by John Higgs
In biology an ‘individual’ is an increasingly complicated word to define. A human body, for example, contains ten times more non-human bacteria than it does human cells. Understanding the interaction between the two, from the immune system to the digestive organs, is necessary to understand how we work. This means that the only way to study a human is to study something more than that human.
Individualism trains us to think of ourselves as isolated, self-willed units. That description is not sufficient, either biologically, socially, psychologically, emotionally or culturally. This can be difficult to accept if you were raised in the twentieth century, particularly if your politics use the idea of a free individual as your primary touchstone. The promotion of individualism can become a core part of a person’s identity, and something that must be defended. This is ironic, because where did that idea come from? Was it created by the person who defends their individualism? Does it belong to them? In truth, that idea was, like most ideas, just passing through.
In the late eighteenth century the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham designed a new type of prison called a panopticon. Through the design of this building and a complicated series of mirrors, a single watchman at the heart of the prison would be able to observe any prisoner he wished. Although this meant that at any one time almost all the prisoners were unobserved, each prisoner had no way of knowing if and when they were being watched. As a result, they had to act under the assumption that they were always being looked at. For Bentham, the power of the panopticon would come not through its efficiency, but from the effect constant potential observation would have on the consciousness of the prisoners.
This digital generation, born after 1990, have grown up in a form of communal panopticon. It has altered them in ways that their parents don’t always appreciate. The older generation can view the craze for ‘selfies’, for example, as a form of narcissism. Yet those self-portraits are not just attempts to reinforce a personal concept of the individual self. They exist to be observed and, in doing so, to strengthen connections in the network. The culture of the ‘selfie’ may seem to be about twentieth-century individualism, but only when seen through twentieth-century eyes. Those photographs only become meaningful when shared.
In Sartre’s 1943 philosophical book Being and Nothingness there is a short section entitled ‘The Look’. Here Sartre attempts to deal with the philosophical nature of ‘the other’ by imagining an example which owes much to the multiple-perspective relativity of Einstein. Sartre talked about looking through a keyhole at another person, who is unaware that they are being observed, and about becoming completely absorbed in that observation. Suddenly the watcher realised that a third person had entered the room behind them, and that they themselves were being observed. Sartre’s main point was concerned with the nature of objectification, but what is striking is how he described the awareness of being observed. For Sartre, being observed produces shame.
Compare this to the digital generation. Watch, for example, footage of the audience at a music festival, and note the reaction of the crowd when they suddenly realise that they are being looked at by television cameras. This is always a moment of delight and great joy. There is none of the shame that Sartre associated with being observed, and neither is that shame apparent in that generation’s love of social media and seeming disregard for online privacy. Something has changed, therefore, in the sense of self which our culture instils in us, between Sartre’s time and the present.
The millennial generation are now competing with the entire planet in order to gain the power that the attention of others grants. But they understand that the most effective way to get on in such an environment is to cooperate. This generation has intuitively internalised the lessons of game theory in a way that the people of the 1980s never did. They have a far greater understanding of consequence, and connections, than their grandparents. They understand the feedback loops that corporations are still not beholden to. It is no coincidence that when they organise, they do so in leaderless structures such as Occupy or Anonymous. They are so used to the idea that people come together to achieve a particular goal, and then disband, that most of what would technically be classed as their ‘organisations’ are never even formally named.
The great multinational companies that were built in the past were based upon new inventions or the control of a limited natural resource. More recent major corporations such as Google or Facebook are created by someone sitting down and writing them into existence. Programming is not about the manipulation of physical objects. It is about the manipulation of intangible things, such as information and instructions. For all the formality and structure inherent in its language and grammar, there have always been aspects of art and magic in coding. Reading and writing can pass information across space and time, but that information is essentially frozen and unable to do anything itself. Programming is like writing in a living language. It is text that acts on itself, and performs whatever tasks its author wishes it to undertake. Code never tires and is incredibly accurate. Language has become enchanted.
