I love this piece. I have to disagree a bit however, especially when it comes to politics. In real life, I live in a world where the political dichotomy of "conservative/Republican/right" vs "liberal/Democrat/left" is strong, almost ironclad. You rarely find anyone who reminds you that while those words have correlation, they are not synonyms. (Fortunately, I've known a few libertarians in my life, so I had an inkling.) But I have discovered even through Twitter, though especially following people, like you, on Substack, that that's not so. And that's beautiful because I finally found my "tribe" if not my ideological soulmate (political orphans who want actual discussion and nuance and solutions rather than campaign slogans and platforms).
But I agree with the rest, though I think the online world has just exacerbated an already existing human tendency to categorize. And our political milieu (meaning our uniparty system that pretends to offer two options and the media that acts as its PR arm) has in recent years made that tendency not just annoying and unhealthy but toxic.
I really appreciate this almost Lovecraftian reading of what is going on. I also appreciate your way of being able to step back and observe the way others have used you or the idea of you in order to carve out some measure of intelligibility for themselves, or this horribly multiple world.
Thanks - you’re on to something. What’s puzzled me for a while now about current discourse - basically all of it online, but apparently also spilling over into whatever parts of people aren’t owned by the internet - is the substitution of stereotyping for curiosity and dialogue. There was a time when it was explicitly discouraged, particularly by liberal / left-leaning people. That allowed a place for individuality and heterodox opinion. But individuality now is a matter of self-selected labeling, even including miserable afflictions? Bring back the old days. That’s lame as a prescription but Impossible to avoid as a feeling.
Of all the people I know in real life only 3 meet this criteria. Those 3 probably produce 80% of the social media posts, sure. But their numbers are very small compared to their apparent online presence.
At least since the 50s we've been conditioned to view everything through the lens of Science. The essence of science is grouping things together so we don't have to study each individual aardvark; we know it's an aardvark (and a mammal) (and a vertebrate) so we know certain things about it. As there are many, many people we want to do the same with them -- categorize them so we know things about them without actually knowing them.
I know most people aren't really comfortable talking about Heidegger (for obvious reasons)anymore, but most of this framework is extremely similar to what he laid out in Being and Time. Whatever else you want to say about him, he got to the heart of the anxieties which define modern life. All that stuff about Das Man, levelling down, inauthenticity, was all trying to capture this decades before computers were even a thing. He made a lot of disastrous, monstrous decision politically, but there's no denying the power of that work. It blew my mind, and there really isn't a coherent definition of philosophy on the 20th century which doesn't include him.
This nails it. A large part of why social justice politics overwhelmed me so much in the past 5 or so years is the nature of internet discourse. You see hundreds, thousands of screaming angry voices all at once, and you're not built to compartmentalize it. You think it represents the entire world when it's really just a tiny sliver of the world.
And everyone in these slivers is prone to identity labels and angrily shitting on the outgroup, just like you said. Had I just been less online and more outgoing, maybe it wouldn't have bothered me. But welp, social anxiety and depression were the cards I were dealt.
Right. in criminal justice you've got, "You woke moron, real people worry about crime. You live in lala-land (even though people who know what they're talking about are way more immersed in the data). And on our side, you occasionally have the assumption, "Everyone who's wants a tougher response to crime is a racist and just hates homeless people."
I started blogging in ye olden days (2008) and it wasn't long before advertising and sponsorships became a thing. Which, fine. for some people it worked out well. But it ruined the creative bit for me, because I could never circle the square of turning my life into a brand, even a micro one. Substack has been fun for me because I get to see the same characters in comments of the few commentators I follow, and I get to write what I want and send it only to the people who are interested in reading it. It's bad enough that we relentlessly (though somewhat necessarily) categorize each other; it's worse to do it to ourselves for the sake of an online avatar.
I had not heard someone articulate this concept of "multiplicity horror" before but I am certainly familiar with the feeling. I feel it sitting on a packed highway with thousands of other people in their cars, all with their own thoughts, lives, dreams, and failings and knowing I do not have enough time in my own life to even meet all of them - let alone get to know them as human beings.
We post things on the internet and they are read completely devoid of any context about what kind of people we are. What do you know about me? Nothing, except this comment in isolation. You do not know if I am a kind person, a thoughtful person, if I have odd personality quirks, or am difficult to be around. We experience a virtual firehose of other people's thoughts and opinions on things and are inherently forced into taking them without context.
I don't think we were meant to function this way. For the overwhelming majority of human history we were presented with only a small number of minds at once, and yet even here on this article are dozens of other humans and their thoughts only an hour after it was posted. We post something stupid online and it lives in perpetuity in the minds of people who do not know us as complete entities.
I think it has made us disposable. There will always be a thousand other commenters or writers or people posting the intimate details of their lives on Instagram and Twitter. I find myself even beginning to use "mental shorthand" for people where two or three unique individuals from my life start to blend into some kind of gestalt entity whose disposition, personality, and likes are consistent enough that I can treat all facets the same.
How can we even conceive of a million people, let alone multiple billions? I struggle with it. I read about cities in China with more people than the entire population of Canada and I have never even heard the name. Whole cities of people with thoughts and opinions and favourite foods and beloved pets and I don't even know they exist. I barely even know the people on my own small street because people move in and out so often.
Jesus this is good. I have nothing to add, I just needed to note that.
