I would throw "dead internet theory" into this mix and the fact that a lot of trolls are paid.
It is ironic how the ascendance of DEI has resulted in much less diverse cultural offerings. I feel like the books being published are less interesting (competition from the internet probably factors in there as well), and post-COVID there are fewer venues for author talks, and authors were already not being sent out on book tours as often as in the past. Pre-COVID, I sat in a packed club for an Erik Davis presentation, and in a small group for a book discussion given by Oliver Stone, and in a stuffed bookstore for a talk by Bret Easton Ellis. I really miss that. I love podcasts and listen to a lot of them, but I miss sitting in an audience of people who are all interested in the same topic and are given the opportunity to discuss that topic with the author. I would expand this sense of loss to other kinds of lectures and presentations.
I decided not to go into what happened with Covid due to length, but I feel like that was the "shock doctrine" event that really broke the culture off from its now old-school liberal past and into this alienated cybernetic present and unknown future.
As far as DEI goes, it's not surprising when you factor in that it's really about having college educated bureaucrats dictate what's culturally permissible in an incredibly socioeconomically unequal society.
I listened to a podcast this afternoon where the hosts discussed "dead internet theory" and they said the internet could get to a point of zero human interaction, where you ask a question and get an AI generated answer, which I speculated on in my search engine piece. They also said they had spoken with a lot of higher ups in tech who were all predicting the rise of AI influencers at a scale that would dwarf the number of people describing themselves as influencers today. Horrors!
Cyberspace is not the culprit, if there is a flattening of culture. Humans are the agents and the internet is the medium. So humans are making culture what it is. I think there are a relative few internet users that regularly do the behaviors of invalidating or degrading thinkers and creators. This can reflect a politicizing of expression, it can stem from racism or sexism, or it may be an impulse of wokeism or Jacobinism. It can also be simple nihilism, occurring online because some people are attracted to or enabled by the ease and anonymity of it all. The general answer to this would be a decided and worldwide revalidation of the human, with dignity, rights, and responsibilities, in the sphere of cyberspace, as well as others. That constitutes an adaptation that hasn’t yet happened consistently at a large scale, although it’s often found.
I think you’re saying that some people disengage from the real world, or a more traditional (“before-times,” as you say) multi-dimensional ontological system, through their technology use. “All too easily, we fall into the zero-dimensional zone of cyberspace like Alice in Wonderland dropping down, down, down some never-ending rabbit hole.” However, if a person knows about that rabbit hole, and isn’t addicted to it, then at least she has the option of not falling into it. The rabbit hole has its ontological status (representational, as you say, or perhaps fabricated to some degree), and if the technology user can only be aware of what that is, then he has that important step toward not invalidating or becoming insensible to materiality, embodiment, or the human in her humanity. So there’s a way of engaging with and managing technology that doesn’t take the body offline, that can maintain or even greatly enhance the person’s consciousness of previously-apprehended reality. (In the case of children as technology users, of course, a vulnerability exists because they don’t have a comprehensive base of previously-apprehended reality.)
I think your disillusionment about culture is because you’re waiting for something to “bubble up to the surface.” The reward is in actively maintaining a cultural consciousness – to live that all the time. The generativity is more evident in that way. Culture is in the sidewalk chalk art that kids do, and in Black hair creations. It’s in many human activities. It’s very feasible to “pick up on culture.”
Those who actively seek out culture find that it’s not at all flattened. For example, there are amazing Lego cities on display at the periodic Brickworld expositions. For example, last year’s BIPOC exhibition at the Evanston Art Center had many trenchant, vibrant works that really had something to say.
The Calatrava-designed building of the Milwaukee Art Museum, less than 25 years old, has a chancel which resembles the prow of a ship, referring, of course, to the inland sea of Lake Michigan. It also has east-facing galleries with picture windows, in which people’s artworks share the broad scene with that primordial natural creation. The internet doesn’t have the power to determine the qualities of the whole experiential package, but it can inform (or misinform) people about that. Cyberspace can, of course, corral and consume people’s time and attention. Due to that, people might not make a trip to visit the museum, or might be engrossed in their phones while there. That, I think, is a greater immediate concern than the possible flattening or zero-dimensionality of culture.
So your question is a highly relevant one: “What happens to human intuition, imagination, reflection, thought, feeling, and creativity when more and more of us spend more and more of our time in this zero-dimensional zone?” I think a very general answer, at this early stage of the phenomenon, is that some people will be set back in their cultural lives or in certain aptitudes, and some will adapt well through intrapersonal intelligence or ontological skills. Some will experience setbacks, then adapt with an awareness of the hazards of zero-dimensionality.
