Media technology; an infinite jest?

In the past six months or so, I have added the issue of technology – especially the technology of media, ie TV to facebook  - to the docket of things I think about. This was inspired mostly by the commentary of Jonathan Franzen and David Foster Wallace, two authors I’ve started to read after a whole lifetime of almost totally ignoring literature. Simply put, neither Franzen or Wallace are Luddites (and the way in which this term is used is actually a disservice to the actual Luddites, who were about much more thoughtful and noble ideas than simply disliking technology), but they both articulate a concern that media technology, while having its uses, distracts Americans from both civic engagement and sustained confrontation with the existential questions that all of us must try to address to fully face our humanity. As Jonathan Franzen puts it, “There is some part of me, if I spend all day online, [which] is even lonelier than when I started.”

I myself have a rather ambiguous relationship with the internet in particular. Ever since my undergraduate years, the internet – particularly through the venue of blogging and, online discussions on such social networking sites as facebook – has offered me both one of the most powerful tools of self-expression and also the most acute reminder of how limited that self-expression can often be. It has been both the symbol of connectivity with the outside world and the ultimate symbol of loneliness. In particularly sad times, which always corresponded with a feeling of invisibility, the specter of being surrounded by blank monitors, totally unresponsive to and uninterested in my existence, would present itself to me in my daymares. But obviously here I am, still blogging away – for the internet has also provided me with some of the best opportunities to make connections to other likeminded people, and to have my own views challenged and refined. As the title of this blog suggests, it is part of what keeps my isolation incomplete. 

I try, however, to balance this with activities that depend on and cultivate the type of solitude that actually leads you to being more, rather than less aware of the world around you. It is important to always keep in mind, and thus try to mitigate, the tendencies of media technology to whittle the entire world down to you – to keep you so focused on yourself that actual human empathy becomes increasingly more difficult. Thus this recent column by Maureen Dowd at The New York Times caught my eye. The column mostly flirts ironically with the humor of a new iPhone application designed to make Catholic confession more user-friendly and to encourage the faithful to attend more often. However, the column brings up an unspoken question that both critics from the right and the left like to tackle: will technology ultimately, and inherently, erode human relationships and the fabric of the concept of the larger good? 

An update to last week’s post: is it the culture or the individual?

Since last week, a reader brought to my attention this New York Times article by Stanley Fish, now several months old, that makes a great point about how and when Americans chose to utilize the concept of culture:

"The formula is simple and foolproof (although those who deploy it so facilely seem to think we are all fools): If the bad act is committed by a member of a group you wish to demonize, attribute it to a community or a religion and not to the individual. But if the bad act is committed by someone whose profile, interests and agendas are uncomfortably close to your own, detach the malefactor from everything that is going on or is in the air (he came from nowhere) and characterize him as a one-off, non-generalizable, sui generis phenomenon." 

 I was also reminded of another New York Times article many more months ago that explored the cultural context of mental illness. Basically, the article discusses recent research that suggests that mental illness, while undoubtedly having a solid physical (ie, medical) existence in the brain, is often shaped by the way an individual’s culture understands various forms of mental anguish and illness. 

The most compelling example concerns the sudden uptick of Chinese teenagers who started exhibiting anorexia in a Western fashion – ie, an aversion to food based on fears of becoming fat or unattractive. Earlier, there was certainly anorexia in China, but it was not until the American phenomenon of young girls starving themselves out of a desire to be as thin (ie, physically attractive) as possible became well known in China that a large number of Chinese girls also started describing their aversion to food in this manner. 

This frames very nicely the crucial question of culture versus the individual, or in this case, culture versus the biology of mental illness. Often times heated discussions about this problem can develop when debaters seem to think that their opponents are saying “it is all about culture,” or “it is all about the individual.” I think the evidence, quite clearly, shows that on the contrary, it is always both. To what degree we can look to the individual or the surrounding culture as ultimately more responsible, well that depends on the particular case and requires a thoughtful investigation.