We bring the same attitudes, gestures and procedures to working, dating, shopping, communicating with friends, sexual arousal, and scientific research. And most of these activities are impoverished by this phenomenon. Everything is seen as an information system, from the digitalization of territory (like Google Earth and augmented realities software) to our biology.

Judæo-Christian culture places nature and the world of matter at man’s disposal. Acting on them is a way to garner good deeds and regain the lost perfection of Eden. In this culture that has considered miracles as proof of the existence of God, we have developed technologies that resemble the miraculous and the divine. We are compelled to welcome the advent of new technological tools with the rhetoric of peace, progress, prosperity and mutual understanding.

The telegraph, telephone, radio, TV and other media have been regarded as tools for democracy, world peace, understanding and freedom of expression. The Internet is just the latest in a succession of promising messiahs. Yet we don’t have more democracy in the world. In fact, big media and big powers are even stronger, while freedom of expression has ceded to control by corporations and governmental agencies.

The Internet, like TV, is entertaining, dumbing people in their own separate homes where they will be unable to question the system. More than TV whose attractions are framed between the beginning and ending time of a show, the Internet, video games and smartphones have no structural pauses or endings. Hooked on a “real-time” stream of information, they take us farther away from both the real and the appropriate time frames.

The Internet might already be the new soma for a society experiencing economic and environmental degradation. But with the huge economic and psychological interests connected to it, criticizing its effect is akin to cursing God.

Prof. Mauro Magatti: The idea is to give a complete picture of the last 30 years which began with the coming of so-called neo-liberalism in the Anglo-Saxon countries. My book traces and develops the hypothesis of authoritative colleagues, especially the works of Boltanski in France, Bauman in England and Beck in Germany.

The idea is that those 30 years represent something as unitarian, which is detached from the previous stages (which I call “societal capitalism”), and is based not only on the nation state, but on the social and economic effects which the nation state is not able to load and which are usually referred to as “the welfare society.” The fundamental peculiarity of techno-nihilistic capitalism is a kind of new vision of the world, a new weltenshaung, which makes nihilism, traditionally a philosophy which expresses itself in stages of decadence when the established values had to be destroyed, a useful vision for accelerating both economic and technological growth on a planetary scale.

There’s a capitalism which tries to free itself from the cultural background which the national state established. This capitalism defines itself in an alliance between a technique which is supposed to be intangible, in a very thin cultural setting, or even when it is absent and, on the other side, a full availability, a full manipulability of every cultural meaning, which has to be continuously redefined, transformed, and overcome.

Quartiroli: You affirm that technology gives an imaginary freedom, yet many people, based on this very interview, could well say the opposite. I came to know about your book on the Net, sent you an email and you graciously agreed to be interviewed by me. We use Skype for the interview and then I will publish it in my blogs. This gives us a broad freedom. We don’t have any editorial limitation regarding space or length and we don’t have a director to approve our conversation. Online, we don’t even need to publish it before a certain date. And even better, we can reach hundreds or maybe thousands of readers in every corner of the world directly.

Kevin Kelly, one of the most passionate supporters of technology, in his recent article “Expansion of Free Will” says that, “Technology wants choices. The internet, to a greater degree than any technology before it, offers choices and options.” And more, “the technium continues to expand free will as it unrolls into the future. What technology wants is more freedom, expanded free will.” The idea of freedom and expansion of our possibilities is chased by every technological gadget and by every software which interacts with us. All seems very pleasurable, free and fulfilling, so what’s wrong in this expansion of our options?

Magatti: Kelly’s quote is excellent and gets to the point. Techno-nihilistic capitalism, passing the previous stage of societal capitalism, legitimates itself through this increasing of possibilities, which then is connected to the expansion of choices.

Nobody can deny that, in general terms, to go from a condition where we have less opportunities and choices to one where, instead we have the possibility of expanding our doings, in a way expands our freedom. For instance, when we can move easily and quickly from one part of the planet to the other, we get more chances to “do.”

The point is, what happens in a world where the freedom of choices, where this increase of opportunities is being produced with the speed we experience in our personal and collective lives? We should ask ourselves whether this increase has any effect on the very freedom we want to achieve.

A tangible example to make the point: freedom is somehow like the eye. The eye opens to what is in front, is a sense organ somehow indeterminate since it is connected to what is being seen. The fast-increasing choices in the individual experience give us an excess of things we can see, as fundamental changes in our way of seeing, and we are even subject to the powerful systems which are there to put things in front of our eyes.

This brings the risk of becoming people who are driven from the outside: something is being presented as a choice, which is pleasurable and which increases our power and our fulfillment, but with the risk that freedom implodes on itself and that will deliver us completely to something which is external of ourselves.

To this first problem there’s a second one: all of those opportunities presented to us aren’t as real for most people as they are supposed to be. Therefore, the opportunities in front of us are kept only in an illusory and fantasized state and we withdraw them in. To give a banal example, miraculous or even magical solutions, as would be winning 130 million euro on the Lotto which would allow us to do anything we wanted to, at least in our fantasy.

Because of those two reasons, that world with expanded possibilities which is theoretically associated with an increased freedom, then carries the risk of encaging freedom again. In the book I don’t envision a world where we go back in limiting our opportunities, but to ask ourselves about our freedom and understanding if we are as free as we think we are.

Quartiroli: On page 126 of Imaginary Freedom, you write:

…the changeover which happened between the seventies and the eighties went consistently in the direction of the shift of what “need” – still connected to an objective and material idea, in itself saturable, to “desire”, the place of subjectivity and immateriality, as such, non-saturable.

Neil Postman, in Amusing Ourselves to Death, compares Orwell’s 1984 with Huxley’s Brave New World.

As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.”…In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.

The shift from need to desire and vice versa, transforming as need the object of infinite desire, is no doubt a practical mechanism for expanding corporate sales, but in what you define as “surplus enjoyment,” which is encouraged by contemporary capitalism, there is the superego aspect too (the set of rules and prohibitions given by the state, by morals, family and by religion), which have been loosened in what you define as techno-nihilistic capitalism.

The liberation from the superego and the quest for pleasure have a positive effect in the release of new life energies and in exploring ourselves and the surrounding world. However, in my opinion, if this, though welcome loosening of rules doesn’t match the development of the essential human qualities (compassion, perseverance, search for truth), we end up living only at our instinctual levels, combined with the mental area, which is overstimulated by technology, without a mediation of the heart. Intelligent beasts. A dangerous combination both for the human relationship and for the environment (many of the desires are fulfilled by goods and products which somehow contribute to environmental disaster).

On the other side, I don’t foresee nor welcome a return to the rules of the “old” capitalism which gave structure, rules and rigid roles. We would hardly give up desires, even though those will be like mirages. The genie is already out of the bottle. What’s your opinion about it?

Magatti: The question is very challenging. First, a one-liner about the fact that Lacan was right regarding Marx. It is not capitalism which creates desires, but capitalism, as a system, is even able to supplant religion, understands the importance of desire in the human experience and give fuel and substance to it. In particular, with the development of the consumer society first and with the communication society later, and finally in what I call techno-nihilistic capitalism, desire is being made pleasure.

The point is not to put the genie back in the bottle, which is impossible; the point is to get desire back not only on an individual level, but on the collective one as well. In the twentieth century, as well as a reaction to the repressive approach of industrial needs, of bureaucracies and of religions seen as a rule system, desires have been rediscovered even in relationships with the body and, this is something which has to be valued and not discarded.

The problem is that techno-nihilistic capitalism again seized desire and constrained it, in the sense that my experience, my sensation is like living in a big cathedral, almost a medieval monastery where you cannot turn your head without being continuously solicited, first on the sensorial level, in reducing our desire to what is being sold by the market or by TV. Desire in this way is being dramatically flattened in a materialistic experience which produces selfish relationships and, on the environmental level, has devastating effects on the environmental balance since, in order to satisfy this desire with no limits, it produces the effects we are experiencing.

Capitalism understood that this desire can be reproduced at will, so it got into it with great ease. I think that, if there is a solution – and this is, of course, very difficult and complex to find – it is in coming back to ask ourselves about desires, which is a mystery for everybody. Of desire, we can on one side be aware of the physical and sensorial aspects and of the deep aspects of our Self in psychoanalytical terms and, on the other side we can consider the metaphysical dimensions too, connected to the sense of mystery, of the infinite, to the meanings which can direct our lives.

We could also try to find a new synthesis between the pulsional element of desire, the deep element which goes back to the development of our personality and, as well, with the intellective element. In the twentieth century, we created this opposition between reason and desire, as if the two would exclude each other. I think instead, that the two can talk to each other, a communication between the pulsional element and reason. Both are important to feed desire, even with different forms and modalities.

Quartiroli: This reminds me of a Buddhist image, where in their tradition there’s the “hungry ghost” realm, greedy ghosts who can never satisfy their hunger, having a huge stomach and a tiny mouth, representing the impossibility of satisfying every desire. In this tradition, the way out from this hellish circle is about loving the truth, substituting compulsion with the desire for truth. In this regard, the metaphysical and spiritual aspects, which take different forms in different traditions, could show us the exit from this dead end, since we cannot go back denying desires but can’t go forward on the road of desires either, because desire, even before being fully satisfied, will devastate the planet and maybe even our psyches.

Magatti: Assuming that the East and the West follow very different paths, though in some aspects are complementary, so both journeys are interesting if they are part of the question. I resume from the last words, “love of truth.” Well, one of the dramatic things which are present on the historical stage we are populating, is the crisis of truth the West has experienced, the crisis of truth in the way it has been built in the previous centuries, up to the point of rejecting the issue of truth itself.

One thing is pretending to know truth and impose it on people; another is the desire for truth and accepting that, even though it is something which is larger than us, is something which we all long for. Wanting to separate any connection between freedom and truth is for sure one of the basic reasons which then progressively leads to what I call techno-nihilistic capitalism. On this basis, I agree fully that those hungry populations which run after their desires are really amazing.

Desire, if we don’t compress it immediately in the material dimension but leave it open on the spiritual dimension, gets a perspective such as this Western destructive effect, which at least can be reduced. Being able to again open this space in Western culture is really quite a big job because the obsessive presence of those ghosts which are conjured by the media system continuously saturate our horizons, and frame our horizons. Then the reopening to the sense of mystery, to the search of the truth seems literally inhibited.

Quartiroli: Since desire is what keeps the entire production machine running, it has to be continuously stimulated. The naked women on magazines’ covers are certainly functional to the selling of the magazines themselves, but are probably even more useful to predisposing the reader toward a desiring attitude which will then be transferred to the advertised products. Depression, perhaps as well as a result of the frustration of unfulfilled desires by most people, is the most widespread contemporary mental health discomfort.

