Social Media Dialectics & Ideological Pipelines
Meme Wars as False Radicalism & Saving Loved-Ones
I have been hearing about pipelines (alt-right, new-age, conspiracy-theorist, cultural marxism, radical left wing, antifa etc.) and people going down them since 2008, and to me it legit sounds like Nancy Reagan saying "crack is wack." I feel like this is the same demonization nonsense as the whole gateway drugs concept your parents used to convince you that the world is dangerous, that you need them, and that you should just trust them with how to live your life.
And, I guess - technically - they're not even wrong. In fact, I'm totally fine with the message. JUST NOT WITH THE METHOD.
I know a lot of people who wish they could help their loved-ones escape what they perceive to be harmful ideologies. I mean…the first time I listened to Snoop Dogg my dad literally came huffing and puffing into my room and broke my CD-player. Pretty sure Snoop Dogg wasn’t anything to worry about but that is a matter of perception I suppose.
People want to protect their loved-ones from making certain mistakes, and like I said, that makes total sense to me. But what people fail to see is that they are lacking the necessary (self-) awareness to really make that happen.
Here is why:
What is life? What do people spend most of their time doing in life? I would say, people are trying to discover themselves. They spend most of their days in their heads wondering who they are, what they want to experience next, and maybe even why they are here. If they end up in some ideology-spouting group then that's where they feel okay about themselves.
And yeah, 90 percent of the time they're not doing it for the ideology but they are doing it for identity, relationships and some form of intimacy.
So how is demonizing and villainizing or playing any other superiority-games going to help them find their way out of that shit?
This message isn't for all the people following ideologues. This message is for the people who understand that ideology is garbage because they see it in other ideologies, yet they still choose to engage in their own:
If you really wanted to get your loved-ones out of an ideology you consider manipulative , dangerous or problematic, then doesn't it seem reasonable to give them what they seek, i.e. showing them empathy and understanding, and offering them new perspectives for self-discovery?
I feel like showing them that their interpersonal needs are valid and that their drives are understandable given the shit card we have all been dealt rather than telling them they're wrong makes more sense.
To be honest, I think part of the issue is that we, humans, hate the fact that we can't control everyone around us so we have this stupid instinct to demonize people who are better at it (i.e. ideologues). But the problem with demonization is that it engages in the same rhetoric as ideologues and actually solidifies the fuck out of ideology.
Can’t fight fire with fire just because your fire is more pretty or has better values.
I wrote a paper about how and why the social media politics dialectics - in this case it was exemplified in the form of memes - produces as its synthesis the very solidification of ideological radicalism it seeks to counteract through political counter-resistance. What resulted from this political counter-resistance was stronger ideological alignments ON BOTH SIDES.
In this conference paper I asserted the following:
"I propose that the rise of [ideological content on the internet] is connected to a social media dialectic which synthesizes what I will refer to in Lacanian terms as a mythologization of circumstances to yield an absolute truth. This absolute truth serves the purpose of avoiding the psychological anxiety connected to the ambiguity of identity and group identification."
Further, I make the following claim:
"[T]he externalized mythical enemy serves as a legitimization of self, or in other words, identity. And, as described by Elizabeth Anker in her 2014 book Orgies of Feeling this legitimization translates as a need to align one’s desire for self-ascription with authoritative power structures that are capable of establishing a rule of definition which explains a return to ideology-based information exposure."
So… what all that academic bla bla means is basically that, according to my critical analysis of the communication dynamic between the two poles of opposing ideology (in this case liberal vs. conservative), the effect of the demonization of the opposing pole further widens the scope of ideological rhetoric and synthesizes the neurotic production of an absolute enemy through which each identity is defined. The neurosis in this situation is, of course, the perception of something absolute.
The way I look at it, it's a matter of what you want as someone whose friend/family/person of interest in this scenario is 'going down a pipeline' you think is dangerous.
Ask yourself these questions:
Do you want to help them or do you want to control them?
Do you want them to believe what you believe or are you legitimately worried about the effects those groups have on people and the world?
I suggest the following:
If you generally feel that a group is dangerous and influential in the life and well-being of a loved-one, do something to that group that destabilizes it (state control, revolution, legislature, etc.)
If you want to help someone reconsider their choices and opinions, show them alternatives that help them in their self-discovery and desire for intimacy.
If your aim is to control or influence people, your game of demonization, shaming, guilt-tripping and ostracizing is literally the same game they’re playing. They are just better at it. So all you're doing is further solidifying ideological influence. And that's fine. But if you think that isn't what you're doing...you might be neurotic and it won’t lead to the outcome you seek nor will it help your loved-ones stay away from ideology.
There is no way to correctly control someone.
Read the full article here:
The Synthesis of Social Media Dialectics and the Rise of Alt-Right Memes