The meta-positioning effect reminds me of Gregory Bateson's schismogenesis. Roughly, when a person or culture adopts a--not opposite, but--seemingly complementary role to another actor in their sphere. For example, one person may be approximately as dominant as the other is submissive. There are at least two ways to avoid thinking for ourselves. One is to join the herd. The other is to adopt the opposite view of a group we dislike, even if we might have preferred a third choice. Probably why I listened to punk music growing up in a small southern town, but now as an adult I have much wider tastes that even include a lot of traditional roots music. I gravitated to the other pole, maybe because I felt a need to balance one extreme with another.
I'm not sure I agree with Pynchon about the present, though. It seems to me the people without a grip are spending their present invoking past ills (nazis and commies) in order to be fearful of the future. Their present is one of being lost in abstractions. A person who literally attends to the sensory scene around them is not likely to find any bogeymen, and a sane person whose historical perspective allows them to see outside that narrow band of possible doomsday futures will also be happier even though they may deal in abstractions.
Maybe, sensing the precarious elements of the world and wanting certainty, some folks latch on to a convenient community that assures them of how the future will look, and better dreadful than unknown. Personally, I have my better moments when I accept some uncertainty with an open mind, and my tough times when I grasp for the closest assurance in questionable company.
My modest observation is that Twitter's quote-tweet function, which you depict here, both represents and actively encourages a metatextual positioning in relation to the original text – as opposed to simply 'replying', which mimics the back-and-forth of everyday conversation. Rather than talking 'to' the original poster, the quote-tweeter is talking 'about' them, 'to' the audience (that is, their own followers and anyone else who’s interested).
Of course, the original poster can see the quote-tweet, which allows them to reply or (more likely) retaliate by quote-tweeting the quote-tweet, which can be done ad infinitum. At the extreme, this results in a sort of geological sedimentation, where the original text is buried under several layers of quoting that must be laboriously clicked through.
Psychologically, the visual positioning of the quote-tweet *above* the original seems to imply hierarchy, power and control. It is both a means and a motive to 'get on top of' the discourse. No wonder, then, that it’s often used not as a means of commentary, but as a way to derail or forestall debate by stealing the agency of the original writer.
Really interesting, Michael. Thanks for the bit from Taylor, which I haven’t considered before. That, together with Jacobs’ point, will find its way into my philosophy of liturgy class, I think.
I opted out of most of the internet. I got off facebook years ago, instagram last fall, luckily I was never on Twitter. I don't miss any of it, I feel relief when I think about being off the platforms. More recently I stopped reading the news, I hear about all of it anyway, but I don't absorb the minute by minute horrors of it. Honestly, the digital medium feels more and more noxious, like an odorless, poisonous gas. I know a few people who have followed a similar progression of opting out. With the news, it took putting child locks on my phone and blocking the internet. I have time to read books again. The desire to get out started from the terrible feeling of looking at pictures of people "doing" things I wished I was doing, and was solidified by the desire to set an example for my two year old. I've benefited significantly. I feel less malaise, less of the constant crisis mentality you describe here. It hasn't been possible to escape the mood it generates everywhere around me, but it feels GOOD not to steep in it all day. Just to say, it took years to get off and a few false starts, but it is possible.
Some (Guenon, Evola, "traditionalists") argue that framing reality in temporal terms only leads to a downward spiral. That engaging with causal/temporal frameworks and the required contingencies is itself the trap.
Many of the things we aspire to -- meditative worldview, healthy skepticism of technology, nuanced understanding of history, convivial society -- seem to be natural consequences of a principled society.
Thanks again. Question for anglophones: 'connaitre or savoir'?
Anti-vaccination was not so big here. Although stuff from America blows into the opinion sphere in Britain, at least 'anti-vacc' was fairly easily avoided, except where a relative raised a physical threat to his mother and a friend made it a threat to friendship.
There is an Atlantic between us but you evoke an ocean that is America. It is impressed on me at the moment that older people here revert in 'crisis' to old-fashioned 'news' outlets and many are gripped by that attention, by imperatives of opinion. There is no dissenting voice. I blank out. I have had to go back to fair-minded historical accounts in books about Ukraine - my not being 'anti-Putin', let alone 'anti-Russian', while remaining 'anti-war' by strong preference and 'not-NATO' and 'not-American' foreign policies. I go over my belongings on this dishevelled raft of a mind. A few nights ago I lifted a poem off the shelf - WH Auden. He raised questions that I could follow and this raised my own small tribute verse. (NB Goodness me I had forgotten Gravity's Rainbow!)
I'm taking a month to read about the Peloponnesian War instead of going on Twitter. Thanks!