We have always been subject to change, but much of the nature and direction of that change has been beyond our control. Programming not only communicates, but acts on its own communication. As a consequence of the power this has given us, the speed of change has increased dramatically. But assuming the responsibility for steering change raises the issue of responsibility. It forces us to consider purpose: what are we trying to do? This was not a problem that blind chance or natural selection ever had to wrestle with.
In alchemy, there is a process known as solve et coagula. Solve means the process of reductionism or analysis; the reducing of a substance to its indivisible components. In the I Ching this is represented by hexagram 23, ‘Splitting Apart.’ This is equivalent to taking a pocket-watch to pieces in order to understand completely how it works, and is necessary before the equally vital second stage of the formula can commence. Coagula is the reassembly of the pocket-watch in a perfected, or at least improved, form. It is the equivalent of holism as opposed to reductionism, or the purposive process of synthesis as opposed to that of analysis.
In cultural terms, the individualism of the twentieth century can be likened to the process of solve taken to its logical end. Everything was isolated, and in isolation it was understood.
The network allows the process of coagula. Things are being reconnected, but with transparency and understanding that we did not have before the process of solve. Things are still liberated enough to be recombined into wild postmodern culture such as Super Mario Bros. But this can be done now with a sense of purpose and intention that was perhaps lacking before.
This does not mean, of course, that the hierarchies of the past or the individualism of the twentieth century are not still alive and kicking. Like all old ideas, they refuse to go gently and instead attempt to tear down what threatens them. Corporations are still machines for hoovering up wealth. Political power and financial power are still ignoring what the scientists of the world are screaming at them. Many non-Western states, particularly in the Islamic world, did not reject the hierarchical model and are finding the arrival of networks, without the buffer of a period of free individualism, to be painful. Organisations like Islamic State and Al Qaeda use the technology and structures of networks, but retain a hierarchical absolutist worldview. They have not undergone the difficult period of individualism which taught us how to deal with those who have different perspectives. The violence associated with absolutist views in a networked world, when seen in this light, seems almost inevitable.
The networked system is being tested, and it will only survive if it is strong. If this new system does make it, then who knows how long it will stand? Perhaps the network will last as our defining model for as long as the imperial system did. If that is the case, then free-floating, consequence-ignoring individualism was a brief liminal moment in history, a pause between breaths. The twentieth century will have been a rare time indeed, in
those circumstances. It was a glimpse of mankind at its worst, and at its best. The supposed Chinese curse, ‘May you live in interesting times’, seems particularly apt.
For those who grew up in the twentieth century, things can look bleak. The fight over the freedom of the network looks futile. How is it possible to end growing inequality, and build a sustainable world, when the system continually makes the elite more powerful and everyone else weaker? Surely there is no way to protect ourselves from powerful institutions, from the NSA to Facebook, who are monitoring our lives and our personal identity for their own gain? But the millennial generation view hierarchical institutions differently. They do not automatically consider them legitimate. Legitimacy is something that needs to be justified in the networked world. It cannot be assumed. Such institutions are powerful, but without legitimacy they are not all-powerful. The Swiss corporation Nestlé was damaged more by the public’s reaction to their promotion of formula milk in the developing world than they were by the legal response to their actions. The public’s complaint would have been amplified greatly if it had occurred in the network age, rather than in the 1970s and 80s.
In the postmodern world, things made sense of themselves in isolation. In a network, things have context. Multiple perspectives are navigable, and practical. This is the age of realpolitik individualism. System behaviour is altered by changes of scale, as we have noted, and nowhere is that truer than with network growth.
The uncomfortable fact is that, if we take an honest look at what we know about climate science, the twenty-first century appears to be the penultimate century in terms of Western civilisation. That’s certainly the position if we look at current trends and project forward. We can be sure, though, that there will be unpredictable events and discoveries ahead, and that might give us hope.
