The tyranny of online culture

Nothing can be more oppressive than the standard of beauty that online culture promotes. Social media, in cahoots with modern-day capitalism, manufactures false needs, desires and dreams, defining for young people a standard of measure on one’s social life. Its potential danger lies in the tyranny of judgments we make on the lives of others on the basis of such.

The false consciousness immanent in this standard does not only discourage a timid young man from his pursuit of self-esteem; it also hides from him the wonder of an early-morning walk or the rushing sound of a stream nearby on his way to school. Any young man can fall prey to illusions and thereby fail to recognize the fact that those things he finds as he scrolls down his news feed are mere representations of the truth of things. In like manner, talk shows uproot the masses from a historical totality, in the same way as the beauty of Marian Rivera transforms a young man’s passion for magical reality into an empty dream.

Theodor Adorno says that this phenomenon is a product of the “culture industry,” which is symptomatic of what is so irrational about modern life. Modernity has brought forth affluence and prosperity. However, massive poverty remains to be the scandal for which modernity has failed to account. The greater scandal, however, is the unspeakable nerve of the political tyrants and pharaohs to hide this beastly social malady.

At the outset, we can mention how efficient and effective our most modern means of communication has become. This has translated to nascent communities and novel initiatives for professional growth. In addition, it is the cheapest way to maintain one’s contact with peers and the most convenient mode of gathering information on current affairs. It has turned some into instant critics and analysts, thereby contributing to a culture of intelligent discourse.

What is the role of human reason in this unfolding? History has taught us that the Enlightenment was supposed to bring human reason to new heights. It was viewed as the liberator of humans from the abyss of ignorance. For instance, science has opened new worlds and expanded the reach of human imagination. It has enabled humans to understand the universe and unveil its deepest secrets. Science has lorded over nature and has kept that dominion. Social media is the youngest child of the Enlightenment.

Yet, beyond that promise of salvation, nothing can be more perilous than the false sense of the good life that online culture unknowingly promotes. We find its colossal representation in the likes of Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian or Miley Cyrus. For instance, the culture industry in modern-day capitalist society makes the minds of young people less critical. This is alarming because social change cannot happen overnight. It has always been the case that social transformation will require a new generation in order to overhaul the mistakes of a prior one.

While economic progress cannot be denied and that, indeed, thousands of people have truly benefited from economic expansion, the addiction of the young to online culture also perpetuates the marginalization of some people who continue to suffer from neglect amid a bureaucratic rationality that has prided itself as the foremost bearer of democratic legitimacy. Its severe implication often makes the poor man, the orphan, or the stranger an outsider. More than their hunger, the pain caused by the invisibility that those people in the margins experience is disturbingly real and deeply personal. Skyscrapers, however high, will never reach the heavens, just as any picture posted online is no more than a mere image of our true selves. The real battle for humanity happens in the hearts of people.

Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times” serves as an apt portrayal of the subservience of the individual to modernity. Without its own form of criticism, social media will be reduced to a mere portrayal of “instrumental reason.” The phantasmagoria of comfort created by social media in our consumer society has made us forget that real beauty is something that we don’t have to pay for. In fact, online culture as a modern-day spell is apparent in the failure on the part of many to realize that consumerism has also diminished the meaning of human life, equating the struggle for human happiness to that which is material. Something is truly wrong and incomprehensively absurd when some people do things on the basis of utility or that which is pleasant, all in view of some value that is tangible and impermanent.

Social media is important, and it should remain that way. But our basic problem now is that social media, without some ethical grounding, might prevent us from fully appreciating what really matters in life. So we must be forewarned. Obviously, we cannot just let doubt and uncertainty take over. But we have to realize that self-critique is always important in our pursuit to make things right.

Christopher Ryan Maboloc teaches philosophy at Ateneo de Davao University. He has a master’s degree in applied ethics from Linkoping University in Sweden.