The meta-positioning effect reminds me of Gregory Bateson's schismogenesis. Roughly, when a person or culture adopts a--not opposite, but--seemingly complementary role to another actor in their sphere. For example, one person may be approximately as dominant as the other is submissive. There are at least two ways to avoid thinking for ourselves. One is to join the herd. The other is to adopt the opposite view of a group we dislike, even if we might have preferred a third choice. Probably why I listened to punk music growing up in a small southern town, but now as an adult I have much wider tastes that even include a lot of traditional roots music. I gravitated to the other pole, maybe because I felt a need to balance one extreme with another.
I'm not sure I agree with Pynchon about the present, though. It seems to me the people without a grip are spending their present invoking past ills (nazis and commies) in order to be fearful of the future. Their present is one of being lost in abstractions. A person who literally attends to the sensory scene around them is not likely to find any bogeymen, and a sane person whose historical perspective allows them to see outside that narrow band of possible doomsday futures will also be happier even though they may deal in abstractions.
Maybe, sensing the precarious elements of the world and wanting certainty, some folks latch on to a convenient community that assures them of how the future will look, and better dreadful than unknown. Personally, I have my better moments when I accept some uncertainty with an open mind, and my tough times when I grasp for the closest assurance in questionable company.
Excellent piece, thank you.
My modest observation is that Twitter's quote-tweet function, which you depict here, both represents and actively encourages a metatextual positioning in relation to the original text – as opposed to simply 'replying', which mimics the back-and-forth of everyday conversation. Rather than talking 'to' the original poster, the quote-tweeter is talking 'about' them, 'to' the audience (that is, their own followers and anyone else who’s interested).
Of course, the original poster can see the quote-tweet, which allows them to reply or (more likely) retaliate by quote-tweeting the quote-tweet, which can be done ad infinitum. At the extreme, this results in a sort of geological sedimentation, where the original text is buried under several layers of quoting that must be laboriously clicked through.
Psychologically, the visual positioning of the quote-tweet *above* the original seems to imply hierarchy, power and control. It is both a means and a motive to 'get on top of' the discourse. No wonder, then, that it’s often used not as a means of commentary, but as a way to derail or forestall debate by stealing the agency of the original writer.
Really interesting, Michael. Thanks for the bit from Taylor, which I haven’t considered before. That, together with Jacobs’ point, will find its way into my philosophy of liturgy class, I think.
I opted out of most of the internet. I got off facebook years ago, instagram last fall, luckily I was never on Twitter. I don't miss any of it, I feel relief when I think about being off the platforms. More recently I stopped reading the news, I hear about all of it anyway, but I don't absorb the minute by minute horrors of it. Honestly, the digital medium feels more and more noxious, like an odorless, poisonous gas. I know a few people who have followed a similar progression of opting out. With the news, it took putting child locks on my phone and blocking the internet. I have time to read books again. The desire to get out started from the terrible feeling of looking at pictures of people "doing" things I wished I was doing, and was solidified by the desire to set an example for my two year old. I've benefited significantly. I feel less malaise, less of the constant crisis mentality you describe here. It hasn't been possible to escape the mood it generates everywhere around me, but it feels GOOD not to steep in it all day. Just to say, it took years to get off and a few false starts, but it is possible.
Interesting, thanks.
Re: Pynchon, temporal bandwidth etc
Some (Guenon, Evola, "traditionalists") argue that framing reality in temporal terms only leads to a downward spiral. That engaging with causal/temporal frameworks and the required contingencies is itself the trap.
Many of the things we aspire to -- meditative worldview, healthy skepticism of technology, nuanced understanding of history, convivial society -- seem to be natural consequences of a principled society.
Thanks again. Question for anglophones: 'connaitre or savoir'?
Anti-vaccination was not so big here. Although stuff from America blows into the opinion sphere in Britain, at least 'anti-vacc' was fairly easily avoided, except where a relative raised a physical threat to his mother and a friend made it a threat to friendship.
There is an Atlantic between us but you evoke an ocean that is America. It is impressed on me at the moment that older people here revert in 'crisis' to old-fashioned 'news' outlets and many are gripped by that attention, by imperatives of opinion. There is no dissenting voice. I blank out. I have had to go back to fair-minded historical accounts in books about Ukraine - my not being 'anti-Putin', let alone 'anti-Russian', while remaining 'anti-war' by strong preference and 'not-NATO' and 'not-American' foreign policies. I go over my belongings on this dishevelled raft of a mind. A few nights ago I lifted a poem off the shelf - WH Auden. He raised questions that I could follow and this raised my own small tribute verse. (NB Goodness me I had forgotten Gravity's Rainbow!)