Glittering Data in the Virtual Space
A few days ago, after seeing how exhausted I was from homeschooling our daughter and taking care of our 6 month old son, my husband asked me with much concern evident on his face, “Would you like to go to a coffeeshop alone and read?” He knows I’ve been lagging behind a recently purchased book, A Gentleman in Moscow by the brilliant Amor Towles, which I’ve consistently raved about every chance I get. An hour or two in a mostly undisturbed nook of a quaint coffeeshop, preferably one with a few patrons but with a good view of a busy street, may indeed relieve me from stress. My answer came and it was surprising, even to myself, “No, thank you.” You see, one of my guilty pleasures is people watching–under the premise that we are all complete strangers and somehow, passing a certain degree of judgement wouldn’t be that bad. The way I do it is simple. I read a couple of chapters from my book, possibly stop a few moments in between to savor a particular line or passage then search idly at the crowd for any person of interest and make a mental note before going back to my reading. However, times have changed and the delicate activity of people watching which used to be an essential part of my coffeeshop ritual has slowly wavered from being enticing. For I have discovered that there’s a goldmine of social activity which I can access with a few swipes and clicks without leaving home; in this space where everything hinges on vanity, perception and carefully crafted lies, people give away freely their cloistered biases through unintentional missteps. Thank you, Facebook and Twitter.
The Air Up Here is Toxic
Since the presidential campaign last 2015, I have been fascinated with the sudden burst of activity in social media. With all the dirty laundry hanging out in the open for everyone to see and to smear with more dirt, at least if you are the type to go for such act, the artefacts to be observed are overflowing. Imagine my joy upon finding out that apparently I am friends — virtual that is — with a lot of self proclaimed experts, mounted on high horses with noses pointing upward, waving their achievements like a banner of sorts and making it known to everyone that just for being their privileged selves, their opinion is the only opinion that matters. It was a beautiful wreckage.
Missing Patterns
There is an abundance of misconceptions peddled on the internet and one that has become increasingly popular, that is in terms of social media engagement such as likes and shares, is the definition of power and the many shapes and forms it takes. In the Philippines for example, a lot of us seem to be missing a crucial key on why our country has remained poor even after we have successfully unseated a dictator. More than 30 years later and here we are, twiddling our thumbs as we wait for the day we see our goals come to fruition and paradoxically banging our heads when we realize we are planted where we thought we left off. We missed the patterns because we kept asking the wrong questions.
Clash of the Titans
The recorded video of the 1971 Chomsky-Focault debate[1] in the Netherlands was one of my favorite Youtube discoveries as of late. It was a legendary showdown of two top caliber thinkers, both wielding powerful ideas that are seemingly opposing but could, if given enough analysis which is scarce in today’s generation, lead to a similar goal. Fons Elders, host of the DutchTV debate, introduced them as, “…mountain diggers, working at the opposite sides of the same mountains, with different tools, without knowing even if they are working in each other’s direction.” The most interesting bit was when French philosopher Michael Focault answers to American linguist Noam Chomsky’s claim that in a model society, people are capable of exercising their freedom to create and express without boundaries, in other words, the government in Chomsky’s model is the enemy because of its control — power and authority — it had over its citizens. Focault, not one to miss a beat, has incinerated Chomsky’s assertion in one unforgettable sweep. He answers, in his unique matter-of-fact way of speaking:
“On the other hand, one of the tasks that seems immediate and urgent to me, over and above anything else, is this: that we should indicate and show up, even where they are hidden, all the relationships of political power which actually control the social body and oppress or repress it. What I want to say is this: it is the custom, at least in European society, to consider that power is localised in the hands of the government and that it is exercised through a certain number of particular institutions, such as the administration, the police, the army, and the apparatus of the state. One knows that all these institutions are made to elaborate and to transmit a certain number of decisions, in the name of the nation or of the state, to have them applied and to punish those who don’t obey. But I believe that political power also exercises itself through the mediation of a certain number of institutions which look as if they have nothing in common with the political power, and as if they are independent of it, while they are not.”
“One knows this in relation to the family; and one knows that the university and in a general way, all teaching systems, which appear simply to disseminate knowledge, are made to maintain a certain social class in power; and to exclude the instruments of power of another social class. Institutions of knowledge, of foresight and care, such as medicine, also help to support the political power.”
All this talk of politics in social media, even in this very DF in which I’m also a participant, is all for naught if we don’t acknowledge the fact that we are intrinsically linked to this class oppression that we have so valiantly assumed we are fighting. In one way or the other, the monsters are us.
Fake News ala Mode
Social media personalities are a dime a dozen, all vying for our attention and presenting oftentimes, empty rhetoric. Like a handful of other things which we’ve only began to scratch at the surface, it is but natural for us to attempt to place a measure of control on the kinds of information going around the virtual space which has, over the years, proven it is the new arena where significant wars can be waged. I find it rather funny though, how those who deemed themselves worthy of being the vanguard of truth and decency are the ones who have ulterior motives that show, little by little, through slips of the tongue and subtle nuances on social media, of all places. A meme, a soundbite, a half sentence, a tweet, a headline — people want things served in small pieces with context cut at the corners and malice generously slathered. This penchant for quick fixes ultimately dumbs us down. When it comes to analyzing the data presented, it is important that we look at them raw and void of emotion. This is the only way we can weed out those that use buzzwords to thug at our heartstrings while painting a picture which is so detached from reality, it can pass off as delusional. Lies crumble when we shock it with questions — pertinent and relevant ones — then proceed to annihilating them completely with solid facts which are verified by more than a single source.
To Conclude
My husband, good man that he is and unwilling to quit finding a way to make me feel better, gave me a knowing look and asked, “Ice cream?” Well, technology has yet to find a replacement for the dopamine from ice cream. “Of course!” I answered. “Yes, that will do.” Indeed, that will do.
References:
[1] Chomsky & Foucault – Justice versus Power. (2017, June 26). Retrieved July 30, 2019, from https://youtu.be/J5wuB_p63YM