I love this piece. I have to disagree a bit however, especially when it comes to politics. In real life, I live in a world where the political dichotomy of "conservative/Republican/right" vs "liberal/Democrat/left" is strong, almost ironclad. You rarely find anyone who reminds you that while those words have correlation, they are not synonyms. (Fortunately, I've known a few libertarians in my life, so I had an inkling.) But I have discovered even through Twitter, though especially following people, like you, on Substack, that that's not so. And that's beautiful because I finally found my "tribe" if not my ideological soulmate (political orphans who want actual discussion and nuance and solutions rather than campaign slogans and platforms).
But I agree with the rest, though I think the online world has just exacerbated an already existing human tendency to categorize. And our political milieu (meaning our uniparty system that pretends to offer two options and the media that acts as its PR arm) has in recent years made that tendency not just annoying and unhealthy but toxic.
I really appreciate this almost Lovecraftian reading of what is going on. I also appreciate your way of being able to step back and observe the way others have used you or the idea of you in order to carve out some measure of intelligibility for themselves, or this horribly multiple world.
I have been without social media for maybe 5 years now and I have not regretted it.
It's maybe a little bit of hiding my head in the sand and ignoring the reality of other people but I'm much less miserable right now.
Very interesting ideas. I may have to read it again for it to sink in.
Thanks - you’re on to something. What’s puzzled me for a while now about current discourse - basically all of it online, but apparently also spilling over into whatever parts of people aren’t owned by the internet - is the substitution of stereotyping for curiosity and dialogue. There was a time when it was explicitly discouraged, particularly by liberal / left-leaning people. That allowed a place for individuality and heterodox opinion. But individuality now is a matter of self-selected labeling, even including miserable afflictions? Bring back the old days. That’s lame as a prescription but Impossible to avoid as a feeling.
Of all the people I know in real life only 3 meet this criteria. Those 3 probably produce 80% of the social media posts, sure. But their numbers are very small compared to their apparent online presence.
At least since the 50s we've been conditioned to view everything through the lens of Science. The essence of science is grouping things together so we don't have to study each individual aardvark; we know it's an aardvark (and a mammal) (and a vertebrate) so we know certain things about it. As there are many, many people we want to do the same with them -- categorize them so we know things about them without actually knowing them.
I know most people aren't really comfortable talking about Heidegger (for obvious reasons)anymore, but most of this framework is extremely similar to what he laid out in Being and Time. Whatever else you want to say about him, he got to the heart of the anxieties which define modern life. All that stuff about Das Man, levelling down, inauthenticity, was all trying to capture this decades before computers were even a thing. He made a lot of disastrous, monstrous decision politically, but there's no denying the power of that work. It blew my mind, and there really isn't a coherent definition of philosophy on the 20th century which doesn't include him.
This nails it. A large part of why social justice politics overwhelmed me so much in the past 5 or so years is the nature of internet discourse. You see hundreds, thousands of screaming angry voices all at once, and you're not built to compartmentalize it. You think it represents the entire world when it's really just a tiny sliver of the world.
And everyone in these slivers is prone to identity labels and angrily shitting on the outgroup, just like you said. Had I just been less online and more outgoing, maybe it wouldn't have bothered me. But welp, social anxiety and depression were the cards I were dealt.
Right. in criminal justice you've got, "You woke moron, real people worry about crime. You live in lala-land (even though people who know what they're talking about are way more immersed in the data). And on our side, you occasionally have the assumption, "Everyone who's wants a tougher response to crime is a racist and just hates homeless people."
Damn, best post in a while. Thanks!
I started blogging in ye olden days (2008) and it wasn't long before advertising and sponsorships became a thing. Which, fine. for some people it worked out well. But it ruined the creative bit for me, because I could never circle the square of turning my life into a brand, even a micro one. Substack has been fun for me because I get to see the same characters in comments of the few commentators I follow, and I get to write what I want and send it only to the people who are interested in reading it. It's bad enough that we relentlessly (though somewhat necessarily) categorize each other; it's worse to do it to ourselves for the sake of an online avatar.
I had not heard someone articulate this concept of "multiplicity horror" before but I am certainly familiar with the feeling. I feel it sitting on a packed highway with thousands of other people in their cars, all with their own thoughts, lives, dreams, and failings and knowing I do not have enough time in my own life to even meet all of them - let alone get to know them as human beings.
We post things on the internet and they are read completely devoid of any context about what kind of people we are. What do you know about me? Nothing, except this comment in isolation. You do not know if I am a kind person, a thoughtful person, if I have odd personality quirks, or am difficult to be around. We experience a virtual firehose of other people's thoughts and opinions on things and are inherently forced into taking them without context.
I don't think we were meant to function this way. For the overwhelming majority of human history we were presented with only a small number of minds at once, and yet even here on this article are dozens of other humans and their thoughts only an hour after it was posted. We post something stupid online and it lives in perpetuity in the minds of people who do not know us as complete entities.
I think it has made us disposable. There will always be a thousand other commenters or writers or people posting the intimate details of their lives on Instagram and Twitter. I find myself even beginning to use "mental shorthand" for people where two or three unique individuals from my life start to blend into some kind of gestalt entity whose disposition, personality, and likes are consistent enough that I can treat all facets the same.
How can we even conceive of a million people, let alone multiple billions? I struggle with it. I read about cities in China with more people than the entire population of Canada and I have never even heard the name. Whole cities of people with thoughts and opinions and favourite foods and beloved pets and I don't even know they exist. I barely even know the people on my own small street because people move in and out so often.
How are we supposed to function like this?