The use of antidepressive and stimulant drugs, legal and illegal, has been increasing over the years. Depression, the real enemy of the market which needs ever-desiring people, has thus found its market in the treatment of depression itself, up to making pathological even those behaviors which are part of the normal human experience, as sadness or simple introversion. Any moment of emptiness has to be filled, if not otherwise, by a drug which operates on our nervous systems. Recently, I was reading that some psychiatrists are suggesting the use of antidepressives for babies 3 years old and less. As you wrote on page 187:

In front of the complexity of reality and on its incessant change, the self has to give up its unity, because that’s nothing else than the infinite series of stimuli which it is exposed to. This pressure is infinitely more powerful than any inwardness.

So, when those stimuli stop, an inner void opens showing a frightening abyss which is avoided as much as possible but which could be the door itself toward reconstructing an identity based on the deep inner perception instead of the external messages. When the techno-nihilist machine stops, who are we, Prof. Magatti?

Magatti: The dramatic condition of the contemporary Self, of the subjectivity, is to find itself scarily empty. The disproportion between the surrounding world and our psyches is so wide that we are always forced to conform to the external instead of investing in our inner lives, instead of loving and preferring what could allow us to grow something inside from our experience and to mark our paths in life. Our paths can be unique only if we accept the limits, as when the painter has the whole color palette in front of him. If he doesn’t decide to choose some and to stay inside the limits of the frame, then there will just be a mess.

One of the contemporary syndromes is the inability of many people, as psychotherapists say, of being able to narratively recount ones own experience, which is made up of individual and separate moments, experiences and situations which we cannot explain why they came out and why we found ourselves in them.

Depression comes when stimuli stop, for instance, with retired or unemployed people, or as also happens because of exhaustion: the physical and psychological effort needed to chase every opportunity is huge. There’s a time in life when we can’t take it any more or we feel inadequate compared to this very demanding model. Depression occurs from lack of sense as well, which produces not only the inability to understand ourselves and others, but on arriving at a point where there’s a growing difficulty in feeling anything in those opportunities and experiences which are more or less amazing if we throw ourselves into them.

So we have a being who manifests as powerful and skilled but actually hides an incredible incapacity to trace his peculiar history and his particular vision of the world. This brings us to the massification of behaviors we dramatically read in statistics where we all behave the same way.

One of the basic points of the book is that what Nietzsche introduced at the end of the nineteenth century is central to understand what’s going on. Our will to power is continuously called up as a fundamental energy to push the individual to match the surrounding environment. However, this will to power is reduced only toward the external and becomes useless toward the deep desire and instinct which we all have about becoming and letting others become.

One of the shocking things about the contemporary reality is that we have many options in many life situations, but we lose the basic, that is how to be and let others be. For a time which boasts of being a model regarding freedom, this is a dramatic outcome.

Quartiroli: A young woman, one of the so-called digital natives, part of the generation which grew with the Net and high technologies, recently wrote to me, referring to the precariousness of everything (work, relationships), that “in this confusion, the Net, paradoxically, offers an anchor.”

The Internet, and especially social networks like Facebook, represent a continuity, as they are a primary object relationship, a very early one. As the dean of the Faculty of Sociology at the Università Cattolica of Milan, you are in a favored observatory about the digital natives. How are relationships redefined and, in particular the Self relationship and the issue of identity?

Magatti: First, I think that being young nowadays – and this has been happening for a number of years – is an experience opposite to the one which the 1968 generation had. Then, there was a world of adults and of institutions which claimed to be coherent, cohesive and to express meanings and values. One could agree and integrate, or one could challenge that world and take a contradictory stand.

Today, the experience is the converse: the world of adults is a confused one, is contradictory, institutions are basically voiceless, and the level of legitimation is very low. The fundamental concern of young people is not to oppose somebody: when a problem is encountered, when a contraposition is met, they turn around and move in a different direction in order to avoid conflicts.

The main problem of today’s youth is to eventually understand whether they subsist as personal entities, even though changeable and contradictory, that is, whether there’s still any passion about searching for a lasting center of gravity around which they can base their lives. This explains why young people often appear lost and dazed regarding the surrounding world. Of course, they are thirsty and they enter life with the enthusiasm and creativity of their age to find supports and places which could possibly help them to realize this circular and complex process of circumnavigating their experience without immediately feeling closed or identified in a specific position.

In this regard, the Net is definitely a tempting tool and, in many aspects it is on the extent that the Net will be able to let experiences, questions and context be born which will have the sensitivity to avoid the ephemeral which characterizes our times. Obviously, the big limitation of the Net is the lack of direct relationships, of face-to-face connections, of the complexities of contextual relationships and its aim of building a network of connections which by definition remain ever-susceptible to being dissolved by the participating subjects. The potentialities which can be found in this setting are immense and have to be balanced with the limits, whereas the interacting person can always participate in the process, keeping a part out of it.

This has always happened even in face-to-face relationships; we do that every day at any time, showing one face and keeping other faces hidden or uninvolved. But perhaps in direct relationships this is more difficult, while on the Net’s relationships this is easier and is an aspect which shouldn’t be underestimated.

Quartiroli: These days I am especially struck by the indifference of the collective answer regarding the tragedy of the immigrants who died in the sea trying to reach our coasts and, in general on themes of sorrow. On compassion, on page 265, you wrote: “Demobilizing values – seen as unnecessary obstacles – and riding the will to power, the techno-nihilistic capitalism erodes the very bases of compassion and the human capacity of taking care.”

I find your assertion true and ask myself about the roots of the lack of compassion. There’s a sentence of Mark Slouka from War of the Worlds (Basic Books, 1995), one of the first generation’s books critical about technology of the Internet era.

The world provides context, and without context, ethical behavior is impossible. It is the physical facts of birth and pain and pleasure and death that force us (enable us) to make value judgments: this is better than that. Nourishment is better than hunger. Compassion is better than torture. Virtual systems, by offering us a reality divorced from the world, from the limits and responsibilities of presence, offer us as well a glimpse into an utterly amoral universe.

The technological setting is basically disembodied, where the body has a marginal role, when not seen as an impediment; likewise, Descartes regarded it as such in his scientific method. This negation of the body has more ancient roots then Descartes’ philosophy which characterized the scientific development of the last centuries. The roots have to be found in the Judeo-Christian tradition which relegated the body to a role far from the divine, when not an instrument of sin. You end the book writing of a coming back to bare faith as an antidote to the loss of sense and you wish for an open and non-dogmatic faith.

Do you think that the body, in this faith, could be brought back to a new worthiness and healthy vitality, instead of letting the body being managed by the society of surplus enjoyment? Christianity, in denying the body, in my opinion also negated the very bases of compassion, which become active in an integrated process of body, empathy, feelings, mind and divine values present in any human being, which we can approach through our body.

Magatti: One of the cultural traces of the twentieth century is this ambiguous rediscovery of the body, against its negation in the previous cultural structures. The problem is that technical development produces a new compression of the corporeality, mainly because techniques need abstraction. In its constituent language and in the kind of conditions created, this has to be over-contextualized and based on the creation of distance.

This created a new reduction of the corporeal element, which seems to weaken especially over face-to-face connections and caring connections and compassion. I think that our era pays a big penalty to an anthropological idea of the human being, the will to power which Nietzsche referred to. This is a very complex power, of course, known only negatively, even though it can be managed with difficulty, but which forgets other anthropological dimensions which are equally fundamental.

In particular, it forgets the experience we make of others through what, according to Levinas, the other’s face conveys to us or, according to Ricoeur, through what he calls the ordinary kindness, that is the human attitude to understanding each other, to find acknowledgment in each other and to depend on each other regarding our needs.

All of those dimensions are based as well on direct physical experience, on face-to-face dimensions which are dramatically negated and seized in social life. This not only damages the individual at the psychological level but also creates a series of problems in interpersonal connections and in the social world we live in. It’s impressive to see that in techno-nihilistic capitalism it seems almost annoying referring to and talking about questions which have to do with justice, poverty, about people who live in worse conditions, about the mutual sensitivity human beings have for each other.

I really think it is a lack of anthropological definition which when translated in an institutional organization and in lifestyles then makes this caring attitude even weaker. I think that they might instead (even on the institutional level) open channels, creating spaces and stimuli where this attitude can grow and compensate and balance the destructive aspects which the will to power can provoke if left to itself.

Quartiroli: Nihilism states the lack of meaning and of value of many aspects of life. From time to time nihilism emerged in the Western world in different forms. You say that contemporary capitalism, even with the important support of technology, tends to fragment, dismantle and melt any meaning and value, leaving only the society of surplus enjoyment.

I ask myself what the roots of nihilism in the Western world are and why we don’t have an existential perspective – we could say metaphysical or spiritual – beyond ideologies and the world of matter.
While some religious traditions, especially the Eastern ones, contemplate that human beings can reach divine spiritual states in this very life and in this very body, in the Christian tradition it is not possible to become like Christ, who is the only son of God and as such at most can be imitated through our virtuous actions, but not reachable as a state of being, at least in the earthly life.

So I’m not surprised that, given the impossibility of reaching the transcendental, and in the face of the intrinsic weakness of ideologies in the given sense to humanity, nihilism can slip in, which cancels everything and one can refer only to the certainties of consumerism and materiality.

Aurobindo said: “Every finite struggle to express an infinite which feels is his very truth.” Lacking the authentic transcendental infinite, the ego craves for it on the mental plane, which is being chased at the technological level, of information, of production, which gives the hope of obtaining divine powers (being in every place at the same time through the Net, extending life with bioengineering, life and death managed by medicine, omniscience with Google and so on). What’s your opinion about it?

Magatti: The point you raised is of crucial importance. It is based on events that are centuries old and mark different civilizations in depth. I won’t, in this instance, take a stand on what I was formed as and where I find myself, which is Christian and Western. However, I find an important convergence about the point where a human being is the intermediary between the finite and infinite and the way which this intermediation is played decides many things in our real lives and in social settings.

In the Christian tradition, transcendence is the ultimate source of desire, the deep drive of human beings. As Severino writes, the whole history of modernity is marked by the pretension of reducing transcendence to immanence through the systematic application of the will to power to the expansion of the freedom of goals.

As far as it is a carrier of material well-being, such movement is designed to create many problems, as history tells us. Here comes the Christian solution which asks to never close this frontier but to always keep the look open on the infinite.

Techno-nihilistic capitalism is a system which wants to be based on an immanence-immanent, subjugated to the systems of power which give a continuous mutation. Even if it introduces itself with no claims, techno-nihilistic capitalism is a view of the world and of history. Somehow, it is a religious system.

Unmasking this pretension is the first step to reopen the discourse about freedom and happiness.

Mauro Magatti. Libertà immaginaria. Le illusioni del capitalismo tecno-nichilista (Feltrinelli, Milano, 2009)

Wired author Ryan Singel wrote an article about the Huffington Post “being accused of slimy business practices by a handful of smaller publications who say the site is unfairly copying and publishing their content.” Singel quotes Moser, an editor at alternative weekly Chicago Reader, saying:

If the future of journalism – which everyone keeps telling me The Huffington Post represents – is a bunch of search-engine optimization scams, we have bigger problems than Sam Zell’s bad investment strategies.