Thank you, Harry, for the thoughtful comment. I agree that there remains plenty of scope for individual action and smaller-scale work. And that's certainly important. I still think, though, that in general, there is cause for concern. Jonathan Haidt's work on the negative impacts of the internet on youth mental health are very alarming. While not about culture per se, it's good data on just how sharp and steep the decline has been, and how well it corresponds to the popularization of the smart phone.
While I agree with your comment that “if a person knows about that rabbit hole, and isn’t addicted to it, then at least she has the option of not falling into it”. Although true, it does not invalidate the premise of the post that we need to fight the existential problem of how the internet is “flattening” culture. When you say, “Cyberspace is not the culprit, if there is a flattening of culture. Humans are the agents and the internet is the medium. So humans are making culture what it is” this statement is a truism - we all know that humans are ultimately responsible for the internet and are the ones that choose to engage with it. Let me explain my point: your statement has as little value as saying, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people ''. While true it is not helpful because we all know that Guns (as well as, the internet) are used and created by people. This does not mean we should not discuss gun violence, or in the case of this article, the effect of the internet on culture. The internet is a wonderful tool for learning and disseminating information but we need to set boundaries on how we interact with it. The cancel culture in America uses the internet as a tool to effectively marginalize discourse among people because the internet provides an easy way to vilify authors of posts by “exposing them” often while giving little context. The internet is a tool often used to spread misinformation which can flatten culture. The one thing that is clear, critical thinking is on the decline in America and the internet seems to be accelerating its demise. I agree with you “humans are making culture what it is” but we need to be the light in the sea of darkness by helping them to see how to interact with technology!
I would throw "dead internet theory" into this mix and the fact that a lot of trolls are paid.
It is ironic how the ascendance of DEI has resulted in much less diverse cultural offerings. I feel like the books being published are less interesting (competition from the internet probably factors in there as well), and post-COVID there are fewer venues for author talks, and authors were already not being sent out on book tours as often as in the past. Pre-COVID, I sat in a packed club for an Erik Davis presentation, and in a small group for a book discussion given by Oliver Stone, and in a stuffed bookstore for a talk by Bret Easton Ellis. I really miss that. I love podcasts and listen to a lot of them, but I miss sitting in an audience of people who are all interested in the same topic and are given the opportunity to discuss that topic with the author. I would expand this sense of loss to other kinds of lectures and presentations.
I had never heard of "dead internet theory," so I looked it up. Here is a good explainer from Forbes for others who may be interested: https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2024/01/16/the-dead-internet-theory-explained/?sh=28c20b0257c2 Even though that very Establishment writer thinks it's a conspiracy theory, he also acknowledges that it's getting at something that's quite real.
I decided not to go into what happened with Covid due to length, but I feel like that was the "shock doctrine" event that really broke the culture off from its now old-school liberal past and into this alienated cybernetic present and unknown future.
As far as DEI goes, it's not surprising when you factor in that it's really about having college educated bureaucrats dictate what's culturally permissible in an incredibly socioeconomically unequal society.
Thanks as always for your thoughts!
"Dead internet theory" is something of a conspiracy theory, but here is another piece, by the Guardian, acknowledging what is "real" about it:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/apr/30/techscape-artificial-intelligence-bots-dead-internet-theory#:
I wrote a Substack piece recently on the decline of search engines but hadn't heard of the theory when I wrote the piece.
Agree with your sentiments on Covid and DEI.
That **is** quite enlightening, if depressing.
I'm afraid that more and more people are increasingly starting to act like bots off-line, as well :(
I listened to a podcast this afternoon where the hosts discussed "dead internet theory" and they said the internet could get to a point of zero human interaction, where you ask a question and get an AI generated answer, which I speculated on in my search engine piece. They also said they had spoken with a lot of higher ups in tech who were all predicting the rise of AI influencers at a scale that would dwarf the number of people describing themselves as influencers today. Horrors!
Cyberspace is not the culprit, if there is a flattening of culture. Humans are the agents and the internet is the medium. So humans are making culture what it is. I think there are a relative few internet users that regularly do the behaviors of invalidating or degrading thinkers and creators. This can reflect a politicizing of expression, it can stem from racism or sexism, or it may be an impulse of wokeism or Jacobinism. It can also be simple nihilism, occurring online because some people are attracted to or enabled by the ease and anonymity of it all. The general answer to this would be a decided and worldwide revalidation of the human, with dignity, rights, and responsibilities, in the sphere of cyberspace, as well as others. That constitutes an adaptation that hasn’t yet happened consistently at a large scale, although it’s often found.
