence the ideas that are expressed to the people. and that these ideas that are expressed inevitably become the important content of the culture. so how we understand truth, beauty.. all these things are filtered through whatever is the dominant medium of discourse of the time and that medium (television, internet) serves as our way of understanding the world (metaphors). this is all fine and dandy until you realize that certain mediums can only sustain a particular level of content, that certain “forms exclude the content.” and therein lies the danger..

“it is a relevant supposition that the media of communication available to a culture are a dominant influence on the formation of the culture’s intellectual and social preoccupations…although culture is a creation of speech, it is recreated anew by every medium of communication- from painting to hieroglyphs to the alphabet to television. each medium, like language itself, makes possible a unique mode of discourse by providing a new orientation for thought, for expression, for sensibility…they are like metaphors, working by unobtrusive but powerful implication to enforce their special definitions of reality.”

for example, lets consider the clock. it’s a tool that measures time in minutes and seconds. before the invention of the clock, man measured the days by the sun and moon. we lived according to nature. once the clock was invented, it became the new metaphor for time; we began to understand it differently and it changed how we lived. time could now be measured. we became time sharers to time savers to time servers. “the clock recreated time as an independent, mathematically precise sequence; writing recreates the mind as a table on which experience is written; the telegraph recreates news as commodity.” each of these, metaphors.

another example. consider the primitive technology of smoke signals from back when humans were still playing cowboys and indians. while we don’t know exactly what content was carried in the smoke signals of that time, we can surmise that it didn’t include philosophical argument. “puffs of smoke are insufficiently complex to express ideas on the nature of existence, and even if they were not, a cherokee philosopher would run short of either wood or blankets long before he reached his second axiom.” the medium doesn’t allow for complex thought so the content could not exist in the message. it is limited to the medium. meaning the content can only go so far as the medium will allow it. the form of smoke signals excluded the content of philosophy.

now fast forward to the age of typography. information could now be written and with the printing press, mass produced. the medium lent itself to logic. to read, one has to, in sequential order, make sense of the alphabet symbols that make up words, that create sentences. and after each sentence the reader would have to evaluate whether or not what was being read was true, so on and so forth. the written word and the act of reading was a form of discipline upon the mind. training it in logic and reason for it followed a sequential order, there was focus on continuity, emphasis on context. of course, by no means is typography perfect. in reading we are confined to space. if we rewind to the oral society of athens where communication was done orally, for information to travel, there had to be an emphasis on community and proximity of a people. stories, parables, and such narrative tools were utilized in making certain arguments or points. a citizen could not have been thought educated if he/she did not have a strong grasp of rhetoric. but with type everyone had gained the power of knowledge, so long as you knew how to read. and it came to pass that the written word had gained power over what was spoken orally. which is why law is written in ink and not just simply spoken. postman would argue this was the height of human reasoning and civilization… perhaps. well at least relatively speaking, man was at a height of intellectualism due to how typography has transformed the culture into one that was inclined towards knowledge and complex thought- philosophy, science, and other disciplines that resulted from the enlightenment.

“whenever language is the principal medium of communicated- especially language controlled by the rigors of print- an idea, a fact, a claim is the inevitable result. the idea may be banal, the fact irrelevant, the claim false, but there is no escape from meaning when language is the instrument guiding one’s thought.”

language alludes to meaning. meaning demands to be understood. understanding leads to rationality. language, based on the form it takes either adds or takes away from rationality and logic. how much “work” it takes to understand a message is reflective of the medium, and in proportion to how much one has or can learn. the typographic mind encourages rationality. “to engage the written word means to follow a line of thought, which require considerable powers of classifying, inference-making and reasoning. it means to uncover lies, confusions, and over-generalizations, to detect abuses of logic and common sense. it also means to weigh ideas, to compare and contrast assertions…in a culture dominated by print, public discourse tends to be characterized by a coherent, orderly arrangement of facts and ideas.” and such is NOT the case with what we have today.

another example. in the past people could recognize presidential candidates by their ideas and their writings. if a candidate had been walking down the street chances are they would not have been recognized by the ordinary person. but today everyone is familiar with the face of the president but not so with his history or political platforms. of course the shift from typography to telegraphy has also influenced our politics but it’s not necessary now to get into that. the point postman makes again and again is that our image-centric culture is reducing us to irrelevancy. add the influence of internet (virtual) and realtime technology and what you have are not free-thinking, comprehending, critical and rational humans anymore but robots. we have become the artificial intelligence. and the genius of it all is that its a magnificent trick that’s been played on us, one disguised in the very rhetoric and use of language that would expose it for what it is. 

i hope at this juncture, the idea of “medium is metaphor” has been communicated effectively enough for us to move on. to repeat some things- that the main ideas are that certain forms exclude content, that how we understand language and how information is communicated to us reflects our culture and how we understand ourselves.