Let me quote Plato in Phaedrus:

Socrates: At the Egyptian city of Naucratis, there was a famous old god, whose name was Theuth; the bird which is called the Ibis is sacred to him, and he was the inventor of many arts, such as arithmetic and calculation and geometry and astronomy and draughts and dice, but his great discovery was the use of letters. Now in those days the god Thamus was the king of the whole country of Egypt; and he dwelt in that great city of Upper Egypt which the Hellenes call Egyptian Thebes, and the god himself is called by them Ammon. To him came Theuth and showed his inventions, desiring that the other Egyptians might be allowed to have the benefit of them; he enumerated them, and Thamus enquired about their several uses, and praised some of them and censured others, as he approved or disapproved of them. It would take a long time to repeat all that Thamus said to Theuth in praise or blame of the various arts. But when they came to letters, This, said Theuth, will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories; it is a specific both for the memory and for the wit. Thamus replied: O most ingenious Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.

Nobody challenges the importance of letters in our world any more, not even philosophers who use them for elaborating their thoughts. Socrates was not an ordinary philosopher, but a wise and enlightened man who reached spiritual heights beyond conceptual thoughts.

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L’autore della rivista Wired Ryan Singel ha scritto un articolo a proposito dello Huffington Post, un famoso blog di informazione “accusato di scorrette pratiche commerciali da alcune pubblicazioni minori che affermano che il sito copia e pubblica ingiustamente i loro contenuti”. Singel cita Moser, un editor del settimanale Chicago Reader che afferma:

Se il futuro del giornalismo, che tutti quanti dicono che lo Huffington Post rappresenta, è un insieme di trucchi e truffe per ottimizzare gli accessi per i motori di ricerca, abbiamo dei problemi enormi.

Vorrei citare Platone nel Fedro:

Socrate: Ho sentito dunque raccontare che presso Naucrati, in Egitto, c’era uno degli antichi dèi del luogo, al quale era sacro l’uccello che chiamano ibis; il nome della divinità era Theuth. Questi inventò dapprima i numeri, il calcolo, la geometria e l’astronomia, poi il gioco della scacchiera e dei dadi, infine anche la scrittura. Re di tutto l’Egitto era allora Thamus e abitava nella grande città della regione superiore che i Greci chiamano Tebe Egizia, mentre chiamano il suo dio Ammone. Theuth, recatosi dal re, gli mostrò le sue arti e disse che dovevano essere trasmesse agli altri Egizi; Thamus gli chiese quale fosse l’utilità di ciascuna di esse, e mentre Theuth le passava in rassegna, a seconda che gli sembrasse parlare bene oppure no, ora disapprovava, ora lodava. Molti, a quanto si racconta, furono i pareri che Thamus espresse nell’uno e nell’altro senso a Theuth su ciascuna arte, e sarebbe troppo lungo ripercorrerli; quando poi fu alla scrittura, Theuth disse: «Questa conoscenza, o re, renderà gli Egizi più sapienti e più capaci di ricordare, poiché con essa è stato trovato il farmaco della memoria e della sapienza».
Allora il re rispose: «Ingegnosissimo Theuth, c’è chi sa partorire le arti e chi sa giudicare quale danno o quale vantaggio sono destinate ad arrecare a chi intende servirsene. Ora tu, padre della scrittura, per benevolenza hai detto il contrario di quello che essa vale. Questa scoperta infatti, per la mancanza di esercizio della memoria, produrrà nell’anima di coloro che la impareranno la dimenticanza, perché fidandosi della scrittura ricorderanno dal di fuori mediante caratteri estranei, non dal di dentro e da se stessi; perciò tu hai scoperto il farmaco non della memoria, ma del richiamare alla memoria. Della sapienza tu procuri ai tuoi discepoli l’apparenza, non la verità: ascoltando per tuo tramite molte cose senza insegnamento, crederanno di conoscere molte cose, mentre per lo più le ignorano, e la loro compagnia sarà molesta, poiché sono divenuti portatori di opinione anziché sapienti».

Nessuno mette più in discussione l’importanza della scrittura nel nostro mondo, neanche i filosofi che la usano per l’elaborazione dei loro pensieri. Socrate non era un filosofo qualunque, ma un uomo saggio e illuminato che aveva raggiunto delle vette spirituali al di là del pensiero concettuale.

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But the rest of us know how important letters are and how they as a medium have been used for keeping power. If Don Abbondio in the novel The Betrothed used the power of latinorum on the simple Renzo, the power of literacy nowadays is replicated in bureaucratic or legal language. The power of that medium is so vast that every socially advanced country rightly cares for the literacy of its citizens as a basic human right. The flip side of literacy is, as Neil Postman writes in Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (New York: Vintage Books, 1993, p. 9):

Thamus warns that the pupils of Theuth will develop an undeserved reputation for wisdom. He means to say that those who cultivate competence in the use of a new technology become an elite group that are granted undeserved authority and prestige by those who have no such competence.

Do Thamus’s warnings apply to today’s media and technological skills, and how? Have people who blog or have popular Internet sites become an elite group?

If we look at the 10 most popular blogs on the Internet (according to Technorati, eight are about gadgets, technology or software, and only two about politics and news. Popular blogs fall mainly in one of those categories: people who write about technology, people skilled in SEO techniques who can optimize sites for search engines, commercial blogs of the nanopublishing kind (which often combine the worst of traditional and new media), or traditional media empires which opened an Internet presence. In all of this we also witness new, independent and valuable blogs, but in limited number compared to the millions of blogs available and to the ease with which people can publish online. The agenda is made by a small number of big sites; they have the monopoly of online information in an even less pluralistic way than the traditional media.

A great writer or director would have difficulty in being recognized. A Pasolini or Fellini would be buried under millions of words and silly videos.

Since most of the high-ranking blogs are dedicated to technical articles, gadgets and news about the information technology world, this sets a mental frame which Neil Postman defined as “technopoly.”

Since the advent of letters (and perhaps even before that) every medium or technology has been welcomed in prophetic and cure-all terms. Technologically-oriented people never challenge the goodness of technology, seen at most as “neutral,” depending on the use being made. According to this line of reasoning, when technology causes more problems than solutions, it is because technology is not developed enough, not widespread enough, or not updated. It just has to be more efficient, precise, updated, applied.

No medium or technology has ever been neutral. The impact on our lives and social, psychological and anthropological transformations do not depend on what kind of use is being made of them, but whether they are being used or not. Thamus knew that already and, Marshall McLuhan synthesized it with his famous sentence, “The medium is the message.”

Technology is quite unpredictable and, to know the actual implications in our lives we’d need the wisdom of Thamus.

“The mechanical clock”, as Lewis Mumford wrote, “made possible the idea of regular production, regular working hours and a standardized product.” In short, without the clock, capitalism would have been quite impossible. The paradox, the surprise, and the wonder are that the clock was invented by men who wanted to devote themselves more rigorously to God; it ended as the technology of greatest use to men who wished to devote themselves to the accumulation of money (Neil Postman, Technopoly, p. 15).

The Internet was born as a military technology, then it became a medium for freedom of expression, and now is being transformed into a controlling medium as more and more countries and companies are trying to block, control, and spy on users. If the social impacts of technology are often overlooked, the effects on our psyche are neglected much more. Without our conscious attention to what technology does to us, we risk becoming its servomechanisms.

But inner attention is exactly what is hard to sustain, given the information overload and the number of different stimulations competing with each other.

Technopoly principles can’t be challenged in our culture: it’s almost a taboo. Technology seems “inevitable,” like taxes and death. People who worry about what human beings will lose through technology are being labeled pessimistic, against progress, unrealistic. It is never considered that those people embrace technology too, but they do it 360 degrees, instead of looking just at the bright front side.

Every new technology is welcomed as an improvement to life and human beings. This happened with letters, the printing press, radio, TV and, of course, the Internet. We should not forget that Nazism developed in one of the most culturally advanced countries of the times and that despite the ubiquitous availability of technology and information, we know less about the Iraq war than we knew about the Vietnam war. And, of course, wars, famine and inequalities did not cease with the advent of the Internet.

We have advanced in many ways since the times of Thamus, but geeks don’t make a less tiresome company then those mentioned in Phaedrus.

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Ma per tutti noi, sappiamo quanto la scrittura sia importante e quanto come medium sia stato usato per il mantenimento del potere. Se Don Abbondio ne I promessi Sposi usava il potere del latinorum sul semplice Renzo, il potere della scritura viene replicato anche oggigiorno nel linguaggio della burocrazia e in quello legale. Il potere di questo medium è talmente vasto che ogni nazione socialmente avanzata giustamente si preoccupa dell’alfabetismo dei suoi cittadini come un diritto umano di base. L’altra faccia della medaglia dell’alfabetismo è, come Neil Postman ha scritto in Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (New York: Vintage Books, 1993, p. 9):

Thamus mette in guardia i seguaci di Theuth sul fatto che poitrebbero sviluppare una reputazione immeritata come saggi. Egli vuole dire che coloro che coltivano una competenza nell’uso di uuna nuova tecnologia diventano una élite che ha un’autorità  e un prestigio immeritati nei riguardi di chi non ha tali competenze.

Gli avvertimenti di Thamus si applicano anche alle competenze dei media e delle tecnologie odierne? I blogger o le persone che hanno dei siti Internet popolari sono diventati una élite?

Se osserviamo i primi 10 blog della Rete, in accordo alla classifica di Technorati, otto riguardano i gadgets, la tecnologia o il software e solamente due riguardano la politica e le notizie. I blog popolari rientrano principalmente in una di queste categorie: persone che scrivono di tecnologia, persone esperte in tecniche SEO che possono ottimizzare il sito per i motori di ricerca, blog commerciali del tipo nanopublishing (che spesso combinano il peggio dei media tradizionali e dei nuovi media), o imperi dei media tradizionali che hanno avviato una presenza di Internet. In tutto questo troviamo anche dei blog nuovi, indipendenti e di valore, ma in  numero limitato se lo confrontiamo con i milioni di blog presenti e con la facilità con cui le persone possono pubblicare in rete. L’agenda viene data da un numero limitato di siti; hanno in monopolio dell’informazione online in un modo anche meno pluralistico dei media tradizionali.

Un grande scrittore o regista avrebbe difficoltà ad essere riconosciuto. Un Pasolini o un Fellini verrebbero sepolti da milioni di parole e di video insignificanti.

Poiché la maggior parte dei blog di grande diffusione sono dedicati agli articoli tecnici, ai gadget e alle notizie del mondo dell’information technology, questo definisce una struttura mentale che Neil Postman ha definito come technopoly.

Dall’avvento della scrittura (e magari anche prima), ogni medium e tecnologia è stata benvenuta in termini profetici e di soluzione per molti problemi. Le persone orientate verso la tecnologia non mettono mai in discussione la bontà della tecnologia, che viene vista al più come “neutrale”, che dipende dall’uso che viene fatto. In accordo a questa linea di pensiero, quando la tecnologia causa più problemi che soluzioni, è perché essa non è ancora abbastanza sviluppata, non abbastanza diffusa o non aggiornata. Deve solamente essere più efficiente, più precisa, aggiornata e applicata.

