In a previous essay, I offered some thoughts on the state of contemporary debate in America. At that time, debates over public health and economics (specifically in light of the unfolding COVID-19 pandemic) and systemic racism were front and center. Add to these the controversies over the 2020 U.S. presidential election and the events of January 6th in Washington D.C., and it is perhaps unsurprising that 2021 has followed the trajectory of 2020.1 As far as the struggle to communicate is concerned, the problem has become even more pronounced and noticeable. In many ways, the breakdowns in communication over the past year have progressed. Progressed, in the sense that they have reached a new stage of development–one that is perhaps far more dangerous than many people realize. Such failures in communication lead to a peculiar form of isolation, one that is simultaneously beholden to and a consequence of various forms of propaganda and factionalism. For reasons which will become apparent, this essay is more or less an informal continuation of my previous essay, Theoretical Frameworks and the Limits of Communication. As before, this is an initial and undeveloped attempt to shed light on a situation that is in many ways unintelligible.
The negative progress of much contemporary debate (and of communication more generally) can be summed up in the following way. What often begins as a (1) challenge or struggle to communicate devolves into a (2) breakdown; when a breakdown in communication is sustained over time it becomes a (3) communication failure.2 Let me try to describe each stage in this process. A struggle to communicate is exactly what it sounds like, and is characterized by all of the challenges I spoke of in my essay, Theoretical Frameworks and the Limits of Communication. A breakdown in communication occurs when interlocutors realize they are at odds and therefore cease to communicate.3 Breakdowns in communication become failures when ceased communication becomes the norm, and is sustained indefinitely. The upshot of communication failures is that over time people interact less and less with those whose views differ from their own. This, in turn, results in a crystallization (or solidification) of one’s theoretical framework.4 Interactions take on a character of reinforcement; those not sharing one’s views become (in practice) barbarians. This process provides a context for understanding what I am calling the isolated self.
The isolated self describes a person whose theoretical frameworks have become rigid, the lens they view the world through is largely fixed, inflexible. As such, they are unable to think or see beyond their current structure of belief; their opinions are settled, they no longer question themselves; new or novel information is interpreted in light of past understandings.5 As such, changes in viewpoints or interpretations become (in a practical sense) impossible. Put differently, they live within intellectual walls of their own understanding; their view of the world is the correct or real one; anyone differing from them is categorically wrong. This categorization of others can take various forms, such as thinking of others as not merely ignorant or misled, but even evil–thereby representing forces that must be defeated or even destroyed (sometimes at any cost).6 This, which I hope is clear, is a great danger to society.7 And the fact that increasing numbers of people appear to be captured (to some degree) by this description is indeed alarming.8
As I alluded above, because the isolated self seeks only to interact with those whose views coincide with their own, the information they associate with (in the form of people, media, et al.) becomes characterized by a cycle of reinforcement in which the ever-growing certainty of those who “know the truth” comes to take on a life of its own. Independent factions emerge, each seeking to buffer themselves from those not holding the correct viewpoints. Groups adopting incorrect views come to be understood as stupid, misled, brainwashed, corrupt, even evil or demonic. Society becomes increasingly partitioned. The trenches dividing individuals and groups become deeper; the psychological distance between them, wider; self-questioning atrophies, certainty soars. Bonds of family or friendship may serve to limit this to some extent, but often such bonds remain powerless as family members and friends become estranged.9 This buffering between individuals and groups exacerbates the problem further. And since resolving a multifaceted societal communication failure presupposes the ability to actually communicate, the gravity of the situation becomes all the more apparent. As Charles Taylor has said, “Idolatry breeds violence.”10
The isolated self also seems to be trapped in an endless cycle of self-affirmation. When individuals only associate with those (people, media, etc.) whose views coincide with their own, they lose the great benefit of having their views challenged. In other words, if I only associate with those whom I agree with, there remain no active challenges to my theoretical framework. Over time, the structure of my beliefs (theoretical framework) will harden, become rigid, inflexible. I will become unable to comprehend what does not align with them. After this happens, if and when I encounter challenges to my beliefs, I will interpret such things through the fixed lens of my theoretical framework.11 I become closed off, impenetrable from those who are different from me. But my awareness of others different from myself fuels my psychological need for affirmation and reinforcement. I become anxious; I must prove to myself that I’m right. So I seek out and associate with those (people, media, etc.) that reinforce what I already believe, thereby providing the assurance of my own purity and righteousness. Thus, the cyclical nature of the isolated self. Over time, groups emerge comprised of those who “know the truth”. Sometimes they meet.12
A book could easily be written trying to explain how this situation has emerged. Still, in what follows I will attempt to do so in some small way (though I expect multiple essays will be needed before I am done). In so doing I will draw mainly upon the work of Erich Fromm, Jürgen Habermas, and Jacques Ellul.
