RUTHFULLY YOURS

Jeff Orlowski’s documentary The Social Dilemma on Netflix is an interesting panoptic exploration of ways in which human minds are allegedly twisted, manipulated, and directed by social media to produce outcomes by programmed algorithms whose creators, in the end, must have had nefarious  motives. On the surface, we may cast them as players in a medieval morality play between good and evil. The evil operatives are the gnomic know-it-alls who somehow must have known that with the invention of the “Like” button on various social media pages and media outlets, they could send recipients into waves of euphoria — while those receiving a “thumbs down” could be sent into paroxysms of rage or, more commonly, paralyzing depression. The social media creators in the film, however, claim that they only wanted to “spread positivity and love in the world.”

The basic thematic thrust of the documentary is predicated on a dubious premise: the idea of an addictive media, the manipulative machinations of its architects and their unwillingness to confront their culpability in creating an addictive social media culture, and the latter’s contribution to the polarization of our society and the proliferation of “fake news.”

This film, which purports to gain some philosophical respectability by an identification with the anti-conceptual moniker, “surveillance capitalism,” presupposes a world of mindless victims; automatons in need of global marketplace regulation from “data extraction” invisible vectors that somehow predict our behaviors and, well, coerce us to do things that we would not do had our brains not been improperly hijacked by the artificially-driven analytics.

The Social Dilemma apocalyptically poses a question through one of its alarmed interviewees: “Can democracy survive the social network in a world where no one believes what’s true anymore?”

I leave aside the conjectural issue of brainwashing, mind expropriation, and mind alteration over which design ethicists have suddenly developed a bad conscience.

I assume, first, that people have free will. I assume that like any phenomenon that in and of itself is a morally neutral object but which can be used for good or evil—think here of a pistol that can be used for lawful self-defense or murder; alcohol, that can be a wonderful social lubricant if used in moderation, or a destructive organ destroyer if abused—so too social media, if used judiciously and sparingly and with sound judgment, can properly fulfill a limited set of rational desires.

The phenomena themselves do not engender vices in people. Lazy, slothful and unthinking people get addicted to social media. They get sucked into being bamboozled into believing fake news for investigative negligence, and they consciously chose to remain all comfy and sloppily ensconced in their curated silos. They lack curiosity and imagination. If they chose not to believe what is true it will mean that they are evading reality. To live that sort of life in a protracted manner will inevitably lead to chaos, pain and suffering, and then—death.

What should be the focus of attention is not how social media has exploited people and robbed them of their autonomy and sovereignty; rather, it should be how average mediocre human beings have exploited the platform to elevate themselves in a way that would not have been possible a generation ago. It is not social media that will destroy democracy, or prevent people from believing the truth. It is the cult of mediocrity and its members who have taken advantage of an innovative mode of communication, and have tuned into something garish and more annoying than karaoke bars where people brutalize beautiful songs, or democratic voting rights for dumb people who cannot read or speak English, let alone understand the basic function of government.

I’ll deal with two ways in which the egalitarian principle run amok in our society, and the absence of rational discrimination and elitism based on merit, ability and achievement have ruined both social media and, in the process, destroyed any semblance of High Culture in America today.

Social  media  gives anyone, including the village idiot, a platform to elevate his sophomoric high school opinions to the level of human knowledge. In the absence of any objective criteria to adjudicate among the asserted truth claims promulgated on social media outlets, deciphering the writings on the wall is like fighting lice in a vacuum. There are no objective standards for arbitrating disputes, or pointing out innumerable fallacious arguments (if folks even attempt to postulate arguments).

Jason D. Hill is professor of philosophy at DePaul University in Chicago, and a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. His areas of specialization include ethics, social and political philosophy, American foreign policy and American politics. He is the author of several books, including “We Have Overcome: An Immigrant’s Letter to the American People” (Bombardier Books/Post Hill Press). Follow him on Twitter @JasonDhill6.