Nessun medium o tecnologia è mai stato neutrale. L’impatto sulle nostre vite e le inevitabili trasformazioni sociali, psicologiche ed antropologiche non dipendono dal tipo di utilizzo, ma dal fatto che venga usato o meno. Thamus già lo sapeva e Marshall McLuhan lo ha sintetizzato nella sua famosa frase “Il medium è il messaggio”.

La tecnologia è piuttosto imprevedibile. Per conoscere le implicazioni reali sulla nostre vite necessitiamo della saggezza di Thamus.

“L’orologio meccanico”, come scrisse Lewis Mumford, “ha reso possibile l’idea della produzione regolare, ore di lavoro regolari e dei prodotti standarizzati”. In breve, senza l’orologio, il capitalismo sarebbe stato praticamente impossibil. Il paradosso, la sorpresa e la meraviglia sono che l’orologio è stato inventato da uomini che volevano dedicare se stessi più rigorosamente a Dio; è finita essere la tecnologia di maggiore utilizzo per uomini che si sono dedicati all’accumulo del denaro. (Neil Postman, Technopoly, p. 15).

Internet è nata come tecnologia militare, poi è diventato un medium che rappresenta la libertà d’espressione ed ora si sta trasformando in un medium di controllo. Un numero sempr emaggiore di nazioni ed aziende stanno tentando di bloccare, controllare e spiare gli utenti. Se gli impatti sociali della tecnologia spesso vengono trascurati, gli effetti sulla nostre psiche li sono in modo ancora  maggiore. Senza la nostra attenzione cosciente a ciò che la tecnologia ci provoca, rischiamo di diventare i  suoi servomeccamismi. Ma l’attenzione interiore è esattamente ciò che è difficile da mantenere, dato il sovraccarico di informazioni e l’alto numero di stimoli diversi che competono tra di loro.

Nella nostra cultura i principi di technopoly non possono essere messi in discussione, è quasi un tabù. La tecnologia sembra “inevitabile”, come le tasse e la morte. Le persone che si preoccupano di ciò che gli esseri umani perderanno tramite la tecnologia vengono definite pessimiste, contro il progreesso, irrealistiche. Non viene mai preso in considerazione il fatto che anche loro abbracciano la tecnologia, ma lo fanno a 360 gradi invece di vedere solamente il lato splendente.

Ogni nuova tecnologia viene benvenuta come un miglioramento alla vita e agli esseri umani. Questo è avvenuto con la scrittura, con la stampa, con la radio, la TV e, naturalmente, con Internet. Non dovremmo dimenticare che il nazismo si è sviluppato in una delle nazioni culturalmente più avanzate dei tempi e che, nonostante l’onnipresente disponibilità di tecnologie e informazioni, sappiamo meno sulla guerra in Iraq che su quella del Vietnam. E, naturalmente, le guerre, la fame e le ineguaglianze non sono cessate con l’avvento di Internet.

Siamo progrediti in molti modi dai tempi di Thamus, ma i geek non sono di compagnia meno molesta di coloro che vengono menzionati nel Fedro.

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Marshall McLuhan summarized his view of the media in a model called the tetrad of media effects. The tetrad asks the following four questions about any medium to evaluate its qualities.

1) What does the medium increase? For example, TV amplifies the view of the whole world from our homes.

2) What does the medium make obsolete? TV makes family communication obsolete.

3) What does the medium retrieve that had been obsolete earlier? TV provokes a re-tribalization and homogenization of cultures.

4) What does the medium turn into when pushed to extremes? TV can turn in a global Big Brother show where everybody is on the airwaves. TV as well can become a tool of social manipulation.

The number and role of the media in our lives having expanded exponentially since McLuhan’s times, both in terms of the time we dedicate to them and the scope of their applications in our lives, we need to probe the media with a broader range of questions.

I won’t consider the computer and Internet as individual media since they are sums of several media, both traditional and new. Using a computer to write, shop, program software, look at porn or read news are different modalities which involve different needs, though they share the same tool.

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Marshall McLuhan sintetizzò le sue idee sui media in un modello chiamato la tetrade degli effetti dei media. La tetrade usa le seguenti quattro domande per valutare un medium:

1) Cosa permette di espandere il medium? Per esempio, la TV amplifica l’immagine che abbiamo del mondo dalle nostre case.

2) Cosa rende obsoleto? La TV rende obsoleta la comunicazione all’interno della famiglia.

3) Cosa recupera che era divenuto obsoleto in precedenza? La TV provoca una ri-tribalizzazione e un’omogeneizzazione delle culture.

4) Cosa succede quando i limiti del medium vengono spinti agli estremi? La TV può trasformarsi in un unico Grande Fratello in cui la vita di ognuno è in diretta. La TV può anche diventare uno strumento di manipolazione sociale.

Poiché oggigiorno il numero e la funzione dei media si sono espansi in misura esponenziale rispetto ai tempi di McLuhan – in termini sia di tempo che dedichiamo a essi sia di loro ricadute nella nostra vita – abbiamo bisogno di vagliarli tramite più domande.

Non considererò i computer e Internet come media singoli, in quanto sono la somma di diversi media, sia tradizionali che nuovi. Usare un computer per scrivere, fare acquisti, programmare, guardare pornografia o leggere notizie sono modalità diverse che rispondono a bisogni diversi, benché usino lo stesso strumento.

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From the old times of radio and TV, the media have become more flexible and there is less univocal connection between a tool and its function. Some tools include different functions and some functions can be achieved through different tools. For instance, we can email people from the desktop computer, our laptop in a café through Wi-Fi or from our mobile phone almost anywhere.

I’ll split the questions in groups, based on the impact of the media on our bodies, on our minds, on human qualities, and at the spiritual and social levels, showing few examples.

Body: neurophysiology and endocrine level

How is the body involved? TV is usually viewed when the body is fully relaxed, in a sofa or armchair. Computers are used while sitting, which doesn’t allow ful relaxation. The only physical movements are of our fingers and forearm on the keyboard and mouse. Cars involve a limited set of movements, while bicycles engage the body almost fully.

How aware are we of the surrounding environment? Theater or movie environments tend to isolate us from the surroundings, focusing our attention on just the movie. TV is usually viewed in enclosed places but, unless it is a home theater, doesn’t isolate us fully from the environment. Cell phones divert a part of our attention from the environment. Though this diversion could be very dangerous when driving, we retain much of the awareness of the surroundings. Driving cars only allows us to view the environment we drive by fleetingly, while bicycles let us observe many more places and details.

Which physical pathologies are promoted? TV viewing promotes obesity and cardio-circulatory problems. Computer use promotes carpal tunnel inflammation, backache, stiff neck, and obesity. Any cathode-ray tube screen emits electromagnetic waves which can give headache, irritability and are dangerous during pregnancy. Flat screens produce weaker electromagnetic fields. Cell phones are still controversial, but there are a number of studies which say that microwaves could affect the brain, especially those of kids.

What kind of brain waves are triggered in the user? TV puts people in a relaxed and passive alpha state (with brain waves of around 10 Hz). But at the same time the relaxation induced by TV is just temporary since after a while restlessness arises, as Jerry Mander documented in In the absence of the sacred (San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1991) and in Four arguments for the elimination of television. As far as I know, there aren’t many studies about brain waves related to the usage of different kinds of media. It would be interesting to see more of them.

How does it work on the endocrine system? For instance, the light from any screen inhibits the production of melatonin, especially when viewed from close by, as in computer use. Melatonin inhibition provokes, among other things, difficulty in sleeping. There are also some studies connecting cell phone usage and the endocrine system.

Mind and psychology

Does the medium promote concentration or splitting of our attention? Reading books promotes concentration, while surfing the Web and Internet usage in general, through the number of events which call for our attention, promotes splitting.

Does it promote projection and mental imagery, or brings us in touch with reality? TV puts us in a dreamy state where images reach us without filtration, helped as well by the production of alpha waves in our brain. The less our bodies are involved in the medium, the more the experience will be confined to the mental plane, where suggestions and messages can pour inside easily.

Which thought channels are promoted? Rational, magic, visual, kinesthetic, emotional? Which thought modalities are promoted? For instance, software programming stimulates the causal and rational way of thinking, any video stimulates the visual part, some Wii video games can promote the kinesthetic channels. Of course, channels can get mixed, as in a movie where both the visual and emotional channels are stimulated.

Which stages of psychological development are involved? This classification could be, for instance, according to Piaget’s stages of cognitive development (or any other psychological model). The relationship with the computer sometimes resembles the symbiotic stage. The relationship with a car resembles the stage where we get our autonomy, independence and freedom, as in the stages of separation–individuation described by Margaret Mahler.

Which kind of psychological defenses are triggered? Computers can promote detachment from people and reality, and sometimes even distortion from reality. Books or computer programming can promote intellectualization, a form of distancing from our unmanageable feelings favoring the intellect.

Which part of the ego is boosted? For somebody, cars can be status symbols more than simple tools for transportation, books can raise our intellectual snobbishness, computer skills can make us feel part of an exclusive club of “high-tech” people.

What does excessive use bring? Excessive TV use brings passivity and obesity, excessive cell phone use brings stress and probably pathologies, excessive computer use brings addiction.
How easily can we become addicted to these media? Cell phone texting, video games, online auctions, online gambling or online sex can bring addiction more easily. My hypothesis is that computer addiction is a mechanism of the ego for its survival.

Human qualities

Which qualities of the human soul do these tools seem to satisfy? Computers, in general, foster the precise, steady, predictable, infallible mental qualities. Cars – more so, motorbikes – glorify power, the urge to explore and to seek adventure. Social networks seem to satisfy our need to have meaningful connections with other human beings. Books and printed words in general are extensions and replacements of a good memory. TV seems to satisfy our need for peace and relaxation.

Which inner needs do they appear to fill and, how can those needs be manipulated by advertisers? Cars are depicted as tools for freedom and useful for our need to move, computers give the impression of simplifying and automating life tasks (shopping, online banking, accounting, writing, and hundreds of other supposedly “time-saving” tasks), promising a simpler life. TV seems to give the peace and relaxation needed in our stressed lives. Such passive and relaxed states can be taken advantage of by advertising.
Which good qualities can be developed? Software programming can develop logical thinking and cause-effect understanding. Blogging can develop writing skills.

To what good things can they be detrimental? The Internet, with its many temptations and interruptions, reduces prolonged attention. TV inhibits or entirely cuts off intra-family communication. Cars reduce the exercise necessary for our leg muscles. Car GPS receivers reduce our sense of orientation. Mobile phones reduce our connection with the immediately surrounding environment. McLuhan called such cutting off “amputation.”