I think you’re saying that some people disengage from the real world, or a more traditional (“before-times,” as you say) multi-dimensional ontological system, through their technology use. “All too easily, we fall into the zero-dimensional zone of cyberspace like Alice in Wonderland dropping down, down, down some never-ending rabbit hole.” However, if a person knows about that rabbit hole, and isn’t addicted to it, then at least she has the option of not falling into it. The rabbit hole has its ontological status (representational, as you say, or perhaps fabricated to some degree), and if the technology user can only be aware of what that is, then he has that important step toward not invalidating or becoming insensible to materiality, embodiment, or the human in her humanity. So there’s a way of engaging with and managing technology that doesn’t take the body offline, that can maintain or even greatly enhance the person’s consciousness of previously-apprehended reality. (In the case of children as technology users, of course, a vulnerability exists because they don’t have a comprehensive base of previously-apprehended reality.)
I think your disillusionment about culture is because you’re waiting for something to “bubble up to the surface.” The reward is in actively maintaining a cultural consciousness – to live that all the time. The generativity is more evident in that way. Culture is in the sidewalk chalk art that kids do, and in Black hair creations. It’s in many human activities. It’s very feasible to “pick up on culture.”
Those who actively seek out culture find that it’s not at all flattened. For example, there are amazing Lego cities on display at the periodic Brickworld expositions. For example, last year’s BIPOC exhibition at the Evanston Art Center had many trenchant, vibrant works that really had something to say.
https://brickworld.com/brickworld-chicago/
https://www.evanstonartcenter.org/exhibitions/evanston-made
The Calatrava-designed building of the Milwaukee Art Museum, less than 25 years old, has a chancel which resembles the prow of a ship, referring, of course, to the inland sea of Lake Michigan. It also has east-facing galleries with picture windows, in which people’s artworks share the broad scene with that primordial natural creation. The internet doesn’t have the power to determine the qualities of the whole experiential package, but it can inform (or misinform) people about that. Cyberspace can, of course, corral and consume people’s time and attention. Due to that, people might not make a trip to visit the museum, or might be engrossed in their phones while there. That, I think, is a greater immediate concern than the possible flattening or zero-dimensionality of culture.
https://mam.org/info/architecture/quadracci-pavilion/#:~:text=The%20hall's%20chancel%20is%20shaped,of%20the%20lake%20and%20downtown.
So your question is a highly relevant one: “What happens to human intuition, imagination, reflection, thought, feeling, and creativity when more and more of us spend more and more of our time in this zero-dimensional zone?” I think a very general answer, at this early stage of the phenomenon, is that some people will be set back in their cultural lives or in certain aptitudes, and some will adapt well through intrapersonal intelligence or ontological skills. Some will experience setbacks, then adapt with an awareness of the hazards of zero-dimensionality.
Thank you, Harry, for the thoughtful comment. I agree that there remains plenty of scope for individual action and smaller-scale work. And that's certainly important. I still think, though, that in general, there is cause for concern. Jonathan Haidt's work on the negative impacts of the internet on youth mental health are very alarming. While not about culture per se, it's good data on just how sharp and steep the decline has been, and how well it corresponds to the popularization of the smart phone.
While I agree with your comment that “if a person knows about that rabbit hole, and isn’t addicted to it, then at least she has the option of not falling into it”. Although true, it does not invalidate the premise of the post that we need to fight the existential problem of how the internet is “flattening” culture. When you say, “Cyberspace is not the culprit, if there is a flattening of culture. Humans are the agents and the internet is the medium. So humans are making culture what it is” this statement is a truism - we all know that humans are ultimately responsible for the internet and are the ones that choose to engage with it. Let me explain my point: your statement has as little value as saying, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people ''. While true it is not helpful because we all know that Guns (as well as, the internet) are used and created by people. This does not mean we should not discuss gun violence, or in the case of this article, the effect of the internet on culture. The internet is a wonderful tool for learning and disseminating information but we need to set boundaries on how we interact with it. The cancel culture in America uses the internet as a tool to effectively marginalize discourse among people because the internet provides an easy way to vilify authors of posts by “exposing them” often while giving little context. The internet is a tool often used to spread misinformation which can flatten culture. The one thing that is clear, critical thinking is on the decline in America and the internet seems to be accelerating its demise. I agree with you “humans are making culture what it is” but we need to be the light in the sea of darkness by helping them to see how to interact with technology!