And there is the nature of the citizens of the twenty-first century to consider. If they were the same as the individuals of the twentieth century, then there would be little reason for hope. But they are not. As we can see from the bewildered way in which they shrug off the older generation’s horror at the loss of privacy, the digital native generation do not see themselves using just the straitjacket of individualism. They know that model is too limited. They are more than isolated selves. Seeing themselves differently will cause them to act differently. Those of us born before the 1990s should, perhaps, get out of their way and wish them luck.
The network is a beheaded deity. It is a communion. There is no need for an omphalos any more.
Hold tight.
NOTES AND SOURCES
1 RELATIVITY: DELETING THE OMPHALOS
The description of the 1894 Greenwich Observatory bomb comes from the Royal Observatory website (Propaganda by Deed: The Greenwich Observatory Bomb of 1894, ROG Learning Team, www.rmg.co.uk), while the description of the weather comes from the Met Office archive of monthly weather reports (http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/archive/monthly-weather-report). The quote from Conrad comes from his novel The Secret Agent. William Gibson’s comment about the future not being evenly distributed is a point he made in numerous interviews, for example his radio interview on Talk of the Nation, NPR, 30 November 1999.
The quote commonly attributed to Lord Kelvin is said to be from his lecture to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1900. The Albert Michelson quote is from Light Waves and Their Uses, p. 23. Philipp von Jolly’s advice to Max Planck is quoted on p. 8 of Alan P. Lightman’s The Discoveries: Great Breakthroughs in Twentieth-Century Science. H.G. Wells’s June 1901 article ‘Anticipations: An Experiment in Prophecy’ was published in North American Review Vol. 172, No. 535, pp. 801–826.
My main source for details of Einstein’s life was Walter Isaacson’s wonderful biography Einstein: His Life and Universe. This is the source for Einstein’s letter to Conrad Habicht (p. 21) and the quote from Chaim Weizmann at the end of the chapter (p. 282).
The discussion about relativity itself is the result of endless rereads of Einstein’s own Relativity, the Special and the General Theory: A Popular Exposition. The different usage of Potsdamer Platz, Trafalgar Square and Times Square can be found in the original German edition (1917), the English translation (1920) and the Project Gutenberg eBook.
2 MODERNISM: THE SHOCK OF THE NEW
Much of the recent interest in Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven is a result of a 2003 biography by the Canadian academic Irene Gammel and the 2011 publication of her letters and poems. The details of her life in this chapter are based on Gammel’s biography, Baroness Elsa. The account of her performance for George Biddle appears on pp. 201–2 of that book, while her performance with a Duchamp press cutting is detailed on p. 173. The quote from Duchamp about the baroness is from Kenneth Rexroth’s American Poetry in the Twentieth Century, p. 77.
Much of the discussion of Duchamp’s work is inspired by the 2013 exhibition at the London Barbican, The Bride and the Bachelors: Duchamp with Cage, Cunningham, Rauschenberg and Johns. For more on the reputation of Fountain, see ‘Duchamp’s Urinal Tops Art Survey’, BBC News, 1 December 2004. The quote from Jasper Johns is from pp. 109–10 of Pierre Cabanne’s Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp. Duchamp spoke about the spectator’s role in art in ‘Session on the Creative Act’, a 1957 talk at the Convention of the American Federation of Arts, Texas. Erik Levi spoke of ‘the abyss of no tonal centre’ in The Sound and the Fury: A Century of Music, BBC4, 12 February 2013. James Joyce explains how Ulysses would capture Dublin in its entirety in chapter four of Frank Bugden’s James Joyce and the Making of Ulysses. The quote from Le Corbusier is from his 1925 book Urbanisme. Joyce’s comments about giving up his immortality are taken from Richard Ellmann’s James Joyce. Joyce’s interview with Max Eastman in Harper’s magazine is quoted in the same book.