Spiritual

What longing or state is simulated at the spiritual level? For instance, the connection of everybody and everything through the Internet resembles the collective consciousness spoken of by many spiritual teachers. Some technologies simulate spiritual siddhis, spiritual powers mentioned in the ancient Hindu epics. For instance, Vayu Gaman Siddhi, which allows one to move instantly from one place to another and to fly in the skies (Google Earth and other simulators), or the siddhi which gives the capability of creating worlds (technology allows us to create virtual worlds like Second Life), or manipulating matter (nanotechnologies).

Social

How much of reality can be manipulated? Any “medium,” by its very definition, stands between reality and ourselves, so will mediate and hide our contact with reality to different degrees. TV edits and special effects can manipulate reality quite strongly, especially through the visual channel of our mind. Virtual worlds like Second Life, though they want to immerse the user deeply into the environment, are actually less manipulative since they don’t claim to show reality.

What social problems seem to get resolved? In the beginning, TV was seen as a medium for spreading culture, especially for the less educated people. The Internet promotes participation in social decisions by everybody.

Are they individual or collective experiences? To begin with, TV was a collective experience, then a family experience, then an individualistic experience (now in the richest countries most people in a family have their own TV sets). Though the Internet is an individualistic experience, users are connected to each other in a mediated way. A movie in a cinema hall is a collective experience, but people aren’t connected with each other. A car is mostly an individualistic experience.

Are the contents made by the users or are they spread in a centralized way? Newspapers, TV and radio are centralized, while the contents and blogs of Internet social networks are made by the users. Sometimes even the traditional media give some space to users in the form of letters and telephone calls.

Can the medium be concentrated in a few hands or be controlled? Almost any of the media can be concentrated in a few hands. Traditional media as press and television can be controlled by their owners and also by governments. The Internet, with its open structure, is more difficult to be controlled, but is becoming both more and more controlled and concentrated in a few hands.

What is the environmental life cycle of a medium? What is the environmental impact of the production, use and discharge of the tools? Can they be recycled and, to what degree?

What is the production environment of manufacturing the tools? Are there health hazards for the workers? Are workers’ rights respected? Is the production done in countries which respect human rights?

What parts of social contact are substituted? TV substitutes family talk, social networks can substitute street groups of friends, cybersex can substitute a whole sexual experience, and dating sites substitute the play of the seduction of gestures, glances and body language. Mp3 players (and earlier the Walkman) substitute the singing and whistling of people on the streets.

Summing up

The different qualities of the media could be analyzed and summed up to evaluate the risk of manipulating truth and reality by a certain medium. For instance, a medium like TV, which puts people in a passive and receptive state at the same time, is controlled by a few people and used by the majority of people, should be regulated closely to preserve democracy and freedom of expression.

Also, if a medium works on certain neural circuits and feeds on deep unresolved psychological needs, it can easily become addictive and people should be aware of this.

Much more work has to be done on the impact of the media on our psyche and on society. Asking questions and evaluating answers is a good beginning.

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Dai vecchi tempi della radio e della TV, i media sono diventati più flessibili e la connessione tra uno strumento e la sua funzione è divenuta meno univoca. Alcuni strumenti permettono diverse funzioni e certe funzioni sono ottenibili mediante vari strumenti. Per esempio, possiamo mandare un’e-mail dal PC di casa nostra, dal computer portatile in un cafè tramite Wi-Fi o, praticamente ovunque, dai nostri telefoni cellulari.

Dividerò le domande per gruppi, in base all’impatto che i media hanno sul corpo, la mente, le qualità umane, il livello spirituale e quello sociale, con qualche esempio.

Il corpo: neurofisiologia e livello endocrino

Come è coinvolto il corpo? Di solito, quando guardiamo la TV, il corpo è completamente rilassato su un divano o una poltrona. I computer si utilizzano da seduti, fatto che impedisce un rilassamento completo. Gli unici movimenti fisici sono quelli delle dita e dell’avambraccio sulla tastiera e il mouse. Le automobili richiedono un numero limitato di movimenti, mentre le biciclette attivano quasi tutto il nostro corpo.

Quanto siamo consapevoli dell’ambiente che ci circonda? Il teatro o il cinema sono ambienti che cercano di isolarci da quanto ci circonda, al fine di farci concentrare esclusivamente sul film. La TV è di solito vista in luoghi chiusi ma, a meno che non si tratti di home theater, non ci isola completamente dall’ambiente. I cellulari allontanano una parte della nostra attenzione dall’ambiente. Questo può essere molto pericoloso mentre si guida, ma la gran parte della nostra attenzione continua a essere diretta verso ciò che ci circonda. Guidare una macchina ci permette di guardare in modo fuggevole l’ambiente che attraversiamo, mentre le biciclette ci consentono di osservare più cose più in dettaglio.

Quali patologie fisiche vengono incoraggiate? Guardare la TV predispone all’obesità e a problemi cardiocircolatori. L’uso del computer può causare infiammazione del tunnel carpale, mal di schiena, rigidità al collo e obesità. Tutti gli schermi a tubo catodico emettono onde elettromagnetiche che possono provocare mal di testa e irritabilità, oltre a essere pericolosi durante la gravidanza. Gli schermi piatti producono campi elettromagnetici più deboli. I cellulari sono tuttora un argomento controverso, ma esistono molti studi secondo i quali le microonde possono avere effetti sul cervello, soprattutto dei bambini.

Che genere di onde cerebrali vengono attivate nell’utilizzatore? La TV pone le persone in uno stato passivo e rilassato, caratterizzato da onde cerebrali alfa (intorno ai 10 Hz). Ma allo stesso tempo il rilassamento indotto dalla TV è solo temporaneo, perché dopo un po’ insorge una certa irrequietezza, come ha evidenziato Jerry Mander in In the absence of the sacred (San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1991) e in Quattro argomenti contro la televisione, (Dedalo, 1982). Per quanto ne so, non esistono molti studi sulle onde cerebrali in relazione ai diversi tipi di media. Sarebbe interessante se ce ne fossero di più.

Quali sono i suoi effetti sul sistema endocrino? Per esempio, la luce di qualsiasi schermo inibisce la produzione di melatonina, soprattutto a distanza ravvicinata, come nel caso dei computer. L’inibizione della melatonina provoca, tra le altre cose, difficoltà ad addormentarsi. Ci sono anche degli studi che collegano l’uso dei cellulari al sistema endocrino.

Mente e psicologia

Il mezzo promuove la concentrazione o disperde l’attenzione? Leggere un libro promuove la concentrazione, mentre navigare in Rete (e l’uso di Internet in generale), a causa dell’elevato numero di eventi che chiedono la nostra attenzione, promuove la dispersione.

Promuove proiezioni e fantasie mentali, o ci porta a contatto con la realtà? La TV ci porta in uno stato onirico in cui le immagini ci raggiungono la mente senza molti filtri, grazie anche alla produzione delle onde cerebrali alfa. Meno il nostro corpo è coinvolto dal medium, più l’esperienza sarà limitata alla sfera mentale e più facilmente messaggi e suggestioni potranno entrare in noi.

Quali canali di pensiero sono stimolati? Razionale, magico, visuale, cinestetico, emozionale? Che modalità di pensiero è sollecitata? Per esempio, la programmazione di software stimola la modalità di pensiero causale-razionale, un video stimola la parte visuale, mentre alcuni videogiochi Wii possono promuovere i canali cinestetici. Naturalmente, i canali possono mescolarsi, come in un film in cui vengono stimolati sia il canale visuale che quello emotivo.

Quali stadi dello sviluppo psicologico sono coinvolti? Questa classificazione potrebbe seguire, per esempio, quella di Piaget degli stadi dello sviluppo cognitivo (o qualsiasi altro modello psicologico). La relazione con il computer talvolta ricorda lo stato simbiotico. La relazione con un’automobile ricorda lo stadio in cui otteniamo autonomia, indipendenza e libertà (il riferimento qui è agli stadi di separazione-individuazione individuati da Margaret Mahler).

Che tipo di difese psicologiche vengono attivate? I computer possono provocare distacco dalle persone e dalla realtà, e talvolta anche distorsione di quest’ultima. I libri o la programmazione informatica possono promuovere l’intellettualizzazione, intesa come modo per evitare quei sentimenti che non si riesce a gestire, a favore dell’intelletto.

Quale parte dell’ego viene incoraggiata? Per alcuni, le automobili possono rappresentare uno status symbol più che semplici mezzi di trasporto, i libri possono generare snobismo intellettuale e le conoscenze informatiche possono indurre a sentirsi parte di un’élite high-tech.

Cosa provoca l’uso eccessivo? L’uso eccessivo della TV provoca passività e obesità, l’uso eccessivo dei cellulari provoca stress e probabilmente patologie, l’uso eccessivo del computer provoca dipendenza.
Quanto facilmente si diventa dipendenti da questi media? Gli SMS, i videogame, le aste on-line, il gioco d’azzardo on-line e il sesso on-line possono provocare più facilmente dipendenza. La mia ipotesi è che la dipendenza da computer sia un meccanismo dell’ego per sopravvivere.

Qualità umane

Quali qualità dell’animo umano questi strumenti incrementano, apparentemente? I computer, in generale, stimolano qualità mentali come la precisione, la prevedibilità, la costanza, l’infallibilità. Le automobili – anche di più, le motociclette – esaltano il potere, il desiderio di avventure ed esplorazioni. I social network, apparentemente, soddisfano il bisogno di rapporti significativi con gli altri esseri umani. I libri, e le parole stampate in generale, sono estensioni e sostituti di una buona memoria. Sembra che la TV soddisfi il nostro bisogno di quiete e rilassamento.

Quali bisogni interiori sembra che soddisfino, e come tali bisogni sono manipolabili dalla pubblicità? Le automobili sono rappresentate come strumenti di libertà che appagano il nostro bisogno di movimento, i computer danno la sensazione di semplificare e automatizzare certe incombenze (shopping; conto corrente on-line; lavori di contabilità, scrittura e centinaia di altre cose che dovrebbero farci “risparmiare tempo”), promettendo una vita più semplice. La TV sembra donare quella quiete e quella tranquillità necessarie alla nostra vita stressata. Di tali stati passivi e rilassati può approfittare la pubblicità.

Quali buone qualità possono essere sviluppate? La programmazione software può sviluppare il pensiero logico e la comprensione causa-effetto. I blog possono migliorare le doti di scrittura.

Possono nuocere a qualche buona qualità? Internet, con le sue molte tentazioni e interruzioni, riduce l’attenzione prolungata. La TV inibisce o elimina completamente la comunicazione all’interno della famiglia. Le automobili riducono l’esercizio necessario ai muscoli delle gambe. I sistemi di orientamento satellitare nelle automobili indeboliscono il nostro senso di orientamento. I cellulari riducono il legame con l’ambiente che ci circonda. McLuhan chiamava tali indebolimenti “amputazioni”.

