The Transferability of Information
In our hyperconnected world, the majority of the news we encounter carries little to no practical relevance to our daily lives. This phenomenon often results in a barrage of intense information that provokes emotional responses but leaves us with no clear actions to take. The overwhelming nature of such information can be paralyzing, creating a cycle of passive consumption and emotional turmoil without any concrete resolution.
The Misuse of Broad Calls to Action
This issue is exacerbated by broad, war-like calls to action that lack tangible outcomes. Such rhetoric often serves to incite anger and fear, further fueling the cycle of passive engagement, particularly through social media. The platforms benefit from increased user interaction, driven by the advertising model, while individuals suffer from heightened anxiety and mental strain. This dynamic highlights a fundamental problem: the exploitation of emotional responses for capitalistic gain at the expense of mental well-being.
Gender Identity and Pronouns
Gender identity, particularly the use of non-binary pronouns, has become a contentious topic. The use of "they/them" pronouns is a practical and historical solution to the limitations of gendered language. Non-binary gender identity, like ADHD, is often misunderstood and dismissed as not "real," despite its tangible impact on individuals' lives.
The acceptance and normalization of non-binary identities can alleviate the isolation and fear experienced by those who identify as such. In a community that respects and uses their chosen pronouns, individuals can find a sense of belonging and validation. This pragmatic approach to language and identity reflects the underlying utility and survival of ideas that resonate with people's lived experiences.
Understanding and treating mental health issues pragmatically involves recognizing the validity of individuals' experiences and offering practical solutions to help them cope and thrive. This approach can foster a more compassionate and effective mental health system.
The Pragmatic Survival of Ideas
Pragmatic ideas, those that demonstrate utility and resilience, tend to survive. The enduring use of "they/them" pronouns contrasts sharply with the fleeting nature of more esoteric pronouns that emerged on platforms like Tumblr. This survival underscores the practical value of simplicity and usability in language and social norms.
Cultural Identity and Status
Cultural identity is shaped by both constitutional and aspirational elements. The former encompasses the influences of one's upbringing and experiences, while the latter involves the qualities and achievements one strives to attain. This interplay forms a person's taste and cultural affiliations, which are not merely subjective but deeply rooted in objective experiences and aspirations.
The quest for status is inherent in human interactions, manifesting in various strategies to enhance one's perceived value within a social context. These strategies include performing well within established criteria, projecting false signals of high status, altering status criteria, or forming new status groups. Acknowledging and navigating these status games can lead to a more profound understanding of oneself and one's place within the cultural tapestry.
The Role of Art and Meaning
Art holds a unique place in this framework, serving as a bridge between the subjective and objective realms. It provides a means to experience and express the complexities of human existence, offering a direct connection to deeper truths and communal experiences. Art, therefore, is not merely a matter of personal preference but a vital component of cultural and spiritual life.
The Pragmatist Perspective
From a pragmatist perspective, the value of any idea or practice lies in its utility. Truth is defined by what works, and this principle can guide individuals in navigating the complexities of modern life. By focusing on patterns of value and functionality, pragmatism offers a robust framework for making meaningful choices in an often chaotic world.
Conclusion
In conclusion, pragmatism provides a practical and empathetic approach to understanding and addressing issues of identity, mental health, and cultural engagement. By emphasizing utility and resilience, pragmatism encourages the adoption of ideas and practices that enhance well-being and foster a more inclusive and supportive society. This perspective challenges us to look beyond the surface of emotional responses and social media interactions, seeking deeper connections and more meaningful actions in our daily lives.
.
There’s a quietly propagated mythology that Twitter is just a public town square. As if when you’re looking at social media, you’re seeing humanity splattered across the page. As if this is what humanity is truly like because of all this connectivity. When you see ugly things on the internet, you think, "Well, humanity is kinda ugly." But this is a selection of things; this is a tool, a frame of interpretation with its own incentive structure. It’s this way for a reason.
Think about what’s happening to your brain, to the world, and to ideas when you’re operating with Twitter as a tool. A thought happens in your head. You don't know if you should marry yourself to that thought, if it’s good or stupid. But with Twitter, you quantify this thought into a tweet, attaching it to your name. You launch it out there, and everyone responds to it. If someone attacks this thought, it feels like they're attacking you. These random thoughts are now blasted out into the world, creating a teeth-gritted, psychedelic, fast meth-like experience with thoughts and identity.
What just happened to you? What is happening? This isn’t just a calm representation of thinking or thoughts or human beings. This isn’t just ideas. This is something happening. Also, why is it happening? There’s no way around the profit incentive structure of social media. It's like our nuclear bomb; it has completely revamped all our minds and societies. It's a trauma. This new medium of communication is changing humanity, and we are just starting to grapple with it.