Begin with the fact that modern homo sapiens experience more stress, anxiety, and isolation than perhaps ever before in history. Erich Fromm summarizes these changes in his book, Escape From Freedom (1941). “The breakdown of the medieval system of feudal society had one main significance for all classes of society: the individual was left alone and isolated. […] Man was deprived of the security he had enjoyed, of the unquestionable feeling of belonging, and he was torn loose from the world which had satisfied his quest for security both economically and spiritually. He felt alone and anxious. But he was also free to act and to think independently, to become his own master and do with his life as he could–not as he was told to do.”13 This, in Fromm’s view (which was no doubt influenced by Weber), sprang from the doctrines of Protestantism that were developed in the wake of the Reformation, paving the way for man’s role in the modern industrial system. “What Protestantism had started to do in freeing man spiritually, capitalism continued to do mentally, socially, and politically.”14 “In one word, capitalism not only freed man from traditional bonds, but it also contributed tremendously to the increasing of positive freedom, to the growth of an active, critical, responsible self. However, while this was one effect capitalism had on the process of growing freedom, at the same time it made the individual more alone and isolated and imbued him with a feeling of insignificance and powerlessness.”15
“In contrast to the feudal system of the Middle Ages under which everybody had a fixed place in an ordered and transparent social system, capitalistic economy put the individual entirely on his own feet. What he did, how he did it, whether he succeeded or whether he failed, was entirely his own affair. That this principle furthered the process of individualization is obvious and is always mentioned as an important item on the credit side of modern culture. But in furthering ‘freedom from,’ this principle helped to sever all ties between one individual and the other and thereby isolated and separated the individual from his fellow men. This development had been prepared by the teachings of the Reformation. In the Catholic Church the relationship of the individual to God had been based on membership in the Church. The Church was the link between him and God, thus on the one hand restricting his individuality, but on the other hand letting him face God as an integral part of a group. Protestantism made the individual face God alone. […] The individual facing God’s might alone could not help feeling crushed and seeking salvation in complete submission. Psychologically this spiritual individualism is not too different from the economic individualism. In both instances the individual is completely alone and in his isolation faces the superior power, be it of God, of competitors, or of impersonal economic forces. The individualistic relationship to God was the psychological preparation for the individualistic character of man’s secular activities.”16
Historically, economic activity had been understood as a means to an end, whether that end was basic survival or the flourishing one’s family, town, etc.17 With the rise of capitalism, economic activity becomes–for the first time in history–an end in itself. “In the medieval system capital was the servant of man, but in the modern system it became his master. In the medieval world economic activities were the means to an end; the end was life itself, or–as the Catholic Church understood it–the spiritual salvation of man. Economic activities are necessary, even riches can serve God’s purposes, but all external activity has only significance and dignity as far as it furthers the aims of life. Economic activity and the wish for gain for its own sake appeared as irrational to the medieval thinker as their absence appears to modern thought. In capitalism economic activity, success, material gains, become ends in themselves. It becomes man’s fate to contribute to the growth of the economic system, to amass capital, not for purposes of his own happiness or salvation, but as an end in itself. Man became a cog in the vast economic machine–an important one if he had much capital, an insignificant one if he had none–but always a cog to serve a purpose outside of himself.”18 Although Fromm admits that the achievements of the modern world would have been impossible without this process, he does not ignore its cost. “This principle of accumulating capital instead of using it for consumption is the premise of the grandiose achievements of our modern industrial system. […] Yet, while the principle of work for the sake of the accumulation of capital objectively is of enormous value for the progress of mankind, subjectively it has made man work for extrapersonal ends, made him a servant to the very machine he built, and thereby has given him a feeling of personal insignificance and powerlessness.”19 “Economic crises, unemployment, war, govern man’s fate. Man has built his world; he has built factories and houses, he produces cars and clothes, he grows grain and fruit. But he has become estranged from the product of his own hands, he is not really the master any more of the world he has built; on the contrary, this man-made world has become his master, before whom he bows down, whom he tries to placate or manipulate as best he can. The work of his own hands has become his God. He seems to be driven by self-interest, but in reality his total self with all its concrete potentialities has become an instrument for the purposes of the very machine his hands have built. He keeps up the illusion of being the center of the world, and yet he is pervaded by an intense sense of insignificance and powerlessness which his ancestors once consciously felt toward God.”20