Spirituale

Quale aspirazione o stato vengono simulati a livello spirituale? Per esempio, la connessione con tutti e tutto raggiungibile tramite Internet ricorda la consapevolezza collettiva di cui hanno parlato molti insegnanti spirituali. Alcune tecnologie imitano le siddhi, i poteri spirituali di cui si fa menzione nell’antica epica hindu. Per esempio, la Vayu Gaman Siddhi, che consente di spostarsi simultaneamente da un luogo all’altro e di volare nei cieli (Google Earth e gli altri simulatori), o la siddhi che permette la capacità di creare mondi (la tecnologia ci consente di creare mondi virtuali come Second Life) o di manipolare la materia (le nanotecnologie).

Sociale

Fino a che punto è possibile manipolare la realtà? Qualsiasi “medium”, per sua stessa definizione, si frappone tra noi e la realtà, mediando e velando il nostro contatto con essa in misura più o meno grande. I tagli e gli effetti speciali della TV possono manipolare in misura significativa la realtà, soprattutto attraverso il canale visuale della mente. Mondi virtuali come Second Life, benché vogliano immergere l’utente più profondamente nell’ambiente, sono in realtà meno manipolativi, poiché non pretendono di mostrare la realtà.

Quali problemi sociali sembra che vengano risolti? All’inizio, la TV era vista come un medium per diffondere cultura, soprattutto tra le persone meno istruite. Internet promuove la partecipazione alle decisioni sociali da parte di tutti.

Sono esperienze individuali o collettive? All’inizio, la TV era un’esperienza collettiva, poi venne posta nella famiglia, infine individuale (oggi, nei Paesi ricchi, la maggior parte dei componenti di una famiglia possiede una televisione tutta per sé). Benché Internet sia un’esperienza individuale, gli utenti sono connessi tra loro in modo mediato. Un film al cinema è un’esperienza collettiva, ma le persone non sono connesse tra loro. Un’automobile è perlopiù un’esperienza individuale.

I contenuti sono creati dagli individui o sono diffusi in modo centralizzato? I giornali, la TV e le radio sono centralizzati, mentre i contenuti e i blog dei social network di Internet sono creati dagli utenti. Talvolta, anche i media tradizionali danno spazio agli utenti, tramite lettere e telefonate.

Può il mezzo essere concentrato in poche mani o essere controllato? Quasi tutti i media possono essere concentrati in poche mani. I media tradizionali quali la stampa e la televisione possono essere controllati dai loro proprietari e anche dai governi. Internet, con la sua struttura aperta, è più difficilmente controllabile, ma anche in questo campo il controllo e la concentrazioni in poche mani stanno aumentando.

Qual è il ciclo di vita ambientale di un mezzo? Qual è l’impatto ambientale della produzione, dell’uso e dell’eliminazione dei suoi strumenti? È possibile riciclare questi ultimi, e fino a che punto?

Qual è l’ambiente di produzione di tali strumenti? Ci sono rischi per i lavoratori? I diritti dei lavoratori sono rispettati? La produzione viene effettuata in Paesi che rispettano i diritti umani?

Quali parti del contatto sociale vengono sostituite? La TV sostituisce la conversazione in famiglia, i network sociali possono sostituire le amicizie che nascono per strada, il cybersesso può sostituire un’esperienza sessuale autentica e i siti di incontri possono sostituire il gioco della seduzione che si attua tramite gesti, gli sguardi e il linguaggio del corpo. I lettori Mp3 (e, prima ancora, i Walkman) sostituiscono il canticchiare e il fischiettare della gente per strada.

In sintesi

È possibile analizzare e sintetizzare le diverse qualità di un medium per valutarne i rischi di manipolazione della realtà e della verità. Per esempio, un medium come la TV – che mette le persone in uno stato passivo e ricettivo allo stesso tempo, è controllato da pochi ma è usato da molti – andrebbe sottoposto a un controllo rigoroso per tutelare la democrazia e la libertà di espressione.

Inoltre, se un medium agisce su certi circuiti neurali e soddisfa bisogni psicologici profondi irrisolti, può facilmente provocare dipendenza. Di questo, le persone dovrebbero essere consapevoli.
Molta ricerca va ancora fatta riguardo l’impatto dei media sulla nostra psiche e sulla società. Credo che il porre domande e valutare le risposte sia un buon inizio.
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It is said that in the ancient tantric traditions, some practitioners used to test their awareness by taking intoxicants or being bitten by poisonous snakes while they still kept their whole consciousness.

One of the tantric practices of our information society could be to be aware of ourselves while we are connected to the Internet and tend to lose ourselves in the objects of our attention.

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Si dice che nelle antiche tradizioni tantriche alcuni praticanti testavano la propria consapevolezza assumendo sostanze intossicanti o facendosi mordere da serpenti velenosi, mantenendo sempre uno stato di piena coscienza.

Una delle pratiche tantriche della nostra società dell’informazione potrebbe essere restare consapevoli di noi stessi mentre siamo connessi a Internet e tendiamo a perderci negli oggetti della nostra attenzione.

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[en]

It is said that in the ancient tantric traditions, some practitioners used to test their awareness by taking intoxicants or being bitten by poisonous snakes while they still kept their whole consciousness.

In more recent times such as the 60s, Richard Alpert (Ram Dass) gave a huge dose of LSD to his Indian guru and to his amazement nothing happened to him. This is one of the 60’s mythological tales, but, whether it is completely true or not does not change the fact that when we are in control of our mind, nothing that can affect the mind can change our awareness, that is beyond the mind itself.

But for all of us, who are not enlightened gurus or very advanced tantric practitioners, any intoxicant is going to change our perception of the world. We usually consider substances like alcohol or drugs that alter our perception, such as heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, marijuana or others as intoxicants. Those have an organic impact on our brain and psyche.

One of the tantric practices of our information society could be to be aware of ourselves while we are connected to the Internet and tend to lose ourselves in the objects of our attention. Keeping awareness while we are wired to the Net is a great exercise in the direction of self remembrance despite the overwhelming inputs.

Osho, referring to the Indian tradition, talked about the metaphysics of the different bodies we are made of, where the first body is the physical one, the second is the emotional one, the third one is the mental and the fourth is the awareness body.

The fourth body is vigyanamay kosh, the awareness body. The third is created by thoughts, the fourth is created by consciousness, by awareness; that is the awareness body. When we become capable of watching our thoughts the way we watch white clouds floating in the sky, or a line of cranes flying, when we are able to watch our thoughts from a distance, to see them flying in the sky of consciousness – then we are able to know the fourth body. But we are so strongly attached to the first body that even the second body is not known. And then we are so captured by the third body, so thoroughly drowned in the mind, that we can’t even conceive of transcending it. Osho. The Way Beyond Any Way. Rebel Publishing House. Pune. 2000.

The awareness body is fed by self reflection, not in a “thought-crunching” way (or “mind fucking”) but by consciously observing ourselves in the wholeness of body, mind and sensations and without trying to change anything. In other words, the fourth body is developed when we give space to the observing meditative parts of the mind.

The fourth body is harmed by intoxicants, among them the information overload that makes it difficult to become still enough to focus and observe the thoughts instead of being caught in their net and identifying with them. Of course as an act of will we can always stop and meditate but… even to activate that we will need a certain detachment from our thoughts.

See also:

Disembodying at broadband speed

Heavenly Technology

The Tibetan watch: how a spiritual teacher learned about technology in the West

Virtual worlds and Maya 2.0

Computer addiction as survival for the ego

Programming and self de-programming

Metabolizing information

Mental territories

Is Internet empowering us?

Wireless communication and reality mining as a reflection of pervasive consciousness

Multitasking to nothing

Biotech as an information system

Virtual worlds, mirror worlds, Second Life: backing up the messed planet

Mechanisms, mysticism and Amazon Mechanical Turk

Zen archery and computers

Lifelogging

The heart of the binary code

Downloading our life on Internet

Google, privacy and the need to be seen

Personal consumer

[/en][it]

Si dice che nelle antiche tradizioni tantriche alcuni praticanti testavano la propria consapevolezza assumendo sostanze intossicanti o facendosi mordere da serpenti velenosi, mantenendo sempre uno stato di piena coscienza.

In tempi più recenti, negli anni Sessanta, Richard Alpert (Ram Dass) somministrò una dose abbondante di LSD al suo guru indiano, ma con sua grande meraviglia, a quest’ultimo non accadde nulla. Questa è una delle leggende degli anni Sessanta ma, vera o meno, il punto essenziale non cambia: quando abbiamo il controllo della mente, nulla che abbia effetto su quest’ultima può alterare la nostra consapevolezza. Essa è al di là della mente stessa.

Invece, per tutti noi che non siamo guru illuminati o praticanti tantrici molto avanzati, qualsiasi sostanza intossicante altererà la nostra percezione del mondo. Parliamo in genere di sostanze come l’alcool o di droghe che alterano la nostra percezione, come l’eroina, la cocaina, l’ecstasy, la marijuana ecc. Esse hanno un impatto organico sul cervello e la psiche.

Una delle pratiche tantriche della nostra società dell’informazione potrebbe essere restare consapevoli di noi stessi mentre siamo connessi a Internet e tendiamo a perderci negli oggetti della nostra attenzione. Mantenere la consapevolezza in Rete è un grande esercizio nella direzione della rimembranza di sé, che va contro il flusso travolgente di informazioni.

Osho, riferendosi alla tradizione indiana, ha parlato della metafisica dei diversi corpi di cui siamo composti: il primo è il corpo fisico, il secondo quello emozionale, il terzo quello mentale e il quarto quello della consapevolezza.

Il quarto corpo è il vigyanamay kosh, il corpo di consapevolezza. Il terzo viene creato dai pensieri, il quarto viene creato dalla coscienza, dalla consapevolezza. Quando diveniamo capaci di osservare i pensieri nell stesso modo in cui osserviamo le nuvole bianche che scorrono nel cielo o uno stormo di uccelli, quando siamo in grado di osservare i nostri pensieri a distanza, vedendoli volare nel cielo della coscienza , allora a quel punto siamo in grado di conoscere il quarto corpo. Ma siamo così fortemente attaccati al primo corpo che anche il secondo ci è sconosciuto. E poi siamo talmente catturati dal terzo corpo, così fortemente immersi nella mente,che non possiamo neanche immaginare di trascenderlo. Osho. The Way Beyond Any Way. Rebel Publishing House. Pune. 2000.

Il corpo di consapevolezza è nutrito dall’auto-riflessione: non il rimuginare (o il farsi le “seghe mentali”), ma l’osservarci consapevolmente nella totalità del corpo, della mente e delle sensazioni, senza cercare di cambiare nulla. In altre parole, il quarto corpo si sviluppa quando diamo spazio alle parti meditative e osservatrici della mente.

Il quarto corpo viene danneggiato dagli intossicanti, tra i quali andrebbe annoverato il sovraccarico di informazioni che rende difficile diventare silenziosi abbastanza da focalizzarci e osservare i pensieri, anziché restare presi nella loro rete e identificarsi con essi. Naturalmente, possiamo sempre decidere volontariamente di fermarci e meditare, ma… anche per questa decisione abbiamo bisogno di un certo distacco dai pensieri.