today discourse is shared between the internet and television. both these things are informing our way of life. they’re not just part of it, they have become it, precisely because these mediums are giving us our metaphors. you turn on the tv. what is it telling us..that beauty is this way. that truth is another way. with the internet anyone with an opinion can campaign for being an expert. credentials no longer matter so long as you have a following. we are fools if we believe we are strong enough to weather such propaganda over and over again upon our psyche. as james cho puts it “there’s a new definition of literacy and it has nothing to do with books.” traditionally, literacy meant being knowledgeable in public affairs, politics, law, philosophy- all the things you needed to get a job, to be a contributing member of society. nowadays so long as you know how to use a computer and are well versed in technology or popular culture, you can get a job. that statement is to some degree, hyperbole, because i mean to make the point that whether or not one knows a lick about the history of their country or even the what the company they’re applying for is all about is now irrelevant. we’ve become image-centric and not thought-centric because these new mediums are dictating culture to behave in a certain way. we’ve all become decontexualized from reality. a high level of education is no longer a requirement to even hold the highest office in this country, just ask george w. that was meant as a joke but really, it isn’t funny. back in the 1800s one could not divorce comprehension from reading. “to attend school meant to learn to read, for without that capacity one could not participate in the culture’s conversations.” but one does not need to attend school anymore to participate in the current culture’s conversations. one simply needs youtube and facebook. the cultural conversations of today have been retarded by the very mediums which dispense them.

james mentions how “the stark realization that news has become entertainment is demonstrated by a series of unrelated stories whose impact is lessened because newscasters must convey a neutral tone and keep the show going. you can’t have pauses in newscasts. coupled with catchy music and good looking anchors, it creates a pallid copy of what it’s supposed to represent.”  again, the form excludes the content. “the faculties necessary to sustain rational inquiry simply are not normally encouraged by televised viewing. television limits involvement to passivity.”  again, it comes down to a matter of epistemology and how we know. and how today’s culture knows most anything is still through moving images and talking heads, and of course, the internet. every bit of info that comes to us through the news or facebook is decontextualized. its divorced from reality, it’s conversations about nothing. what bit of news on the television lately has gotten us to go about our days any differently? and facebook? twitter? these give us things to talk about but cannot lead to any meaningful action. of course i dont mean to undermine how some online social networking forums can bring people together in solidarity for a certain cause but lets be honest, are those vehicles sustainable and has there been results of lasting impact?

“information derives its importance from the possibilities of action. of course, in any communication environment, input always exceeds output. but the situation created by telegraphy, and then exacerbated by later technologies, made the relationship between information and action both abstract and remote. for the first time in human history, people were faced with the problem of information glut, which means that simultaneously they were faced with the problem of a diminished social and political potency.”  globalization has created a need for such things and it is all things local that suffer. neighbor is an idea that is fast becoming a social artifact among so many other things…like childhood. (but that’s a whole ‘nother can of worms!) the “news of the day” is largely irrelevant, impersonal and overloading. “the fundamental assumption of that world is not coherence but discontinuity. and in a world of discontinuities, contradiction is useless as a test of truth or merit, because contradiction does not exist….all that has happened is that the public has adjusted to incoherence and been amused into indifference…it is not necessary to conceal anything from a public insensible to contradiction and narcotized by technological diversions.”

ok. back on track. again. all the above can lead us down a bajillion different thoughts. all thats been stated begs us to change the way we think about nearly everything. how education is done. even how we understand god. in light of all this, i don’t think it a coincidence that in the beginning was the word and the word was with god and was god. that jesus was the metaphor for god. that the medium through which god communicated himself was indeed the metaphor for how we must live. clearly the power of metaphors was not lost on the divine. which is why iconography was such a big problem..it was a cheap substitute not just for the real thing but for how mankind goes about understanding the real thing. why that bit about how graven images was forbidden, as recorded in the ten commandments, is so significant. “it is a strange injunction to include as part of an ethical system unless its author assumed a connection between forms of human communication and the quality of a culture.”

so why did i leave facebook? haha. all in all it was a personal decision. all the arguments above weighed heavily on and largely influenced the train of thought that led me to now. which is why i spent so much time explaining them (hopefully i did it coherently enough). for the most part facebook was full of conversations about nothing. it’s a metaphor for narcissism among other things. we’ve recreated ourselves anew in the image of our ego. or rather we are created in the image of our technology. so we create our own gods. so perhaps all this is a really perverted form of vanity for we are idolizing ourselves. obviously this was not mine or anyone else’s intent upon first entering the medium but that’s why its significant to understand the metaphor. on facebook, you can be a new person. you can be a different person. you can be you! of course a person can seemingly use it responsibly but it still doesn’t justify how one imposes upon oneself a meaningless and impotent metaphor for being.

