AUDIO
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Phillip Jensen speaks on Anger as part of a series on emotions in the Christian life, delivered at the Australia Day Convention 2010
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Do you spend all day in front of a computer? Do you then relax at home on the internet and doing your email? What is it doing to your mind? I was rather startled to read this passage in a book by John Milbank, who is one of today’s leading academic theologians:
Computers ... in so far as they impose the reign of information, are the enemies of truth and democracy. Our gaze at their screens is the constitution through watching and receiving of inherently violent transactions which in the end, when we step through their looking-glass, always involve real physical violence.
On line, therefore, we are clubbing each other to death, but invisibly, very very gradually and at a huge remove. When this process does appear, then we finally see what we collectively do, but assume that it has nothing to do with us, individually. But just as breathing is the most massive combustion, so also this slowed-down and distributed violence is actually increased violence, like a torture that is all the more torture through being long drawn-out.
from Being Reconciled, p. 37
Facebook, violent? Wikipedia, an enemy of truth and democracy? I do sometimes feel like punching the screen, but…slowly clubbing to death my friends?
It is an outrageous thing to say of course - but outrageous comments often score some points. And, in case you were wondering, Milbank does write out his books (I am told) in long hand, and lectures from scribbles on a notepad. So: consider it for a minute. Talk of violence certainly made me think of certain forums I could mention… the very facelessness of our interactions online makes hatred easier than it otherwise would be. I have certainly had online conversations that felt like torture…
The crucial phrase, I think, is ‘in so far as they impose the reign of information’. Does Milbank mean by this that we are bombarded with information without thought, and that this does us damage? Unable to put it into any order we become confused, and inevitably lash out because we feel so disempowered. Or, is that a particular frame is given to information - it is so sifted by Mr Gates and the dudes from Google that we are completely unable to express any independence of thinking?
Whatever the case, it is true as it has always been that ‘the medium is the message’; but it is the medium of which we are always least conscious. And few media have ever been as engaging as the personal computer…
* Ambiguity or speaking cryptically: a means of engendering a feeling of insecurity in others
* Chronically being late and forgetting things: another way to exert control or to punish.
* Fear of competition
* Fear of dependency
* Fear of intimacy as a means to act out anger: The passive aggressive often cannot trust. Because of this, they guard themselves against becoming intimately attached to someone.
* Making chaotic situations
* Making excuses for non-performance in work teams
* Obstructionism
* Sulking
* Victimization response: instead of recognizing one's own weaknesses, tendency to blame others for own failures.
Anything sound familiar?
The virtual world lends itself to this kind of behaviour, but doesn't create it. There's nothing new under the sun.
Sure, reading Youtube comments (for example) is like being slowly and repeatedly punched in the brain, but as for computers, the internet etc, I'm reminded of these recent articles:
Salon: Is the Internet melting our brains?
No! The author of "A Better Pencil" explains why such hysterical hand-wringing is as old as communication itself
and...
I don't think you need to read Ludditism into Milbank entirely. Like you, I am tired of people despising online communications and interactions as I of people abusing it. But still - it is easier to belt someone over the head when you can't see the real them!
Hi Michael
Yes it is a bit ironic we are discussing this online.
I think Milibank overstates the problem - the computer is just a tool which can be used for good or ill like most other products of technology.
But I do agree we need to be careful about our computer use. I'm one of those who sits in front of a computer during the day and then come home and often relax in front of a computer. Life is too short (and too precious) to spend all our time online I reckon.
Personally speaking, I have been the object of nasty and repeated personal attacks in an online environment by another Christian who is really rather mild-mannered in person. I can't think why the medium of the internet makes this way of relating seem acceptable to them, but apparently it does.
For my own part, I know that the public nature of forums like these mean sometimes I have to be sharper and more direct than I would like to be. You have to have regard for those watching and not participating. And online communication is necessarily terser than it otherwise would be.
This reminds me of how people can seem to change personality when driving compared to when not driving ...
I guess the relative anonymity of online experiences (like driving) helps take away people's inhibitions.
regards
I've certainly done it, and had to write a letter (snail mail) of apology to the aggrieved. It's something to watch.
Other than that... back to sheer gut feeling... man I love the net!
...and that's Dr Troll to you, MJ. At the risk of accusations of being "inflammatory", from my personal perspective, your vignette is ironic to say the least. (A quasi-apology, perchance?) Anyway, I proffer the following observations regarding sydneyanglicans.net's fora:
1. There is an almost animalistic emotionalism and consequent irrationality on display here regularly, in that some individuals seem to be incapable of distinguishing between argumentation against their viewpoint and a personal attack upon them. For example, I have never denigrated a specific person in any blog, though I have labelled their unrighteous actions accordingly and/or attacked their reasoning - only to be accused of such denigration. The time has come to uphold the humanness of pure logic, please.
2. I increasingly suspect that genuine dissent is discouraged, in favour of the jollity of mutual backslapping: i.e., mere affirmation of one's cherished Weltanschaaung, particularly if that is rigid Calvinism. Closed-minded egotism rules. When one dares to dissent, personal accusations start to fly, 'mood fascism' comes into play, and the Tone Police are called to deal with - that is: silence - the dissenter. Fortunately there are exceptions who militate against such unattractiveness: I'd like to give a huge bouquet to Dianne Howard, for instance, as one who invariably contributes intelligent, constructive and informative posts. BRAVO! Ditto Nicki L. & Kara M.