Vedi anche:

Rendendoci incorporei a velocità di banda larga

Tecnologie divine

L’orologio tibetano: come un insegnante spirituale venne a conoscenza della tecnologia in Occidente

Mondi virtuali e Maya 2.0

La dipendenza da computer per la sopravvivenza dell’ego

Programmazione e de-programmazione di sè

Metabolizzare le informazioni

Territori mentali

Internet aumenta davvero il nostro potere?

La comunicazione senza fili e il reality mining come riflesso della consapevolezza globale

Il multitasking: strafare per niente

Le biotecnologie come sistema informativo

Mondi virtuali, mondi specchio, Second Life: fare il backup di un pianeta nel caos

Meccanismi, misticismi e Mechanical Turk di Amazon

Il tiro con l’arco Zen e i computer

Lifelogging

Il cuore del codice binario

Download della vita su Internet

Google, la privacy e il mettersi in mostra

Personal consumatore

[/it]

Since the beginning, Internet has been regarded as an instrument of democracy and Internet activism grew over the years. The Net is considered a decentralization tool that gives the power back to small groups and individuals.

But are we really empowered through technology? The 60’s students’ movement was very influential in society and well organized, maybe not even in spite of the lack of technologies but because of that lack. People had to rely on personal connections.

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Sin dall’inizio, Internet è stata considerata uno strumento di democrazia, e l’attivismo legato a Internet è cresciuto nel corso degli anni. La Rete viene vista come un mezzo di decentralizzazione, che restituisce il potere agli individui e ai piccoli gruppi.

Ma Internet aumenta davvero il nostro potere? Il movimento studentesco degli anni ’60 era ben organizzato e molto influente nella società, e forse questo non avveniva nonostante l’arretratezza tecnologica, ma grazie a essa. La gente doveva fare affidamento sui contatti personali.

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Even before the popularization of the Internet, Jerry Mander wrote:

Computers have made it possible to instantaneously move staggering amounts of capital, information and equipment throughout the world, giving unprecedented power to the largest institutions on the earth. In fact, computers made these institutions possible. Meanwhile, we use our personal computers to edit our copy and hook into our information networks – and believe that makes us more powerful. Jerry Mander. In the absence of the sacred. Sierra Club. San Francisco. 1991

Since the beginning, Internet has been regarded as an instrument of democracy and Internet activism grew over the years. The Net is considered a decentralization tool that gives the power back to small groups and individuals. Internet offers a place to distribute words, images, sounds and videos, a place to meet like-minded people and to organize groups for certain aims. Ideas can be spread easily through the net and everybody can do that with a relatively small economical cost.

All well and fine but there’s something missing here. I am too young to have been part of the 60′s political movements, but old enough to have been part of the late 70′s movements as a teenager. The Internet hardly existed then, only a few academic institutions had it, cell phones didn’t exist, faxes were only available to big companies. There were just ordinary telephones, but we didn’t even use them that much.

Even so, whenever there was a gathering, assembly or rally, every student knew about it. We were writing posters on the school entrance, talking in school assemblies but mainly we heard about it through the grape vine. The dark side of the student’s movement was present as well, as sometimes people would degenerate in imposing points of view and some groups were even using violence, but in the high majority of cases the movement was about the passion to act for a better and just world. That passion was contagious; we could feel the collective energy and feel part of something bigger. Of course the ego of the people was involved as well and there were power trips on every side of the political spectrum but there was also a genuine interest in the collective and in global justice beyond personal interest.

The students’ movement was very influential in society and well organized, maybe not even in spite of the lack of technologies but because of that lack. People had to rely on personal connections. No cultural or social transformation in history needed much technology or even a large number of people. Its clichéd to say it but the transmission of individual values and ideas through personal contacts can light the fire much easier than any forum, web site or online video.

Could it be that we pulled the wool over our own eyes in imagining that we can enpower ourselves and spread our ideas through blogs, show our creativity through Myspace, build a community through social networking sites, transform society through forum participations? Big media offline are even bigger online. Could it be that we deluded ourselves in thinking that we are empowered and can be as influential as the big corporations? It doesn’t seem to me that central governments or big corporations have lost any power since the Internet became universally available.

Even though Internet can bring people together on the same site and everybody can raise their voice with little effort and can be heard by many people, the information overload, the emphasis on individual narcissistic representation and the intrinsic divided attention modality due to the number of windows competing with each other, makes the net a more difficult place to convey messages that reach people deeply in their conscience. Even when people are touched in their minds, in most of the cases this doesn’t match with real action; the information in most cases doesn’t go beyond the intellectual and mental level. The medium can foster global indifference, with a detached participation and attention divided between too many inputs. While global warming is accelerating and the Iraq war produces more victims nothing much clicks inside except for the mouse buttons.

See also:

Neural reflexes and reflections on meditation

Disembodying at broadband speed

Heavenly Technology

The Tibetan watch: how a spiritual teacher learned about technology in the West

Virtual worlds and Maya 2.0

Bytes and bites of the net

Computer addiction as survival for the ego

Programming and self de-programming

Metabolizing information

Mental territories

Wireless communication and reality mining as a reflection of pervasive consciousness

Multitasking to nothing

Biotech as an information system

Virtual worlds, mirror worlds, Second Life: backing up the messed planet

Mechanisms, mysticism and Amazon Mechanical Turk

Zen archery and computers

Lifelogging

The heart of the binary code

Downloading our life on Internet

Google, privacy and the need to be seen

Personal consumer

[/en][it]

Già prima che Internet si diffondesse, Jerry Mander scriveva:

I computer hanno reso possibili spostamenti di incredibili quantità di capitale, informazioni e attrezzature in tutto il mondo, dando alle maggiori istituzioni del pianeta un potere senza precedenti. In realtà, sono stati i computer stessi a rendere possibili queste istituzioni. Nel frattempo, noi usiamo i personal computer per correggere i nostri testi e accedere ai network di informazioni, credendo che tutto ciò aumenti il nostro potere. Jerry Mander. In the absence of the sacred. Sierra Club. San Francisco. 1991

Sin dall’inizio, Internet è stata considerata uno strumento di democrazia, e l’attivismo legato a Internet è cresciuto nel corso degli anni. La Rete viene vista come un mezzo di decentralizzazione, che restituisce il potere agli individui e ai piccoli gruppi. Internet rappresenta un luogo per diffondere parole, immagini, suoni e video; un punto dove incontrare persone dalle idee simili e organizzare gruppi con determinati scopi. Le idee possono diffondersi facilmente nella Rete e tutti possono partecipare con un costo relativamente basso.

Sembrerebbe tutto perfetto, ma c’è qualcosa che non va. Io sono troppo giovane per aver partecipato ai movimenti politici degli anni Sessanta, ma sono vecchio abbastanza per aver partecipato – da teenager – ai movimenti della fine degli anni Settanta. All’epoca Internet non esisteva (oppure la possedevano solo poche istituzioni accademiche), né c’erano i cellulari, mentre i fax erano accessibili solo alle grandi aziende. Esistevano unicamente i normali telefoni, ma non usavamo molto nemmeno quelli.

Tuttavia, ogni volta che c’era un raduno, un’assemblea o una manifestazione, tutti gli studenti lo sapevano. Affiggevamo poster agli ingressi della scuola, parlavamo nelle assemblee scolastiche, ma soprattutto usavamo il passaparola. Il movimento studentesco aveva anche un lato oscuro: talvolta la situazione degenerava e qualcuno imponeva il suo punto di vista, oppure alcuni gruppi giungevano a usare la violenza, ma nella maggior parte dei casi il movimento era animato solo dalla passione di fare qualcosa per creare un mondo giusto e migliore. Quella passione era contagiosa: potevamo avvertire l’energia collettiva e ci sentivamo parte di qualcosa di più grande. Naturalmente, l’ego delle persone restava e si vedevano trip di potere in ogni parte dello schieramento politico, ma c’era anche un interesse sincero verso il collettivo e la giustizia globale, al di là dell’interesse personale.

Il movimento studentesco era ben organizzato e molto influente nella società, e forse questo non avveniva nonostante l’arretratezza tecnologica, ma grazie a essa. La gente doveva fare affidamento sui contatti personali. Nella Storia, nessuna trasformazione culturale o sociale ha avuto bisogno di molta tecnologia, né di un grande numero di persone. È banale dirlo, ma la trasmissione delle idee e dei valori individuali tramite contatto diretto può accendere il fuoco interiore molto più di qualsiasi forum, sito web o video online.

È possibile che ci siamo ingannati quando pensavamo che potevamo avere più potere per esprimere e diffondere le nostre idee attraverso i blog, mostrare la nostra creatività tramite Myspace, costruire una comunità attraverso i siti di social networking, trasformare la società tramite la partecipazione ai forum? I grandi media offline sono ancora più grandi online. Può essere che ci siamo illusi quando pensavamo di poter avere lo stesso potere e la stessa influenza delle grandi aziende? Non mi sembra che queste ultime o i governi centrali abbiano perso potere da quando Internet è diventata alla portata di tutti.

Anche se Internet può fare incontrare molte persone sullo stesso sito e chiunque con poco sforzo può comunicare con molte persone, il sovraccarico di informazioni, l’accentuazione del narcisismo individuale e il tipo particolare di attenzione divisa dovuta alla grande quantità di finestre aperte in competizione tra loro, rendono la Rete un luogo in cui è difficile trasmettere messaggi che scendano in profondità nella coscienza delle persone. Anche quando la mente della gente resta colpita, è raro che ciò si traduca in un’azione reale: nella maggior parte dei casi, l’informazione non va oltre il livello mentale e intellettuale. Questo mezzo d’informazione può provocare l’indifferenza globale, una partecipazione distaccata e un’attenzione divisa tra troppi stimoli. E mentre il surriscaldamento globale aumenta e la guerra in Iraq produce sempre più vittime, dentro di noi l’unico “click” che scatta è quello del pulsante del mouse.

Vedi anche:

Riflessi neurali e riflessioni sulla meditazione

Rendendoci incorporei a velocità di banda larga

Tecnologie divine

L’orologio tibetano: come un insegnante spirituale venne a conoscenza della tecnologia in Occidente

Mondi virtuali e Maya 2.0

La morsa e i morsi della rete

La dipendenza da computer per la sopravvivenza dell’ego

Programmazione e de-programmazione di sè

Metabolizzare le informazioni

Territori mentali

La comunicazione senza fili e il reality mining come riflesso della consapevolezza globale

Il multitasking: strafare per niente

Le biotecnologie come sistema informativo

Mondi virtuali, mondi specchio, Second Life: fare il backup di un pianeta nel caos

Meccanismi, misticismi e Mechanical Turk di Amazon

Il tiro con l’arco Zen e i computer

Lifelogging

Il cuore del codice binario

Download della vita su Internet

Google, la privacy e il mettersi in mostra

Personal consumatore

[/it]

The technological society permeates more and more every part of our life and we are downloading more and more parts of our real life onto the Net. Personal communications, finance, work, news, work, dating, shopping are just few of the activities that have been moved massively to the Net. Those are separate areas of our life where we usually apply different modalities of our mind.

