No-one doubts, after Egypt, that you can organise a revolution on Facebook. The question for those of us not presently caught up in this kind of political activism is: can you truly socialise there?
Aaron Sorkin, creator of the West Wing and scriptwriter of The Social Network, was asked in a recent interview what he thought of the way Facebook is changing the nature of our relationships.
I’ve copied the full answer below, but let me highlight the thought-provoking analogy he makes, which is reason for a post in itself:
Socialising on the internet is to socialising what reality TV is to reality.
Here’s the context:
Q: How to you feel about the way Facebook is changing how people relate?
A: I have a 10-year-old daughter who has never really known a world without Facebook, but we’re going to have to wait a generation or two to find out the results of this experiment. I’m very pessimistic. There’s an insincerity to it. Socialising on the internet is to socialising what reality TV is to reality. We’re kind of acting for an audience: we’re creating a pretend version of ourselves. We’re counting the number of friends that we have instead of cultivating the depth of a relationship. I don’t find it appealing. [Playlist, 12-18 Feb, p12]
But aren’t we always acting for an audience? (If you want some thoughts on this go and read Tom Stoppard’s play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.) And what if the distinctions between reality TV and ‘non-reality’ TV (whatever that was/is) and non-TV reality were lost a long time ago?
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Pilgrim Claz, Stephen Wang. Stephen Wang said: Can you really socialise on the internet? http://wp.me/pB6og-xo [...]
There is no greater disaster in the spiritual life than to be immersed in unreality, for life is maintained and nourished in us by our vital relation with realities outside and above us. When our life feeds on unreality, it must starve. It must therefore die. There is no greater misery than to mistake this fruitless death for the true, fruitful, and sacrificial “death” by which we enter into life.
(This is by Thomas Merton written primarily for monks I think “Thoughts on Solitude”. It goes on:)
The death by which we enter into life is not an escape from reality but a complete gift of ourselves which involves a total commitment to reality. It begins by renouncing the illusory reality which created things acquire when they are seen only in their relationship to our own selfish interests. Before we can see that created things (especially material) are unreal, we must see clearly that they are real.
For the “unreality” of material things in only relative to the greater reality of spiritual things.
We begin our renouncement of creatures by standing back from them and looking at them as they are in themselves. In so doing we penetrate their reality, their actuality, their truth, which cannot be discovered until we get them outside ourselves and stand back so that they are seen in perspective. We cannot see things in perspective until we cease to hug them to our bosom. When we let go of them we begin to appreciate them as they really are. Only then can we begin to see God in them. Not until we find him in them, can we start on the road of dark contemplation at whose end we shall be able to find them in him.
male, monastic life!
female, God is Love!
As a female, as a mother, I have some how been the host of life both growing and dying within me. On five accounts that life has separated from my own body and been born a life unto itself. I have held those five lives tight to my bosom and nourished them, until those lives could physically nourish themselves. Spiritually I continue to nourish them and in doing so their separation from me nourishes me, though they are ever more distant from my flesh. Every day as a mother you see ever more God in your children and as they learn slowly not to be selfish you may look into their eyes and see ever more Christ.
Monk or Mother
We still Love.
yes we can socialise on the internet. even if it is cyberly episodic. It of course is frustrating and limiting in a physical way. But in relation to the above and below response, it can still stimulate us emotionally and develop our intellects which in turn we use to socialise with people in the real world.
You can socialise on the Internet. Granted, it is different from socialising in person but, with all new things, it is something which has taken on its own form and will develop over years into a newer type of socialising – what I don’t know. The one thing I am confident in saying is that it’s here to stay, albeit in a developing format.
I find your observation about us always acting for an audience an interesting and very true one Father Stephen. Because of the nature of the Internet, users on social networking forums and blogs such as this can communicate confidently with other users of all backgrounds. In this respect, the Internet is really a leveler as some, who may not be confident in person to person situations are, perhaps, more able to express their opinions in this format.
What I have discovered in my work over the past decade is that there is much talking at and not much listen to. Much pronouncing and very little asking of questions.
HOw can we hope to assist our young to understand the impact of their actions (be they big or small acts) when we never teach them to ask questions.
Self generated questioning is an art form. Socrates had it right when all he did was to ask questions because it is the only safeguard against the scourge of blind acceptance – of taking everything for granted.
Ever thought of how so many people today seem to be living in the skin of live?
Sitting alone tapping out thoughts, reveals attitudes – be they prejudices or tolerance, bias or respect. But how are these attitudes really formed? How do we navigate our way through the maze if all we do is tap into hazy cyberspace?
I find virtual blog communication doubly unnerving. a) you haven’t a clue who is reading and b) there is no face to face, eye to eye, contact. The usual array of non-verbal signals of normal communication are missing. Normally if you were in this situation it would be because you had written something that was deliberately public; deliberately written for an ‘audience.’
Hi to Mags – thanks for your comment on a previous post. I agree totally re Mary Magdalene.
Hi also to Fr Stephen. Thanks for many beautiful posts. I don’t often comment, for the above reasons, but I continue to get a lot from the variety and thought-provoking and very informative nature of the posts. Ever thought of holding a ‘Blog Mass’ / drink to bring some of your more reticent readers/commenters out of the wood-work and into more reassuring face to face acquaintance?