Death of the Liberal Class - Chris Hedges [118]
Digital collectivism, Lanier warns, is destroying the dwindling vestiges of authentic journalism, creativity, and innovation that require time, investment, and self-reflection. The only income left for most of those who create is earned through self-promotion and the orchestration of celebrity. But, as Lanier points out, this turns all culture into a form of advertising. It fosters a social ethic in which the capacity for crowd manipulation, for the art of seduction, is valued more than truth, beauty, or intellect. Writers, musicians, artists, journalists, and filmmakers must transform themselves into celebrities to earn money, or vanish from public consciousness.
“Funding a civilization through advertising is like trying to get nutrition by connecting a tube from one’s anus to one’s mouth,” Lanier says:“The body starts consuming itself. That is what we are doing online. As more and more human activity is aggregated, people huddle around the last remaining oases of revenue. Musicians today might still be able to get paid to make music for video games, for instance, because games are still played in closed consoles and haven’t been collectivized as yet.11
Lanier is not opposed to the Internet. He is opposed to how it has evolved. He fears that if we fall into an economic tailspin, the Internet, like other innovative systems of mass communication such as television, will be used to exacerbate social enmity.
“The scenario I can see is America in some economic decline, which we seem determined to enter into because we are unable to make any adjustments, and a lot of unhappy people,” Lanier said:The preponderance of them are [located in] rural areas and in the Red States, the former slave states. And they are all connected and get angrier and angrier. What exactly happens? Do they start converging on abortion clinics? Probably. Do they start converging on legislatures and take them over? I don’t know, maybe. I shouldn’t speak it. It is almost a curse to imagine these things. But any intelligent person can see the scenario I am afraid to see. There is a potential here for very bad stuff to happen.
The utopian promoters of the Internet insist that the “hive mind,” the vast virtual collective, will propel us toward a brave new world. Lanier dismisses such visions as fantasies that allow many well-intentioned people to be seduced by an evolving nightmare.
“The crowd phenomenon exists, but the hive does not exist,” Lanier explained: All there is, is a crowd phenomenon, which can often be dangerous. To a true believer, which I certainly am not, the hive is like the baby at the end of 2001 Space Odyssey. It is a supercreature that surpasses humanity. To me, it is the misinterpretation of the old crowd phenomenon with a digital vibe. It has all the same dangers. A crowd can turn into a mean mob all too easily, as it has throughout human history.
“There are some things crowds can do, such as count the jelly beans in the jar or guess the weight of the ox,” Lanier said:I acknowledge this phenomenon is real. But I propose that the line between when crowds can think effectively as a crowd and when they can’t is a little different. If you read [James] Surowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds, he, as well as other theorists, say that if you want a crowd to be wise, the key is to reduce the communication flow between the members so they do not influence each other, so they are truly independent and have separate sample points. It brings up an interesting paradox. The starting point for online crowd enthusiasts is that connection is good and everyone should be connected. But when they talk about what makes a crowd smart, they say people should not be talking to each other. They should be isolated. There is a contradiction