The unprecedented psychological state of modern humans is corroborated by others, including Jacques Ellul.21 In his book Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes (1965), Ellul speaks of modern man’s peculiar psychology. “Above all he is a victim of emptiness–he is a man devoid of meaning. He is very busy, but he is emotionally empty, open to all entreaties and in search of only one thing–something to fill his inner void. To fill this void he goes to the movies–only a temporary remedy. He seeks some deeper and more fulfilling attraction. He is available, and ready to listen[.] He is the lonely man […], and the larger the crowd in which he lives, the more isolated he is. Despite the pleasure he might derive from his solitude, he suffers deeply from it. He feels the most violent need to be re-integrated into a community, to have a setting, to experience ideological and affective communication.”22 Both Fromm and Ellul agree that this condition stems in large part from the working conditions of the modern economic order, what Max Weber has called the “iron cage”. “[I]n contrast to a medieval artisan the modern manufacturer is not primarily interested in what he produces; he produces essentially in order to make a profit from his capital investment, and what he produces depends essentially on the market which promises that the investment of capital in a certain branch will prove to be profitable.”23
More problematic still is the instrumental stance that has come to permeate nearly every sphere of life, from working conditions to personal relationships.24 “Modern man’s feeling of isolation and powerlessness is increased still further by the character which all his human relationships have assumed. The concrete relationship of one individual to another has lost its direct and human character and has assumed a spirit of manipulation and instrumentality. […] Not only the economic, but also the personal relations between men have this character of alienation; instead of relations between human beings, they assume the character of relations between things. But perhaps the most important and the most devastating instance of this spirit of instrumentality and alienation is the individual’s relationship to his own self. Man does not only sell commodities, he sells himself and feels himself to be a commodity. […] As with any other commodity it is the market which decides the value of […] human qualities, yes, even their very existence. If there is no use for the qualities a person offers, he has none; just as an unsalable commodity is valueless though it might have its use value. Thus, the self-confidence, the ‘feeling of self,’ is merely an indication of what others think of the person. It is not he who is convinced of his value regardless of his popularity and his success on the market. If he is sought after, he is somebody; if he is not popular, he is simply nobody.”25
Both Fromm and Ellul maintain that this situation is a precondition for individuals to seek refuge and psychological security in various ways. Fromm thinks the outlets of authoritarianism, destruction, and conformity (cultural automatization) are clear paths. Ellul sees hurling oneself into the pseudo-world of propaganda as the fundamental and most common response.26 I want to suggest that this state of stress, anxiety, and isolation that is unique to the modern epoch has created an environment ideally suited to the emergence of what I have called the isolated self. The constant pace of change, technological advancement, revolutions in social norms, threats of war, unemployment, and a multiplicity of other things, place an enormous amount of pressure on the individual. Add to this the fiery cocktail of 2020 and 2021, and it resonates to an even greater degree. The more uncertain the world appears, the stronger it seems is the desire for certainty and security. One way this is accomplished is through factionalism and tribalism; the spontaneous division of society into groups on the basis of shared theoretical frameworks and suspicions of others. The isolated self must in every way possible seek to quiet the unquiet within.
Note: In continuing I will consider the transformation of the public sphere of rational-critical debate as well as the emergence of sociological propaganda.
Notes:
1. In this essay I (again) maintain my precedent of not weighing in on current events. Since apparent neutrality can easily be mistaken for cowardice, I do feel I owe a few words. In my view, the problems discussed in this essay are far deeper and more complex than a simple accounting of current events. In other words, what I say here does not depend on any specific event that has happened this or last year. If the main events of the past twelve months had not occurred it would not affect my thoughts in this essay (though, in fairness, I also may not have been compelled to write it). Rather, the events of the recent past simply help make what I am saying more intelligible. So in many ways what I think about this or that occurrence in the country is irrelevant, at least insofar as this essay is concerned. But I will say this: When it comes to contemporary debates in politics and many other things I more often than not adopt the position of an interested observer. As events unfold I try to resist the urge to weigh in. This probably stems from my understanding of the nature of empirical claims. Specifically that they are almost always incomplete; more information is needed. Thus, my own approach to current events is generally one of caution and skepticism. The knee-jerk reaction of affirming whatever reinforces one’s theoretical framework is, I think, the fundamental problem to begin with.
2. To be clear, this negative progression or devolution in communication in terms of stages is simply a way I have come up with to think about the nature of contemporary debate. It is also a tool to help explain the bigger picture of this essay. As far as I know, these concepts are being used in a novel sense, and therefore any faults or conceptual problems that may be associated with them are entirely my own.
3. Note that at the very moment when communication could prove fruitful (as between people holding differing viewpoints) and the potential for a common understanding (in the sense of actually understanding one’s interlocutor) could be achieved–communication ceases! In a way, this makes no difference, since the participants may believe they do understand each other–they simply disagree and no longer wish to discuss the matter. This is perfectly acceptable. The danger, however, is when a temporary breakdown becomes permanent. Ideally, communication should oscillate ad infinitum between the struggle to understand and actual understanding. There will always be challenges to communicate; the goal, it seems to me, should be overcoming them in a way most conducive to the common good. Burning bridges is seldom a good idea.