Colin Wilson’s description of peak awareness is on p. 171 of his book Super Consciousness: The Quest for the Peak Experience. The words of William Blake are taken from his 22 November 1802 letter to Thomas Butt, which is printed in The Letters of William Blake edited by Geoffrey Keynes. Dalí claimed to have been inspired by a camembert cheese on p. 317 of his book The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí. The quote from Friedrich Nietzsche is from his book Human, All Too Human.
3 WAR: HOIST THAT RAG
Details of Joshua Norton, including Greg Hill’s quote, can be found in Adam Gorightly’s Historia Discordia. For an anthropological explanation of how societies evolve into empires, see Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel, which also includes Diamond’s quote about not killing strangers on p. 273.
The words of Joe Armstrong are from a recorded interview in the Imperial War Museum’s Voices of the First World War series (http://www.1914.org/podcasts/podcast-8-over-by-christmas/). The quotes from Christopher Clark are taken from p. 562 and p. 561 of his book Sleepwalkers. The details of the assassination of the Archduke are based on Tim Butcher’s The Trigger.
4 INDIVIDUALISM: DO WHAT THOU WILT
Aleister Crowley’s descriptions of Aiwass and Aiwass’s voice come from his book Magick (p. 427 and p. 435). The account of Crowley’s time in Cairo is largely based on chapter four of Lawrence Sutin’s Do What Thou Wilt. The three lines quoted from Crowley’s The Book of the Law come from chapter III line 60, chapter I line 3 and chapter II line 23.
The quote from Dan Neil is taken from Tom Geoghegan’s 1 July 2011 article for BBC News, ‘Is the British roundabout conquering the US?’. The quotes from Ayn Rand’s novella Anthem are from chapter eleven. Crowley’s letter was written to Ethel Archer on 26 March 1947 and is quoted in Anthony Clayton’s Netherwood. Information about the sales of The Satanic Bible comes from Chris Mathews’s Modern Satanism. LeVey’s quote that his work is just ‘Ayn Rand, with trappings’ is from Jesper Aagaard Petersen’s Contemporary Religious Satanism (p. 2). Paul Ryan’s speech is archived at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/4/prweb9457144.htm. For figures on the decline in church attendance in Europe, see http://viaintegra.wordpress.com/european-church-attendanc
e. ‘Love thy neighbour as thyself’ is from the New Testament, Matthew 22:39.
The quote from Mussolini is found in Rational Man by Henry Babcock Veatch. Crowley’s comments about free will are from The Message of the Master Therion (Liber II). The quoted lines from his Book of the Law are 2:21 and 2:58. Details of the 2011 UK census come from the Office of National Statistics, and can be found online at http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/census/2011/index.html.
5 ID: UNDER THE PAVING STONES, THE BEACH
The Sergei Grigoriev quote is taken from Thomas Forrest Kelly’s First Nights: Five Musical Premieres (p. 317), and the information regarding the missing police files comes from a 29 May 2013 BBC News Magazine report by Ivan Hewett, ‘Did The Rite of Spring really spark a riot?’ (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22691267).
Jean Cocteau’s quote comes from his 1918 book, Le Coq et l’Arlequin, while Florent Schmitt’s abuse is quoted on p. 82 of Alex Ross’s The Rest Is Noise. The study of contemporary press reports mentioned is the 1971 PhD dissertation by Truman Campbell Bullard, The first performance of Igor Stravinsky’s Sacre du Printemps. Leonard Bernstein’s description of The Rite of Spring is taken from The Rite of Spring at 100 (https://www.theriteofspringat100.org/the-history/). Stravinsky discussed the vision that inspired his composition in his 1936 autobiography. The quote from Sasha Waltz comes from a 27 May 2013 article in the Guardian by Kim Willsher, ‘Rite that caused riots’, and the conversation between Stravinsky and Diagev is taken from p. 81 of Alex Ross’s The Rest Is Noise.
