The Social Media State and Its Discontents
Rise of the social media state and its discontents in the new Social War
The social media state rules us. This we know.
But is the social media state a state of mind or a form of government or both? And does it have a telos or is it seemingly random and meandering in its cruelty? Or is it both?
The retweet is also a form of voting, albeit an imperfect way. But then again, voting isn’t all it used to be, is it? Nothing human is ever perfect, is it? I’d say Make Voting Great Again but that might be a hate crime so perhaps best not go there with voter integrity efforts.
Ah yes, integrity. Who has it these days? Not our supposed betters or imperfect leaders.
The social media state is both anarchic and algorithmic; it is capricious and nasty by design. It cancels as it informs. It pleasures as it disgusts.
Its nature prefers instead to blacklist, to restrict, to ban and, most importantly of all, to divide between those who will have the rules enforced against them and those who will do the enforcing or cheer it on. Social media then is ultimately a political question: Who, whom?
This is a return of Leninism a centenary after its debut. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
We end this piece with a question: What is social media?
Let’s take its roots. After all, Language, we know from Gramsci, is about control. Let language not have mastery over us but let us tame it by taking it apart. At first this might seem petty fogging but follow me.
What does the word “social” mean?
Like social distancing or social science the adjective social does a lot of work. You can’t be social if you are socially distancing. There’s nothing scientific about social science nor is there much service in “social service.” Only a fool believes that social security gives any semblance of social security. “Social” democracies don’t seem particularly democratic. Nor does socialism seem particularly social. They tell you what to do.
There doesn’t seem much justice in “social justice” — just recriminations and nastiness. And what justice isn’t inherently social? Can you have justice with yourself? It may well be the case that to affix the word “social” we render its opposite.
The word “social” comes from the Latin word socii, meaning “allies.” The socii were allies of Rome. Their territory is demarcated in orange. Note how vast it is relative to that of the colonies or main territory. You couldn’t rule Italy without your allies — just as you can’t run social media without your subjects.
Just as Twitter and Facebook need you on their platform — no Parler for you, serf! — the Romans needed the socii to rule Italy. The socii knew that.
Together the socii and the latini fought the wars while the latini ruled. The socii, like the average social media user today, became a sort of second-class person in the Roman Empire — a peregrini. They were free but not citizens.
As the Empire expanded the socii found their freedom narrowed. A big polity is not one that The socii rebelled and the first Social War began. . . and they promptly lost.
But while they had failed on the battlefield they won what they had sought: a right to be a part of the empire on equal terms. By the end of the war in 88 BC, all inhabitants of what would become Italy had been granted the right to apply for Roman citizenship. Equal citizenship had to be fought for, not bestowed. It had to be taken, not given. It required sacrifice. It understood that free people are free to make choices and that among those choices might even be need to die for your rights.
We are, I hope and pray, not in a position where a war is necessary. I will do everything in my power to avoid my country being torn asunder by social media though I fear it may well happen.
What would a sort of social media rebellion look like today? Is such a confederation even possible?
You might imagine all of the users not participating until their peaceful demands were met. But then that would require a real alliance among so many different narcissistic personality types. It is extremely unlikely to happen. It’s easier to be uncivilly obedient than it is to be civilly disobedient.
The second word of “social media” is “media.” In generations past the media was a sort of layer — or membrana — that sought to be in the middle.
To be in the middle of things is to give sense of the world, a sense of perspective. That’s the way it was, Walter Cronkite promised. The media was curated and sanitized. All the news that’s fit to print suggested that there were some things that weren’t fit to be printed. Somewhere along the way, as social media encouraged every voice to say the same thing the conversation went private. Rather than share everything we became more guarded.
By removing the middle man we had no protections from the vicissitudes of the mob. And it’s starting to show.