Our attitude is different when we are at work, when we are shopping, when we talk to a friend or when we are communicating with somebody we are attracted to in a sensuous and intimate way. In addition, we usually have different settings for the different range of life activities. As we activate different parts of our mind, our body is involved as well. On the other hand, when we are stuck in front of a screen, our setting is always the same and the dynamic and tactile experience is missing.

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La società tecnologica permea sempre più ogni parte della nostra vita, e noi stiamo scaricando come fosse un download sempre più parti della nostra vita reale in Rete. La comunicazione tra le persone, gli affari, le notizie, il lavoro, gli amici, la ricerca di un partner, lo shopping sono solo alcune delle attività che sono state massicciamente trasferite in Rete. Si tratta di aeree distinte della nostra vita che solitamente richiedono l’attivazione della nostra mente in modalità diverse.

Il nostro atteggiamento cambia a seconda che siamo al lavoro, facciamo shopping, parliamo con un amico o comunichiamo con qualcuno che ci attrae sentimentalmente o sessualmente. Di solito, abbiamo diversi ambienti e situazioni esterne per i diversi tipi di attività. E non solo attiviamo aree diverse della mente, ma anche il corpo ne viene coinvolto. Invece, quando siamo fermi di fronte a uno schermo, il nostro ambiente esteriore è sempre lo stesso e mancano le dimensioni dinamica e tattile. [/it]

[en]

When we are online we are forced to use almost always the same mind channels to interact with the computer. It doesn't really matter what we are doing online; as McLuhan's famous phrase "The medium is the message" teaches, what counts is the medium itself, not the actual content. Internet directs our mind toward a fast, rational and efficient attitude in which our bodies are not involved, regardless of the actual activity we are doing. Using the same mind modality for dating, shopping, communicating with friends or researching for a scientific paper impoverishes most of these activities. Also, our attention is mostly split since every activity is just a window in the screen and becomes a separate window in our consciousness. Often a restless attitude is present, and a difficulty in keeping ones attention focused on a single task for long time.

In our society, speed is celebrated as if it were a virtue in itself. Jerry Mander. In the absence of the sacred. Sierra Club. San Francisco. 1991. 

A fast, rational and efficient mind is mostly developed during the teenage years, both for biological and developmental psychology reasons. But it is not limited to teenagers. The way we interact with the computer easily allows some of the psychological defence mechanisms to develop, in particular intellectualization, dissociation and splitting. Those defences are activated when the ego is feeling threatened and can also be seen as a protection toward the re-emerging of the less familiar irrational and magical states experienced during adolescence and in difficult changing stages in adult life. Those irrational modalities can be a source of creativity and an enrichment of our soul, but the acceptance of those parts of our psyche are slow and require an integrated and mature ego. The need to keep everything in order is most felt during childhood where children need well-defined situations around them. Gianni Zanarini expressed his insights on pre-logical thoughts and computer users in his book L'emozione di pensare (CLUP-CLUED. Milano. 1985) "The emotions of thinking" and I personally benefited from it when I met him while I was a bachelor student in computer science. I have always been eager to understand the split in our society between the brilliant, clear and directed apollonian mind and the instinctive, sensuous dionysian ways. I love and need them both.

The fast pace of computer communication, coupled with the overwhelming flood of information that is going on at the same time, makes it difficult if not impossible to focus internally, no matter what  we are doing. The distractions are endless and even when we are not distracted by external stimuli, our mind is already wired in a way that we crave distractions. The level of excitement has to continually intensified  to feed the parts of our mind that crave  novelties and excitement, in a purely addictive way. The mind always wants more and more, faster and faster and is never satisfied. I wonder if this "natural" attitude of the mind hasn’t always been taken advantage of by ideologies, religions and by the technological society. All of them promise the ultimate satisfaction, in terms of "when we'll have a better society" by political ideologies, by "if you'll behave well you'll be rewarded with eternal life" by religions or by promising gadgets by technology that will endlessly entertain us and free us from effort and pain. There is a message about salvation in all of them, in a way they are all religions.

The mind has its own complete technology of restlessness. Because running without a purpose is not possible, the mind creates causes or purposes to validate its running. These are called desires. The mind says, "I desire that thing, so I will run after it." How can you run if you have no desire to achieve something in the future, or if there is no goal to reach? Therefore every day the mind decides to fulfil a particular goal in the future. Then the running begins, but by the time the goal is reached, it is found to be useless because it was all merely an excuse for the mind to run. The goal which is reached becomes worthless on fulfillment. Then the mind seeks out another excuse, another goal to be achieved. After reaching that goal it will say, "There is no substance in this. Now I should try for that objective…" So it continues running, further and further. This is why the mind is always projected into the future. It can never be in the present. Osho. The Heartbeat of the Absolute. Rebel Publishing House. Cologne. 1980.

As a society we have identified our higher faculties with the work of the mind, and specifically with the productive efficient mind; but the mind in itself, as every spiritual teacher knows, is but a little part of our soul and is basically insubstantial since was constructed by our cultural conditionings and by the various messages we have received in life. The mind is in itself goal oriented and restless. The good news is that we are not just the mind as we know it even though few people would recognize that in our society at this time.

See also:

Biotech as an information system

Virtual worlds, mirror worlds, Second Life: backing up the messed planet

Mechanisms, mysticism and Amazon Mechanical Turk

Zen archery and computers

Lifelogging

The heart of the binary code

Downloading our life on Internet

Google, privacy and the need to be seen

Personal consumer

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Per interagire in Rete siamo costretti a usare quasi sempre gli stessi canali mentali. Non importa tanto ciò che stiamo facendo online perché, come insegna la famosa frase di McLuhan «Il medium è il messaggio», ciò che conta è il medium stesso, non tanto i contenuti trasportati dal medium. Internet fa assumere alla nostra mente una modalità veloce, razionale ed efficiente che non richiede il coinvolgimento del corpo, a prescindere dal tipo di attività che stiamo svolgendo. Inoltre, la nostra attenzione è per lo più divisa, in quanto ogni attività è solo una finestra sullo schermo, e diventa così una finestra separata nella nostra consapevolezza. Spesso sono presenti un senso di irrequietezza e difficoltà a mantenere l’attenzione su un solo compito per un certo periodo di tempo.

Nella nostra società, la velocità viene esaltata come se fosse una virtù in sè. Jerry Mander. In the absence of the sacred. Sierra Club. San Francisco. 1991.

Una mente veloce, razionale ed efficiente si sviluppa soprattutto negli anni dell’adolescenza, per ragioni sia biologiche che di psicologia dello sviluppo. Ma non si limita ai teenager. L’interazione con il computer porta facilmente alla formazione di alcuni meccanismi di difesa, in particolare intellettualizzazione, dissociazione e scissione. Tali difese si attivano quando l’ego si sente minacciato e possono anche essere considerate una protezione contro il riaffiorare dei poco familiari stati magici e irrazionali vissuti durante l’adolescenza e nei difficili periodi di transizione della vita adulta. Tali stati irrazionali possono costituire una fonte di creatività e arricchimento per la nostra anima, ma l’accettazione di queste parti della psiche è lenta e richiede un ego maturo e integrato. Il bisogno di mantenere tutto in ordine è avvertito soprattutto nell’infanzia, quando i bambini hanno bisogno di situazioni chiaramente definite intorno a sé. Gianni Zanarini espone le sue idee sul pensiero pre-logico e gli utenti di computer in L’emozione di pensare (CLUP-CLUED, Milano, 1985). Personalmente, questo libro mi è stato molto utile quando ero una matricola all'università (non che sia andato poi oltre) e ho conosciuto l’autore. Mi ha sempre interessato comprendere la divisione nella nostra società tra la mente apollinea brillante, chiara e diretta, e la via dionisiaca, sensuale e istintiva. Io amo e ho bisogno di entrambe.

La velocità delle comunicazioni attraverso il computer, unita alla sovrabbondanza delle informazioni, rende difficile (se non impossibile) focalizzarsi sull’interiorità. Le distrazioni sono infinite, e anche quando non siamo distratti da stimoli esterni, la nostra mente è predisposta in modo da spingerci alla ricerca di distrazioni. L’eccitazione deve essere mantenuta a livelli sempre più alti, per poter soddisfare quelle parti della mente che chiedono emozioni e novità, in modo puramente dipendente. La mente vuole sempre di più, sempre più velocemente e non è mai soddisfatta. Mi chiedo se questo atteggiamento “naturale” della mente verso l'inquietudine non sia stato sfruttato dalle ideologie, dalle religioni e dalla società tecnologica. Tutte quante promettono un appagamento definitivo, in termini di "quando avremo una società migliore" da parte delle ideologie, di "se ti comporterai bene avrai la ricompensa della vita eterna" da parte delle religioni e tramite la promessa di gadget e ci liberano dagli sforzi e dal dolore, da parte della tecnologia. In tutti i casi vi è un messaggio di salvezza, quindi in qualche modo tutte e tre sono come religioni.

La mente funziona con una propria sofisticata tecnologia dell'inquietudine. Poiché non è possibile correre senza una direzione, le mente crea le circostanze e le ragioni per farlo: i "desideri". La mente dice "Desidero quella cosa e quindi devo inseguirla". Come puoi correre se non provi il desiderio di ottenere qualcosa nel futuro, o se non hai nessuna meta da raggiungere? Ogni giorno, quindi, la mente decide di soddisfare una particolare meta futura, e incomincia a correre, ma non appena la meta è raggiunta si dimostra inutile, perché non era che una scusa perché la mente potesse correre. La meta raggiunta perde valore. La mente cerca subito una nuova scusa, un'altra meta da raggiungere. Dopo averla raggiunta, ancora dirà: "Non ne valeva la pena. Ora devo provare con quest'altro obiettivo…" per continuare a correre, sempre di più. Ecco perché la mente è sempre nel futuro; non può rimanere nel presente. Osho. Il battito dell'assoluto. Discorsi sull'Ishavasya Upanishad. ECIG. Genova. 1992.

In quanto società, abbiamo identificato le nostre facoltà più elevate con il lavoro della mente, ed in specifico con la parte produttiva ed efficiente della mente. Ma la mente in sé, come sa ogni insegnante spirituale, è una piccola, parte della nostra anima ed è fondamentalmente inconsistente poichè si è costruita tramite i condizionament culturali e i vari messaggi che abbiamo ricevuto nella vita. Comunque, alla fine c’è una buona notizia: non siamo solo la nostra mente così come la conosciamo, anche se poche persone, nell'attuale società, sono pronte a riconoscerlo.

Vedi anche:

Le biotecnologie come sistema informativo

Mondi virtuali, mondi specchio, Second Life: fare il backup di un pianeta nel caos

Meccanismi, misticismi e Mechanical Turk di Amazon

Il tiro con l'arco Zen e i computer

Lifelogging

Il cuore del codice binario

Download della vita su Internet

Google, la privacy e il mettersi in mostra

Personal consumatore
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