there’s also the argument for facebook being a rolodex of sorts, enabling us to keep in touch with people despite time and distance, you know, social networking. to this, each his/her own i suppose. but again i would set forth the argument of the impact of globalism. back in the day people’s communities were local. they sent letters to those far away or they didn’t and that was that. their narratives were stronger in that the wellness of their community was contingent upon the intimacy and proximity of its members. by stronger narratives i mean they had stories to tell. this idea of narrative warrants another post in and of itself but by and large its power is lost on us today. we no longer tell stories because there’s no need for it in a globalized community. which is why keeping in touch is a weak excuse when we do not even know our neighbors next door. unfortunately its all things local that suffer and the idea of ‘neighbor’ is fast becoming a social artifact. and of course the ramifications of such runs deep and wide especially when that jesus guy mentions a lot about it..neighbors. we have to wonder whether its the words that need redefining or if its something larger and systemic that needs fixing.

if one is honest with themselves it is in fact a lie and a selfish thing to think facebook provides a way of community. at least this is what i found to be true for myself. sorry, i shall try my best not to universalize my experiences. the people i care about that are not local to me i already keep in touch with through means other than facebook. but i know i can do better. but i have not in the past because there was always the ease of facebook. it is in fact a crutch to genuine relationship. not quantity but quality. an example. recently someone sarah and i know and love became pregnant. instead of learning of it on facebook, we were graced with a call from the source herself. of course, if we were on facebook, we would’ve learned about it all the sooner but by eliminating the medium that stood between us, it made the learning of that knowledge and the experience of it that much more visceral. that much more poignant. that much more real. i dont doubt anyone these days is at a lack for what is real when so much that is around us is rooted in fallacy. so i’ll take what i can get.

what about all the other hundreds of “friends” on facebook that just fall on the wayside? now that, is reality as nature intended. that does not mean that they are gone forever from my thoughts and care, no. that’s just what the metaphor of facebook wants you to think! i could sugarcoat this experience of leaving facebook as an experiment in personal ecology. as a media fast of sorts. but it is more than that. it is a challenge to myself to lead an even more disciplined life than i already am. not just making time for relationships to even exist but nurturing and maturing those relationships through time and meaning and not decontexualized status updates. a wise man i know once told me the human heart only has so much relational capacity. i’m guessing that that capacity has indeed lessened and not grown in humanity thanks to our new technologies. oh, sure we have thousands of “friends” but what the wise man had meant by relational capacity was one of depth and emotional connection, and nothing to do with numbers. we are a people electronically connected but emotionally and spiritually disconnected. no, to bring up the inability to stay connected is not an argument against leaving facebook, it is in fact the case for it.

as my last argument i present an excerpt from dostoevsky’s brother’s karamazov with my markings in bracket and bold-

“the world has proclaimed the reign of freedom [democracy, postmodernity, information glutton], especially of late, but what do we see in this freedom of theirs? nothing but slavery and self-destruction! [poverty, war, political division, so on and so forth] for the world says: ‘you have desires and so satisfy them, for you have the same rights as the most rich and powerful. don’t be afraid of satisfying them and even multiply your desires [the huxleyan warning! we have our soma!].’ that is the modern doctrine of the world. in that they see freedom. and what follows from this right of multiplication of desires? in the rich, isolation and spiritual suicide; in the poor, envy and murder; for they have been given rights, but have not been show the means of satisfying their wants. they maintain that the world is getting more and more united more and more bound together in brotherly community, as it overcomes distance and sets thoughts flying through the air [modern technology of the information age].

“alas, put no faith in such a bond of union. interpreting freedom as the multiplication and rapid satisfaction of desires [huxley again], men distort their own nature[postman- metaphors change the way a culture perceives itself], for many senseless and foolish desires and habits and ridiculous fancies are fostered in them. they live only for mutual envy, for luxury and ostentation….and its no wonder that instead of gaining freedom they have sunk into slavery, and instead of serving the cause of brotherly love and the union of humanity have fallen, on the contrary, into dissension and isolation…”

facebook, and other like mediums have become the modern metaphor for the false freedom that dostoevsky speaks of above. despite all that’s been said, i understand that we cannot escape the reality of the context we find ourselves in. meaning…this is the way the world is. we are in the matrix but unlike the movies, there’s no escaping it. the only freedom which we have luxury to is that we are aware of the great trick. we are confined within the walls of history and despite our criticisms, history will move on unchanged. which is why postman writes a lot on education and childhood, because in these he sees hope for the future. but nonetheless its important to expose things for what they are..to see the commodification of information and truth and pit it against the time tested values and principles of old. because how are we to get on with living if we have not a sense of what is real? i’ve had to weigh all these thoughts against the integrity of my own soul. in the large scheme of things it seems a rather small and insignificant resolution for all the effort and thought put into waging the war. but such are the decisions of everyday life. and each choice we make is either getting us closer to making devils out of us…or maturing us into beings closer in-tune with the divine harmony.

-dan

11:55 pm  •  24 November 2009  •  2 notes  •  View comments