Virtual Vampirism
The Robot and the Maiden (photo by Edgar Duvivier)
The other day I remembered one of the writing sites I signed up for before finding Medium. Not just that site but many others, enslave the user by indirectly demanding from him/her, the control of their audience. “Subscribe”, “publish with buttons”, “publish it on Ticktock, Instagram, Facebook” and what not, with the images they generate of one’s texts. Check out stats, go “here”, go “there”, “promote your text” via “this” or “that”. This is simply horrifying. Besides the time consuming process of figuring out the detours and tricks of these sites, the breeding of an urge to control an abstract audience out there via the exactness of digital processes stand for the very opposite of the fundamental conditions for creativity: spontaneity and unpredictability. The author always falls short of the speed of AI pushing its offers and bossiness ad infinity, with the result of not just spending time but of being drained of his or her creative juices by this digital vampirism. Besides, the realm of control that AI inaugurated only promotes immediate attention in those who submit to its commands, “click here to go there”, don’t miss any of the minute icons on the upper and lower bottom of the page, don’t miss anything that apparently means nothing and deeply means the murder of human thought.
This urge of control, of living “for others”, also murdered the authenticity inherent in Rainer Maria Rilke’s advice to the young poet when he told the latter to write for himself. The pragmatists could then think “ Why publish then?” Because publishing is a consequence instead of a target. Writing for oneself means writing for God. Writing for oneself is sacred, whereas writing for others, and still worse, for “controlling” the audience of “abstract” others, means writing for greediness, for one’s persona, in one word, for fickleness.
Carl Jung could see the killing of men’s soul by technology much before the digital age. “Modern man is losing his soul”, he asserted. This means that the rhythm of subjectivity, that of feelings, contemplation, and creativity, is becoming more and more stifled by the pragmatic race of eternally clicking something to achieve something else, or, in Jung’s time, handling more and more intricate machines with a view to some result.
Pragmatism is an enslavement of means by ends, and its prostituted character lies in the fact that it only values something for its usefulness. Something, or someone, to make things even worse. For I guess most people would be shocked if they heard from their lover what a friend of mine did from his girl friend: “ Love is utility” which means that while he was useful, she’d love him, but when he was no longer like a cog in a gear, he’d be disposable. Very much the contrary of this, love is inspiration. A person is loved because he or she inspires the lover, talks to their soul, instead of carrying out functions that could be carried out by an array of other people.
Pragmatism rules technology, but it is abhorrent to the human soul, the deepest side of men that is innocent like little children and, like them, is entirely free to see things poetically, non compromised and “uselessly”, this side that is also called contemplation, or contact with the sacredness of what it contemplates.
Let’s remember Immanuel Kant’s realm of ends: Every person should be seen as an end in himself instead of as a means to something else. For those to whom philosophy is too difficult, it means: A human being should not be used.
Let’s also remember Oscar Wilde’s wisdom, his perception to see the value that aesthetic beauty has in itself : “All art is quite useless”, he said.
On this high note, I am tempted to give up Medium. For I’ve just read a text of someone trashing philosophy because it is “useless”, and criticizing the fact that philosophers were wealthy. This, which was much applauded, mixes ignorance with social criticism. Ask this person who were the fathers of Western thought, consequently of science, and whether they should be obliterated because they had slaves… Hellooooo!
Does one need to resort to Camille Paglia’s wake up call to the artistic leftists by reminding them that the banker and the artist have been friends forever? How can one ignore the fact that art is a luxury as much as thought is! Much more than precious jewels, art is highly promoted by the rich to generate more art and to be invested upon. As for thought, it inspires us and, like Kant’s regulative ideas, is the flashlight illuminating the way for the progress of mankind.