It presents itself as reflecting reality. People treat internet media and their phones as a disenchanted world, interacting within it the same way they interact with the modern world. This constant appeal to objective literal truth, paired with the infinite chaos, confusion, and incentive structures of social media and online life, creates perverse, anxiety-inducing confusion, bad action, and bad conversation. Even though we’re in the most post-modern era—doubting every institution, believing nobody, pathologizing everyone’s secret intentions—we’re still appealing to the truth for some reason.
It’s the wrong framework to understand the modern world and the digital landscape we live in. Correspondence theory of truth, a better understanding of our current space, comes from understanding the move from pre-modernity into modernity. Most people work within a framework of understanding the world through the lens of objective truth. This framework maybe worked for a short period during the Cartesian scientific Industrial Revolution era, but it is totally broken now for meaning or necessarily for community building.
"All men are created equal" isn’t a rational statement. It’s a weird spiritual statement. The tools of objective, factual, scientific truth in Western rationality often contain faith propositions. We perceive these things as objective facts, but they are more tied to our pre-modern knowledge about story and religion.
If you spend all day on Twitter, it's a personal thing. Your soul is in it, and you walk around all day with Twitter overlaying reality. Like playing Tetris all day and still seeing the game when you close your eyes. If humanity's conscious experience is all on Twitter, there's nothing unreal about that; it is very real. But should it be? Is this the most effective place to pour our conscious experience? We're all complicit in validating it and pouring our souls into it.
Twitter and TikTok are the most dangerous, like crack. With a billboard on the motorway, at least we're all looking at the same billboard. It’s weirder and more perverse that everyone gets fed a different reality, contributing to our lack of a unifying story, language, expectations, and understandings of each other because it’s all refracted through different lenses. It’s not conducive to community or social cohesion. It’s mixing the advertiser model with your soul, your relationships, and your friends, capitalizing on the most innately human things. Its control over you and your emotions probably isn’t useful for human goals.
Nietzsche's armor for fatigue acceptance of one's current situation and what has happened in the past is vital. The autotelic personality is internally driven, reacting to external circumstances. Changing things in your immediate environment just for your own aesthetic pleasure counters the illusion of social media's importance. Putting a flower on your desk for only you to see and finding meaning in that act alone is exerting effort in your life only you can see. It’s a bit of faith in the significance of that act itself. Beauty is meaningful. Self-love. Making things around you more beautiful is like an act of worship.
The goodness one can still carry out in a deprived state is significant. Maintain focus on the good in the world to rebel against all that threatens its beauty. In video games, you become the type of person who cares about the struggle within limitations. If you keep doing that with different games, you start to identify with the ability to reshape yourself, becoming more fluid and dynamic, capable of many things. This process of going in and out and finding ways to do both is perhaps what being human is about. This is what people should be doing all the time, not just figuring out the right thing to believe.
.
In today's world, the conscious creation of one's happiness, regardless of external circumstances, is essential. We owe it to ourselves and the world to be happy, recognizing the inherent good and beauty around us. Twitter and other social media platforms, often misconstrued as public town squares, are selective tools with their own incentive structures designed to keep us engaged for profit. This engagement model, based on the advertiser-driven need for constant user activity, inherently promotes negative content as it generates more interaction.
Social media distorts reality, encouraging us to broadcast fleeting thoughts, which then become subject to public scrutiny, often causing anxiety and confusion. This is not a true representation of humanity but a reflection of the platform's design to keep us hooked. The negative impact on mental health and democracy is profound, as these platforms create a never-ending cycle of engagement without resolution.
The constant exposure to curated realities fractures our sense of community and shared understanding. The mixing of advertiser incentives with personal interactions capitalizes on our deepest emotions, often to our detriment. Nietzsche's philosophy of accepting one's situation and the concept of an autotelic personality—finding internal motivation—can help counterbalance this. Simple acts of beauty, like placing a flower on your desk for your own pleasure, hold significant meaning.
Focusing on the good in the world, even in a deprived state, and engaging in activities that allow for personal growth and agency, like video games, can foster resilience and adaptability. This process of self-reshaping and dynamic identity formation is crucial. Ultimately, understanding and navigating the digital landscape requires a balance between external engagement and internal fulfillment.
.
This blog post is aswesome. Thank you CJtheX. Credit to them.
Positive feedback: pog@caledonian.ac.uk
Negative feedback: fugly@caledonian.ac.uk
Home⌤!