4. If I shun those whose views differ from my own, I will never encounter new ideas; my perspectives and understandings will never be challenged. Thus, my views will become inflexible and entrenched.
5. What I mean here is that the basic worldview of such people cannot be questioned; all evidence is interpreted in light of a fixed narrative. Anything that challenges the narrative is thus re-imagined and reinterpreted. We could perhaps refer to such a narrative as a “master narrative” in the sense that it seems to direct all facts and information encountered by the isolated self. It is worth noting that the term “narrative” or “master narrative” is just a shorthand way of describing a theoretical framework.
6. Charles Taylor has remarked about this propensity in his book A Secular Age. “We fight against injustices which cry out to heaven for vengeance. We are moved by a flaming indignation against these: racism, oppression, sexism, or leftist attacks on the family or the Christian faith. This indignation comes to be fuelled by hatred for those who support and connive with these injustices; and this in turn is fed by our sense of superiority that we are not like these instruments and accomplices of evil. Soon we are blinded to the havoc we wreak around us. Our picture of the world has safely located all evil outside us. The very energy and hatred with which we combat evil proves its exteriority to us. We must never relent, but on the contrary double our energy, vie with each other in indignation and denunciation.” In this way, we “become centres of hatred, generators of new modes of injustice on a greater scale, but we started with the most exquisite sense of wrong, the greatest passion of justice and equality and peace.” See Charles Taylor, A Secular Age, p. 698.
7. Consider the factionalism of the Guelphs and Ghibellines in medieval Italy, the European wars of religion in the early-modern period, or the French Revolution–to say nothing of the 20th century. These examples illustrate the words of Charles Taylor, “We assure ourselves of our integral goodness by aggressive action against evil.” See Charles Taylor, A Secular Age, p. 769.
8. It is important to recognize that the description of what I am calling the “isolated self” is in many ways an ideal type. That is, it describes the ideal (or form) of a hypothetical person which is only instantiated to various degrees in actual people. Of course, it is possible that such a person does exist in “pure form”, but I think to categorize people in this way fails to accurately get at what is really going on. The truth seems to be that people more or less conform to this description, in various ways, and to differing degrees. Ideal types have been discussed by many, including Max Weber, Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, Robert Bellah, and Michael Maccoby.
9. Over the past six months or so I have seen many headlines highlighting the tensions of personal relationships. It’s true that people have always disagreed over health-related concerns, politics, religion, and many other things. But the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 U.S. presidential election, QAnon, etc., has unearthed conflicts in personal relationships often where we would least expect it. My own experience bears this out as well.
10. See Charles Taylor, A Secular Age, p. 769.
11. e.g., “Trump supporters would never storm the capital, it was ANTIFA disguised!“ “Police would never use force without a good reason.” “We all know that Trump was going to win the election, if he didn’t that just proves they cheated.” “COVID-19 is not real, the ‘pandemic’ is a pretext for global communism.” “Vaccines are always safe and effective.” “Donald Trump is a fascist dictator.” “Pope Francis is a pagan heretic.” What I wish to emphasize with these examples is not their truth or falsehood, but the stance of certainty and lack of openness that characterizes them.
12. The past year has witnessed what has sometimes happened when such groups encounter one another in the streets.
13. See Erich Fromm, Escape From Freedom, p. 99.
14. Ibid., p. 106.
15. Ibid., p. 108. Emphasis in original.
16. Ibid., p. 108-109. Emphasis in original.
17. This is the essence of what has been called the “traditional economic ethic”. See, for example, my essay, Achievement Culture: Some Considerations In Context.
18. See Erich Fromm, Escape From Freedom, p. 110.
19. Ibid., p. 111-112.
20. Ibid., p. 117-118.
21. See Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society, and Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes.
22. See Jacques Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes, p. 147-148. Emphasis in original.
23. See Erich Fromm, Escape From Freedom, p. 118-119.
24. See, for example, my essays discussing the instrumental stance: Introduction to the Instrumental Stance, The Instrumental Stance: Analysis and Contrast, and Beyond the Instrumental and Non-Instrumental: Some Thoughts on The Person.
25. See Erich Fromm, Escape From Freedom, p. 118-119. Emphasis in original.
26. Ellul’s understanding of propaganda is much broader and deeper than what we normally think of as propaganda (I will discuss his understanding of propaganda in a future essay). In many ways both writers agree on the problem and its dangers, they are simply approaching and analyzing it in different ways. Of the two, Ellul seems to show a better understanding of the basis and grounding of the problem, while Fromm focuses more on its consequences. See Erich Fromm, Escape From Freedom; See Jacques Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes.