DATABASE

Članci IN MEDIAS RES br. 16

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IX Uz deveti simpozij Filozofija medija (2019)

 

 

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9(16)#1 2020

This journal is open access and this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

DOI 10.46640/imr.9.16.1 UDK 304.9:316.774 Pregledni članak Review article Primljeno: 02.03.2020.

 

 

Divna Vuksanović i Dragan Ćalović

Fakultet dramskih umetnosti, Univerzitet umetnosti, Srbija
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Fakultet za umetnost i dizajn, Univerzitet Megatrend, Srbija
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The Possibility of Critique in an Era ruled by the Media

Puni tekst: pdf (429 KB), English, Str. 2489 - 2498

 

Abstract

 

Taking the philosophy of media as a starting point, this text examines the possibilities, forms and status of critique in our times which are dominated, at least in the West, by what is known as media culture. On the one hand, the text avoids reducing systemic and strategic critique of capitalism to merely a critical point of view, while on the other it problematizes and examines the critique of modern media practices. The authors implicitly conclude that merely asking these questions paves the road to comprehensive critical action, within the existing systems of this media universe, as well as beyond it, i.e. in the particular socio-economic system of thought and action. This text also examines the possibility of achieving critical practices through art, and in the context of emerging new technologies. Possibilities for critique within the framework of new media art are explored in particular, as this might revolutionize not only media practices, but also the social, historical and economical practices of capitalism as such.

 

Key words: criticism, media, capitalism, new media art .

 

 

Critique is in our times most often defined as critical thinking. We however see this as an erroneous approach: defining critique as critical thinking on the one hand means to trivialize and simplify the concept, as well as to severely narrow down its meaning, since such a general definition omits the possibility to use critique in art and other phenomena such as the media. On the other hand, equating critique with critical thinking is an interpretation advanced mainly by modern psychology, which often reduces it to formal types of analysis, structured in a particular way. Our task here is to examine the possibility of critique in this age of media, primarily from a philosophical point of view^[1], i.e. within the framework of the philosophy of media. To put it more precisely – we examine the possibility of media practice as critical practice, and the position new media art holds within it.

In the most general sense, critique for us does not represent only a way of thinking, it incorporates critical theory as well as effective critical practice. In other words, it is impossible to reduce critique to critical thinking because it sometimes goes beyond concepts and logical thinking/judgment. We therefore see critical practice as a practice of abstract thought and practical action, in line with Fichte’s Tathandlung, for example. Unlike Kant and Fichte however, for whom self-awareness is the foundation of consciousness, it is our view that consciousness and critical thinking are founded on class divisions and conflicts. The effectiveness of critique as such is therefore the force necessary for destroying the self-sufficiency of self-awareness as well as speculation on pure concepts – a self-sufficiency that may be defined as the fuel validating the spirit of capitalism which encourages its development.

Critique is used here in its broader sense. We interpret it not only as critical thinking, but as a position taken on thinking itself and on its openness towards further processes of concept dialectics. This includes developments in thinking which instead speculative syntheses and conclusions, lead to criticism that penetrates (social) practice and is realized within it (a position parallel to Adorno’s critique through negative dialectics and resolution of class conflict in reality). In our opinion this needs a mimetic impulse taken from reality as well as an aesthetic impulse from the media and the arts. The text therefore insists on critique as interpreted by the media and contemporary art, realized in a technologically mediated space.

Certainly, the shift from negative developments of the concept to its practical resolution is not to be carried out partially or uncritically. This then implies a revolution – both in thought and in reality (including the existing cultural, artistic and media reality). The interpretation context itself however is generally marked by unreflected speculation (in finance for example) and the so-called “crisis of representation”^[2] which on the one hand pushes the concept as well as conceptual critique into theoretical positions which in their production generally support the capitalist world^[3], and on the other hand in terms of non-conceptual elements of art, leads to a process of “dematerialization”, which is at the same time another form of speculation.^[4] We believe modern media are at the centre of this dematerialization process (in culture as a whole). This is why the primary issue to focus on in this era of media reign is the possibility of criticism within philosophy and aesthetics.

Moving away from speculation and keeping within systemic critique, we examine how problem thinking can operate inside the media environment, with particular emphasis on artistic practice within media which takes a negative view of reality thus losing the strength of its foundation (in a tangible reality), but retaining the position of negative movement (as defined by Adorno in the field of modern art). In other words, we analyse critique as a concept but expand its dialectic to the domain of assessment and value. Evaluation does not always mean conceptualization; it can also contain an element of aesthetics which is why we take media and art as our subject matter. The critical position we primarily wish to examine and establish here does not always coincide – as per accepted opinion – with certain media content or objects of artistic representation. Following Adorno’s unfinished theory of aesthetics, we essentially deal with forms/genres of media and art which take a critical stance on reality, simultaneously aiming to change it in a radical way.

It appears that the media of today are not particularly suited to critical review in general. Although in analysing their own function TV networks mostly keep to the traditional triad (information, education and entertainment), and a critical approach should include information as well as education and even entertainment, modern TV networks mainly operate uncritically. Almost all types of media content are treated as goods even when they are distributed through so-called public services. Since commercial content almost always lacks a critical approach, it generally seems that in the domain of television and modern media a critical stance is some exotic property that is sometimes desirable and most often not.

One possible objection from the point of view of any commercial media operating on the market, is that critical processes should once again be incorporated in the education system, as well as in science and politics. Meanwhile, media industries exchange information and sensory experiences on the free market and should therefore be free from the pressure exerted by the state and conservative intellectuals, as the competitive relationship between products on the market can replace “traditional” critique in the media. Contrary to this, the horizon of expectation regarding modern media appears to have remained unchanged in the general public – just as any other goods which are produced, distributed and consumed on the media market, information must include elements of independence and/or neutrality and sometimes criticism, unless it is exempted from this due to its specific type (such as the tabloid press or pornography). In this process the surviving critique in modern media is most often seen in terms of genre: there is social criticism, moral criticism, etc., or in terms of specialized fields – literary, art, music criticism etc. In addition to this, criticism is seen as a mediating form in the culture industry between artists, managers and the audience with the apparent function of ensuring larger profits.^[5]

As authors of this text however, we are not interested in how partial critique gains ground in the media sphere, or its status, although such a critique is also marginalized, defensive and in practice often exposed to be pseudo-critique. We believe the fundamental problem of criticism in the media is ingrained in the system and relates to technology and the general ideology of media processes. If we assume technology is “neutral in terms of value”, it can serve both the ruling regime of thinking as well as systematic criticism. This issue essentially relates to freedom of the media and more specifically – to phenomena of censorship, auto-censorship and “political correctness” (as well as the limits of these). Contrary to this, all commercial media and most public services can be seen as supporting the current regime in place (regardless of daily politics), since they provide services to one and the same regime of “being and thought”, i.e. capitalism. This regime, as is well-known, aims to control the media through market mechanisms; systemic criticism is of course aimed precisely against such a set of views which joins together capitalism and the media acting within it, seeing it as a unified industry. This industry today is technologically advanced to a high degree and is increasingly digitized, on all fronts.

Possibilities for critique in these times defined by digital media and the theory and practice of Big Data^[6], especially in the information age of late stage capitalism – have lately been offered by Assange, Snowden, Manning and their followers. In commenting on their activities, some called these subversive actions carried out online and on social networks – “an art of rebellion”.^[7] This “art of rebellion” appearing in the “age of terror” (fear) is actually a transcendental and immanent critique of the media environment: transcendental as it operates outside the system, and immanent because it criticizes the world of information and media through using its own language and resources. Such a critique characteristically adopts one of the following approaches – one includes publishing information that had been safeguarded and controlled by certain regimes and secret services, and the other means fighting to make such activities a norm for media and social practice. Alongside these broad strokes of active critique in the field of global information, possibilities for democratic action through critique (in a technologized form of democracy) are also available in the sphere of so-called social media (Twitter, Facebook) which are in essence impossible to control, despite numerous attempts to do so. The problem with critical views stated in such environments is that actually these media have not been developed for critique but for other purposes.

Although prima facie this new media space appears to be open to the exchange of different opinions (views) and to critical action – both for individuals and for groups – it is actually a topos of “prosumption” (an instance of simultaneously consuming and producing content), and therefore represents an exploitation of the users’ work. Criticism produced here is therefore less efficient in practice or it reverses its critical facet into its opposite, as evidenced by “revolutions” initiated on social networks (social media). The most famous examples include the Arab Spring and the global Occupy movement – a failed attempt at reviving 1968 student protests, supported by new media. In an article on critical theory and digital media, Jonathan Gray^[8] claims all these revolutions have actually been colonized by megacorporations and that internet media systems serve other purposes – these are in short, new ways of accumulating capital. The ways in which profit is gained on the networks, through marketing or “mechanized exploitation of users”, regardless of whether they use critique or other media forms and content, are always the same – companies operating in digital media exploit participants through the ideology of “Playbour”, obscuring labour within something that apparently constitutes play.^[9]

External to these online and social network environments of work and play, but actually within the same domain, new forms of artistic expression emerge, characterized by critical engagement. This nonconceptual critical practice is not only a matter of the technology that shapes it, but also of those aesthetic moments which within shaping it may introduce impulses necessary for social change. It is our belief that just as the avant-garde in art questioned not only previous theories (of art) but social practice itself, expectations regarding new media art are not merely a matter of technical solutions in terms of innovative artistic expression, but also a potential starting point for radical change.

Similar to Assange, Snowden and other activists in terms of their engagement within the framework of media-political action, alternative and guerrilla action in modern art also uses the media as a message. This “message”, in addition to being, in McLuhan’s sense, the choice to use media for critical action, is simultaneously an artistic “message” that operates owing to its particular aesthetic/media form. In this sense, one further issue related to the previous ones is the possible critical engagement of (new) media through art. This problem is today analysed not only in philosophy, aesthetics, media and art theory, but also by modern artists creating in the media environment, as well as media (h)ac(k)tivists, ecologists and others.^[10]

Generally speaking, and based on historical occurrence, any discussion on new media art necessarily presupposes examination, analysis and theoretical explication of its critical dimension. Here however we must stress that understanding the concept of new media in accordance with its definition in the theory of art does not completely match the interpretation of the term in media studies, although as a wider concept it includes the meanings it has in the fields that primarily focus on understanding media practices. It is only on the basis of a differentially established perspective that we can see the existence of new media art as an expression of surpassing the conventionally established framework of artistic action, instead of viewing it as an adjustment of creative work to modern technological possibilities.

Development of new media art has always followed attitudes advancing wider social critique. The search for a radically new art encompasses early avant-garde artistic movements, concept art, land art, happenings, performance and experiments with possibilities of expression in new technologies within the development of multimedia art. In this way new media art manifests resistance and opposition to the existing social, economic and political framework of events. Its radical position does not remain at the level of formal analysis, but is primarily aimed at transforming the role of art in society. Development of art in general is marked by a search for new possibilities of expression, development of styles, i.e. artistic movements, as well as implementation of contemporary technological knowledge resulting in innovative new techniques and implementing new practices at the level of artistic methods. In this sense new forms of expression are not separate from the emergence of new media art. However, its foundation and direction cannot be equated with the stated (general) interests of art and research.

Failed attempts at understanding it and marginalizing radical social intervention as the central focus and basic principle in art of the new media is to a certain point the result of identifying it as new media art which highlights the interpretation of its radical position only at the formal level, that is, at the level of analysing new media of artistic expression. The consequences of such a view which might completely overturn the basic position on the development of new media, can also be found at the level of theoretical approaches to its interpretation (in the history and theory of art, aesthetics and art criticism), as well as within modern art practices. The most explicit critique of such an approach is offered perhaps by John Cage who has said that radicalism in art is not defined by its form but by its destructive action within the existing social and historical context. However, despite not being generally accepted, the strength of conservative action in the theoretical and artistic developments mentioned, are not to be underestimated since their increase has the power to completely alter the direction and approach to a historical interpretation of the development of new media art.

It is precisely such circumstances that bring this question into focus – what is the possibility for critique in this era of media rule? Does the increasingly strong commitment in society to developing new media technologies reveal the problem of form as the central principle for establishing new aesthetic value systems? If an era identifies itself through the methods/technologies/processes of transferring information and the possibilities for accessing them, instead of identifying with the quality/foundation/historical perspective of artistic and any other creative expression, is there any space left for other forms of radical action that do not relate to the development of technology?

The current narrowing and simplification of the paradigm for understanding new media art, prompted by the already mentioned change in the interpretation focus, introduces into modern art those art practices which identify with new media art according to the criterion of being based on so-called new (artistic) media, but without the main criterion of being defined as the art of new media. Despite the fact this focus in art and research may be considered as perfectly legitimate, the criterion for classifying these works should be thoroughly examined.

One should ask to what extent are new media actually new, a question posed already in the 1990s by Lev Manovich. Focusing on understanding the essence of media, Manovich first questioned the supposed level of newness at the formal level, suggesting, in accordance with this view, the introduction of the term meta-media or post-media, which in his later works initiates the development of a so-called post-media aesthetic.^[11] Further following this line of interpretation, the issue to be highlighted is – whether results of innovation/improvement manifested at the formal level, can be considered essentially new in an era of media, i.e. of prevailing media and communication industries.

In circumstances when innovating/surpassing/developing media which in some segment differ from existing ones represents an expression of greater consolidation and stronger development of dominant industries, such changes remain within the framework of activities supporting the status quo, and they cannot be considered entirely new at the level of their social influence.  The fact is that the revolutionary effect in emerging new media technologies does not exist in the age of powerful media and media-technological industries, whose development is based on a relatively fast exchange of products available on the market. The process of declining revolutionary effect exerted by the media is also highlighted by Manovich in his analyses, as he notes that new media normalize the revolutionary effect of avant-garde art movements.^[12] In this sense, viewed from a wider historical perspective, the new media era can be considered to be a post-media era, in the context of extinguishing revolutionary possibilities traditionally highlighted by the emergence of new media technologies. This however is still not reason enough to accept the position that any implementation of new media in art lacks fighting power. This is primarily true in instances when new media in artistic expression are not part of the dissemination and absorption of media industries. Only if it develops and acts outside the context of dominant powers of social guidance, can the medium in the so-called era of media rule as we understand it, keep the revolutionary power to subvert existing social-historical relations.

A significantly wider scope of critical action in new media art as well as a theoretical approach to its fighting potential can be identified in the different ways the media are used today, as well as in the open possibilities of meaning a particular work carries. The theory behind this view is primarily in John Fiske encouraging the subversive potential in popular culture, and in postmodernist views of texts resisting any imposed meanings (comp. Derrida), or even in the traditional view that art represents a space free of thought. Even a cursory glance at some new media artworks with a strong critical dimension, such as BirderXing Guide (Heath Bunting and Kayle Brandon, 2002), Zapatista Tactical FloodNet (Electronic Disturbance Theater, 1998), [domestic] (Mary Flanagan, 2003), Second Life Dumpster (Hajoe Moderegger and Franziska Lamprecht, 2007), The Mad Dog Performance (Oleg Kulik, 1994), etc., link this position with modern art practice.

Modern art therefore, and this is true for understanding new media art as well, has not lost its critical potential. Its revolutionary strength might be obscured by actions, approaches and uncritical interpretations through which the perspective of understanding new media art is equated with examining the expressive possibilities of new media technologies and tools. The consequences of such a position becoming authoritative due to the social influence of media industries are however not be found only in the domain of expressing social criticism through art, but in art criticism itself which, seduced by the fetishization of formal principles in creative expression, can often exclude from the art world precisely those works expressing the strongest social criticism, precisely because they cannot be included in the generally accepted classification systems at the formal level.

Through new media art and in modern social, economic and historical circumstances, critical engagement which is socially marginalized but still quite productive, faces the challenge of possibilities for its expression and activity being partially eliminated, which leads to a total failure to be recognized as artistic expression. This development in prevailing theories and practices of modern art is primarily the effect of the analysed discursive and artistic-poetic repositioning of (artistic) critical engagement in the media and overall sphere of human activities. Certainly, maintaining critical and revolutionary practices in modern times must include the existence of problem-based theories such as the philosophy of media, which can encourage and support a fundamental change in reality.

 

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References:

Adorno, Theodor, Aesthetic Theory, Nolit, Belgrade, 1979.

Adorno, Theodor, Negative Dialectics, BIGZ, Belgrade, 1979.

Fiske, John, Understanding Popular Culture, Clio, Belgrade, 2001.

Geoffroy de Lagasnerie, The Art of Revolt: Snowden, Assange, Manning, Stanford University Pres, USA, 2017.

Manovich, Lev, “Avant-garde as Software: From 'New Vision' to New Media”, in: Sretenović, Dejan (ed.), Metamedia, Centre for Contemporary Art, Belgrade, 2001.

Marina Vishmidt, “Notes on Speculation as a Mode of Production in Art and Capital”, in: Micha Kozowski, Agnieszka Kurant, Jan Sowa, Krystian Szadkowski and Jakub Szreder (eds.), Joy Forever: The Political Economy of Social Creativity, Free/Slow Universty of Warsaw, MayFlyBooks, London, 2014, p. 48.

Shui Yu, Song Guo (eds.), Data Concepts, Theories, and Applications, eBook, Springer International Publishing, Switzerland, 2016.

Review of the book by David M. Barry, Critical Theory and the Digital, in: Jonathan Gray, “On Critical Theories and DigitalMedia“, Krisis, Journal for contemporary philosophy, available online: https://www.academia.edu/11823682/On_Critical_Theories_and_Digital_Media (accessed: 9th February 2020)

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/41064885.pdf?seq=1

https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/lcahm/departments/music/events/2018/critical-media-in-the-arts.aspx (accessed: 11th February 2020)

 

Kako je moguća kritika u eri vladavine medija?

 

Sažetak

 

U članku se, sa stanovišta filozofije medija, otvara pitanje o potencijalima, načinima i položaju kritike u našem dobu koje karakteriše, bar kada je reč o zapadnim kulturnim krugovima, dominacija tzv. medijske kulture. S jedne strane, izbegava se redukcija sistemske i strateške kritike sveta kapitala na puko kritičko mišljenje, dok se, s druge strane, problemski preispituje kritika delujuća unutar savremenih medijskih praksi. Autori implicitno zaključuju da je već samo otvaranje ovakvih pitanja utiranje puta za sveobuhvatno kritičko delovanje, kako unutar zatečenih sistema medijskog univerzuma, tako i izvan njega, odnosno u konkretnom društveno-ekonomskom sistemu mišljenja i delovanja. Takođe, u tekstu se razmatra mogućnost kritičkih praksi posredstvom umetnosti, odnosno unutar konteksta dejstva novih tehnologija. U tom smislu, posebno se istražuju potencijali za kritiku u okvirima novomedijske umetnosti, što bi trebalo da predstavlja uvod u revolucionisanje ne samo medijske, već i društveno-povesno-ekonomske prakse u eri kapitalizma.

 

Key words: kritika, mediji, kapitalizam, novomedijska umetnost.

 

 

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9(16)#2 2020

This journal is open access and this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

DOI 10.46640/imr.9.16.2 UDK 655.13/16:316.774 Pregledni članak Review article Primljeno: 07.01.2020.

 

 

Željko Rutović

Ministarstvo kulture Crne Gore, Direktorat za medije, Crna Gora
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The Body: Narcissism of the Media

Puni tekst: pdf (289 KB), English,, Str. 2499 - 2510

 

Abstract

 

The popular media industry of spectacle with instruments of “seduction” produces “voluntary cosent” of man in acceptance, imitation and evaluation of distribution of corporate consumer culture. In this world man plays role beyond his ontological need and self-conscious realization of subject as thinking creature.

      

The aim of this paper is to problematize socio-cultural phenomenology of body transfiguration, impressions and experiences in opticum of consumerist globalization.

      

The new construction of “new” body is modeled on techniques of instrumentalisation, stereotyping and hybridization of narcissism as the primary reprezentational principle of such media experience.

 

Key words: body, narcissism, media, globalization, stereotypes, consumerism.

 

 

Introduction

In a world of transgression, in which numerous changes are happening rapidly and in which the principle and approach of ambiguity are favoured, we are all elements, particles of the same network of media industry. The uniform ephemeral glow of (entertainment) industry has abolished the traditional body as it existed up to that point, establishing the sensation of encounter with (one’s own) body. The postmodern body in the conflict between the erotoid and the tanatoid is in the shadow of the media industry. The modern-day body industry is a multimedia model of advertising-mental construction and a form of simulation of media-generated narcissism. It is simulation because of the lack as well as the surplus. Thus, the simulation is transformed into a media resolution that virtualizes the alleged catharsis. The industrial body becomes a stereotype or a starting point in processing the visual and linguistic discourse of representation of the body in the media text of postmodern culture. The theory of discourse as a theory of practice, that is, the way in which the language of the media defines the reality, helps us reflect critically on the reality and deconstruct it contextually through the model and ideal of beauty, which women are to strive for according to the media. This imaginary problem has generated a high-profit multi-industry with the task to correct and represent the body in accordance with the patterns, clichés, and the key of the media language. The media (self)-realization, in synthesis with the multidisciplinary industrial optics, “allows for” a description of the invisible – of someone who is not there. Instead of being the attention of human imagination, where the boundaries of everyday world disappear for a moment, the body of today loses its memory and becomes a mere physical object that surrounds us. The real space of dynamic sensitivity of the body is beyond the hidden areas of the human spirit. Such visualization/screening of the industrial body, in which there is no story, nullifies imagination and closes the possibility of diverse (subjective) interpretations. Thus the persona of the body is today reduced to mere polarity and a simple dichotomy on the line of the “either-or” formulation. The body industry provides a substitute for the copy that needs to become independent and materialized/realized in the image. The discourse of such an act is an evolution into a new, non-existent existence.

Today, industry uses the body to search for an ever-new identity and to explore different aspects of one and the same expression. Like in Brechtian irony, the “body” is offered a cure for transience.

In the industrialized body of the “looking good” value system, protection is sought and a psychological substitute is determined through the body, which has the (outwardly imposed) role. The psychological life of this representation ranges between the sexes with disintegrating body parts and a libido that is infinitely prone to competition. As Julia Kristeva notes: “If the woman’s body did not lack, Don Juan would be happy with this ‘Sex which is not Don Juan’.” The final, industrial body is produced as the very emblem of a man’s desire. Such a body is only and merely physically given and dominated by aesthetic standards imposed from the outside, which whenever they are reached, get quickly replaced by new and unattainable ideals and parameters. It is not accidental that, in order to encourage media literacy, the Australian government obliged the editors of magazines to indicate the altered photographs of models that were significantly processed or “photo-shopped”. The importance of this warning becomes clear given the global terror of the advertising industry, which claims that a woman whose physique does not correspond to the “Barbie mould” does not love her body, or rather that she is dissatisfied with it, and that it needs to be modified according to the norms of beauty “devised” for her by someone else. As an image of vanishing, the biological body of today is merely an offprint of an event that fades, both before our eyes and from our memory. What is embodied is the shape of the body as an “impossible encounter” with the “object” of desire.

 

1.1. The language of the body

My body writes in language. My body hurts through language. Let’s call it a dream state, or the language of the body, as Kathy Acker writes (Bodies of Work). Indeed, does the body have a language, or what is the language of the body today? Acker states: The body does not lie. It does not lie because it does not have a language to lie. Does the body seek its own language, or does the language seek the body beyond its patriarchal definitions? The body both speaks and writes in its own language. The language of the body is not linear; it is fragmented and again unfinished. The body formulates a meta-symbolic representation of the text in its language. This language denies or confirms the body. The body as desire. The body as the order of the (sur-)real in which the body is (not) seen in the opposition between subject and object. The language of the body intervenes in both space and time. That language can be a (non-)arbitrary propaganda, a media story, or a new industry fetish. In its manifestation, this language is in the triangle of the media replica, the mimesis of patriarchy, and the inability to exist. Where is the body in all this?

The language of the body depends on construction – the construct of associations. When these links are broken, the association itself disappears. People read this suggestion of the language of the body in different ways. This leads to (un-)visible events that become an integral part of our reality. This process is continuously subjected to random contrasting of space behind and in front, through the (language of the) body. In this way, a place or places are formed that penetrate the narrative logic of the language, that is, the syntactic hierarchization of the system of communication – of being embodied in the language of the body.

The language of the body is a non-verbal construct for the projection of social roles, through which identity or imitation concepts are self-actualized, their content generating towards the acquisition of desirability, social inclusion, or emotional reflection. The bold language of the body transforms a person and extracts from him or her what is untouchable, tabooed, non-liberated, that which everyone carries within himself. According to the levels of imaginary roles, the non-verbal expression metamorphosizes, accentuates, and emphasizes the symbolism of gesture, movement, or space. Language is inseparable from space in this discourse. Space (re-)structures language, gives it new meanings, directs or synchronizes man and action. As such, language is always in space, as without space it does not exist and does not send messages. New spaces also address the new linguistic attribution of the body. Interaction between place and language is a social symbolism of assumed roles, concepts, and strategies. Displacement of the language of the body from space is the impossibility of representing being, i.e. social existence, which is ultimately not convergent even with narcissistic culture. The body is the space of space. As such, the body is a map of symbols, roles, and requirements. The body is a dichotomy of either-or, of conceptualizing or deconceptualizing space. Conceptualization of the place, through the body, is a question of the meaning of the body’s identity. The space of the speaking body (Hora – from the Greek verb horein – to assign place, content), as Julia Kristeva has put it, is a kind of original bodily pre-signifier. Thus, place becomes possible through the body. And the non-places (Marc Augé) acquire the intimate narrative character of the territory of the language of the body, revealed in space.

Essentially, the language of the body is a relationship, but only as a process. Through the language of the body, as an erotic process, an interpersonal relationship is possible. The language of the body as a machine for producing the new sense of the body merges thought and rapture, measure and ecstasy. But then again, the language of the body as a “visual machine” for producing the postmodern sense blocks many other possibilities. Hence, it has symbolic, universal, psychological, anthropological, and sociological meanings. But judging by the global universalization of the text of the language of the body, one would say that the body of today is following the esoteric advice of Baudelaire “sur le maquillage”. Whether painted, truly alive, moving or at rest, the language of the body is the starting point for reviving the body itself. The language of the body is Name. Not a Name among other Names, but a language that communicates and opens up to the Other. The language of the body is thus realized as a biological, ontological, and mythological text. Essentially, the language of the body is actually a script before the script. From the point of view of subatomic micro-communication, the language of the body is a continuous, universal, and permanent communication channel open to new reflections on the body’s representative role. The language of the body is in constant conflict between intimate sensuality and strong associative visuality of external expression. Such a body has long been “out there” in a new chapter of its visual history, which provokes, incites, and stimulates the meanings of visions and views of imaginative “play”. In the space of such visuality, that is, the projection of the self, the body is often separated/split due to an imaginary craving of the imagined connected text of space. That is why place-space and illogical movement often displace the language of the body into the un-read associativity of signs and meanings.

Global enclosure in the dominant language of television has established a straight-line communication of an “eye-oriented” culture. Instead of opening one’s eyes, television has closed them, depriving man of a rational sense of the nature of communication of the language of the body. The language of the body does not question the language of the media. On the contrary, it is merely a replica of the media, materialized in an unquestioned key. The language of the body meets the requirements of the aesthetic and value standards of the media without a dialogue. Essentially, the body is a ubiquitous promoter of the media industry, and often its predecessor, which even by (un-)consciously stepping through the uninhabited places of the text of the body seeks new paths of media power and media existence.

 

1.2. The empty body

The post-postmodern, multimedia era of emotional hypocrisy has taken away the soul from the body by trying out a new concept of visuality. The staging of the movements of this new chapter of visuality, intended to provoke, stimulate, and enrich, essentially yields an “empty body”. Such a body is merely a currency of the provoked uniform aesthetics of the consume-centred media profile. Under the economic shell of the phenomenon to impress the “world of money”, the destroyed game of the body magic is lost and transformed into a new, problematic media frame, in which the body is packaged and visually distributed. Such a compound is not natural and often borders on bad taste. According to Eduard Spranger, personality types are shaped according to the value choice and value hierarchy, which in the context of this panel suggests that aesthetic favouritism and body promotion is the postmodern value substrate of dominant preference. In any case, the body is a passive object of the cloning and copying trend, which as such is strongly involved in creating a new multimedia world. The safety of the body privileged through the experience of sensual rapture, touch, and smell has obtained its visual equivalent of a “close-up” as a fetishized aspect of an essentially empty body. The body as an object does not signify anything, or more precisely, it only signifies absence as an expression of the unconscious in the visual field. The consequent question of this discourse is: whose is the desire, and for what? Is the observer led to reflect on the eroticism of the body, or is he unquestionably “offered” the knowledge of the limited expanse of the body as the highest form of visual construction? In this episteme, the truth about the (empty) body should be sought in a mix of different multimedia ideas and a mixture of elements in the game of truth and deception.

In complex discursive formations, perception of the body ranges from obsession to resisting the image. Here the biological determines the psychological, because the body is situated and connoted as the desire in/for the image under the label of fetishism. Laura Mulvey has pointed out the universal tendency of men to fetishize the entire body of a woman – as an attempt to make the totality represent the “missing” part. What can be seen is known/recognized as desire. The counterpoint is the “empty body”. The body is no longer an anatomical term. It is increasingly a socio-psychological term that transcends the social conventions of the opposition between the female and male roles. The postmodern reading of the text of the (empty) body, as a signified associated with a signifier, is no longer dictated by the anatomy of a man or a woman, but by the discursive system of the society. Reading the original bio-ontological body must be either male or female. Deconstructing the body in its visual plurality contributes to the exploration and shifting of the boundaries of the transmission of cultural codes in the global context of body perception. On the other hand, the focus of the body is on rethinking the diversity of women’s ideas and interpretations. Through the body, the representation of the female presence in the world is definitely transnational in nature. The transnational community imposes aesthetic principles as a series of multiplied hegemonic systems. The supreme principle predominates seeing the body in a transnational key. From the position of the media as a centre of perception, this discourse does not know binary oppositions such as West and East, progressive and regressive, traditional and modern, European and exotic.

The processes of emphasizing the media fragmentation of the body or the corporeal correspond to the images of a complex multiple identity, at the heart of which is the central question to whom the body belongs: the individual, the media, or the society. The postmodern epoch has given a new trajectory to the body, limited by the proportions of the sphere of forms, i.e. the imposed “catalogues” in whose space the (pre-)set desirability is realized. The vulgar manipulation of corporeality, given through the form, invalidates the symbolic exchange of subjectivities. In such procedures, instead of the biological skill of maturation, the body turns into a melancholy of vanishing as a natural reaction and response to the unsustainability of the projected, the artificial. The language of the empty body has thus redefined the biological rhythmical nature of the rapture of the heart, secret, emotion, symbol... In the drama of the trapped body, the multimedia memory of illogical, overcrowded aesthetic scenes is recognized as an unquestioned and functional fact of new manifestation. Bareness, as a physical and spiritual expression of the cruelty of a world that does not support individuality, is merely a linguistic-stylistic abbreviation that reveals the mechanisms of encrypting new corporeality.

In the dimension of total visibility, we live a paradox where we no longer see anything. There is no longer a principle of credibility or reality of the body that would confirm its existence. The atavistic fear of biological finality and the megalomania of outward appeal have led to a cynical (re-)formulation of the body, which does not want to be questioned. A question is the beginning of a dialogue and the “empty body” is dominated by a monologue of the serial industry type. The culmination of the act is a fact by which the postmodern observer is consciously adapted to the (in-)authenticity and (un-)certainty of the “monologue of the empty body”. Formulating the fundamental questions of the body in a new way, in the widest range from cosmetic surgery to genetic engineering, where (not) accepting one’s own body also means (not) accepting one’s own limitation, makes us wonder with much existential anxiety – what is human body today? Does the postmodern body belong in its immanent capacity or is it merely a confirmation of the achieved media (self-)realization is a question of the qualities (and forms) of the modern world at the heart of which the corporate obsession with the body, eternal youth, and sexual freedoms prevents existence in the original “spiritual body”.

 

1.3. The utopian body

In 1975, Michel Foucault analysed the “medical view” as one of the components of the modern “societies of control”, which in the context of the Nietzschean idea of ​​revaluating (all) values generates the deformation of the newly established postmodern phenomena. Almost forty years later, the market democracy again prescribes, practically dictates a desirable view of the state of our bodies. Objectively speaking, there would be nothing provoking in it were it not for the laws of the market, which knows/recognizes only its own interests in everything, even in the body. The vitalist demands of the “open” market ignore the fact that the care of the utopian body is (also) a matter of personal responsibility, personal morality... The media, numerous clinics, advertising agents, cosmetic and aesthetic surgery centres are each in their own way – but with the same goal – (re-)defining our view of our body as a “duty, obligation, and responsibility” of caring for one’s “perfect appearance and a perfect body.” Responsibility for a “body culture” that is displaced, or rather positioned in the formula of a utopian body, is not a publicly formulated ethical discursive plane of genuine concern; on the contrary, it is a mere paternalist and consumerist-capitalist currency that seeks to live at the costs of our body. The reality thus construed raises ontological questions about the status of the (transformed) reality itself, about the relationship between mind and body, more specifically about the relationship between life in the biological and life in the utopian body. If one keeps in mind that the body cannot be separated from the spirit, i.e. psyche, then the utopian body is essentially a disembodied body formatted on a virtual composition of multimedia self-deception.

By changing the operational mode of the optics of power, the space of media public also transforms the role of the body as a social-psychological and anthropological-biological category. The body, that is, the desire for its utopianism legitimizes the social character of that “fact” as a new relational entity in the social system of observation, exposure and exhibitionism, and the transformation of power. In the (re-)presentation of such a subject, the postmodern individual is most afraid to go unnoticed and invisible, notes the German sociologist Markus Schroer (2010: 461).

Consequently to the raised issue, this relational discourse will also raise the question about the originality – immediacy of one’s physical existence in the world. If, then, one neglects or removes the ontological foundation of our givenness, then the body is only an object and an exhibition, which, in the desire and intention to be renown, cannot be known. The ubiquity of the body in the media space eliminates the order of knowledge as an experience of one’s own corporeality. The universally proclaimed new biopolitics of leanness seems seductive in its rhetorical mantra – healthy lifestyles based on a dietary regime, sports, and nutrition, leave no one indifferent... Accordingly, various global anti-aging organizations such as the European Academy of Quality of Life and Longevity, Institute for Longevity, or Institute for Extension of Life are inaugurated, but that is only the tip of the iceberg of the postmodern multimedia façade, which always accuses only YOU for having “neglected your body,” without regard for the regularity of bio-social laws! Speaking at the level of body care, François Cusset has said that health is no longer just a state of balance, but also an ideal encompassed by the term ‘form’, which has been in vogue in France since the early 1980s (2008: 23).

The policy of body care has becomes transnational and transcultural, as is, after all, the multicorporate global capital itself. Pharmaceutical giants and their partners are continuously developing a “responsible” stance aimed at internalizing control over the body as life politics, i.e. “biopolitics”. The culture of proclaimed care is so influential that in the US they have even introduced penalties for stubborn workers ‘who do not manage to achieve optimal weight’ (according to Cusset 2008: 23). The body thus programmed, or rather experienced, becomes both expropriated and extra-territorialized; it is a redistributive market unit for the media, the pharmacists, the fashion agents, and other management forms of sale of the measurable equivalents of consumerist culture. Targeted, multiplied action is proclaimed by means of advertising exhibitionism, which the French monthly Vital, by inviting a person to “become a personality” or to “realize” himself or herself, has summarized in the slogan: “Do you find it difficult to see your navel?”

From the time of ancient Greek civilization, where even religious ceremonies entailed competitions of bared, mostly athletic bodies, to the projection of modern-day models, the imperatives of desirability of the utopian body have remained the same. Incorporating such awareness into our physical field problematizes/generates issues of intellectual, emotional, and social development, as well as the development of creative potentials. The universally proclaimed context of the multimedia sociology of the body abolishes desire and experience, because the person is the observer of something that is and is not his or her own existence (D. Anzie).

Briefly, “thanks to” the technologized and mediatized existence in the realm of sensory amplifiers and virtual worlds, which have abolished the curiosity, exploration and struggle of existence, one cannot be a subject open to himself and others, to all his senses. The extensive desire to (self-)observe the body as the dominant form of (self-) presence in the age of multimedialism has turned into a negation of the very meaning of the body. By searching for utopian “identity dreams” through aesthetic-visual communication, the body in its (re-)design essentially positions itself in the finality of the sign as a materialized vision of conquering the imagined space of realized or materialized corporeality. The social “acceptability” of the utopian body does not only speak about the formal nature of the changed role of the body in space and time, but also and essentially about a structural change in the patterns of identity realization at the heart of which is the primacy of visualization. That is why, unfortunately, man is less and less a HOMO CREATOR.

 

1.4. Full body art

“I came up with the idea of having them ​​paint me with drills that had felt pens attached to them. I stripped myself naked, although in local schools male models were forbidden to do that, only women were allowed... Both the professors and the students of that school painted over me. There were about three hundred people and each had one minute.” These are the words of artist Dragan Ilić about his performance Human Canvas, which he gave in 1979 for the students of the Brisbane’s College of Art. This radical performance, covered by all the local media, violated the law because the artist should not have been naked, but was eventually defended in court with the argument of artistic freedom. All professors were fired from the Brisbane college and a video of the performance is still to be found in the school’s records, says Dragan Ilić (2019).

The introductory words for the treated subject narrative will serve as a reflection and expression of artistic plasticization and the interaction between the artist and the body. In this spirit, let us start from the hypothesis that the body is an illusion. Conscious, unconscious, emotional, aesthetic, ethical, perceptive... or some other concept from the circle that self-defines illusion. Illusions change the experience, or rather dimensions – spaces, times, senses, and the sur-reality. The angle of observation transfigures the experience of the body. In the illusion, bodies are merged and separated, co-existing as oversized personalities.

The template of the “reality illusion” manifests itself paradigmatically (also) through the art technique of full body art, as work on the naked human body, by means of painted bodies, given artistic techniques, different colours, or colours similar to the human body. Simulating sameness, or projecting sameness, is a template for illusion itself. In the artistic composite of the “new body” we situate the imaginary settings, the limits of the performative, the power of the body, but no less the power of – thoughts. In this relational discourse of real-unreal body, the line of the body is explored, its in-finity. In a technical, artistic sense, the body is the emitter of the desired, perfect, utopian.

These artistic compositions, in our memories of our bodies and body experiences, and again not only our own, are detected as possible identity forms of our lifelines. These lines will range from pain, pleasure, consumerism, rituals, customs, lust, intervention on the body, to the mythologization of the body. Postmodern pluralism, whatever it may means in its praxis, perceives the body as a tool – an instrument in emitting the dichotomy of confirmation-contestation. Nothing in between. In this expanded field of art as a meta-narrative, life is displaced, replaced, and imaginated. Certainly it is a space of expressive languages ​​of techniques and reflections on the self-experienced body as the avant-garde space of new visuality. Identity, gender, tradition, ethics, aesthetics, and freedom are the signifying maps detect corporeal spatiality. In this territory, the conceptuality of the body is deconstructed in a broader form, from ancient narrativity to consumerist banality.

Body art has its own history, evolution, conceptual forms of maturation, “growth” and the role of the body in this discourse. From the rudimentary drawings of our distant ancestors and the ritual exposures of the body to various myths and deities, through the aestheticization of the body as a form of attractiveness to the composites of radical constructs, the body is a distinctive, original, living human canvas of self-expression of artistic freedom.

We will wonder whether within the body punctum and the humanoid-robotoid trajectories, there are cognitions beyond the sensory cognitions of the world. From liberation to melancholy, where the world of the body is.

Body art is, among other things, a platform for political engagement, the radicalization of the body as an emitter of social policies, that is, the shaping of social identity and its transfer to a broader social discourse. As a canvas of political resistance, the body confronts and clashes, positioning itself as a showcase of political dramatization within which its visuality expresses an attitude, domination, and disagreement with the points of the body that in this literally “naked” corporeal way, radicalize the political discourse. Between the urban alternative of the body art scene and the language of the body in this performative form, there is a wide line of the human canvas within which there are intimacies, conflicts, contexts, attitudes, emotions, and resistances.

The physical essence, by this expression, abolishes the boundaries of the communicative, thus becoming itself a boundary. Illustrative-demonstrative statements are modules of variation in theme, intuition, subconsciousness, intention, and purpose in the realization of the message. Even in situations and places where the body is not a space for collective demonstration of the act, like in an visual expression of the standard setting of the artistic concept, it has a political meta-narrative.

Thus, in whatever way we may put it, from whichever analytical-observational plane we may situate the body, it is equally a traditional and a postmodern expression of artistic freedom, imagination, and play. Limited only by spirit and creation, the boundaries of the body are boundless variations within which the world of both ontology and gnoseology is positioned. Each artistically transferable point of the body is also a continuation of the line, like a prosthesis of human (im-)perfection. Body art thus disarms and liberates the body from biological bounds, directing it to new spatialities that become telling and artistically impressive. The sum of the individual points of a body thus painted is also a sum of collective experiences, pain, scars, the struggle of Eros and Thanatos, the survived yet even more non-experienced body. This new “revival” of the body seduces and translates into new experiences, asks questions and provokes answers.

Body art is an equally provoking text that calls for a dialogue the perfect, beautiful body, shaped by civilization, as a premise of someone or something else, outside of the me-you, we-you relationship. In this relational discourse, body art also fights against the mediological forms of presenting its body as an enemy, an imaginary enemy in the imperfection of its proportions, dimensions, shapes, weight, and age. Body art, whether individual or publicly conceptual, can also be positioned in this discourse as a form of guerrilla warfare, a continuous action in response to the imperfection of the body. It is also a struggle against the various forms of mimicries of the all-modern age, in which alleged understanding and acquiescence are essentially indicative of misunderstanding and non-questioning. This is why body art is the focal point of the broadest, civilizational dialogue, of this subject matter and the ensuing, coexisting ones. Regarding the implications for a total mass-media possession of the individual – physical, spiritual, mental, voluntary, it is only natural that one of the motives for deconstructing these issues is in a time of universal seduction, complacency, and narcissism.

Body art communicates between nature, biology, sociology, intuition, and imagination. As a corrective mechanism of the field, more or less, this art form questions the cosmogonic trajectories within which we face challenges, the boundaries set by our bodies and set before our bodies. Against the whiteness of the human canvas, we self-define spaces of beginnings and new beginnings, as the always first steps of the body in meta-physical movement.

With this art form, the body is in continuous motion, both linear and nonlinear. Each point is an expression of a distant imaginary point that returns through some observational prism to the world of our imagined or long-experienced points, identifications with them, griefs and joys. The point of that punctum is never a soulless, static unit. On the contrary, as a creative charade of power within the imagination of the body, it is a vitalist energy that, through its unconcealed aura, collects other points of artistic as well as psychological imagery.

If, in scientific terms, body symmetry is an emblem of the biological elite, then body art can also be viewed as a compensation or equivalent to corporeal symmetry, and moreover, all artistic asymmetry will be seen or experienced as a targeted, engaged disruption of the order of idealized phenomena. Asymmetry as a rebellion, a provocation, a rejection of the clicheization and ready-made labelling of aesthetic concepts.

In its appearance and conceptuality, body art abolishes all genetic-biological constraints through variation of forms, within which it is nevertheless emphasized that there are no absolute symmetries, absolute perfection or order.

In the metaphorical sense, body art abolishes the space overflowing with the mediated body, space of all sorts of emptiness – spiritual, value, ethical, aesthetic... Outside of arbitration in the relations of respectable paradigms, it is only the question of intriguing broader social collage that, in this way as well, yearns for interaction and the organic unity of dialogical, explorative forms. Essentially, it is a striking call against the self-abolishment of man.

As an original unfettered freedom, this form of art is a mediated tenderness of poetic expression in which the dream is the art of discovery. In this act of revelation, we are witnessing the transcendental renewal of birth as innocence, chastity, purity, and the beauty of becoming. In these images, there freedom with which body art begins and ends is sublimated.

 

Bibliography:

Cusset, François (2008), Le man diplomatique, NIN, Beograd

Schroer, Markus, “Der Voyeur,” in: Diven, Hacker, Spekulanten: Sozialfiguren der Gegenwart, ed. Stephan Moebius and Markus Schror. Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2010.

 

Tijelo – medijski narcizam

 

Sažetak

 

Popularna medijska spektakl industrija instrumentima “ zavođenja “ proizvodi “ dobrovoljnu saglasnost “ čovjeka u prihvatanju, oponašanju i vredonosnoj distribuciji korporativno-potrošačke kulture. U tom svijetu čovjek igra uloge van njegovih ontoloških potreba i samosvjesne realizacije subjekta kao misaonog bića.

      

Rad ima za cilj problematizaciju socijalno-kulturološke fenomenologije transfiguracije, prikazivanja i doživljaja tijela u optikumu konzumerističke globalizacije.

      

Novokonstrukcija “novog” tijela modelira se tehnikama instrumentalizacije, stereotipizacije i hibridizacije narcizma kao primarnog prikazivačkog načela takvog medijskog iskustva.

 

Key words: tijelo, narcizam, mediji, globalizacija, stereotipizacija, konzumerizama.

 

 

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9(16)#3 2020

This journal is open access and this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

DOI 10.46640/imr.9.16.3 UDK 004.8:2-187.3 Pregledni članak Review article Primljeno: 07.01.2020.

 

 

Nenad Vertovšek i Ivana Greguric Knežević

Odjel za kroatistiku Sveučilišta u Zadru, Hrvatska
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Hrvatski studiji Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Odsjek za filozofiju, Hrvatska
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Philosophy and Consciousness in the Future:
Cyborgs and Artificial Intelligence waiting for Immortality

Puni tekst: pdf (481 KB), English, Str. 2511 - 2522

 

Abstract

 

Natural sciences and technologies place artificial intelligence, robotics and cyborgs at the centre of human attention. However, virtual and augmented reality and the unthinkable possibilities of the future media and communication between individuals and social groups might be deeper and broader than we think, and evolve in forms we have not hoped for. If philosophy wants to focus on the essence of scientific-technical age, it must reflect on the very foundations of computer-operational thinking, because artificial intelligence has already started to develop its own consciousness and may, in the future, devise a strategy of development beyond man and without man.

 

Key words: future, philosophy, cyborgs, communication, media, consciousness, artificial intelligence.

 

 

The missing link between animals and the real human being
is most likely ourselves

Konrad Lorenz

 

Questions such as “when will robots acquire consciousness?” or “can machines replace the human brain?” or “at what point will artificial intelligence overpower human and what will happen then?” were once reserved mainly for science fiction and as such often outside the ​​interest of philosophy. SF authors such as Arthur Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Stanisław Lem, or Ray Bradbury were perceived as the heralds or pioneers in discussions about the future or even its “contours”. Modern discoveries and insights, especially since the end of the past century, have confirmed some of their visionary solutions, which is why questions about the future are now increasingly considered in relation to the present quantity and quality of scientific-technological development. It has become clear that the future is already here, among us, and that it must be seen in its essence if we are to direct it towards human ends.

The future has been gradually accepted as an area of ​​new research in which the human mind will re-examine not only its rational, but also its ethical abilities. Michio Kaku emphasizes that predicting the future has long been the subject of human desires and dreams, from ancient history to the latest technologies. Regardless of these dreams from the ancient times to the SF authors, Kaku has seen it as one of the essential features of human nature and human civilization.^[13] For him, its key feature is to “translate thinking into reality” and to fight the prejudice that it is impossible to predict more closely the world, let’s say, in a hundred years. Despite the obstacles, he considers thinking about the future as an indispensable part of scientific work, and this kind of philosophy simply needs to be fostered and developed. Therefore, it is also important to “closely examine the work of the leading scientists who are building prototypes of the technologies that will change our future... The prototypes of all these technologies already exist.”^[14]

When thinking about the future within the development of science and technology, it is important to establish an “inevitable condition,” namely a higher level of awareness among people, scientists and/or visionaries about the way in which the mind can reach assumptions about what is to come. Kaku seems to be pessimistically concluding that predictions about the turn of the 22nd century are nevertheless a discouraging task, although not because of some limitation of human thought or the methods of philosophizing-about-the-future.

The problem is, first and foremost, in the rapid and increasing pace of change, the sudden leaps in the development of science and technology that are difficult to follow, especially when it comes to the humanist understanding of the consequences of this “ever-accelerating science,” as well as the uneven development of the society and human psychology. In the last few decades alone, practically more scientific knowledge has been collected than in all of the past, and such dynamics of scientific breakthroughs in technology and the human understanding of these changes will surely accelerate even more by the end of this century.

Any even remotely philosophical understanding of this accelerated change, of its rhythm and dynamics, conceals a sort of absurdity. The classic way of understanding and thinking, in which analysis and synthesis (inside and outside) yield a specific “category”, a closed system that interprets something and provides a solid basis for further thinking, has lost some of its characteristics. Future thinking, as well as thinking (about) the future, has become increasingly elusive when it comes to a compact definition and constitution of long-term determinants to be used in classical observation in terms of “subject and object”. I am specifically referring to the accelerating change and especially the breadth of discoveries and insights regarding cybernetics, virtual reality, cyborgization in the application of the most advanced technologies, and finally what we call “artificial intelligence,” which we even fear in public debates.^[15]

A similar concern is partly voiced in public, even among the professionals and scientists, in relation to the new issues of postmodern reality and environment, such as cyberspace, cyberbody,^[16] and anything else that focuses on the possibilities of different forms of human existence, i.e. the coexistence and permeation of organic and inorganic life, all the way down to the quantum and bio-computers, or implanting various “gadgets” in one’s body, from limbs and internal organs to the brain itself.

Mike Featherstone and Roger Burrows have pointed out that “those people who lived a few decades before the Renaissance were unable to see it coming. This belief that something completely new could be just around the corner, that humankind still has an open future, is one which has been challenged by postmodern theory with its attacks on the modernist metanarratives of progress and “the new”.^[17] They have indicated the ambivalent feelings, prognoses, and conclusions related to the likewise increasing postmodern pessimism based on their analysis of everyday events around global wars, climate change, inequality, and conservative brakes hindering the advancement of science and technology, while at the same time there seem to surge new utopian understandings about a turning point leading to the future and solving almost all accumulated problems, even those that are yet to emerge.

A good mental exercise for questioning human prediction skills are musings from the 1960s, which did not envision computers in daily life 30 years later, preferring prognoses about robotic development?!^[18] Some, like Mark Poster, believed that at the turn of the millennium we would be in some sort of a historic situation, same as at the time of the emergence of urban trading culture in feudalism, since the end of the twentieth century brought about unpredictable upheavals in media development, from the advent of the Internet to the emergence of social networks.

Featherstone and Burrows have added something that is crucial to our consideration of consciousness and artificial intelligence: “It is not just the possible reconstitutions of social life and culture which interest us in this journal, it is the impact of these changes on the body, too. It is here that developments of technology point towards the possibilities of post-bodied and post-human forms of existence. If the development of technology has entailed a process of the extension of the body and bodily functions to enable us to control the environment more efficiently, it offers the ultimate possibility of the displacement of the material body from the confines of its immediate lived space.”^[19] Questions about the new forms of human existence thus run parallel to those on “new consciousness”, which would not only relate to our present human perception, to understanding the world around us with our existing senses and mind, but also to consciousness that would include not only the organic life we know, but also various non-human (which is different than inhuman) elements of existence and being.

A deeper reflection on post-corporeality and assessment of the post-human aspects that would be at the heart of a future philosophy, and not only of the history of man and the essence of the human species, is actually part of the future “story” of the coexistence and co-operation of the known man and that which could arise from enhancing the general and specific human traits and potentials. Also, the human mind will probably have to come to terms with the need to master some new segments of the future science and technology, first of all in connection with changes in the concept of the corporeal and the real, and then also with what we mean now (and what we will mean in the future) when we talk about “artificial intelligence” (quotation marks are here because the present concepts and definitions are likely to be insufficient, too narrow, and too imprecise for what is coming).^[20] It becomes even more difficult when we try to imagine the “consciousness” of what we call AI today, and the question is what we will call it in the decades to come, and it sounds again like SF when we take into account the possibility that AI may have its own proper names and definitions to refer to itself!

Non-human issues are related not only to cyborgs as trans-human beings, but also to robots as the post-human mechanical descendants who are becoming increasingly significant participants in scientific and technical realities. Tendentially, they will take over the entire physical and mental work of man and replace biology with technology. Thus, “we seem determined to give human qualities to objects and content to treat each other as things.”^[21] Without artificial intelligence, a robot is just a mechanical machine that is switched on and off according to certain tasks it performs in a given program. By incorporating artificial intelligence equal to human, or super-intelligence embedded in the future, robots will be able to pursue strategic goals of intelligence or super-intelligence that by no means need to align with human goals. Since cybernetic science and technology measure the entire life of a human being against the binary code of a question of robotic consciousness and empathy with respect to the human parents, artificial intelligence will solve it by incorporating software that mimics the appropriate emotions and ethical principles. Time will show whether the overall behaviour of artificial intelligence and super-intelligence in our mechanical offspring, who will autonomously create its own counterparts, will be analogous to human and in coexistence with man.

Another direction for the application of artificial intelligence is to create a networked virtual world that allows for a disembodied journey through infinite space and time. Today, biological man is in a relationship and in line with the virtual world, which is not a copy of the human one, but a world based on its own foundation set by artificial intelligence. With the advent of human cyborgization, the network becomes a part of us – within us. When encountering a computer, a part of our mind seems to become part of it – according to Turkle, it indeed becomes that – another self, a mirror of the mind. In this encounter, where man sees himself differently, the boundaries are blurred between the real world and the virtual one, which man enters and exits at his will, reflecting himself in the machine like in a mirror.

Thus, through computers, we are witnessing “a shift in how we create and experience our own identities,”^[22] whereby “our new devices provide space for the emergence of a new state of the self, itself, split between the screen and the physical real, wired into existence through technology.”^[23] This simulation of life, immersion of the real into the self-standing virtual, prepares our mind and biological body for a coexistence with cyber-beings, which will lead to the submerged human being without a self, or a connection with the biological body explaining the meaning of its existence with the help of artificial intelligence.

Philosophy faces the challenge of thinking about the relationship between identity and the physical body in reality and in virtual reality as the human mind will adapt to new aspects of virtuality with the changes in corporeality in a cyborgized reality, and then also to artificial intelligence or super-intelligence, which will both reveal new dimensions of biological reality and set up a new, cybernetic reality.

Philosopher David Chalmers has catalogued as many as 20,000 articles and texts on human consciousness and self-awareness, noting that there is actually no real consensus about it. As Michio Kaku says, “Consciousness, unfortunately, is a buzzword that means different things to different people. Sadly, there is no universally accepted definition of the term. I personally think that one of the problems has been the failure to clearly define consciousness and then a failure to quantify it. But if I were to venture a guess, I would theorize that consciousness consists of at least three basic components:

1. sensing and recognizing the environment
2. self-awareness
3. planning for the future by setting goals and plans, that is, simulating the future and plotting strategy.”^[24]

In this mode of measurement and the “1 to 10” self-awareness scale, Kaku has identified parts of sensing and recognizing the environment even in simple machines such as the thermostat, but this is actually all at the bottom of the scale. He notes that the current status and possibilities of artificial intelligence may be located somewhere at the cockroach level, while after the probably rapid rise in the evolution of recorded intelligence and mind, intelligent robots and cyborgs might in the future be compared to dogs, cats, then to primates, human apes and eventually – humans…

A noteworthy account is related to the development of computer systems, social networks, and interrelations between human communities in the future, with algorithmic capabilities and profiling, as well as environmental recognition not only in biological and physical terms, but also in the socio-psychological understanding of the human qualities of communication, expression, and behaviour.

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, established in mid-2017 that “the sociopolitical upheavals of our time – from rampant drug addiction to murderous totalitarian regimes – result to a large extent from the disintegration of human communities… He promised that Facebook will lead the charge to rebuild these communities and that his engineers will pick up the burden discarded by parish priests. ‘We’re going to start rolling out some tools’, he said, to ‘make it easier to build communities.’ He further explained that… ‘We started building artificial intelligence to do this. And it works. In the first six months, we helped 50 per cent more people join meaningful communities.”^[25]

This kind of intoxication and laudations addressed at the establishment of online systems and structures to actually continue to encourage the growth of some kind of online existence at the expense of the discredited offline existence is just one aspect, somewhat reshaped, of unconditional joy and confidence in the future. According to these views, artificial intelligence will not be “liberated”, but further “exploited” for (even very ordinary and frivolous) human interests, the egoistic goals of particular groups and lobbies, those who, given their technological superiority, often consider themselves “elected”.

Thus also Harari, in his otherwise supreme trilogy, while speculating about the present and future of humanity, and while invoking optimistic signs of the future, nevertheless seeks to critically embrace the “universal” human solution. One must be careful regardless of and even when these involve a kind of “selfless help” offered to humans by AI, which will be more intelligent and many times better than today. For, let’s add, the dangers and opportunities of misusing science and technology (historically experiential) lie less in artificial intelligence and more in human non-intelligence.

Another author, David Gamez, when speaking of man facing his own quest of consciousness, where we could probably also find a foothold for argument about the special place of mankind in history and nature, begins with the statement: “We cannot imagine things that cannot become conscious. We cannot imagine an invisible physical world that has none of the properties we encounter in our bubbles of experience. We can imagine large brains, small brains, blue brains, green brains, brains made of cheese, and so on. But the physical brain cannot be imagined as it is in itself, outside all bubbles of experience.”^[26] Gamez warns that it is difficult and practically impossible to reach “pure” reality, reality in itself, beyond the mental assumptions and categories that we create by ourselves, even when we try to think about our own brains. Neural activity is hard to imagine by itself, we need display and visualization systems.

More precisely: “We cannot imagine the invisible physical world. So thought experiments and imagination cannot be used to study the relationship between invisible physical brains and conscious experiences. They can only be used to study the relationship between our conscious experiences of brains and other conscious experiences. As brain-scanning technology improves we will find it easier to make imaginative transitions between conscious experiences of brain states and other conscious experiences.”^[27]

The key moment, it seems, in human reflection on consciousness is the question of whether anyone else but a human can really – think like a human. Although we have been exploring and finding thought activities in animals, aspects of intelligence in certain species and/or specimens of chimpanzees, dolphins, and elephants, we have been reluctant to take a step further towards artificial intelligence and “machines”. With some hesitation, we often ask questions about how and to what extent AI can progress: “To actually create a technical model of full blown, perspectivally organized conscious experience seems to be the ultimate technological utopian dream. It would transpose the evolution of mind onto an entirely new level […]. It would be a historical phase transition. […] But is this at all possible? It certainly is conceivable. But can it happen, given the natural laws governing this universe and the technical resources at hand?”^[28]

Gamez, as well as authors like Kaku, Featherstone, Wiener, and others ask numerous questions concerning artificial intelligence, often even “in reverse”, especially when talking about the so-called point of emergency at which AI will transcend and surpass human intelligence. Most scientists who are researching the “point of emergence” today disagree about the time when this could happen and predictions range from 20 years to over a century from now.^[29] But everyone agrees that it will most certainly happen.

A new or additional hypothesis to this debate is certainly its “twist”, as we try not to look at the “issue” solely from the “human perspective, especially when we want to answer the question of whether machines can think, and how to view intelligence itself from the standpoint of those or “the one” who has transcended such a level of intelligence? Gamez’s point of view, somewhat unusual but extremely cleverly set, is “that only a machine could think, and indeed only very special kinds of machines, namely brains and machines that had the same causal powers as brains. And that is the main reason strong AI has had little to tell us about thinking, since it has nothing to tell us about machines. By its own definition, it is about programs, and programs are not machines. […] No one would suppose that we could produce milk and sugar by running a computer simulation of the formal sequences in lactation and photosynthesis, but where the mind is concerned many people are willing to believe in such a miracle because of a deep and abiding dualism: the mind they suppose is a matter of formal processes and is independent of quite specific material causes in the way that milk and sugar are not.”^[30]

Philosopher José Luis Bermúdez is not a pessimist when it comes to the future tasks of philosophy, from interpreting the possibilities of using the so-called non-conceptual languages ​​to the intelligence of machines and computers. The fact that we currently know very little and not enough about the phenomenon of consciousness does not mean for him at all that the development of science will not reach such levels of problem solving in which philosophy will play a considerable role, and interpretation will not be reduced to theoretical physics, natural sciences, and technological frameworks. In his opinion, science and philosophy should work together to elucidate the nature of consciousness in all its forms, and as for artificial intelligence, that is, the development of understanding and consciousness in something outside of man, he is also optimistic.

He believes that consciousness will be reproducible in machines, computers, and robots because “consciousness already exists in a machine – the human body – so why not in an artificially created body? Of course, these have to be organic machines, and we do not know how to make organic machines for now. But I have never been inclined to easy leaps, from not having a clue how to do something at the moment to that being impossible to do.”^[31]

Another thinker sending a powerful message is Aristea Papadimitriou, who puts thoughts of the future consciousness beyond the human brain and mind, and the development of AI into the context of drastic changes that will encompass all communication aspects. Contemporary and now available philosophical and scientific outlines and predictions about the “new” intelligence will have to include a discussion of the philosophical aspects of communication and the interrelations that, until now, need not or could not have been considered. As this philosopher and communicologist has pointed out: “Within the last decade AI technology exploded and only in the last two years many advances in machine learning were made rapidly. Among the major developers and investors in AI research which also use this technology are the social networks. As AI is an interdisciplinary field it calls for the collaboration of many disciplines for the creation of its theoretical framework and its ethical code so as to stand as beneficial force for the society. As digitalization is an integral part of our culture which has already brought many alterations in our human condition, the introduction of intelligent machines to our life as active members of our society is about to seal the end of an era. The most challenging part of AI technology is that it raises again the fundamental questions about what it means to be human and, as Aristotle would suggest, reminds us not to lose sight of what a human being is as a whole.”^[32]

Questions about the meaning of human existence have always been linked to a search for the foundation that is at the root of everything animate and inanimate. This foundation is seen as something or someone that – standing outside human time and space – is immortal. Experience has shown that all that is biological is subject to entropy. Cybernetics as the science of the general laws guiding the processes of management and communication, and the ways of receiving and exploiting information in organized systems – machines, living organisms, and their interrelations – has offered a concept of deliverance from the danger of decay, not only of body and soul, but of all biological and social wealth. As a new metaphysics, cybernetics has offered an answer to the cause and essence of everything that exists.

In order to preserve life in its new foundation and form, biology must be improved and upgraded by scientific and technical means. Technical processes today integrate organic and inorganic nature, and man is transformed and restructured according to the needs of the cybernetic, scientific-technical mind. There are cybernetic beings, cyborgs, robots, and avatars among us who are able to perform physical and intellectual tasks that we once believed were reserved exclusively for humans. Attempts at reaching eternity as the immortality of body and mind in the apparent reality or in the mechanical body have the character of the super-human or non-human and lead towards the cybernetic, post-human scientific-technical society.

Artificial intelligence on the level of super-intelligence will create the preconditions for life beyond biology, which will have its own scientific-technical logic of development. Man’s search for the immortal and eternal, and man’s desire to come close to it, will end in the creation of a non-human body and mind, outside and beyond the space-time of a possible human history.

 

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Bibliography:

Featherstone, Mike and Roger Burrows (ed.). Cyberspace, Cyberbodies, Cyberpunk: Cultures of Technological Embodiment. London, Thousand Oaks, and New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1995.

Gamez, David. Human and Machine Consciousness. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2018.

Greguric, Ivana. Kibernetička bića u doba znanstvenog humanizma: Prolegomena za kiborgoetiku [Cybernetic beings in the age of scientific humanism: A prolegomena for cyborgoethics]. Zagreb: Hrvatsko filozofsko društvo, Pergamena, Znanstveni centar izvrsnosti za integrativnu bioetiku, 2018.

Harari, Yuval Noah. Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. Oxford: Signal Books, 2016.

Harari, Yuval Noah. 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. London: Jonathan Cape, 2018.

Kaku, Michio. Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100. New York and London: Doubleday, 2011.

Papadimitriou, Aristea. The Future of Communication. MA Thesis, Malmö University, Media & Communication Studies, 2016.

Turkle, Sherry. Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. New York: Basic Books, 2011.

 

Filozofija i svjesnost u budućnosti –
kiborzi i umjetna inteligencija u iščekivanju besmrtnosti

 

Sažetak

 

Prirodne znanosti i tehnologije stavljaju u središte ljudske pozornosti umjetnu inteligenciju, robotiku i kiborge. Međutim, virtualna i proširena stvarnost te nezamislive mogućnosti budućih medija i komunikacija između pojedinaca i društvenih skupina mogle bi biti dublje i šire nego što mislimo i razvijati se u oblicima kojima se još ne nadamo. Ako se filozofija želi orjentirati u biti znanstveno – tehničkog doba, ona mora misliti same temelje računalno – operativnog mišljenja jer umjetna inteligencija već danas razvija vlastitu svjesnost a u budućnosti i strategiju razvoja mimo čovjeka i bez čovjeka.

 

Key words: budućnost, filozofija, kiborzi, komunikacija, mediji, svjesnost, umjetna inteligencija.

 

 

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9(16)#4 2020

This journal is open access and this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

DOI 10.46640/imr.9.16.4 UDK 159.955:539.12-16 Pregledni članak Review article Primljeno: 07.01.2020.

 

 

Fahira Fejzić-Čengić

Fakultet političkih nauka, Sveučilište u Sarajevu, Bosna i Hercegovina
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Can Intracommunicology Assist the Philosophy of the Media?

Puni tekst: pdf (457 KB), English, Str. 2523 - 2532

 

Abstract

 

In 2014, the famous researcher and Nobel laureate Bruce Lipton proved that human thoughts, not just thinking, are energy, they are real and have power. “‘Do not doubt that you command your body and mind... If thoughts are weak and life is like that. Our thoughts are energy and have the power to create.” These can be simple connections, analogies, combinations, or mature, coherent conclusions. Then, at higher mental levels, human thinking often gives birth to very significant, occasionally even ingenious and grandiose thoughts, which in turn become bearers of new energies, social inventions, practices, and interpersonal relations that were previously unimaginable. Human thoughts are power.

 

Key words: intracommunicology, new personal perception, breathing, good, evil, placebo, nocebo.

 

 

A small boy accompanied his father to work in the valley. While the father was working, his little son got bored and exclaims: What do you want? – The echo replied: What do you want? The boy shouted: Get away from me! ... The echo replied: Get away from me! The boy became quite frightened and ran to his father complaining. The father, realizing the opportunity to educate, exclaimed: How are you? The echo replied: How are you? The father: I am fine! The echo: I am fine! The father: I love you! The echo: I love you! Each time the echo returned goodness with goodness. The boy received a great message! And the father, as a true communicologist, philosopher, and educator, obtained the boy’s trust and continued to work… The child received a wonderful lesson: Whatever you lose, it will come back to you, like the echo!

A while ago, when I was only 18 and attended Prof Dr Bora Gojković’s “Introduction to Philosophy”, I was fascinated by the way he spoke about René Descartes, especially his now certainly outdated, yet still epochal maxim – Cogito ergo sum!^[33] And I read Descartes, intoxicated with the conceptual transparency with which he asked questions, what is there when there is nothing, when everything is purified and I emerge as a questioning being, and when I abstract everything, I see that there is me and my thinking? My cogito. Res cogitans, and res extensis as a dichotomy, duality.

This incomplete logic marked my mindset for at least 20 years. Although I constantly felt some sort of vagueness, I did not dare say it. That year when I did, I got pollen allergy in spring. And I realized how important breathing was, and that it came before thinking.^[34] I breathe, therefore I am, I transformed the instantly wounded Descartes into my own version. It was as if that had been bothering me all those years of wandering, one-sided, and often fruitless reflections.

 

Intracommunicology

Why do we underestimate our breathing? Why do we take it for granted? Why don’t we engage with it? From then on, I started my little adventure searching for the authors who thought and wrote about breathing. Disappointed that they were practically none. Was it possible that they never found themselves unable to breathe, that they did not spend nights awake, that they never realized the essence of the rhythm inhale-exhale, inhale-exhale! Which never stops?!

Because when that rhythm stops, one dies. A single breath in or breath out that misses us, and nothing is the same. Is it possible that the whole culture, the whole civilization has no idea of ​​the essential quality of this inhale-exhale rhythm, of the beats of our human pulse, our internal clock, which is our heart, after all? Just like the heartbeat, everything pulsates within us... And finally, the real question is – where do we get our breath from? What is breath? Who gave it to us? Gave, for sure, as he enlivened, materialized, and then concealed this enormous gift into such tiny rhythms that most people never become aware of this rhythm although we live by it … How important breath is! How lovingly I am exploring it!

How happy I was that someone was interested in me… most people around me considered me unserious… I found my return long present in my home, my homeland, my Bosnia, and everything came back to me – the tekke as an academy, the Sufis as lonesome sages who take care of breaths, the Naqshbandi as perfect rhythmists of the breath, the Mevlevi as poets of breathing and circling – they had been there since my childhood days, but the closest things usually slip out of our sight. Their insights, knowledge, experience, and techniques could certainly be invoked and brought closer to us within the framework of intracommunicology, which is internal personal communication. A new skill of preserving the self, the I, the interior where the unit of communication measure is inhalation and exhalation. I have realized this as a communicologist, because the field of rhythm, vibration, pulse, and breaths, the field of the psyche and the soul, the mind, the invisible, and the clearly evident are crucial as the type and subtypes communication skills.

Luckily there are diseases! Luckily there is pain!^[35]

 

Manipulation as perverted discourse – no man who thinks ill will hear the truth!

Usually when we come across such an unusual definition or statement, we pause for a moment, since we need detachment as thinking beings in order to absorb and structure this kind of cognition. Because if human thoughts are power,^[36] then they have power, and if they matter as they are, in terms of their quantity but above all quality, then it is by all means important to keep one’s search thread on the potentially good and bad thoughts, on evil thoughts or negative thoughts that have obviously long flooded the contemporary thinking environment. Circling deeply in the high spheres around Planet Earth. On Earth especially. Because there is no vanishing in cosmic dimensions, substances only change form and are transformed from matter to energy and from energy to matter, from one frequency band to another, awaiting the outcome – a day will come and the world will reverse. Whether and to what extent the evil thoughts are present as a potentially evil or inadequate power, the devastating power and tendency that we simply feel from each individual environment. If powerful thoughts exist, and we have already established that they do, what is the relationship between positive thoughts and negative thoughts, and is the world of authoritarianism, the world of upcoming cataclysmic outlines and the state of pre-totalitarian if not totalitarian setting precisely what makes out our modern civilization and our human cultural aura that we radiate from ourselves, as we (also) immerse ourselves into our lives as evil-thinking beings?

There is a likelihood that some alien villain with immeasurable powers, the burner of all that is human as true and good, as moral and honourable, is perpetually intruding and setting up a slip, a fall into the agon^[37] for the human race, a fall into evil and wallowing in it for a long, long time. Until some other forces have magnified the earthly mire and the human race indeed slips again into the great, global fiery vortex, which we fear almost every day as we listen to the international or local news on conflicts, which in every way point to the totalitarian regimes of the past, ready to be restored in our time. And even these bad messages, these ugly news and false information are already part of this overall evil axis. The great hidden magus of evil and mischief, the evil-thinking tutor and inquisitor, is lurking for human minds, brains, and rational predispositions, attracting and seducing them in order to attack the good, first little by little, and then suddenly in a far broader and comprehensive, almost systematic way, and destroy the virtue and nobility of the human being, so important and so rare today. The inquisitor’s great power lies in his manipulation, his perverted view of the reality, his perverted discourse against the fundamental values ​​of the world – from the right to life, the right to liberty, the right to truth, to the right to personal choice, the right to virtue, the right to dignity. This villain has been variously called: Iblis, Devil, Satan, Dajjal, Lucifer... the general sponsor of ugly, negative thoughts, intentions, and ideas... “No man who thinks ill will hear the truth, despite a hundred signs.”^[38] And for him, so powerful and hidden, in a privileged situation and position, there is only one goal – to trick, to hoax, to deceive individuals and the human race in its fine walk toward the light at the top of the promised mountain. As he wants to deceive, his strength and energy and his other powers – whether material or spiritual, real or imaginary, use manipulative interventions, methods that trick, distort, and turn the real and true into something perverted, corrupt, and warped. It is a long struggle, long effort, and the use of all knowledge and methods that are unrivalled in the world of good and virtue, which means that his use of the average human mind and reason is very effective and special. The paths by which he has achieved his triumphs and which he still pursues are really interesting.^[39]

And there is no space on Earth where he has not sown the seeds of evil, the seeds of his delusions, and the seeds of his warped ideas and practices. With the passage of time, the amount of his intrigues has indeed increased, advanced, and grown so that his empire is today almost prevalent, or so it seems. Namely, in the endless practices of the world and the most diverse combinations of human lives, human values, ​​and systems of organization, it is difficult to accurately delineate or describe all the fields that this conqueror wanders about, if we understand him as an individual. If we extend his ranges of action to the collective sphere, to totality and magnitude, multiplicity, we will see that the trace of his group and collective activity is likewise impressive. There are no systems or subsystems, no organization or association, no state or para-state in which his power of evil thoughts has not left a mark or come to life. From the mass media, PR corporations, through numerous think tanks, corrupt intellectuals, regional and global organizations, to the governments, oligopolies, and corporations, countless nongovernmental organizations and associations whose common goal is to break and crush the human mind, to tear human thought apart beyond recognition.

It is very difficult to see, hear, feel, touch, see, sense, perceive, and conclude all this... because it is complex, multifarious, multiplied... But if we keep in mind the finer interpersonal details of existence, interpersonal relations interspersed with good and evil, then it is easier to see how much and what kind of evil thinking and evil doing is possible. Our aim is to discover his path, to uncover and expose him, and then offer an idea of how we must begin to purge ourselves of evil thoughts, since only the purified and spiritualized individuals of the modern world can create a new, purer world of good people with good intentions.

But let us consider these things one by one. Even the first created man in his ideal conditions of life in Paradise or Jannah was attacked by evil, controversial thoughts, and manipulated into wrongdoing, led to an offence that resulted in the drama of new, displaced existence and the drama of temptation. It is in this drama that each of us individually – as a paradigm – lives almost all our lives. That is why it is very important to understand, realize, and accept this mission of humanity. And to act on the principles of good. The trap is deep. No man who thinks ill will hear the truth, despite a hundred signs. Today, everyone is more or less like that. They think ill and because of this evil thinking do not see the truth. The truth signs, hints of truth, emanations and explications of truth are all around them, but this blindness has caused them not to see, hear, or realize that they are trapped by innumerable evil thoughts. And evil thoughts are also power. As we said at the beginning. Power indeed.

 

Active listening. Active interpretation. Active intracommunicology

How to cleanse yourself from evil thoughts? All sorts of evil thoughts? It is necessary to purge, to purify yourself, be constantly aware of yourself and reflect on how to listen to the messages. As active listening is becoming less common, it is completely absent from human society. Do we know how to listen actively and carefully? Good listening is a good part of life and a good part of success. Yet something sneaks into our realities, something that prevents us from hearing the truth. Because of bad thoughts. We are constantly in bad thoughts. Man has lost more of himself in bad thoughts than he has been with himself or with those around him, evil thoughts trap the person so that he or she cannot identify the problem. People think badly. Birds of evil thoughts are constantly in our heads. Ugly thoughts, the inquisitor whispers to us, and packs them up nicely, but when that bird nests within us, then we have a big problem. We cannot hear the truth. The truth may swarm around us, but we don’t hear it. We don’t see it. This is a great problem for our modern civilization.

Bad thoughts are real attacks on man.^[40] They need to be combated. Once we have a purified individual, we will also have pure communities and pure societies in the broadest sense of the word. It is a sure way to cleanse the soiled modern civilization. That is why it is a difficult process. Because it is nothing external. It is a difficult path of self-inquiry, of internal purification. Only a man alone with himself when he thinks about himself, when he is self-critical, can know what he is and how much he has purified himself. Because no one knows anyone else internally, only we know ourselves. That is why self-purification, self-introspection, some sort of intracommunicology with ourselves is very important and very absent in modern times. What ugly thoughts have I had today? What ugly things have I done? What intrigues have I planned? Have I planned to do evil to others, or… have I been angry? How jealous was I? How envious? How many ugly thoughts have I devised each day? Each night? Why do people have so much need to denigrate others, to belittle others? To underestimate others? To accuse others of evil? That is something we know only of ourselves. And it is with ourselves that we must deal in order to morally purify and morally repair ourselves. And that is one of the most difficult self-scrutinizing tasks of any human being.

Oh, what a hard road. What a burning method that is. For one must burn all one’s evils, intrigues, lies, self-deceptions, manoeuvres, denials, all one’s hatred, envy, arrogance, self-aggrandizement, anger?... What a hard road. So demanding and so long. If we all examined ourselves for at least half an hour before going to sleep each day, or upon waking early, we would be more cleansed already. From evil and manipulation. Then everyone could feel all the beauty of the world, all the truth that screams all around us to self-(know) it. Oh what a good time it would be. And what beautiful achievement of the human race.

In the past, the old sages used to question themselves this way, to call themselves to account, or even wrote it down on paper, in their personal defter, their personal notebook and diaries, all the ugly thoughts they had, evil thoughts, ugly words. These diaries and records made them happier, better, and purer. And it brought peace and tranquillity among such noble individuals, and they repaired many around them. True sages, saints, and teachers of men.^[41] The famous Russian philosopher Berdyaev wrote in his treatise on the Philosophy of the Free Spirit that “the Gnostics emphasized the difference between spirit and soul... Life is revealed only by life itself. The knowledge of life is life itself... In the life of the spirit and in the knowledge of the spirit there is nothing external / everything is within, everything is deep. Everything that happens in the spiritual world happens to me. Spiritual life is the most realistic life.”^[42] Again, before external communicology we need an internal one, intracommunicology.

Where are such people today? Can many become like that? Can they be repaired? How to move towards this goal?^[43]

It is in relation to such thoughts that the great scientist Nikola Tesla,^[44] who practiced many of these things, always comes to my mind. And he described it in some of his diaries and interviews.

The road is long and slow, but is pure gold. To purify your mind, your reason, and your heart from all anger, passion, and evil thoughts. Then bring good thoughts into your mind, reason, and heart. Such highly spiritualized and self-purified individuals will be able to triumph over the misery of modern reality that is full of evil thoughts. Their era is coming, and although not yet in sight, it must come one day, I have no doubt about it.^[45] A day will come and the world will reverse. Otherwise the world and awareness would be aimless. First in the excess of evil and then in the excess of good... because most people do not recognize the trap.

No, it is not our goal as humans and the only conscious beings on Planet Earth to act as the Millenarians, who also advocate personal transformation, but as the French sociologist Michelle Lacroix states in his book New Age: The Ideology of the New Times, to acquire universal power that enables unlimited governance and knowledge,^[46] because as Lacroix observes with dismay, “The new times as New Age does not allow the existence of different thoughts from its own and is irresistibly reminiscent of and striving for a totalizing concept of the world.”^[47] According to the New Age ideology, the Earth as a planet inhabited by intelligent beings becomes Gea upon entering the Age of Aquarius in cosmic proportions, and “can be transformed by communication and information techniques into one huge thinking mantle, the global brain”... Gea’s new cerebral cortex as the culmination of the end of evolution. According to this ideology, it has a central nerve system where every human being becomes a single neuron that is realized through a smartphone, a smart chip, or artificial intelligence, as Lacroix writes. “The planet covered by a cable network is a brain-like organ that Gea needs.”^[48] And this is so far the biggest trap of the inquisitor of evil thoughts and evil intentions. The trap is set!

The human race does not lack unlimited governance or totalitarianism; the human race lacks an unlimited moral renaissance that begins inside every person.

 

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Bibliography:

Books:

Al Jawziah,  Ibn Qyyem. The Soul, trans. Ismail Abdus Salaam. Beirut: Dar Al-Kotob Al Ilmiyah, s. a.

Berdyaev, Nikolai. Philosophy of the Free Spirit. Moscow: Republic, 1994.

Fejzić Čengić, Fahira. Nelagode s medijima [Trouble with the media]. Sarajevo: Dobra knjiga, 2016.

Fejzić Čengić, Fahira. Kao ribe u vodi [Like fish in water]. Sarajevo: Biblioteka 'Globus', 2018.

Lacroix, Michel. L'ideologie du New Age. Paris: Flammarion, 1996.

Seneca, Lucius Annaeus. Anger, Mercy, Revenge, trans. Robert A. Kaster and Martha C. Nussbaum. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2010.

Vertovšek, Nenad. Noam Chomsky i kritika suvremenih mas medija [Noam Chomsky and a critique of the modern mass media]. Zagreb: Golden marketing, 2017.

 

Periodicals:

Foreign Affairs (January/February 2019).

 

Online sources

The most widely read interview with Nikola Tesla from 1899, published on March 4, 2014 by freedomtek.org.

 

Može li intrakomunikologija pripomoći filozofiji medija?

 

Sažetak

 

Jednom prilikom je poznati istraživač i nobelovac Bruce Lipton u toku 2014. godine dokazao da ljudske misli, ne samo razmišljanje, su energija, one su stvarne i imaju moć. ‘Nemojte sumnjati u to što naređujete svom tijelu i umu...Ako su misli slabe i život je takav. Naše misli su energija i imaju moć da stvaraju.’Mogu to biti jednostavna povezivanja, analogije, kombinacije ili zrela koherentna zaključivanja. Potom, na višim umnim razinama ljudsko mišljenje porađa često vrlo značajne, pa na momente i ingeniozne i grandiozne misli koje potom postaju nosioci novih energija, društvenih izuma, praksi i međuljudskih odnosa koji su bili dotad nezamislivi. Ljudske misli su moć.

 

Key words: intrakomunikologija, nova lična percepcija, disanje, dobro, zlo, placeo, nacebo.

 

 

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9(16)#5 2020

This journal is open access and this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

DOI 10.46640/imr.9.16.5 UDK 27-44:316.774 Pregledni članak Review article Primljeno: 17.02.2020.

 

 

Ivan Balabanić

Fakultet hrvatskih studija, Sveučilište u Zagrebu, Hrvatska
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Social Doctrine and Presence
of the Catholic Church in the Media

Puni tekst: pdf (407 KB), English, Str. 2533 - 2543

 

Abstract

 

The social doctrine of the Church involves greater commitment and engagement of the Church in social problems as well as the promotion of relationships that serve justice and peace. The Catholic Church first began relating mass media to its social teaching in the 19th century. As the Church aimed at a broader scope of public, it dealt with means of social communication and examined it through numerous sources – papal encyclicals, conciliar and episcopal documents. The relationship between the Catholic Church and the media is not simple. Approaches to ethics, morality, responsibility and dignity of human beings are sometimes different in media reports and in the aims of the Church in its social doctrine which should provide all members of the society with a sense of direction and instruction for everyday actions. Through the documents presented here, the Church has shown a readiness to face the media as well as the possibility to use them for advancing justice, truth, peace and freedom.

 

Key words: social doctrine of the Church, papal encyclicals, means of social communication, Catholic Church and the media.

 

 

Introduction

The social doctrine of the Church, i.e. its social teaching, includes a set of teachings on man and society. It is rooted in the Bible, the Old and New Testament, the teachings of the Church Fathers, in the theological and philosophical discussions by medieval religious teachers and contemporary theologians. Although occasionally expressed in papal bulls and other documents dating to the period before the Industrial Revolution, its occurrence became more systematic in the 19th century. Its sources are numerous: papal encyclicals, conciliar and episcopal documents all stress the importance of human agency and contribution to building relationships in society in order to bridge regional, national and international differences and conflicts thus serving justice and peace. In order to share and spread the message of Christianity, the Church also makes use of media as they have the ability to reach not only individuals, but groups of people and the society as a whole, influencing them through various communication channels. The relationship between the Catholic Church and new media is not quite simple. In accordance with relevant Church documents, communication by the Church must always follow the truth as this constitutes the precondition of freedom and true unity. On the other hand, the issue of value and ethics in the media is complicated. In the words of Adriano Zanacchi, the relationship the media has towards ethics, values and responsibility is “disoriented”^[49], or as Anton Šuljić put it, “far from a truly ethical direction”^[50]. Since the Church carries great importance in advocating for the society and addressing crucial social issues, while the media hold an important role in recognizing problems and solutions, we aim to examine how and to what extent the Church is represented in the media today. We also analyse possibilities and obstacles in the relationship between the Church and the media as they represent two actors with great importance for public and social life in general.

 

Development of Catholic social teaching

Three themes are visible in the social doctrine of the Catholic Church. One is titled “fighting modernism”^[51]. It represents a crisis of the Church as its theology cannot easily face ideas and social movements influenced by the Enlightenment or the dynamic development of science. On the other hand, there are oppositions to rationalism and liberalism as well as efforts to restore Catholic theology. The second topic relates to systematic attempts at development and Catholic teachings on the life of workers in an increasingly industrialized society, as well as the relation between labour and monetary and human capital. In other words, this is a “social issue” starting with Pope Leo XIII and his encyclical “Rerum Novarum”. In it the Pope and the Catholic Church provide a clear commitment and readiness to respond to and engage in new social challenges which have emerged due to conflicts between capital and labour. In addition to taking a clear and decisive stance, this encyclical for the first time lists principles and criteria for addressing crucial social issues. The third topic deals with means of social communication. It seems this subject first gained prominence in the 1936 encyclical by Pope Pio X titled “Vigilanti cura” which addressed a new type of media specifically – the cinema. On the other hand, a similar subject was later also addressed in the 1957 encyclical by Pope Pio XII titled “Miranda prorsus” alongside widening the scope of interest to the effect and dissemination of news through radio and television. This then led to a separate document of the Second Vatican Council, the pastoral decree “Inter mirifica” and the instruction “Communio et progressio” which encompassed the issue of all means of social communication^[52]. Regarding topics of Catholic social teaching, the stated principles and criteria developed further in the hundred-year period after the encyclical “Rerum Novarum”. The most important ones include: (1) personal dignity ensures that man as a worker cannot be equated with goods which are subject to the law of supply and demand, (2) economy cannot be separate from morality and this includes the requirement of justice and love, (3) the Church has the right and duty to interfere in social issues as this is not only a technical matter but always gains an ethical and religious dimension (4) socialism and liberal capitalism in the economic sense do not represent an authentic remedy for social issues, (5) the state as a community striving for the common good has the right and duty to interfere in social issues through laws, thus guaranteeing workers and their families with equal conditions for gaining their livelihoods, quality of life and social security, (6) the suspension of professional associations must not leave workers exposed to the autocracy of business owners that reduce them to a “slave status”, they have a right of association for the protection of their rights, while rejecting class struggle and violent actions.^[53]

In other words, the Church has defined its view on ideas and policies which are contrary to the Christian concept of human dignity, family life and meaning of life within the society and community. The Church holds its position and warns of dangers and misconceptions, supports positive efforts and contributes to addressing difficult social issues, in accordance with its mission.

 

Development of the Church social doctrine following the encyclical Rerum novarum

After the publishing of “Rerum novarum”, the Church went through dynamic developments due to changing social circumstances and new cultural, scientific and theological achievements.

We must first mention the encyclical by Pope Pio XI, “Quadragesimo anno”. This encyclical was published in 1931, during the Great Depression, in circumstances of possible great unrest and fear of unemployment, poverty, destruction of democracy and emergence of dictatorships. For these reasons, the encyclical strongly condemns communism and socialism, calls for establishing an alliance between labour and capital, with workers keeping a share in the profits, as well as state intervention in suppressing greed and promoting justice. One of the most important principles in this encyclical is the principle of subsidiarity: major owners and central government cannot assume roles which might successfully be fulfilled by contractors, small businesses and local authorities. In 1961 Pope John XXIII issued the encyclical “Mater et magistra”. The early 1960s, when this encyclical was written, were a period of dynamic developments in all sciences and technological progress in various countries across the world, but also a period of social and racial unrest, a widening divide between the rich and the poor. Poor countries fell victim to the Cold War. The social doctrine of the Church is strongly “internationalized” through the encyclical and rich countries are invited to help the development of poor ones, while respecting their culture, specificities and authenticity. Pope John XXIII then issued another encyclical, “Pacem in terris”. In accordance with its title, the encyclical calls for establishing and building peace and peaceful coexistence according to the principles of truth, justice, love and freedom. The teaching of John XXIII was summarized at the Second Vatican Council in the pastoral constitution “Gaudium et spes”. Following the Council, Pope Paul VI established new foundations for Catholic social teaching in 1967, with the encyclical “Populorom progressio”. Development is equated with the concept of peace, seeing all human development as a theological and moral imperative that must serve the attainment of peace. “Octogesima adveniens” was issued in 1971 and warned about the increasing numbers of poor, unemployed and homeless people. This encyclical served as a “call” to all believers and Christians to fight cruel injustices with the help of guidelines and principles which can be found in the social doctrine of the Church. Pope John Paul II issued the encyclical “Laborem exercens” strongly criticizing Marxism and capitalism as well as the treatment of workers as merely means of production. He stressed material conditions such as the right of the workers to wages ensuring dignity and social security, but also the subjective and spiritual values of labour as basic preconditions for providing human beings with a sense of fulfilment. This was followed by the 1987 encyclical “Sollicitudo rei socialis”, which commented on the conflict between the liberal capitalism of the West and communism of the East as well as the exploitation of workers being the main obstacle to progress in the world’s poorest regions. This was followed by the encyclical celebrating the hundredth anniversary of “Rerum novarum” in 1991 and symbolically marking the end of the communist regime in Europe. The encyclical criticized communism less for its economic failure and more for the fact it eroded basic human rights and human dignity. Responsibility is expected in free market and respect and protection of human dignity is requested as the foundation of every person and every successful economic activity.

In addition to these encyclicals, other documents important for the development of Catholic social teaching include views by bishop committees, synods and conferences such as conferences at Medellin and Puebla.^[54] In the following period the social doctrine of the Church developed increasingly in accordance with principles of the inductive method, openness to common sense, dialogue, cooperation between the Church and laymen and collaboration with the humanities. Such a position believes in the possibility for greater realization of principles and standards held by the Catholic Church in practice.

The development of Catholic social teaching through all these encyclicals and other documents certainly points to the conclusion that it was not created as an ideology or a “third way” but as an organically developed social system and anthropology which sees in every man the image of God (Imago Dei), and therefore the human being as the “way of the Church”.

 

The attitude towards the media in modern society in documents of the Second Vatican Council and Communio et progressio decree

The Second Vatican Council discussed media in its “Decree on the Means of Social Communication”. This decree was drafted with keeping in mind the growing importance of new means of communication. “Among the astonishing inventions of technological skill which, aided by God, the human mind developed from created things, Mother Church sees and follows with special care those that primarily relate to the field of human spirit”.^[55] This text comprises two passages in 22 chapters with final notes. These state that the media differ in their nature but they all share the power to influence people. The main problem in modern society is that people often take information and content issued by the media “for granted”, without critically analysing the content. Certainly, the media shape public opinion and are necessary for ensuring the right of every individual and society to truthful information. Their importance is illustrated by the claim that all Christian believers should financially support the means of social communication. As receivers of information, readers, listeners and viewers, all Christian believers must follow a moral code, be responsible towards themselves and the young, which is also true for those directly or indirectly creating media messages^[56]. In general, this Council document primarily discusses positive opportunities offered by the numerous new and easy ways to communicate, both in order to proclaim the Good News of the Gospel as well as to promote the successful progress of the human race in general. This document also suggests organizing one “Media Day” in dioceses every year. The Church therefore does not shy away from the media, but rather wishes to participate and be part of the media that report and shape public opinion. This is also made clear in the statement that the Church could “carry out its mission more successfully” through the media.

This was followed by the Holy See’s pastoral instruction on means of social communication, dated 23 May 1971, “Communio et progressio”. This document interprets more directly the main tenets of “Inter mirifica” and promotes the examination of theological and moral dimensions of the means of social communication, encouraging  Christians to be more active in building and improving media information and reporting. The decree “Communio et progressio” issued by the Pontifical Council for Social Communications contains particular instructions for implementing ideas stated in the council document. This decree also has a new focus since by the time it was issued, numerous technical innovations took place as well as the development of all means of social communication. Important messages of this decree include the statement that the purpose of the means of social communication is “increasing attachment and connection among people”, that everyone disseminating information must possess Christian virtues such as “good intent, meaning and responsibility for the common good, docility to Holy Spirit and guidance of the Church, objectivity, respect for the human person and other people’s opinion, truthfulness and ability to be critical of oneself and one’s views.”^[57]

The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church clearly states that the rights and obligations of the Church include developing its own social teaching to influence the society and its structures through responsibilities and tasks envisaged by this teaching. In this sense the Church should be the teacher of truth, morality, human nature and the gospels. However, participation and disseminating information is impossible if there is no real pluralism in social life or recognition of the various forms and means of communication and information. The compendium therefore notes: “The means of social communication must be used for building and supporting the human community in diverse sectors – economic, political, cultural, educational and religious”^[58]. Any type of reporting and communication must serve the common good and contribute to spiritual maturity, openness, dignity and responsibility of every person.

The means of social communication contain a noble goal – reporting and drawing attention to humanity’s problems in order to solve them as quickly as possible and thus unite everyone. This is the basic principle owing to which the Church respects the wide possibilities offered by the means for the “wellbeing of humanity”. We must all be responsible towards the media – whether we are listening, watching, reading or creating media content. The higher the influence of a “communicator”, the higher the social responsibility it carries. All types of reporting need to start from moral values as true freedom is in the ability to choose goodness and report for the “common good”. Although the use of media and its reporting sometimes have “unintended consequences”, people are those who decide whether they will use media in one way or another, for “good” or “evil”. Reporting requires disseminating responsible and true information that need to take the side of the weak and the powerless, the oppressed, sick and marginalized groups, without using this approach for ideological purposes.^[59] What distinguishes new media from the “traditional” ones is that new media have a more active audience which also intervenes in the communication process. Users are no longer merely receivers of media content, they also actively create and produce it. This increases even further the social responsibility of each individual. Communication by the Church and the relationship of the Church in modern society with new technologies and media is always dramatic, challenging and unpredictable.^[60] However, the role of the Catholic Church is still in place. It promotes material and human rights, protects the family, advocates for poor and marginalized groups, emphasizes the importance of truth and responsibility we have for one another and to the wider community.

 

Church in the media – challenges and possibilities for their relationship in the future

The media are institutions fulfilling the need for communication which includes participation of all members in a society. The basic characteristics of the media are the production and distribution of content, relationships among people, activities in the public sphere and shaping public opinion. These are always in some relation to the state and government. Modern media reporting however is also characterized by its focus on “transient” and sensationalist topics and news.^[61] On the other hand, the Church focuses on universal and eternal values and questions. Due to their very nature, the sustainable relation between them is questionable since, as stated by Šuljić, “media products are marginal in terms of communicating Christian content” and the Church or Christian message “deals with important and permanent things”.^[62] The type of communication is also different regarding the relationship between the one sending and receiving a particular message or content. The Church focuses on every individual, while the media message is not as direct and is therefore more subject to manipulation. But to what extent is the Church present in the media today? Since the beginning of democracy, several Church media ensuring the public presence of the Church have been initiated and their relationship has been regulated through agreements between the Croatian Bishops' Conference and Croatian Radio-television. Prominent media containing Christian information are primarily Church media: Information Catholic Agency, Croatian Catholic Radio, the Press Office of the Croatian Conference of Bishops, Radio Marija, the magazines Živo vrelo and Glas koncila. These media contribute to the serious approach in Church activities^[63]. There is however the sense of declining interest for the Church participating in public shows and secular media, especially in commercial television which has never shown much interest in its representation. On the other hand, regardless of the media listed and other examples not mentioned here, the Church is currently best covered in the press, which holds less importance than new media.^[64] The Church still lacks presence on digital platforms and internet portals or social networks. On the other hand, in addition to using new technologies and media, the Church and its followers as members of the society must strengthen and encourage interest of the media for reporting, through their moral authority and participation in scientific, cultural and social life. It is generally the media that ensure participation for all segments of the society, i.e. the media serve as a stage for attracting and combining all parts of the society into one whole. Another problem in the public visibility of the Church through the media is the fact that media content usually includes politics, sports, entertainment and leisure. A selection of such news and information does not leave much room for religious topics. On the one hand it is wrong to see these as merely “religious topics” since openness of the Church towards society does not mean only religious but also general and social topics which would be interesting and important to a wider range of public. On the other hand since these topics are seen only as “religious”, there is no way to further explore and understand the importance of the message spread by the Church.^[65] The Church and the media need to have a critical stance in relation to their own activities and need to examine new forms of dialogue, cooperation and communication. Some of the themes which began in a Church environment have found their way to the general public, such as the matter of peace, justice, ecumenism and the fight against poverty, which is not just a matter of individuals but the society as a whole, at the global level. The power of the Church lies not only in the fact it is “Catholic”, but in the ability to be linked horizontally and vertically.^[66] Horizontal links are possible because the Church is present among many nations and cultures, while vertical linking is possible through collaborations at the level of particular parishes all the way up to governmental institutions at the local, regional, state, international and global level. Catholic social teaching is not and must not be closed off or hidden, it involves active participation and communication with the general public. By the same token, the Church must develop a two-way communication which means that attention and communication are not guided solely on the basis of reacting to a particular event but issues are broached and answers sought which might prove necessary and important for dialogue in a society. The relationship between the Church and media is summarized by Gaitano^[67] as follows: the media act in a sensationalist fashion and are oriented towards short-term news.  The Church on the other hand deals with universal values and topics of a centuries-old tradition. In addition to this, evangelism calls for personal change and self-examination, something that is impossible in media reporting.

Despite all the differences however, Pope John Paul II invited the Church to freely use all the “fascinating inventions” given to us by our creator. Extraordinary possibilities of new technologies and media are also recognized by Pope Benedict XVI who called all Christians to “join the network of relationships provided by the digital era, with trust as well as conscious and responsible creativity… because this network is also part of human life”.^[68] The Church then clearly understands the importance of communication and using media for discussions on burning social and religious issues. This also means the Church, in addition to its own media, whose existence has already been established, must act in secular media as well in order to ensure its presence in the general public view. The Church must actively and continuously communicate to the general public in order to act through the media in accordance with its mission serving peace, justice, truth, responsibility and respect for the dignity of every human being.

 

In conclusion

The development of media and technology brings greater challenges and new dilemmas regarding the spread of fake news, unethical behaviour towards individuals and groups, disregard for the privacy and dignity of human beings. This is why it is more important than ever for the Church to actively communicate not only through its own, but through secular media as well and to spread its message to the general public and society. The need for communication with the public and media is shown through efforts in documents of the Church social doctrine recognizing the importance of this type of communication. The nature of the media is not completely complementary to the nature of the Church. Both the Church and the media need to find new ways of communication, dialogue and cooperation, helping one another in disseminating information since the media have great power in shaping public opinion. In other words, the Church needs to warn of certain dangers and misconceptions in modern media reporting, confirm positive efforts and contribute to solving serious social issues, in accordance with its mission.

 

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References:

Adriano Zannachi, “The media have the greatest influence on culture and values today”, http://www.dan-medija.net, accessed: 15th January 2020

Anton Šuljić,” Media-related (self-)presentation of the Church in Croatia”, Riječki teološki časopis 18 (2/2010), pp. 495-510

Božo Skoko and Valentina Gusić, New media in the service of evangelism and parish community life – uses in parishes of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Zagreb, Nova prisutnost 11 (2013), pp. 193-214

Second Vatican Council, Documents, 7th revised and expanded edition, Kršćanska sadašnjost , Zagreb 2008

G. Matrai, Social Doctrine of the Church, Encyclopaedia. Dictionary of Theology, Kršćanska sadašnjost Zagreb, 2009, p. 1070

Jerko Valković, Evangelism in the era of media: possibilities and issues in communication, Bogoslovska smotra 81(3/2011), pp. 675-696

Jerko Valković, The Church and the modern public: challenges and possibilities for action, Riječki teološki časopis 18 (2/2010), pp. 413-532

Josip Antolović, Pastoral instruction “Communio et progressio”, Obnovljeni život 4 (4/1979), pp. 393-402

Juraj Mirko Mataušić, The media in a crisis of values, Bogoslovska smotra 71 (2/2011), pp. 361-379

Nediljko A. Ančić, Church and modernism, Crkva u svijetu 42 (4/ 2007), pp. 563-566

N.G. Gaitano, Opinione pubblica e Chiesa Cattolica, in Jose Maria la Porte (ed.), Ontroduzione alla comunicazione istituzionalen della Chiesa, pp. 77-81

Pontifical Commission “Iustitia et Pax”, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, Kršćanska sadašnjost, Zagreb, 2005

Robert Bogešić, The churches and the media – evangelism or manipulation, Kairos: Evanđeoski teološki časopis 13 (1/2019), pp. 97-109

Stjepan Baloban, The church of the poor: Pope John XXIII to Pope Francis, Bogoslovska smotra  84 (3/2014), pp. 479-503

 

Socijalni nauk Katoličke crkve i njegov odnos prema medijima

 

Sažetak

 

Kao teološko-filozofsko promišljanje o čovjeku i njegovu životu u društvu, socijalni nauk Crkve proizlazi iz papinskih, biskupskih i koncilskih dokumenata. Stoga su glavne teme socijalnog nauka Crkve ljudska osoba, društvena solidarnost i supsidijarnost. U tom nauku, a u svjetlu kršćanskog poimanja ljudske osobe te načela solidarnosti i subsidijarnosti, nude se kršćanski odgovori na neka teška i zamršena pitanja, među kojima se, već više od stotinu godina, ističe tzv. socijalno pitanje, a od druge polovine 20. stoljeća i pitanje uloga koje imaju sredstva društvene komunikacije, mass media. U ovom članku se pokazuje kako odnos Katoličke crkve i medija nije jednostavan: kako se taj nauk izrazio u doba „borbe protiv modernizma“, kako nakon pojave industrijske revolucije, a kako u ‘informacijsko doba’ koje još traje. Može se vidjeti da je pristup etici, moralu, odgovornosti i dostojanstvu ljudske osobe u mainstream medijskom prostoru često oprečno različit od odgovora koje nudi Crkva. Da mediji informaciju u tom prostoru samo ne prenose, nego da ga i stvaraju. Za Crkvu, gledajući njezin socijalni nauk koji bi trebao služiti svim članovima društva kao orijentir i uputa za svakodnevno djelovanje, važno je istinito i cjelovito prenošenje informacija. Kroz ovdje pobrojane dokumente može se vidjeti da Crkva pokazuje spremnost na suočavanje s medijskim izazovima, jednako kao i za mogućnost njihova korištenja u promicanju socijalne pravde, istine, mira i slobode u traženju zajedničkog dobra.

 

Key words: socijalni nauk Crkve, papinske enciklike, sredstva društvenog priopćavanja, odnos Katoličke crkve i medija.

 

 

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9(16)#6 2020

This journal is open access and this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

DOI 10.46640/imr.9.16.6 UDK 2-452:004.4’242 Izvorni članak Original scientific paper Primljeno: 14.02.2020.

 

 

Iva Paska

Zagreb, Hrvatska
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Fast Choices and Emancipatory Spaces:
Complex Reality of Online dating Apps

Puni tekst: pdf (631 KB), English, Str. 2545 - 2557

 

Abstract

 

Contemporary digital environments are increasingly changing the ways in which we live and interact. One of the fields where this is evident is the field of intimate relationships. At the beginning of the third decade of the 21st century mobile dating applications are becoming a common way of meeting potential partners. The purpose of this paper is to explore the implications of this and to look more closely how online dating in the age of mobile applications is changing the field of intimate relationships, as well as to note the complexity of this phenomenon.

 

Key words: dating applications, intimate relationships, online dating, Tinder, OkCupid, digital media.

 

 

Contemporary digital technologies are mediating all aspects of human life, including intimate personal relationships.  One of the aspects they are impacting at the beginning of the third decade of the 21st century, is the meeting of potential romantic partners, in the sense that meeting  partners through mobile applications has become an increasingly common way of entering into romantic or sexual relationship. Before the age of digital media, romantic partners used to meet mostly through personal social networks e.g. through sociologically so-called “weak ties”, whereas over the last 15 years the internet has partly displaced the family, the school, the neighbourhood, friends and the workplace as the venue for meeting partners.^[69] There has however been further technological development in the recent years in terms of the development of mobile internet and mobile phone applications and an increase in their use. This has also reflected itself on the field of online dating, concretely in the phenomenon of switching from websites for online dating to dating applications on mobile platforms. Dating applications have further contributed to the popularization of online meeting, making online dating less an exception and more a common channel of relationship formation. Research report of the Pew Research Center for the year 2019 shows that online dating has in the recent years lost the stigma attached to it and has become a common way of meeting partners.^[70] Further, Rosenfeld’s analysis of national data in the USA shows that meeting online has increased so much that it has displaced meeting through friends from their former roles as main intermediaries in the formation of new partnerships.^[71] We can also assume that this is linked with the widespread use of digital environments which at the beginning of the third decade of the 21st century, are starting to permeate all aspects of everyday life, including formation of intimate relationships.

All of the dating applications function in a similar manner. They use user-generated profile data to match users as potential partners. Algorithms analyze the data and check the compatibility of the users and this compatibility is calculated in different ways on different platforms - it is combined with the criterion of geographical location or closeness and other data from the profile. The most popular applications worldwide are Tinder, OKCupid, Tantan, Badoo and Zoosk. Tinder and OKCupid are owned by the same corporation from the USA called Match Group, Zoosk also originates from the USA, while Tantan is of Chinese origin and Badoo of Russian origin. The application Tinder is considered an innovator and leader within the industry of online dating, being present in more than 190 countries around the world, with more than 50 million users. How widespread it is is evident in the phenomenon of its name becoming a representation of online dating in everyday conversations of the 21st century -  the question when it comes to online dating often turns from “Are you dating online?” to “Are you on Tinder?” Also, with Tinder Match Group first introduced the “swipe” move  - hand move moving mobile phone picture representing refusal or acceptance to “match” with another application user. This movement has in the meantime become the industry norm and thus it is present also on Tantan, Badoo and Zoosk. All four applications use geographical location and closeness as the criterion for matching, while OKCupid uses the method of matching users based on the results of a psychological test that they can take. While the first three applications are characterized by the technological architecture with the emphasis on the photograph the user uploads, building a profile on OKCupid seems to require more effort by its asking user to fill out the psychological questionnaire. Match Group also owns three other dating applications - Hinge, Plenty of Fish and Match.com, all catering to different audiences - Hinge is oriented more towards a younger generation^[72], Plenty of Fish more towards those who are not willing to pay, while Match.com is for those seeking long-term relationships. However, if we start to look at the underlying economic structures, those differences become questionable. For example, the Match Group corporation mentioned above had a 1.7 billion dollar revenue in the year 2018.^[73] This ought to remind us that, in spite of the fun-looking frontend of these applications, the economic structures behind them that condition their functioning are profit-making. While basic features of most dating applications are available for free, they are nevertheless based on the profit-making business model, with either charging access to wholesome features of their service or making profit through advertisement. When dating applications are looked at from the perspective of the underlying economic structures, they start to resemble what Theodor Adorno recognized as the artificial differentiation of products in late capitalism. Under the apparent differentiation of the products, what is actually happening is the differentiation of the consumers, where they are segmented, while their choices are predefined, preselected and embodied in a product, so that the whole market is covered in advance - as Adorno has put it, “something is provided for all so that none may escape”.^[74] When the market segments Match Group covers with its portfolio of applications is looked at from this perspective, together with their own claim that they offer products for any type of dating desire”^[75] , the autonomy of choice and preference of the user may seem like an artificial segmentation of the market, whereas any difference among the applications can be seen as pseudo-difference since the economic structures behind all applications are the same -  led by the principle of profit-making. It is useful to note this when analyzing the functioning of the applications for online dating, since it impacts the ways in which they mediate user experience.

What has to be emphasized when it comes to contemporary dating applications is how technological architecture of dating applications differs from the architecture of the online dating websites, following the trend towards the visual in the contemporary technological architecture. Unlike online dating websites that were based on textual profiles, user profiles on dating applications are organized around photographs. The possibility of using text to describe oneself while filling out the profile exists, but it is in most cases minimal. For example, Tinder has space for 6 photos to be uploaded, while it simultaneously has the maximum of 600 characters for text entry on its form for data entry when creating a profile. This is the first significant feature of new dating applications that differentiates them from the previous generation of dating services, websites that provided internet dating before the rise of application and mobile internet. There, the profile was organized around textual content - while an entry for photograph existed, the emphasis was on the textual content. Most contemporary dating applications like Tinder, Badoo or Tantan emphasize visual content and this is the format that is innovative not only in the field of technological development, but also in the cultural sense. The short form for the textual entry points to the technological architecture that gives primacy to the visual. Even if users wanted to emphasize the textual content, they are not able to do so. Grounding of relationship formation in the architecture of technology favoring visual element is a new cultural moment. Psychological personality on Tinder is organized around six photographs, these photographs becoming a narrative of personal identity. Thus it is not unusual that they are carefully framed and coated through filters in an attempt to look as attractive as possible. Consequently, in digital environments of contemporary dating applications the capability for visual self-presentation becomes the social currency. The important skills are those related to the manipulation and editing of the visual content, in comparison with the textual dating websites where writing skills were crucial for self-presentation. The question of  the correlation between digital and social reality also arises. An extremely edited photo on the digital dating application represents a certain social value, but does it necessarily correlate with the social, emotional or cultural capital of its owner in the offline social world? Challenges embodied in this question are part of wider challenges that we come to face in the world where digital environments become increasingly embedded in everyday life.

Further, the pace in which dating applications condition users to choose a partner can be seen as a cultural shift in relationship formation. The process of choosing potential partner on contemporary dating applications is very fast-paced and simplified. As mentioned above, this process comes down to the so-called “swipe” - the movement with which the user drags their finger over the other user’s profile to the left or right side, which in the IT architecture behind the application symbolizes rejection or acceptance of the other person as the potential partner. As Marshall McLuhan^[76] noted, technology is not neutral; its design conditions the ways people behave. What the “swipe” thus signifies on a cultural level is a new manner of entering potential romantic relationships. What is different in the process of “swiping” as a new social practice of relationship-entry in comparison with meeting through friends or one’s own network is the very short period of time given for a decision on the compatibility of a potential partner and a decision based on the visual digital content that this kind of technological architecture fosters. The evaluation of someone’s compatibility as a partner comes down to the quick look of the photograph presented in the profile and a short moment of decision whether to “swipe” right or left. While the technological architecture of the dating websites required taking some time to read the potential partner’s profile, the architecture of “swiping” fosters fast-paced decision-making based on visual appearance. When it is taken into account that the practice of the “swipe” has become so popular socially that it has also become normalized in the everyday language, coming to signify searching for potential partners or hookups, we can view it as a new emergent social practice, reflecting new ways of entering potential relationships based on visual and instant-culture. This kind of relationship-formation gives a phenomenological feeling of greater expendability of such connections at the first sight of any kind of frustration - after all, why would one dwell long on a connection which was created through minimal effort? This makes for a cultural shift in the structuring of romantic relationship formation and in this sense contemporary dating applications are indeed, as Tinder boasts on its webpage, “not only a dating application, but a cultural movement”.^[77]

What is namely also a new cultural phenomenon when considering contemporary dating applications is the insight into the amount of potential partners available in the social surrounding. This insight, combined with the relatively easy access to these potential partners, has certain implications. It can encourage the evaluative mindset usually applied in the process of consumption. In the year 2010 Eva Illouz^[78] conducted a qualitative research on the users of dating websites, and her results already then showed inclinations of users to engage in the process of cognitive evaluation resembling shopping for goods in the market in a capitalistic system of consumption, when searching for a partner on the internet; one’s personality is turned into a packaged product, which competes with others on the open market.  She placed this within the context of a wider phenomenon that she called “emotional capitalism”, where relationships become exposed to the logic of utilitarianism and become measurable and replaceable entities.^[79] Švab et al. call this principle a “rational choice which tries to fulfill emotional needs of the person”, such as the choice of their male heterosexual respondents who participated in online dating searching for partners without children, in order to have children with them.^[80] However, data from these research studies stems from the age in which textual websites were still prevalent, while it is contemporary dating applications in which this evaluative mindset finds its real embodiment. The architecture of technology of mobile applications for online dating turns potential partners into a database with visual display, while the option of “swiping” gives the possibility to search through the database quickly, which is phenomenologically a new feeling in the process of the search for romantic partner, because it enables the view of alternative options of potential partners. Thus it is possible to assume that this type of architecture will additionally foster an evaluative mindset among users, where potential partnerships will be evaluated against alternative visible options. In favor of this, the application Tinder was in the year 2015 accused of destroying romantic relationships in the area of New York City^[81], by providing men with a venue for practising unlimited casual sex which lessened their readiness to commit to a long-term relationship. This phenomenon can be understood better if romantic partnerships in contemporary society are considered in terms of Giddens’s reflexive relationships of late modernity - relationships based on personal choice and the will to commit, and which in social context of late modernity are replacing relationships structured by external social anchors such as tradition.^[82] Pure relationships of late modernity are based on choice, and their maintenance demands commitment and effort which is what replaces external social anchors in which relationships are rooted in traditional societies. It is already their formation that requires a certain amount of effort.  Namely, it is inevitable that the process of forming a new relationship will cause some frustration, in that it is a process of adjustment and harmonisation of two until then separate and distinct subjectivities. It requires some adjustment and negotiating of different habits and habituses on both parts of potential partners which will inevitably include some amount of frustration. In this context, it is definitely tempting and easier to instead “swipe” right towards a new choice on an online dating application. It can be assumed that economic capitalistic structures in the background of dating applications with the goal of profit-making consequently have the aim of providing the user with the pleasurable experience - with minimal amount of frustration - which will prolong his usage of the application, so the organization of the process of meeting in this manner is partially conditioned by those structures. As Zygmunt Bauman notes, in the age of capitalism the process of falling in love is attempted to resemble the goods on the market, by trying to eliminate any kind of anticipation, too much trouble of effort out of the process.^[83] This is precisely the formula which dating applications provide - minimal amount of effort in the process of connecting in addition to minimal amount of frustration and instant availability of alternative choice in the case of dissatisfaction with the existing one. Providing that the population of prospective partners on certain location is big enough that the alternative choices seem endless, this can further have a potentially negative impact on the amount of the effort one is willing to invest in the formation of a particular intimate relationship. Why tolerate frustration if there is always new alternative option available on your mobile phone? Furthemore, if we remember how Heidegger^[84] located the very essence of technology in the “standing reserve” waiting to be ordered for further processing, we can recognize this precisely in the organization of dating applications. It seems that dating applications are turning prospective partners in one’s social context to a visual reserve on standby waiting to be ordered for further emotional or sexual processing. In a way it becomes a reserve of alternative options always available - standing reserve for further emotional or sexual use, to which it is always possible to come back to if the actual physical emotional reality fails or feels too complex.  The example of New York City shows that in the context of an area populated enough to have almost unlimited number of alternative options available, this possibility can indeed become a social reality.

The question that arises further is whether this kind of technological architecture invites certain types of psychological features? What is to be expected when we are collectively subjected to technologies that foster low tolerance of frustration, focus on visual appearance and sense of unlimited possibilities when it comes to intimate relationships? It is not possible to think of these hallmarks without being reminded of a certain type of personality which they could favor -  narcissistic personality. Christopher Lasch^[85] has in the 1960s identified the reproduction of the culture of  late capitalism in this type of individual. Such personality has an outer grandiose facade, and is adept at managing impressions it gives to others, simultaneously craving attention because of feelings of inner emptiness, but also unable to form satisfying relationships, and thus in the constant search of emotional titillation in the form of shallow relationships which do not last long. The phenomenon of an outer grandiose facade which does not correspond to the inner psychological reality is a hallmark of narcissistic tendencies within the psychoanalytic tradition. The outer facade of grandeur often hides the inner frailty of the self of the narcissistic personality, which is sensitive to the least of frustrations which it experiences as an injury to its self-perceived feelings of omnipotence.  Consequently, authentic emotional intimacy exposes this kind of self with too much discrepancy between the narcissist’s outer facade and inner reality and thus he tends to avoid intimate relationships. Relationships where others can be used as objects and thus the cognitive control can be maintained are often seeked. Are the environments of the dating applications a technological embodiment of the features of this type of narcissistic self as contemporary cultural norm? Digital environments fostering visual appearance do not offer time to focus on anything else other than appearances, the outer grandeur of the carefully filtered and panned appearance in photos are in contrast with the authenticity that complex social reality inevitably brings with itself, and with a questionable correlation to it. The selection process through the practice of “swiping” based on visual appearance and the orientation on one’s own goals can be said to foster the type of attachment where others are seen as objects instead of subjects. A visual standing reserve of ever-available alternative options on dating applications seems to offer the playground for omnipotent fantasies. All of these features are a reflection of the hallmarks of the narcissistic type of self, inviting  the question of whether the contemporary dating applications are a digital space where this kind of personality can now thrive? After all, a never-ending “standing reserve” of potential partners through which one can swipe offers the feeling that the options for hookups - shallow relationships that offer short-term emotional satisfaction -  is always present. This offers the possibility of an escape from the emotional risk that entrance into a personal relationship inevitably exposes one to. Do contemporary dating applications then in this manner provide the means for escaping from  emotional risk for narcissistic selves of the 21st century -  a tool for the compensation of the formation of long-lasting relationships? This is one possible type of usage that their technological architecture fosters.

What is, however, easy to overlook when it comes to dating applications are the emancipatory spaces that can be found within them. For example, the previously mentioned OkCupid application which uses psychological testing to match users offers a lot of space for personal psychological exploration during its usage. When creating a profile, the user is faced with multiple choice questions about his or her lifestyle, values, sexual preferences and habits, based on which the algorithm of the application then calculates his or her compatibility with other users. The number of questions which one can answer on OkCupid is extensive - it counts to 4000.  This kind of technological architecture can be seen as opening up the space for reflexive exploration of one’s identity. As Giddens^[86]  has also noted, the self is in late modernity a project based on reflexivity, meaning that reflexivity is transferred from collective traditions to individual choices about one’s lifestyle and decisions on how to live. Except being an active creator of his or her relationships, the late modern individual is an active agent in the construction of his own identity. With its 4000 questions available for reflexive pondering of one’s identity, OKCupid represents an ideal technological platform for the self-reflexive individual of late modernity that Giddens describes. It is hard to answer these questions without having a new insight about oneself, and in this sense the application fosters reflexive exploration of one’s identity. Further, even for those individuals who have already thought about their identity reflexively, this level of extensiveness when it comes to reflexivity offers new potential insights - for example, “How much control do your parents have over your life” or “Is it possible for your partner to be too ambitious?” OKCupid does not leave out any possible area when it comes to reflexivity - it is fostered through questions on daily habits, political values, moral values, attitudes towards relationships, preferences in relationships and sexual identity. The latter is where OKCupid becomes a really sophisticated tool for the exploration of sexual identity of the late modern individual, with 22 available categories of gender and 13 of sexual orientation into which users can classify themselves, while the website simultaneously offers detailed descriptions of each of those identities. This gives the user an opportunity to acquaint himself or herself with existing categories of sexual identity and to question one’s own in relation to them. The application even popularized the term “sapiosexual”, meaning a person who “finds intelligence sexually most attractive characteristic”^[87], which has also entered the everyday language. By widening the field for potential reflexivity and  fostering the reflexivity of its users, OKCupid can be seen as the digital space for deliberation which can be helpful in the reflexive construction of one’s identity. In this sense, it can be seen as having a certain emancipatory potential, especially in the contexts of social structures where exploration of sexual identities outside of traditional gender roles is still forbidden or socially punished.

The emancipatory space that digital applications for dating offer can also manifest itself in the unintended consequences of their usage, in the sense of users using dating applications to build different kinds of connections than it was envisioned in its original aim. For example, a Belgian study on the usage of Tinder^[88] among youth showed that it is also used for the aim of socialization when travelling or betterment of social skills. Users thus find ways to use the technology of dating application for their own goals, besides the goal of finding a partner or a hookup. This potential of using internet technology for establishing connections of a different kind than it was intended for is part of a wider emancipatory space that digital technology creates. This was recognized on many levels since the beginning of the internet, in the digital space which social networks offered for networking outside of institutional venues, for example, in terms of the organization of protests.^[89] Digital technology has the potential of disembedding the individual out of his or her social circles and offers the possibility to establish connections with social circles which the individual had no way of locating before. Ortega and Hergovich have proven that online meeting is beneficial to social diversity, analysing how it connects individuals without overlapping social networks.^[90] This potential is further increased with the technological possibility of dating applications to locate users geolocally, meaning locating geographical location of the certain mobile internet connection enabled by smartphones and mobile internet, while this search can be combined with certain characteristics of users as the criterion for searching.  Thus it is not surprising that this way of connecting will be of greatest importance for those social groups whose members are hard to locate in the physical social reality, for example marginalized social groups that lack venues for meeting in a certain social context. One of the social groups for which these technological possibilities are of importance is the LGBTQI community. For example, research on a representative population in USA^[91] shows that already before the emergence of dating applications more than 60% of LGBTQI persons in USA met online in 2008 and 2009 and that internet mostly displaces other ways of meeting precisely within this population. 41% of homosexual couples who met in the last 10 years have met online, while this percentage is 17% when it comes to heterosexual couples^[92].  In the context of social norms that users experience as repressive, as in the case of homosexuality which is still socially stigmatized, online dating venues provide a platform for safe socialization and meeting of potential partners. Qualitative research conducted in Slovenia has shown that gay men use online venues as places for the establishment of connections in the context of social stigma attached to homosexuality and homophobia, as well as lack of bars for homosexuals, and as means of socialization.^[93] Qualitative research study conducted on young men in USA also indicates the importance that dating applications have for providing the space for the establishment of meaningful relationships within the homosexual community.^[94] The ability to search users through the feature of geolocation enables new digital space to connect with individuals from different social networks with which are in immediate geographical proximity and with which individual was previously unconnected and thus the potential of acquiring a new social capital. Even in cities which are considered progressive in terms of LGBTQI rights such as London, dating applications are found to allow the practice of queer life in ways that are adaptable to the preferences of users.^[95]  Some hardships in the translation of this connection to the physical and social space have also been noted, a tendency towards closing of the homosexual relations into private spaces as well as hardships when it comes to locating “community” in the digital applications. Despite that, it seems that online dating applications are important for the establishment of intimate connections of individuals within LGBTQI population. Dating applications open up spaces of access to other members of this marginalized group in the context of lack of spaces for connecting in the social physical reality and thus harder possibility of detecting the members of this group.  Although the attempt of translating the potential relationships from digital two-dimensional reality to the social reality in its complexity of economic, cultural and emotional capital is characterized by possible discrepancies between the two realities, it is already evident that in spite of this dating apps provide novel spaces for the formation of social capital.

In a similar manner, online dating applications provide spaces for the realization of personal agency and related behaviors within other social contexts felt as oppressive within which social reality offers limited possibilities of connecting within physical locations. For example, in India, where traditional social norms still require young people, especially women, not to date or have sex before marriage, Tinder has become a tool that allows for the bypassing of these norms and exercise of sexual autonomy for the younger generation that experiences these norms as repressive.^[96] In this context dating applications represent online points of access - similarly to what they allow for the homosexual population in a social reality which lacks venues for meetings of these marginalized groups. Thus one of the emancipatory spaces that dating applications provide is located within their potential to transfer behaviors from digital to offline spaces which can be seen as an exercise of agency in establishment of intimate relationships within social contexts that are felt as oppressive.

In conclusion, online dating applications are changing the ways in which romantic relationships are formed in the 21st century. On the one hand, because of the seemingly unlimited choices of finding alternative partners they continually offer, combined with the ease of their browsing and the practice of fast choice in addition to the technological primacy of the visual aspect, they can be seen as medium enabling goal-oriented behaviors and thus in this sense introducing principles of technology and capitalistic consumption into the formation of intimate relationships. Potential implications of this can be found also in the easier avoidance of emotional investing in long-term relationships for which such possibilities are provided by this kind of digital environment. However, it should also be emphasized that this kind of technological architecture creates emancipatory spaces, both on individual and social level. On the individual level this is evident in its possibility to offer a place of empowerment in terms of reflexive exploration of identities or means of establishing of safe connection and exercise of agency in social contexts that are felt as oppressive and increase in one’s social capital. On the social level it is manifested in terms of connecting of previously unconnected social groups. Reality of dating applications which are becoming a common way to meet in the field of intimate relationships in the 21st century seems to be more complex than the evaluation of their implications one-sidedly as either positive or negative, would allow.

 

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Michael J. Rosenfeld and Reuben J. Thomas, “Disintermediating your friends:  How Online Dating in the United States displaces other ways of meeting”,  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116 (36), 17753-17758.

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Brzi izbori i emancipatorni prostori:
kompleksna stvarnost aplikacija za online upoznavanje

 

Sažetak

 

Suvremena digitalna okruženja sve više mijenjaju načine na koje živimo te bivamo u interakciji. Intimni odnosi su jedno od područja na koja ona utječu. Mobilne aplikacije za upoznavanje su na početku trećeg desetljeća 21. stoljeća sve uobičajeniji način upoznavanja potencijalnih partnera. Svrha ovog rada je istražiti implikacije ovakvog načina upoznavanja te pobliže promotriti način na koji online upoznavanje mijenja područje intimnih odnosa u dobu mobilnih aplikacija, kao i obratiti pozornost na kompleksnost navedenog fenomena.

 

Key words: aplikacije za upoznavanje, intimni odnosi, online upoznavanje, Tinder, OkCupid, digitalni mediji.

 

 

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9(16)#7 2020

This journal is open access and this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

DOI 10.46640/imr.9.16.7 UDK 004-044.347 Prethodno priopćenje Preliminary communication Primljeno: 05.04.2020.

 

 

Maša Martinić, Jelena Hadžić i Marko Poljak

NEWTON Technologies Adria, Hrvatska
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Fakultet hrvatskih studija Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Presscut d.o.o., Hrvatska
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Alma Mater Europea, Hrvatska
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Preliminary Communication and research
in Humanistic Sociology Series:
Models for adoption of New Technologies considering
Influence of Communication on individuals’ Behavior

Puni tekst: pdf (604 KB), English, Str. 2559 - 2577

 

Abstract

 

New technology is referred as any set of productive techniques which offers a significant improvement. What is seen as new’ is obviously subject to continual redefinition, as successive changes in technology are undertaken. The social and political impact of new technologies is complex being subject to variations in managerial strategies, worker resistance, and a host of other cultural and political circumstances. User adoption of new technologies and the models explaining their behaviors is an ongoing research problem.

      

Identifying the factors that affect the adoption of new technologies is understood by developing technology adoption models and theories with different theoretical insights, variables and measurements. To recognize the needs and acceptance of individuals is to realize the factors that drive user acceptance or rejection of technologies. Researchers can conceptualize underlying technology models and theories that may affect the previous, current and future application of technology adoption. As a case study, 50 users of new technology in Croatia were questioned regarding pros and cons and was determined majority will benefit from the use.

 

Key words: new technologies, technology adoption, technology acceptance models, humanistic sociology, communicology, human computer interaction.

 

 

Introduction

New technology is any set of productive techniques which offers a significant improvement as defined by A Dictionary of Sociology. What is seen as new' is obviously subject to continual redefinition, as successive changes in technology are undertaken. The social and political impact of new technologies is complex being subject to variations in managerial strategies, worker resistance, and a host of other cultural and political circumstances (Encyclopedia.com, 2019). User adoption of new technologies and the models explaining their behaviours are an ongoing research problem. Over the years, researchers have published a considerable amount of theories and models to assess the potential adoption of technologies by the end users.

Identifying the factors that affect the adoption of new technologies is understood by developing technology adoption models and theories with different theoretical insights, variables and measurements. This paper presents chronological development of the theories and models considering their interconnectivity and applications. Its importance lies in preparation for further research of adoption of new technology implemented in the public sector of the Republic of Croatia.

The following article is a firm overview of actual literature and models and should be a good basis for researchers interested in the area of technology acceptance, as it is an important business question, especially in sector of new, emerging and exponential technologies.

 

Overview of Technology Acceptance Models

The study of acceptance has emerged in 1970s as possibility of successful acceptance is an important factor in assessing the need for development or investing. All technology acceptance theories are designed to measure the degree of acceptance and satisfaction to the individuals against any technology or information system but from different points of view depending on the constructs or determinants which represent their structure (Momani & Mamoum, 2017, p. 51).

Recognizing the needs and acceptance of individuals is realizing the factors that drive user acceptance or rejection of technologies. Researchers conceptualized underlying technology models and theories that may affect the previous, current and future application of technology adoption.  

This paper will discuss the main constructs of the following theories:

Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT), Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), Theory of Interpersonal Behaviour (TIB), Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and its derivatives, Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT).

 

Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT)

Innovation Diffusion Theory was developed by Rogers in 1962 and is one of the oldest social science theories to study any kind of innovations. Rogers proposed that four major factors for determining the behaviour. Those factors are:  innovation, communication channels, time and social systems (Rogers, 1983, p. 11).

The terms diffusion, innovation, and communication are defined by him as follows: Diffusion is the process in which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among members of a social system. Innovation is an idea, practice, or object that is perceived by an individual. Communication is a process that leads to create and share information with others in order to get a common understanding. Rogers stated that there are five innovation attributes which effect on individuals’ behaviours and explain the rate of innovation adoption. These attributes are: relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability. Rogers stated that “individuals’ perceptions of these characteristics predict the rate of adoption of innovations” (Rogers, 1983, p. 210), Rogers noted that although there is a lot of diffusion research on the characteristics of the adopter categories, there is a lack of research on the effects of the perceived characteristics of innovations on the rate of adoption. He has defined the rate of adoption as “the relative speed with which an innovation is adopted by members of a social system” (Rogers, 1983, p. 23). For instance, the number of individuals who adopted the innovation for a period of time can be measured as the rate of adoption of the innovation. The perceived attributes of an innovation are significant predictors of the rate of adoption. Rogers reported that 49-87% of the variance in the rate of adoption of innovations is explained by these five attributes. In addition to these attributes, the innovation-decision type (optional, collective, or authority), communication channels (mass media or interpersonal channels), social system (norms or network interconnectedness), and change agents may increase the predictability of the rate of adoption of innovations. For instance, personal and optional innovations usually are adopted faster than the innovations involving an organizational or collective innovation-decision. However, for Rogers, relative advantage is the strongest predictor of the rate of adoption of an innovation.

 

 

The diffusion of innovations according to Rogers. With successive groups of consumers adopting the new technology (shown in blue), its market share (yellow) will eventually reach the saturation level. The blue curve is broken into sections of adopters (Wikipedia, 2019)

There are several applications of Rogers’ theory and some of them were related to instructional computer usage (Sahin, 2006): examining the factors that might influence the decision to adopt new technologies in faculty members motivation (Medlin, 2001), examination of the computer level use in Ohio public schools (Isleem, 2003), investigating the faculty adoption of computer technology in North Carolina Community College System (Less’, 2003), Zakaria conducted a study to assess the factors affecting IT implementation in the curriculum (Zakaria, 2001), Ilin et. al. applied IDT and the environmental context from the technology-organization-environment (TOE) framework (Ilin, Ivetić, & Simić, 2017, p. 208) for understanding of e-business adoption in a case study of the Western Balkan peninsula. The model has been widely used to study the adoption of new technologies in many industries such as within construction industry (Weidman, Young-Corbett, Fiori, Koebel, & Montague).

 

Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA)

Theory of reasoned action was introduced in 1967. by Fishbein and further developed by Fishbein and Ajzen in 1975. and 1980. for sociological and psychological researches (Taherdoost, 2018, p. 961). It is one of the most popular theories used and is about one factor that determines behavioural intention of the person’s attitude toward a behaviour (Lai, 2017, p. 24). According to TRA, any human behaviour is predicted and explained through three main cognitive components, making it a general model and one of the fundamental theories of human behaviour (Momani & Mamoum, 2017, p. 53).

TRA explains human behaviour through main cognitive components including attitudes (unfavorableness or favourableness of persons feeling for a behaviour), social norms (social influence) and intentions (individual’s decision do or don't do a behaviour). This human behaviour should be volitional, systematic and rational (Taherdoost, 2018).

 

 

The theory’s limitations have to do with the transition from verbal responses to actual behaviour. The relations of beliefs, attitudes and subjective norms to intentions are more clearly delineated than the factors that determine whether the intention will be carried out. According to the TRA, intention is the immediate antecedent of behaviour (Ajzen, 1985, p. 18).

 

 

Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB)

Theory of Planned Behaviour was developed by Ajzen in 1985. A new variable is added to extend theory of reasoned actions, which makes it an extension of TRA (Momani & Mamoum, 2017, p. 53) That variable is called perceived behavioural control (Ajzen, 1985). Perceived behavioural control is determined by the availability of resources, opportunities and skills, as well as the perceived significance of those resources opportunities and skills to achieve outcome (Taherdoost, 2018, p. 961). It is known as a control which users perceive that may limit their behaviour (Lai, 2017, p. 25).

 

 

A development of TPB over the time was systematically reviewed by Koul and Eygadi (2017). Their paper stated that much of the early research on TPB focused on replicating the results of the original study in different settings, cultures, and for a variety of behaviours (Venkatesh et al., 2007). After that, research focused on establishing the predictive validity of TPB and then eventually competing theoretical perspectives to enhance the richness of the original model (Venkatesh et al., 2007). One such refinement to the original model was achieved by the fusion of TPB and TAM into a novel decomposed model of TPB (Koul & Eydgahi, 2017, p. 108)

 

 

Theory of Interpersonal Behaviour (TIB)

TIB was developed by Triandis in 1977/1980 and it builds upon the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Pulikanti & Habib, 2016, p. 6) (Chatterton, 2011, p. 11).

Theory of Interpersonal Behaviour is clarifying mainly the human’s behaviour complexity which are affected by social and emotional facts. TIB has three levels to argue the behaviour (Taherdoost, 2018, p. 962).

In the first level, personal beliefs, attitudes and social factors related to the behaviour is shaped by personal characteristics and previous experiences. The second level describes how affect, cognition and social determinants, plus personal normative beliefs effect on intentions to a particular behaviour. In the third level, possibility of performing a specific behaviour is predicted by behavioural intentions, situational conditions and experience.

 

 

Decomposed Theory of Planned Behaviour (DTPB)

Decomposed Theory of Planned Behaviour (Decomposed TPB) was introduced by Taylor and Todd in 1995 (1995). The Decomposed TPB consists of three main factors influencing behaviour intention and actual behaviour adoption which are attitude, subjective norms and perceived behaviour control.

It decomposes attitude toward behaviour, subjective norm, and perceived behavioural control into multi-dimensional belief constructs within technology adoption contexts. As an extension to TPB, which was an enhancement of TRA, the DTPB expanded the TPB by including three factors from the Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT) viewpoint which are: relative advantage, compatibility, and complexity (Momani & Mamoum, 2017). Shih and Fang (2004) examined the adoption of internet banking by means of the TPB as well as Decomposed TPB (Lai, 2017).

 

Technology Acceptance Model (TAM)

Technology Acceptance model was developed by Davis in 1986 and kept on developing through the years of research and experienced various extensions as shown in various publications (Marangunić & Granić, 2014, p. 85).

This model evolved from Theory of Reasoned Actions by eliminating user’s subject norms, it is based on principles adopted form Fishbein and Ajzen’s (1975) attitude paradigm from psychology (Davis, 1991, p. 476) TAM explains the motivation of users by 3 factors: perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and perceived attitude toward use. TAM ignored the social influence on adoption of technology, so it has limitations in being applied beyond the workplace (Taherdoost, 2018, p. 963).

The goal of TAM is to predict user acceptance and highlight potential design issues before users of the technology interact with the system (Dillon & Morris, 1996; Mohd, Ahmad, Samsudin, & Sudin, 2011). TAM was developed with support from IBM Canada and is rooted in the basic psychological theory known as the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA; Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980). TAM demonstrates a pioneering research effort by generating a framework for explaining behavioural intentions and actual behaviour of users for new technology adoption (Koul & Eydgahi, 2017, p. 106).

 

 

Some new factors were added to TAM to improve its explanatory power TAM2 was proposed by adding two groups of constructs; social influence (image, subject norms and voluntariness), and cognitive (result demonstrability, job relevance and output quality) to TAM, to improve the predictive power of perceived usefulness.

 

 

The second study identified constructs that influence on perceived ease of use (Taherdoost, 2018, p. 963).

TAM is widely used in assessment of adoption of IT services which was systematically review in a study published in 2003 (Lee, Kozar, & Larsen, 2003). Meta-analysis of 101 articles published between 1986. and 2003. Found that TAM had progressed continually over time (Lee, Kozar, & Larsen, 2003, p. 768) while being employed on information system such as: E-mail, V-mail, FAX, Dial-up Systems, Communication, Systems, Windows, PC (or Microcomputer), WWW(or e-commerce), Workstation Computer, Resource Center, General Purpose Systems, Groupware, Word processor, Spreadsheet and Presentation S/W (Lee, Kozar, & Larsen, 2003, p. 759), adoption of social media (Rauniar, Rawski, Yang, & Johnson, 2013) Al-Emran at. al. conducted a study to systematically review TAM related to M-learning studies to discuss the implications of analysis results (Al-Emran, Mezhuyev, & Kamaludin, 2018, p. 20).

In another study, Venkatesh, Morris, Davis, and Davis (2003) formulated and validated an integrated model that, was an extension of TAM and termed it a ‘Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology’ (UTAUT) (Koul & Eydgahi, 2017, p. 107)

 

Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT)

Venkatesh et al. (2003) argued that researchers were faced with a large number of similar constructs offered by many theories and found that they “pick and choose” constructs from the models or opt for a “favoured model”, with the result that the other models were largely ignored. Consequently, they synthesized the propositions put forth by different models of acceptance, and proposed the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT; Venkatesh et al. 2003).

The UTAUT has four predictors of users’ behavioural intention and these are performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence and facilitating conditions. The five similar constructs including perceived usefulness, extrinsic motivation, job-fit, relative advantage and outcome expectations form the performance expectancy in the UTAUT model while effort expectancy captures the notions of perceived ease of use and complexity. As for the social context, Venkatesh et al. (2003) validation tests found that social influence was not significant in voluntary contexts. (Lai, 2017, p. 31). Maruping et. al. introduced behavioural expectation into as an externally oriented predictor of IT use and identifying its antecedents (Maruping, Hilol, Viswanath, & Brown, 2016, p. 10).

 

 

There are numerous researches that applied UTAUT to assess acceptance of new technologies. UTAUT has been used to analyse citizen’s acceptance of e-government services in Kuwait (AlAwadhi & Morris, 2008) and in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Alshehri, Drew, & AlGhamdi, 2013). Tan and Juin adopted UTAUT to assess the factors affecting the use of e-learning websites in Taiwan. (Tan & Juinn, 2013). Another study tested the framework of UTAUT for understanding the main determinants of the adoption of mobile messaging applications (Hanifi Murat Mutlu, 2017). Williams et. Al. published a literature review based on analyses of 174 existing articles on UTAUT to present the current state of the UTAUT-related research (Williams, Rana, & Dwivedi, 2015, p. 469).

 

Research

For the purpose of this article, authors had conducted first in the series of research of new technology use and acceptance.

 

Research goals

Main goal is to question the measure of satisfaction within the sample, court workers and state attorney office in Croatia, with the use of new technology that converst speech to text and to define main reasons of satisfacion or dissatisfaction.

 

Specific goals

To question in which situations are the workers using said speech to text systems.

To question what are the benefits or expectations of the users with the new technology.

Define problems in technology use.

To question in which measure are the workers using similar technology in private.

Confirm differences in all the above considering sex, age and workplace.

 

Method

Questionnaire.

 

Sample

For the purpose of this article the authors analyzed 50 questioned workers from the courts and state attorney office who had implemented NEWTON Dictate speech-to-text technology.

Research conducted

Between 20.08.2018. to 10.09.2018. the authors conducted a questionnaire among court workers and state attorneys who implemented NEWTON Dictate speech-to-text technology. From the list of users we randomly contacted 50 individuals that had been using said technology for some time. Example of the questionnaire for this research phase is as follows.

 

Questionnaire

Do you accept to participate in the research and allow for your answers to be used for future processing and analyses?

a) Yes             b) No

 

If no, abort questionnaire.

Age ________________0

 

Workplace

a) Judge          b) Deputy of chief state attorney     c) Deputy of USKOK principal          
d) Court advisor              e) Administrator/typist

 

Are you assisted by the administrator staff during document creation (i.e. Transcription in MS word, document scanning etc)?

a) Always

b) Almost always

c) Sometimes

d) I have no support

 

Do you create digital documents after work hours in your work overtime?

a) Sometimes (a couple of times yearly)

b) Frequently (one a week, few times per month)

c) Never*

•  If the answer is C, skip next question.

 

How necessary is for you to spend less time on document creation than now?

a) Extremely necessary

b) Necessary

c) Neither

d) Mostly not necessary

e) Completely not necessary

 

How often, in everyday life, are you using speech-to-text technology (voice operations in Google search, phonebook voice search etc.).

a) Very frequently (every day or almost every day)

b) Frequently (once a week, few times per month)

c) Sometimes (few times per year)

d) Never*

 

In your opinion, how useful will NEWTON Dictate solution be for you?

a) Extremely useful

b) Useful

c) Partially useful

d) Not useful at all

e) I don’t know

 

Results and discussion

 

 

Majority of questioned are judges with deputy of chief state attorney after them. The sample is lacking typists which might be a minus in this research since they are the persons that will mostly be influenced by this technology and will not be asked for their opinion.

 

 

On the other hand, judges and deputies create most of the documents with the help of administrators.

 

 

According to the results of Table 3 these type of work is done everyday and could be considered usual in justice occupation. There are factual differences in the type of judicial, or state attorneys, work and the capacities of certain courts considering the field it serves. Some of them are, therefore, field workers, some work from home and some are simply working out of hours.

 

 

As seen in Table 4, such jobs are quite demanding for the sample with more than 60% considering they extremely need, or at least need, to use less time for digital document creation.

 

 

In everyday life approximately 40% use at least sometimes some of the technologies that converts voice to text. It can be assumed that those are Internet browsers and mobile phone voice to text messages. IT companies are promoting the use of this technology so it can be expected that the number of users will rise in time. Education that this company is doing in Croatia will certainly influence the development, use and understanding of this technology in general.

 

 

Not one person responded that the new technology will be not useful at all. Majority (over 70%) thinks that the new technology will be useful for them. These results confirm the awareness of justice workers for optimisation and IT advancement of their system.

This questionnaire consists of many more questions which give way for various research and insight into use of new, innovative technology. Another research will be conducted after 3 years on the same sample of 700 people (50 was sample size in this research) with more thorough understanding of users’ approach to new technology. The most important being the information that there is only 6,7% of users without assistance which might, in general, raise opinion that the users should now do the work themselves which might turn them away from using this type of technology. The users that have no assistant are used to generate documents and are willing to use any tool to expedite that process. In practice, targeting and sound management is of great importance in determining the users of new technology. The conclusion is that the series of research in this specific technology use is still relatively new and sample sizes are smaller which should make our research series quite useful and influential.

 

Bibliography:

Ajzen, I. (1985). From intentions to actions: A theory of planned behavior. In J. Kuhl, & J. Beckman (Eds.), Action control: From cognition to behavior (pp. 11-39). Heidelberg.

AlAwadhi, S., & Morris, S. A. (2008). The Use of the UTAUT Model in the Adoption of E-government Services in Kuwait. 1st Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2008.

Al-Emran, M., Mezhuyev, V., & Kamaludin, A. (2018). Technology Acceptance Model in M-learning context: A systematic review. Computers & Education, 125, 389-412. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2018.06.008.

Alshehri, M., Drew, S., & AlGhamdi, R. (2013, April). Analysis of citizens' acceptance for E-government services: Applying the UTAUT model. Retrieved September 01, 2019, from ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258841651_Analysis_of_Citizens_Acceptance_for_E-government_Services_Applying_the_UTAUT_Model.

Chatterton, T. (2011, December). An introduction to thinking about `energy behaviour': A multi-model approach. Retrieved from ResearchGate.com.

Davis, F. D. (1991). User acceptance of information technology: system characteristics, user perceptions and behavioural impacts. Int. J. Man - Machine Studies, 38, 475-487.

Encyclopedia.com. (2019). "new technology". Retrieved 09 06, 2019, from A Dictionary of Sociology: https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/new-technology.

Hanifi Murat Mutlu, A. D. (2017). UNIFIED THEORY OF ACCEPTANCE AND USE OF TECHNOLOGY: THE ADOPTION OF MOBILE MESSAGING APPLICATION. Retrieved 08 19, 2019, from Researchgate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317067606_Unified_theory_of_acceptance_and_use_of_technology_The_adoption_of_mobile_messaging_application/fulltext/59277aa9aca27295a800e922/Unified-theory-of-acceptance-and-use-of-technology-The-adoption-of-mobile.

Ilin, V., Ivetić, J., & Simić, D. (2017). Understanding the determinants of e-business adoption in ERP-enabled firms and non-ERP-enabled firms: A case study of the Western Balkan Peninsula. Technological Forecasting & Social Change(125), 206-223.

Isleem, M. I. (2003). RELATIONSHIPS OF SELECTED FACTORS AND THE LEVEL OF COMPUTER USE FOR INSTRUCTIONAL PURPOSES BY TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION TEACHERS IN OHIO PUBLIC SCHOOLS: A STATEWIDE SURVEY. Dissertation. The Ohio State University.

Koul, S., & Eydgahi, A. (2017). A systematic review of technology adoption frameworks and their applications. Journal of Technology Management & Innovation, 106-113.

Lai, P. (2017). THE LITERATURE REVIEW OF TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION MODELS AND THEORIES FOR THE NOVELTY TECHNOLOGY. JISTEM - Journal of Information Systems and Technology Management, 14(1), 21-38. doi: 10.4301/S1807-17752017000100002.

Lee, Y., Kozar, K., & Larsen, K. (2003, January). The Technology Acceptance Model: Past, Present, and Future. Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 12, 752-780. doi:DOI: 10.17705/1CAIS.01250.

Marangunić, N., & Granić, A. (2014). Technology acceptance model: a literature review from 1986 to 2013. Universal Access in the Information Society, 14(1), 81-95.

Maruping, L., Hilol, B., Viswanath, V., & Brown, S. A. (2016). Going Beyond Intention: Integrating Behavioral Expectation Into the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology. JOURNAL OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY. doi:10.1002/asi.23699.

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Rauniar, R., Rawski, G., Yang, J., & Johnson, B. (2013). Technology acceptance model (TAM) and social media usage: an empirical study on Facebook. Journal of Enterprise Information Management, 27(1), 6-30. doi:DOI 10.1108/JEIM-04-2012-0011.

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Preliminarna komunikacija i istraživanje
u serijama humanističke sociologije:
Modeli prihvaćanja novih tehnologija na radnom mjestu
kroz utjecaj komunikacije na ponašanje pojedinca

 

Sažetak

 

Novom tehnologijom naziva se bilo koji skup produktivnih tehnika koji nudi značajna poboljšanja. Ono što se vidi kao novo očito je podložno neprestanoj redefiniciji, budući da se događaju uzastopne promjene u razvoju tehnologije. Društveni i politički učinak novih tehnologija složen je i podložan razlikama u upravljačkim strategijama, otporu radnika i mnoštvom drugih kulturnih i političkih okolnosti. Korisničko usvajanje novih tehnologija i modela koji objašnjavaju njihova ponašanja je aktualan istraživački problem.

      

Utvrđivanje čimbenika koji utječu na prihvaćanje novih tehnologija razumijeva se razvojem modela prihvaćanja tehnologije i teorija s različitim teoretskim uvidima, varijablama i mjerenjima. Prepoznavanje potreba pojedinaca ujedno je i prepoznavanje čimbenika koji utječu na prihvaćanje ili odbijanje novih tehnologija. Istraživači danas mogu konceptualizirati modele prihvaćanja koji mogu utjecati na prethodne, trenutačne, ali i buduće primjene navedenih modela. Tijekom studije slučaja, 50 korisnika nove tehnologije u Hrvatskoj je ispitano za prednosti i mane te je zaključeno da će većina imati koristi od iste.

 

Key words: nove tehnologije, prihvaćanje tehnologije, modeli prihvaćanja tehnologije, društvena humanistika, komunikologija, interakcija čovjeka i računala.

 

 

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9(16)#8 2020

This journal is open access and this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

DOI 10.46640/imr.9.16.8 UDK 2-18:004.8 Pregledni članak Review article Primljeno: 17.02.2020.

 

 

Fulvio Šuran

Sveučilište Jurja Dobrile u Puli, Hrvatska
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Sloboda na rubu novih medija

Puni tekst: pdf (426 KB), Hrvatski, Str. 2579 - 2592

 

Sažetak

 

Nove tehnologije vode nas u umjetnu dimenziju stvarnosti u kojoj se svakodnevna objektivna i opipljiva realnost pretvara u nematerijalne entitete, u digitalne informacije. Medijska hipnoza favorizira tromost kritičke svijesti i etičke savjesti, dok prikazane slike pridonose strukturiranju takozvane “patologije normalnosti” koja, upravo zato što je široko rasprostranjena, ostaje nezapažena. Treba pojasniti da se ne radi samo o novim tehnologijama, već o novom modelu društva koji se uspostavlja i koji uključuje različite aspekte mišljenja, osjećaja i djelovanja čovjeka, preoblikovane djelatnošću novih medija. Pokušat će se stoga preispitati, za njihovu egzistencijalnu, društvenu i političku vrijednost neka posebno značajna područja ovdje obrađene poveznice (linka) jedne jedinstvene tematike: čovjeka.

 

Ključne riječi: svijet kao predodžba i smisao, duša, identitet, prostor/vrijeme, iskustvena dimenzija, pamćenje, pasivnost, informacija, masa vs masifikacije, kritičko mišljenje, građanska participacija, sloboda.

 

 

Uvod (uz Heraklita)

Već u 6. stoljeću p. n. e., dakle u samu zoru zapadne misli, Heraklit zvan 'mračni' smatrao je da je načelo koje iskazuje suštinu bitka neprestana i vječna promjena svega^[97], i to u vidu nevidljivog sklada prirode^[98] imanentno cjelini^[99] i u neprekidnoj napetosti svojih suprotnosti^[100] koje u suštini su jedno^[101]. A Logos, kozmički logos koji upravlja stvarima, razumno je načelo dostupno svim ljudima i pristupajući kojemu moguće je shvatiti stvarnost u svom jedinstvu.

No ima sve više 'spavača', rekao bi Heraklit, koji ne prepoznaju glas razuma i stoga se odriču kozmičkog logosa i žive kao ovce koje potrebuju nekoga da bi ih vodio za ruku^[102], a sve manje onih koji su dosegli stanje 'budnosti'^[103], što i jest prava suština ljudskosti^[104].

Dakle, u toj staroj priči: umrtvljeni intelekt većine ljudi, uključujući i mnoge (takozvane) mudrace^[105], stvarnost prepušta kratkovidnom pogledu 'carpe diem-a' većine^[106], kompromitirajući cjelovitu viziju toliko potrebnu razumijevanju dubine stvari. Cjelovitost koju se dostiže jedino posredstvom izvorne filozofske spoznaje, znanstveno neograničavane i neograničavajuće u posebnim i nepovezanim limitirajućim cjelinama^[107].

Danas je filozofija ponovo pozvana da daje svoj doprinos, da ‘ulovi’ prvotno načelo višestrukosti koje povremeno upravlja stvarnošću; da ljudima govori iz unutrašnjosti onog logosa koji je jedino sredstvo prikazivanja istine koja nije dostupna onima koji znaju mnoge stvari, specijaliziranim tehničarima, službenicima znanstveno-tehnološkog aparata čije im mnogoznanje omogućava da uspješno upravljaju tehnološkom opremom^[108], već onima koji znaju kako dobro upravljati razumom.

Stoga, više nego ikada prije, filozofsko razmatranje mora biti usmjereno na uviđanje imanentnog smisla stvarnosti u svojoj cjelini i to u kontekstu istraživanja koji sadržava osobine vječne životne misije, vraćajući se tako na ono prvobitno zvanje, toliko potrebno da bi se shvatilo suvremeni trenutak u kojemu se čovjek suočava s epohalnom prekretnicom koja ga utapa u kognitivnoj nezgrapnosti. To čini da čovjek ostaje zarobljen sigurnosnim granicama sveopćeg konzumerizma unutar kojeg nestaje svaki zaostali odjek značenja.

 

Homo technologicus i izvorna filozofija

Radi se o egzistencijalno važnom zadatku za filozofiju ako se ima u vidu da, u začeću trećeg tisućljeća, suvremeni čovjek ili homo technologicus, sve više iskazuje izuzetnu intelektualnu sljepoću naslijeđenu iz kulture dvadesetog stoljeća. Uz kulturno obzorje, koje sa svojim zadivljujućim znanstveno - tehnološkim napretkom, također – posredstvom redukcionističke metode koja dekontekstualizira, razdvaja i zatvara znanja u granicama paradoksalnih hiper - specijalizacija, prenio je i (nevjerojatnu) neosjetljivost za sveopće (globalne) i složene probleme^[109].

Neprimjerenost ovih tradicionalnih kognitivnih alata u potpunosti iskrsava pojavom kvalitativno novih fenomena koji su redizajnirali zemljovid ljudskog svijeta u obliku planetarne perspektive. Naime, novija računalna tehnologija otvorila je novi epistemološki horizont s čijim smo suočavanjem potpuno razoružani, a trenutna neadekvatnost, koja može čovjeka uvesti u vrtoglavost bez-smislenosti, može se samo eksponencijalno povećati, pod pritiskom ubrzanja promjena uvedena od novije tehnološke ere neograničenih mogućnosti ali i neograničenih strahova i tjeskoba.

Stoga zadržati novog čovjeka unutar zastarjelog konceptualnog okvira tehnološkog činovnika donekle odgovara istjerivanju strahova od nepoznatog ocjenjujući ih neprimjerenim parametrima utemeljenima na vrijednostima preuzetim iz referentne aksiomatike stvorene da bi se odgovorilo na pitanja drugačijih, prošlih konteksta.

No umjesto da se nastavi u toj koherentnoj tjeskobi, čije zadovoljavanje vodi čovjeka do halucinacija koje sam proizvodi dezorijentiran uporišnim točkama koje nemaju više nikakvu vrijednost ni u jednoj konceptualnoj mapi, nužno je naučiti preispitati ljudsko stanje. Naime, da bi se razumjela evolucijska stvarnost sadašnjice nužno je prepoznati pojavu nove paradigme, jer zadržati se na statičkim, krutim i kristaliziranim kognitivnim mapama poput onih koje škola i sveučilište i dalje predlažu, istoznačno je potpisivanju izbora vlastitog izumiranja. To nije suludo, već glupo, suviše glupo, dakle stupanj niže od nietzscheanskog 'ljudskog, odviše ljudskog'.

Dakle, ako taj 'vreli novi svijet' potrebuje jedno adekvatno razumijevanje, tada se filozofija kao 'spoznaja znanja'^[110] mora obvezati da ju i nudi, i to bez ikakvih distopijskih i utopijskih primjedbi, jer trenutno nije korisno 'odlučivati' kako bi se svijet trebao mijenjati, već shvatiti to novo stanje (stvari). Potrebno je dakle znati se postaviti u odnosu na nove egzistencijalne granice (u obliku sigurnosnih ograničenja), za što je potrebno shvatiti novi statut stvarnosti, a ne ogorčeno pokušati povratiti stari poredak stvari cenzurirajući bilo kakvo odstupanje. Zadatak filozofije je dakle obrazložiti novo poimanje stvari osmišljavajući, povraćajući i obrazlažući pojmove koje se nalaze u temelju ljudskog postojanja kao postajanje. A to i dalje odgovara na upit zašto, i samo zašto. Dakle ne više kako živjeti već zašto živjeti. Samo na taj način filozofija može 'zaraditi' onu "figuru novog intelektualnog carstva"^[111], i iz te povlasti krenuti u osvajanje prikladnijih kognitivnih kategorija.

 

Novi čovjek i smisao življenja

To znači da spoznaja ne smije biti tumačena kao shema, kao jamstvo (platonske transcendencije) da "postoji a priori oblik za uklanjanje neizvjesnosti", već kao "alat za generiranje najrelevantnije moguće spoznaje u odnosu na kontekst u kojem se predmet postavlja"^[112]. A to znači da mora dovesti i do nove i drugačije razine svjesnosti, jer se radi o znanju koje se neminovno mora poistovjetiti s činom značenja koji ljudskoj spoznaji, kao djelovanje, omogućuje da se automatski reorganizira u adekvatno učinkovite module i u domeni te nove stvarnosti koju čovjek redizajnira. To treba činiti kontekstualno pitanjima koja iz čovjeka kao dinamična stvarnost neprekidno proizlaze, zahtijevajući obnovu vlastitih kategorija, evoluirajući zajedno s kulturnim zahtjevima koje on sam određuje u svom životnom procesu, kao spoj rada i spoznaje koji se međusobno isprepliću u kružnom tijeku stvari.

Protivno, postoji rizik da čovjek (p)ostane zarobljenik vlastitih egzistencijalnih artikulacija, iako nestalih iz okvira stvarnosti. U toj perspektivi svaki se kognitivni napor konfigurira kao čin samo-oblikovanja i istovremeno restrukturiranja okolnog svijeta. Radi se o nečemu što se ne može više odgađati u digitalno doba čovjeka. Naime, ako se pokuša re-aktivirati refleksivnu praksu izvorne filozofije koja čovjeka čini čovjekom kao svjesnim bićem prakse, ono što će se tada filozofima prikazati, u tek započetom 21. stoljeću, bit će radikalno transformirana stvarnost.

 

Dobro došli u digitalno doba

Radi se o spoznaji da se nakon Gutenbergove galaksije ušlo u razdoblje digitalne galaksije što je bilo i neizbježno, s internetom kao tkanjem cjelokupnog ljudskog života.

Suvremeno informacijsko društvo novi je izazov koji poziva na dodatnu svijest, i to naročito onih koji pridržavajući se kategorija koje se otapaju u pokretnoj paradigmi ljudskog uma i dalje inzistiraju u ne-prepoznavanju onoga što svakodnevno doživljavaju i spoznajom i djelovanjem. Naime, iako je suvremeni čovjek uronjen u novu paradigmu, još vlada ona redukcionistička paradigma koju je uspostavila moderna znanost i koja je postepeno atrofirala svaku ljudsku naklonost kontekstualizaciji.

To znači da nas toliko spominjana suvremena globalizacija koja svijetom vlada od kraja dvadesetog stoljeća, hvata potpuno nespremne, a ponekad i neprijateljski naklonjene prema novim i složenijim kognitivnim ponašanjima. Razlog leži u tome da još nismo metabolizirali činjenicu da suvremeno čovječanstvo živi u kibernetskom prostoru, u virtualnom i interaktivnom okruženju karakteriziranom komunikacijom a ne teritorijalnošću. Radi se o okruženju dizajniranom uporabom računala, koja otvaraju i zatvaraju trenutne kontakte i brišu svaku prostorno - vremensku granicu da bi se dezorijentirano kretali u istodobnom suživotu svega i svačega, kao proizvod izbljeđivanja granica između vanjskog i unutarnjeg svijeta, što od suvremenog čovjeka zahtijeva da kao samo-refleksivno biće adekvatno obnovi arhitekturu svog uma. Naime, čovjek se danas nalazi u središtu velike kognitivne revolucije te je stoga pozvan osvijestiti svoje djelovanje i razmisliti o svojoj preobrazbi.

Važno je shvatiti da je globalizacija mreže proizvela jedinstvenu generaciju, koja se razlikuje od prethodne i koja se suočava s poteškoćama tranzicije, ne izostavljajući pritom i nadolazeću, tj. onu koja će nastaniti potpuno novi svijet i to u suživotu s roditeljima. Generacije su to koje otkrivaju digitalnu suštinu iz koje izvire nova logika stvarnosti. Sve je u tome da se nju razumije, a za to je itekako potrebna filozofija koja svemu tome mora dati i adekvatni smisao stvari. Naime, ako se čovjekova osobnost sastoji od projiciranja značenja, budući da se njegova suština izražava u sposobnosti organiziranja vlastite osjetilnosti oko smislenog svemira značenja, tada, da bi shvatili novije generacije u nastajanju, neminovno je govoriti i njihov jezik, jer će samo na taj način biti moguće shvatiti kako proizvode i crpe značenja.

Stoga neće biti teško uvidjeti da nova generacija ne prakticira linearnu logiku čija je namjena tražiti podatke koje treba potvrditi, već je usmjerena tkanju mreža znanja i u pronalaženju novih, efikasnijih odnosa. To znači da se za digitalnu generaciju, ili kako ih se još naziva 'nove barbare', promijenio prostor varijanti: neka vrsta (Vadim) Zelandovog digitalnog transurfinga^[113] u kojemu se nalazi smisao a to znači i sam način pristupa. Na taj način perspektiva složenosti postaje najprikladnija u suočavanju digitalne suštine, a upravo filozofska djelatnost, kao čista ljubav prema spoznaji, može pridonijeti da se čovjek distancira od samoga sebe, u trenutku kada zarobljen protokom procesa koji sam generira poput digitalizacije mozga, riskira zarobljavanje u mehanizmima pojednostavljenja koji mogu ugroziti i sam ljudski identitet.

Digitalna suština je ta koja danas ocrtava svijet, a da bi proučili njezinu arhitekturu kako bi bolje komunicirali s novim čovjekom koji tu bit iskazuje, potrebna je i nova pismenost, koja u tom dijaloškom procesu neće zanemarivati ljudsku potrebu da paralelno s digitalnom inteligencijom, razvija i digitalnu mudrost^[114].

 

Homo sapiens digitalis ili činovnik?

Nije više moguće sakriti se u apodiktičkim pojednostavljenjima i u apstraktnim definicijama i nasloniti se na stvarnost, znatiželjom onih koji neumorno uzimaju iz samog izvora smisla, ne egzorcirajući svaku dvoznačnost.

Drugim riječima, svjesno razmišljati o trenutnoj evoluciji stvarnosti znači uloviti se u koštac, suočiti se s tranzicijom koja od digitalne inteligencije vodi do digitalne mudrosti dekretirajući njezinu integraciju u samo-regulirani krug ljudskog života u vidu digitalnog homo sapiensa.

Međutim, da bi to učinili, potrebno je posjedovati „hrabrost filozofa^[115], hrabrost suočavanja sa složenom, kontradiktornom, neuhvatljivom i vječnom metamorfozom, ne skrivajući se iza neprekidnih pokušaja neumjerenih i preuranjenih pojednostavljenja“^[116].

To znači da (izvornim) filozofima preostaje suočavanje s ozbiljnim razmišljanjem o promjenama koje svjedočimo, sa sposobnošću razumijevanja koje se dostiže oslobađanjem uma od bilo kojih prethodnih pretpostavki i stajališta, tj. polazeći od širine izvornog filozofskog pogleda, koji je oduvijek najbolji (ako ne i jedini) tumač ljudskog poriva da se prodre u smisao stvari. U takvoj perspektivi, humanizirati digitalno znači i mudro ga upotrijebiti, svjestan da dinamika okrenuta napretku ljudske povijesti oduvijek ima (povlaštenu) pozornost filozofije.

Nešto slično nalazimo i u Platonovom razmatranju o važnosti pojave pisma - koji u Fedru, kroz Sokrata, prepričava mit o izumu pisanog slova kao najvećoj tehnološkoj inovaciji u komunikaciji^[117], što je moguće povezati s događajem poput eksplozije digitalne revolucije. Naime i jedno i drugo zahtijeva ozbiljno filozofsko razmišljanje o utjecaju u smislu značenja o kojemu filozofi prvi moraju razglabati, svjesni činjenice da sveopća 'invazija' tehnologije u okviru ljudskog postojanja, od komunikacije do informacija utječe i dalje će utjecati i na sam temelj ljudskosti, s obzirom na pojam reciprocitetne rekurzije između znanja i ljudskog djelovanja, fenomenološki izražena datošću života po sebi.

Uzimajući s toga u obzir ono što se s određenog gledišta može kvalificirati kao digitalno pojačanje kognitivne sfere, potrebno je da se ta evolucija na odgovarajući način provede i unutar sfere praktične mudrosti, s napomenom da digitalna mudrost ne podrazumijeva jednostavnu spretnost u uporabi digitalne tehnologije koja je po sebi logična i koja, kao takva, omogućuje široku lepezu tehnološke manipulacije, i to kako u pozitivne tako i u destruktivne svrhe. Ali, što je za mene još i gore, to čini u oblicima digitalne gluposti, i to od zanemarivanja citiranja izvora i sadržaja do svjesnog pokušaja nanošenja štete drugima. Ako je, međutim, valjano educirana, može se odnositi i na mogućnost donošenja etičko - moralno ispravnijih odluka: pristupom većoj količini podataka, na temelju dublje analize i sposobnosti formuliranja predviđanja i utvrđivanja prioriteta kao rezultata sinergije između ljudske inteligencije i digitalne simulacije, koja ostaje nedostupna ne-sinergističkom umu. Naime, osobina je idiotizma a ne mudrosti držati se imaginarnih sigurnosnih granica, ili prepustiti se nesvjesnoj struji događaja umjesto svjesnog zalaganja u njezinom upravljanju, uzimajući uvijek u obzir temeljne osobine ljudskosti.

Dozvoliti da se heraklitovsko - descartesovski 'COGITO' svodi na računanje, a time i prilagođavanje ljudske inteligencije inteligenciji računala kao funkcionalnom sustavu koji djeluje unutar znanstveno - tehnološkog aparata, neprihvatljivi je oblik redukcionizma upravo zato što su brojevi apstrakcija koja, zanemarujući pravi smisao velikog dijela informacija pojednostavljuju ljudsku složenost u korist kognitivne ekonomije. To znači da je dužnost (što ne znači i nužnost) izvornih filozofa ('ljudi filozofa') zauzeti poziciju aktivnog a ne pasivnog promatrača događaja (tu se misli na renesansno razdoblje a u moderno vrijeme na 1968. godinu), čega se većina suvremenih akademskih filozofa odrekla trijumfom znanstveno - tehnološkog aparata koji, kao evolucija moderne znanosti, za cilj ima osvajanje privilegije nekog univerzalnog stajališta, pa iz toga formulirati konačne i apsolutne istine o znanstveno oblikovanoj stvarnosti.

Naime, ponovno uvođenje gledišta aktivnog promatrača u kognitivnom kontekstu vidno doprinosi i odgovara oporavku kvalitete informacija, koje redukcionistička perspektiva izuzima u korist čisto kvantitativnih numeričkih kriterija budući da se kvaliteta može generirati samo dodatkom vrijednosti koje nastaju isključivo iz namjernog promatranja. Tu se dakle radi o promatranju usmjerenom na smisao onih ciljeva i interesa koji proizlaze iz samog čovjeka kao subjekta sposobnog smisleno misliti i djelovati.

Ponovnim uvođenjem ljudskog stajališta kao aktera svega ljudskog pa i znanja, povratilo bi se smisao kojeg je cenzura numeričkih formalizacija progutala ili raspršila među kvantitativnim parametrima. To je na neki način i povratak čovjeku kao artikuliranoj cjelini, nasuprot prevladavajućoj sposobnosti apstraktne matematičke misli.

Svojevremeno, već u jednom svom prethodnom članku Sumrak osobnog identiteta u suvremenom tehničkom razdoblju, naglasio sam da: „Zbog toga je unutar suvremenosti potrebno tražiti novo i, za vrijeme u kojem živimo, adekvatno značenje tradicionalnih pojmova kao što su individua ili pojedinac, subjekt, osobnost, masa, sloboda, komunikacija, psiha, tjelesnost, traženje smisla itd. Naime, u suvremenom etički relativističkom razdoblju njihovo je prijašnje poimanje neminovno postalo istrošeno i deplasirano, budući da se radi o takvim pojmovima koji su svoje izvorno značenje i adekvatni smisao nalazili unutar antropološkog obzorja života i djelovanja, a koji se danas sve više pokazuju neadekvatnima i nefunkcionalnima, jer im više nije moguće osigurati valjano značenje“^[118].

Naime, u scenariju koji se pred čovjekom neprestano otvara svjedočimo o uskrsnuću pojmova kao što su kozmos, priroda, čovjek, itd., smisleno odvojenih od redukcionističkog znanja znanstveno -tehnološkog aparata koje neminovno vodi do krajnje dezintegracije (čitaj specijalizacije) s iskorjenjivanjem i egzorciranjem njihovog pred - znanstvenog izvornog porijekla i osjećaja neutraliziranog kao izraza neprihvatljive složenosti. Naime, da bi bila tehnički učinkovita, racionalnost treba težiti koherenciji shema koje zauvijek zarobljavaju svaki osjećaj stvarima. Međutim, iako apstraktna misao uspijeva imobilizirati, ili točnije fotografirati pojedine dijelove života odvajajući ih iz konteksta cjeline, ne smije se zaboraviti da život i povijest nisu parmenidovski dane, već su heraklitovski dinamične u nastajanju i u nastavljanju svog toka.

 

Razmišljanja na marginama novih medija

Nove tehnologije nas sve više uranjaju u umjetnu dimenziju u kojoj se svakodnevna stvarnost prevodi, da tako kažemo, u netvarne cjeline, u netjelesne podatke, u digitalne informacije. Taj proces dematerijalizacije stvarnoga ima nevjerojatne posljedice na svim poljima kako djelovanja tako i znanja. Naime, to novo stanje stvari neminovno ne vodi samo do radikalne preobrazbe naše osjetljivosti, već i do globalne promjene svih vidova percepcije same stvarnosti u kojoj materijalni aspekti sve više blijede preobličujući se prema 'virtualnim' perspektivama, odnosno prema podređenosti strogo fizičkih aspekata procesima simbolizacije, kodifikacije i apstrakcije.

U zamršenim hodnicima različitih aspekata suvremenog ljudskog razmišljanja, osjećaja i ponašanja, na koje djelovanje novih medija imaju ne samo sve veći već i parodirajući utjecaj, željeli bi promisliti neka posebna područja, značajna zbog svoje životno - egzistencijalne, društvene i političke vrijednosti.

Iako se radi o međusobno povezanim 'područjima', odlučio sam, radi jasnoće samog izlaganja, zasebno ih navesti, kao posebne poveznice jedinstvene teme: čovjeka.

 

- Smisao: koje su sve posljedice pomanjkanja tjelesne i sadržajne povezanosti sa svijetom u korist virtualnog kontakta u telematskim mrežama?

Ako stvari izgube na dosljednosti, svijet postaje nestašan i sa svijetom naš identitet, jer sposobnost interakcije s virtualnim bićima mogla bi dovesti i do kolapsa u vidu psihičkog stanja stresa, a kako je dobro znano s psihološkog stajališta čovjek je prostorno - vremensko biće, to znači da između izviranja potrebe i njegova zadovoljenja, treba preći prostorno - vremenski put i određeno vrijeme da ga se ostvari.

Unutar te dimenzije tehnika je oduvijek pokušavala savladati pa čak i ukloniti čin ovisnosti posredovanja, vraćajući tako čovjeku neposrednost između potrebe i zadovoljstva. Problem tehnike je u tome da ne teži nikakvoj svrsi, ne otvara scenarije spasenja, ne otkriva istinu; smisao tehnike kao tehnike je taj da funkcionira. Njena je istina sadržana u djelotvornosti. Mora se to uvijek imati na umu: istaknuti razliku koja postoji između čovjeka - sa svojom spoznajom i svojim emocijama, nagonima, granicama - i stroja koji nije sličan čovjeku iako u mnogim područjima na djelotvoran način simulira i neke emocionalne aspekte, ali koji, u stvari, djeluje samo posredstvom puteva koji su logično-računalski i u cijelosti racionalni.

 

- Svijet kao (volja i) predodžba: Čovjek nikad nije nastanjivao svijet, pravi svijet, nego njegov opis. Uostalom, obrazovanje znači precizno opisivanje svijeta na određeni način: mediji koji šire značenje stvari i njihovu uporabu vrše obrazovnu djelatnost. U tom smislu, informacija nije izvještaj o činjenicama, već konstrukcija činjenica za… Međutim, poboljšanje slikovnog razmišljanja može umanjiti našu sposobnost praćenja apstraktnih razmišljanja. Ako nema prepravki, pogotovo ako ne razumijemo značenje nekih od tih iskustava, ova razina površnog kontakta sa svijetom dovodi u opasnost naše razumijevanje stvarnosti (Heraklitovog kozmičkog logosa). Osim toga, tehnološki razvoj omogućava sve rafiniranije načine predstavljanja stvarnosti, zbog čega, ako se čovjek oduvijek bavio fikcijom, danas imamo ne samo kvantitativni već i kvalitativni problem fikcije: telekomunikacije su naše okruženje koje na televiziji ali sve više i više i na Internetu pronalaze svoj najopsežniji i najcjelovitiji opis. To čini da činjenice svijeta koje predstavljaju korelat ljudskog iskustva gube svoje (pravo) značenje, jer ukoliko prenesene iz svakog mogućeg i nemogućeg mjesta na zemlji, gube onaj spoj značenja bez kojeg nije moguće sagledati to značenje budući da relevantnost činjenica ovisi o njihovom širenju. To će dovesti do toga da će se bitak neminovno morati mjeriti u pojavljivanju, točnije, na svom neograničenom umnožavanju. U svijetu koji je dostupan čovjeku, u ovom svijetu oblikovanom prema ljudskim namjerama, čovjek postepeno ali neminovno gubi vanjski svijet. Taj, čovjeku 'poznati' svijet, u toj je poznatosti lišen svoje prirode. Naime, baš je to 'poznavanje' ono što svijetu oduzima izvornost, njegovu prirodu, a svjetskim zbivanjima njihovu specifičnost, jer izlivena u medijsku predodžbu, svijetu oduzima njegovu vanjsku stvarnost da bi se, tako preobražen, ponovno pojavio kao predodžba svijeta, kao prikladan čovjeku, kao njegova intimna stvarnost.

 

- Duša: danas, nakon nestajanja individualnog iskustva svijeta, ljudska psiha samo reproducira onu predodžbenu verziju svijeta koju mediji pružaju podjednako svima. To neminovno čini da se sadržaj psihičkog života svakog subjekta podudara s uobičajenim predodžbama svijeta.

Tendencija tehnoloških društva je da se funkcionira kao sustav koji upravlja nekakvom unaprijed uspostavljenom harmonijom unutar koje svaka aktivnost sama po sebi prilagodba je vladajućim tehničkim postupcima koji je i omogućavaju. U praksi znanstveno - tehnološki aparat nema razloga da išta potiskuje budući da je moralni imperativ postao tehnički uvjet, te je razlika između idealnog i stvarnog svijeta stoga izblijedjela i nema više smisla.

 

- Identitet: lišen stabilnog (čvrstog, tradicionalnog) svijeta i obdaren neovisnim životom, čija je alternativa tehnički neprestano stvorena i rekreirana stvarnost gdje razlika između stvarnosti i virtualnosti postaje sve neprozirnija, neizvjesnija i problematičnija. Naime, unutar virtualnog svijeta ne postoji više povlašteno gledište s kojeg započinje znanje, subjekt se više ne obraća objektu, već postoji mnoštvo ravnina koje sijeku kako subjekt tako i objekt, secirajući svoj jedinstveni identitet u mnoštvu slojeva koji nisu drugo nego isto toliko objašnjivi registri heterogenih redova: fizioloških, semiotičkih, itd. i koji zbog toga rastvaraju početno jedinstvo u složeno artikuliranom mnoštvu usko isprepletenih sklopova koji nemaju više nikakve veze s tradicionalnom opozicijom između subjekta i objekta.

Naime, u nedostatku modela podataka, proces individualizacije vodi do širenja subjektivnih modela u međusobnom kontrastu i kontradikciji, u zanemarivanju njihove prisilne vrijednosti gdje je pojedincu dana, dodijeljena odgovornost za neuspjeh. Zato je danas potrebno izvršiti rastapanje takvih modela koji ne održavaju dugo vlastiti oblik.

 

- Prostor/vrijeme: ako urbanizacija modernog doba predstavlja upravljanje stvarnim zemljopisnim prostorom, telekomunikacije označuju urbanizaciju u realnom vremenu, odnosno ostvarenje virtualnog grada, svojevrsnog hiper - centra svijeta. Naime, mediji daju čovjeku privid da se istovremeno nalazi svuda i nigdje, što stvara lažni dojam da je 'stvarno' moguće upoznati svijet. Svijet koji je u 'stvarnosti' već nestao.

 

- Iskustvena dimenzija: funkcija izuzeća koju obavlja tehnika u novim se medijima proširuje i pročišćava nudeći mogućnost zamjene izravnog iskustva na potpuniji način, zamjenjujući ga s iskustvom koje su drugi već imali o tom događaju: neizravnim iskustvom. To čini da se suvremeni pojedinac nalazi izložen kvantitativno većem 'bogatstvu' iskustava, čija je osobina uglavnom neizravnost, jer je već podvrgnuta prosudbi, presuđivanju.

 

- Memorija: ne radi se samo o kognitivnoj funkciji pamćenja, već i o socio - tehničkoj činjenici, o biološkoj memoriji koja ima ograničenja. Naime, izum pisma uključivao je i proširenje i eksternalizaciju pamćenja, a s vremenom i njegovo podruštvljenje, jer pisana stvar više ne postoji samo u ljudskim refleksima, u tjelesnom djelovanju i činjenju, već je nešto što i drugi mogu konzultirati i ponovo upotrijebiti. Ta želja za besmrtnošću koja je povjerena tehnologiji, stvorila je besmrtni alter - ego. Točnije, besmrtnost ljudskih bića zamijenjena je besmrtnošću mrtvih stvari: „Ljudski rod tražeći virtualnu besmrtnost, tj. tehničku, i osiguravajući svoje ovjekovječivanje projicirajući ga u umjetne subjekte, gubi svoju ekskluzivnost specifičnosti, postajući besmrtan kao neljudski žanr^[119]“.

 

- Pasivnost: kada se govori o multimedijskim okruženjima treba to povezati i s pojmom interaktivnosti, ali upravo suština ovih okruženja je dvosmislenost; biti istodobno određena stvar i njena suprotnost. To je način na koji se interaktivnost izražava u pasivnost. Nasuprot aktivnog čitanja koje uključuje kritičke stavove i nove načine objektivizacije stvarnosti gdje se pisanje nudi prvenstveno kao sposobnost obrazovanja, funkcija televizije i interneta je da na brži i sveobuhvatni način prenosi već zgotovljene informacije, što čini čovjeka pasivnijim u rezoniranju jer informacije obuhvaćaju cijeli svijet.

 

- Informacija: neupitno je da prevladavanje informacija u suvremenom društvu sve manje povezuje čovjeka s fizičkim svijetom a to znači sa postojanjem, jer je uronjen u 'svojevrsnu' duhovnost svijeta.

 

- Masa vs masifikacija: pojava novih tehnologija sankcionirala je prijelaz s uobičajene mase, kao koncentracije mnogih pojedinaca u jednoj točki, na masifikaciju, što nije samo uobičajeni skup pojedinaca, već uključuje i kvalitetu svih tih pojedinaca^[120].

 

- Kulturna globalizacija: zahtijeva ozbiljno razmišljanje i budnost u vezi procesa koji su u tijeku, jer kulturna globalizacija znači hegemoniju određene kulture (one zapadne, točnije američke).

 

- Kritička misao: s obzirom da su svijest o razlici između stvarnosti i predodžbe, pa čak i razlika između ovih dviju stvarnosti smanjene, to je neminovno dovelo i do slabljenja kritičkog mišljenja, tako da je kritika koju upućujemo stvarnosti devitalizirana i nesposobna donijeti ikakve značajne promjene. (Naime, šezdesetosma je danas nemoguća). Nakon što je kritička misao nestala, multimedijskoj kulturi nije više potrebno da aktivira represivne alate, jer je već uvjetovala standardizaciju načina postojanja, želja i razmišljanja.

 

- Civilno sudjelovanje: radi se o zajedničkom iskustvu koje predstavlja temelj svih kultura i uvjet razmjene informacija unutar zajedničke simbolike. Radi se o aspektu antropoloških osobina koji je danas, medijskim djelovanjem gotovo suzbijen, a sudjelovanje u vidu kolektivnog monologa medija, pojačano kao misao većine. Doseglo se stanje koje čovjeka odvraća od čiste uloge gledatelja, jer mu pruža samo mogućnost konzumiranja pukih predodžbi, događaja u kojima je nemoguće aktivno sudjelovati. Došlo se do toga da je čak i društvena dezintegracija postala funkcionalna moći, jer neangažiranost i umijeće bijega koristi kao 'glavno oružje'.

 

- Sloboda: u vezi važnosti tog pojma u današnje vrijeme, Hanna Arendt je napisala: "čovjekova autonomija postala je tiranija mogućnosti". Naime, sveprisutno potrošačko društvo učinilo je da sloboda nije više izbor življenja i djelovanja koji vodi do individualizacije, već izbor da se održi otvorenu slobodu izabiranja s pretpostavkom da identiteti mogu biti zamjenjivi i, konstatirajući da izbor ne stvara razlike jer je sve zamjenljivo. Birati na kraju znači odabrati isto u iluziji različitog. Na taj način sloboda izbora gubi svoju bit, budući da svaki izbor kojeg je moguće opozvati ne podrazumijeva obveze i posljedice.

 

- In summa summarum: u svijetu mnogostrukih predodžbi koje nude mediji, društvo se doživljava kao ogroman i sveprisutni ekran u kojem je svijet osmišljen u liku slika čiji je cilj da privuku, očaravaju radi kontinuiranog potraživanja. Medijska hipnoza favorizira umrtvljenje kritičke a tako i etičke savjesti, dok važeći predodžbeni modeli doprinose strukturiranju 'patologije normalnosti' koja upravo zato što je široko rasprostranjena, prolazi ne samo nezapaženo već i 'normalizirajuće'. U tom se smislu demantira zatajivanje kojeg je tehnika postavila, kako bi nam nudila teoretski neograničenu količinu iskustava koja su ne-funkcionalna našim potrebama da iskusimo svijet radi njegovog shvaćanja i da bi se orijentirali u njemu.

S digitalnim tehnologijama izgleda da se (napokon) ostvaruje Platonov bijeg od osjetilnog prema inteligibilnom, u kojem bi iluzorno tijelo željelo djelovati kao stvarno tijelo ali ljudski mozak ne konstruira ta virtualna iskustva kao stvarna iskustva, te stoga nedostaje ono iskustvo življenja koje je ključno za planiranje i djelovanje u ljudskom okruženju i u među - odnošenju s drugima. U kulturi virtualnosti postoji dakle ambivalencija koju izvorni filozofi, 'ljudi filozofi' trebaju stalno imati na umu, da bi se izbjeglo bilo kakvo iskušenje jednostranog tumačenja.

 

- I na kraju, ponovno parafrazirajući Heraklita, može se reći da bitak koji je uronjen u postajanje mijenjajući ostaje. Naime, čovjek nema izbora: on je povijesno biće koji je oduvijek bačeno u evolucijsko strujno postajanje, koje obilježava razliku u životnoj priči pokazujući neobičnu sposobnost ubrzavanja promjena diktiranu svojim izuzetnim potencijalom preobrazbe. Svijest o ontološkoj neizvjesnosti ljudske prirode mora se neprestano njegovati izvornim filozofskim pogledom koji poput kompasa može i suvremenom čovjeku pomoći u trenucima veće dezorijentacije, u liku refleksivne savjesti koja se vraća jedinstvu već razvijenih kognitivnih postupaka, kvalificirajući čovjeka kao jedino biće svjesno postojanja svog identiteta u postajanju.

 

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Literatura:

Bauman, Zygmunt, Modernità liquida, Laterza, Roma - Bari 2002.

Ciurana, Emilio-Roger, Introduzione alla filosofia delle scienze umane e sociali, Le Lettere, Firenze 2011.

Galimberti, Umberto, Psiche e techne. L'uomo nell'età della tecnica, Feltrinelli, Milano 1999.

Heraklit, Fragmenti. Preuzeto od: https://www.academia.edu/33496689/TEKST_1_Heraklit_Fragmenti.

Longo, Giusppe, O. Homo technologicus, Ledizioni, Milano 2012.

Morin, Edgar, Il metodo 3. La conoscenza della conoscenza, Raffaello Cortina, Milano 2007.

Platone, Opere complete : volume terzo Parmenide, Filebo, Simposio, Fedro, Laterza, Roma - Bari 1971.

Šuran, Fulvio, Sumrak osobnog identiteta u suvremenom tehničkom razdoblju. // Filozofska istraživanja, 31 (4/2011) str. 775–785.

Zeland, Vadim, Transurfing 1- prostranstvo varijanti, Aruna, Beograd 2018.

 

Freedom at the Edge of New Media

 

Abstract

 

New technologies are taking us into an artificial dimension in which everyday reality is translated into immaterial entities, into digital information. Media hypnosis favors the torpor of critical and ethical conscience, while model images contribute to structuring the so - called “pathology of normality”, which, precisely because it is widely diffused, goes unnoticed. To clarify that it is not just about new technologies, but a new model of society, which is being established and that involves different aspects of thinking, feeling and acting human, transformed by the action of the new media. We will therefore try to examine some particularly significant areas for their existential, social and political value, treated here as many links of a single topic: man.

 

Key words: world as representation, meaning, soul, identity, space/time, experiential dimension, memory, passivity, information, mass vs massification, critical thinking, civil participation, freedom.

 

 

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9(16)#9 2020

This journal is open access and this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

DOI 10.46640/imr.9.16.9 UDK 316.772.5:111.32 Prethodno priopćenje Preliminary communication Primljeno: 14.02.2020.

 

 

Saša Marinović

Zagreb, Rudolfa Bićanića 22, Hrvatska
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Tijelo kao medij svijeta

Puni tekst: pdf (447 KB), Hrvatski, Str. 2593 - 2605

 

Sažetak

 

Pokušat ćemo povezati Merleau-Pontyjevo tumačenje tijela-subjekta s idejom medijalnosti. Tijelo tako postaje medijacijska osnova, kako ljudskog tijela spram ljudskog tijela, tako i ljudskog tijela i svijeta te ljudskog tijela i bitka. Unutar fenomenološkog polja mrežnog su-odnošenja odvija se tako korporalna intersubjektivna igra, klasičnim rječnikom rečeno čovjeka i prirode, u kojoj je čovjek konstituiran prirodom kao što je i priroda konstituirana čovjekom i sve to putem tehnike kao onoga što tek treba biti.

 

Ključne riječi: mediji, tijelo, tehnika, percepcija, bitak.

 

 

Uvod

Da tijelo komunicira s okolinom možda nije ništa novo. Čovjek se kao tijelo, kao um ili kao utjelovljena kognitivnost suodnosi s okolinom. Okolina je ili puki okoliš ili životna sredina, ali ona je nekakva percipirana stvarnost. No, od čega ili koga je percipirana stvarnost percipirana? Od strane svijesti koja je tek transcendentalno nekakvo Ja, Duh i slično, ili od stane svijesti koja to još nije, odnosno od strane nekakvog epifenomenalnog entiteta. Nastavljajući na to, kako je moguće da nešto tako predtjelesno kao što je transcendentalna svijest uopće dođe u mogućnost (a)percipirati tu nekakvu stvarnost ili što god se pod riječi stvarnost podrazumijeva, a da ju se (a)percipira?; kako je moguće da se nešto kao perceptivni aparat uopće nađe u tijelu kao što je ljudsko ili u materiji koja tek treba postati forma čovjeka?; jesmo li sigurni da ono što smo naviknuti percipirati uopće može biti doista percipirano?; može li se prvu i drugu formu percepcije dovoditi i u odnos i ako da, kako?; je li percipirano konstrukt ili struktura?; te naposljetku, je li opravdano razlikovati transcendentalnu od „imanentne“ percepcije i može li ih se tumačiti raznoliko kroz ono što se zove stratigrafsko vrijeme, a da ne zapadnemo u obmanu ili iluziju da percepcija i percipirano postoje kao već gotov subjekt naspram objekta?

Puno je pitanja, ali na svu sreću isto toliko je i odgovora. Ovo će biti jedan od tih odgovora, ali nikako onaj koji pretendira na istinu ili ispravnost. Dapače, da bi se filozofija razvijala kao vječno živa praksa ono što je nužno je greška, možda bolje – ideja/e. No, ne radi se o ideji po sebi, onoj Platonovoj Ideji, već o jednoj drugoj koju nećemo imenovati već radije kreirati ili konstituirati putem, kako Deleuze reče, koncepta, a riječ je dakako, o ravni imanencije.

Prirodna nam se čini činjenica da čovjek postoji kao biološko biće te ga već sama ta fantazma otvara konceptu biološkog horizonta u kojemu se on, kako kaže Vuk-Pavlović^[121], bio-logičkim kontinuitetom otvara spram vremena i u vremenu izvana, dakle vremenu linearnog prijenosa vrijednosti koje tek tu i tamo biva dezavuirano nekakvom aksiološkom inverzijom. Ako nam se dopusti, zvat ćemo ovo zadnje prirodnim vremenom, onim koje protječe za neke mimo nas, a za neke baš upravo zbog nas. Međutim, pored te biološke ravni ili horizonta, postoji i ono koje možemo nazvati tehničkim horizontom ili medijskim vremenom, ono koje se čovjeku otvara posredstvom tehno-medijskog aparata iznutra; ono vrijeme koje McLuhan naziva percepcijom otvorenog polja^[122] gdje čovjek doseže vrhunac predmetne diferencijacije i uranja u predmet sam, postajući i sam predmetom tehnike medija. Za razliku od one prve, ova potonja tvrdnja nam se i ne čini posve prirodnom što možda i jest dobra intuicija, ali budući da se nalazimo u vremenu u kojemu je akademski nedolično ako ne i pompozno imati intuicije, koncepte, fantazme, o tom-potom. To nas vrijeme otvara kaosu kaosa, dakle susrećemo se s barijerom da ostvarimo ono kontingentno konceptualno uranjanje u kaos o kojemu nam Deleuze i Guattari^[123] govore. Oni nas poučavaju o tome kako kaos predstavlja supstrat moguće samoizgradnje putem koncepta i ravni imanencije; prvo kao neponovljiva i kontingentna ontogeneza, a drugo kao zaziv onoga što tek treba na osobit način biti. U tom smislu vrijeme medija, tehno-znanstveno vrijeme, kontaminiralo je kaos, te nas je suptilnim fantazmagorijskim metodama izvrglo tehno-kozmosu zbivanja. U takvom kaosu kao tehno-kozmosu sam koncept nije ništa drugo nego tehno-znanstveni prospekt, a ljudi tek samo predmeti. Ovaj rad smjera tome da prikaže jednu od mogućih varijanti objašnjenja tehno-medijskog oblikovanja kvazi-subjekta, da ukaže na njegove zamke i da pokuša ponuditi drugačije mišljenje.

 

Medijski linearizam Marshala McLuhana

Smatramo kako je prema učenju Marshala McLuhana važno naglasiti tri bitne točke:

1. sadržaj svakog medija je uvijek neki drugi medij^[124]

2. „elektricitet ne centralizira, nego decentralizira“^[125]

3. otvoreno „polje“ kao tip percepcije svijesti^[126]

 

Prva točka kao prva tvrdnja otprije je poznata i prilično je jednostavna. Mediji osim što se razvijaju i postaju efikasniji u medijaliziranju puke informacije, sa svakom novom tehničkom progresijom označavaju i jedan novi društveni trend (što je fetišizacija tehničnosti medija) te postaju jednako tako atraktivni i protoku kapitala, njegovom bržem gibanju i translociranju. McLuhan to jezgrovito formulira: „Sadržaj pisma jest govor, baš kao što je pisana riječ sadržaj tiska, a tisak sadržaj telegrafa“^[127]. Dakle, ono što se mijenja jesu brzina i razmjer ljudskih odnosa, kao i uzroci tih dviju pojava koje unose promjene u ljudskim odnosima. Ljudi su prostorno postali bliži jedni dugima, a svijet je postao manji. Naglasak je na utjecaju određenog medija na čovjeka, subjekta, sebstvo, jednako kao i na zajednicu, društvo, vrstu, ali to se čini prilično izvanjskim. On nije time beznačajan, ali ne prodire dovoljno duboko. Njegova analiza ostaje na razini elementarnog shvaćanja riječi medium (lat. srednje, posredujuće, sredstvo) gdje se mediji shvaćaju evolutivno od prirodne forme do kulturne tehnike posredovanja informacija^[128]. Tijelo je u takvom odnosu stvari da je korisnik medija zarad povećanja efikasnosti jednostavnih tjelesnih performativa. Ono pasivno priliježe uz tehniku medija konzumirajući je tek usputno kao priručnost ili hedonistički kao ne odveć objašnjiv eksces. Tijelo je tek sadržaj nekog drugog kauzaliteta, onog koji za sama tijela još uvijek ne mari jer mu ona nisu primarni predmet razvoja, već samo uzgredno kroz tehničku produkciju. McLuhan naglašava da u trenutku kada bi, kako on kaže, električno doba (doba električne brzine, brzine svjetlosti, elektriciteta) moglo odudarati od linearno evolutivnog objašnjenja medija, ono to ipak ne čini iako je na pravom putu. Električno doba koje McLuhan naziva i točkom istodobnosti koja zamjenjuje slijed^[129], postaje doba strukture i konfiguracije, dakle vrijeme neprestanog oblikovanja. Svijet, subjekt i tijelo ovdje jesu i dalje stabilne kategorije koje koriste kulturni sadržaj na jedan sinkretičan način. Medij je i dalje sredstvo i to sredstvo polisemijske konzumacije kulture; implozija informacija i ekstaza (vizualnih) komunikacija^[130].

Prema tumačenju McLuhana, električni mediji povezuju svijet na jedan hedonističan način, način hedonizma slike, točnije, simbola. To potvrđuje i tvrdnja McLuhana kako „električna brzina miješa pretpovijesne kulture s talogom industrijskih prodavača, nepismenih s polupismenima i poslijepismenima^[131]. Povezano - nepovezan pasivni recipijent postaje čovjek u električno doba saturacije informacija u kojemu sadržaj postaje filmska forma kojom je čovjek zabavljan, a nikako informiran ili opismenjavan. Dakle, čovjek je spektakulariziran, pa čak djelomično i subjekt spektakla uništenja – rata, ali samo utoliko što subjektivira svoje tijelo u unaprijed zadanoj medijalnosti. Jedino što se stvarno žrtvuje jest tijelo, duh ne podnosi žrtvu, on je sasvim spokojan. Spokojan je u iluziji da se rat vrši za pravu stvar, jer duh je nazadan, a nazadnim ga čini koncept subjekta koji on nije. S druge strane tijelo je subjekt barem utoliko što je podjarmljeno, što trpi. Ono trpi žrtvu, pamti traumu i tim je ujedno jedini pravi subjekt uništenja kao dekonstrukcije labavog koncepta pred-postavljenosti subjekta.

 

Druga točka kao druga tvrdnja, „elektricitet ne centralizira, nego decentralizira“^[132], vrlo je važna točka McLuhanove pozicije. On ponovno uspostavlja tijelo kao točku komunikacije. Međutim, komunikacija je tu itekako dramaturška^[133], još uvijek ego-centrirana. Električni mediji potiču decentralizaciju koja pobuđuje tijelo na reakciju kao medij sadašnjosti, trenutnosti, neprestane aktualnosti. Ipak, ta istodobnost^[134] nije ona koja ukazuje na prostor-vremensko sažimanje koje bi tvorilo jedan novi način bivanja, jednu novu ontologiju. To je vrijeme u kojemu društveni trendovi bivaju atomizirani, a opet unificirani i homogeni. Günther Anders to opisuje ističući da tehnika „rasijava“, ona tijelo čini ovisnim o „zauzetosti“^[135] više nego o „zaposlenosti“. Prema Andersu potrebno je da tijelo bude neprestano u pokretu kao izvanjskoj suštini postojanja naspram one unutarnje koja nažalost iščezava. Inverzija suštine i dalje leži u izvanjskom faktoru, onom električnih medija.

Ovdje imamo točku ne-bivanja i točku bivanja. Tijelo kao objektivno prisutno i tijelo kao potencijalno prisutno. Scenarij jedne takve kolizije McLuhan je izrazio riječima: „Jedan od najčešćih uzroka prijeloma u nekom sustavu jest njegovo križanje s kakvim drugim sustavom, kao što je bio slučaj s tiskom i tiskarskim strojem na parni pogon, ili pak radijem i filmom (iz čega su nastali zvučni filmovi)“^[136]. Tijelo nije bez posljedica izišlo iz ove ponovne aktualizacije kao temeljnog medija jezika, ono je „reprogramirano“, poboljšano, ono je postalo tijelo 2.0. Biološki sustav je kolizija s električnim, ali i kako McLuhan govori, prijelomnica nekog sustava. Evolucija dolazi na mala vrata, ali GMO i kibernetika na velika. Okoliš kojemu je izvrgnut čovjek u elektroničko doba nije elementarna životna sredina koja je biološkom entitetu potrebna za izmjenu tvari, a ujedno je i estetizirani ambijent (Alpe, Plitvička jezera, Jadransko more, pšenična polja Slavonije…). Prema mišljenju Paula Virilioa okoliš je ono samonametnuto protetično. On smatra kako je urbanizacija vremena (shvaća ju kao čovjekovo sveopće potvrđivanje teletehnike) prije urbanizacija vlastitog tijela koje potpuno zdrav čovjek prepušta prototetičnostima poput tipkovnice, ekrana, kao rukavica ili odijela podataka^[137]. Virilio ovdje protezu shvaća kao samo-invalidiziranje, dok je proteza doista nadomjestak čovjekovog nedostatka, naime onog svesvjetskog doživljaja ili sve-svjesnog. Sve-svjesno ovdje uzimam kao mogućnost doživljaja onog što McLuhan uzima kao savjest društva; mi cijelo društvo na sebi nosimo kao svoju kožu. Percepcija se mijenja, ona suštinska, aristotelovski rečeno - supstancijalna, percepcijska promjena događa se kao prijelomnica. Svjetlost kao dimenzija potpunog vremena koja i posreduje a naposljetku i uvjetuje percepciju, predstavlja vječno sada koje puca pod težinom praznine, te vraća tijelo u agoniju vremena. Tijelo je u mogućnosti da ponovno postaje vremensko.

U filmu Planeta majmuna (Planet of the Apes, 1968.) fino je prikazana upravo ta bačenost tijela u vrijeme. Astronauti se zatiču na planetu na kojemu sebe smatraju vektorima napretka znanosti i tehnologije, no frapira ih prizor čovjeka koji je vrlo nisko na hijerarhiji živih bića. Naime, ono što su do tada smatrali majmunima, primordijalnim inačicama čovjeka, bića su koja su postala od ljudi ili su ono što su ljudi „nekoć“ bili. Dakle, de-evolucijsko označava kako je pad u vrijeme zapravo ponovno započinjanje čovjeka. Tehnologija kao vječno umjetna mehanika budućnosnog u čovjeku, slomila se pod obzorom kao vlastitom nemogućnošću ograničavanja. Ne-ograničenost jest bez-vremenskost koja „unazađuje“, a zapravo samo ponavlja obrasce „razvoja“, evolucije, napretka, itd. Kip slobode u spomenutom filmu predstavlja svjetlost kao dimenziju koja u jednom povijesnom sagledavanju (ako je takvo kod Virilia moguće), doista traje samo trenutak. Čovjek se ponavlja posredstvom dinamičke procedure tehnogeneze^[138].

Prema tako naizgled apokaliptičnom scenariju društva današnjice, Fromm je pokušao afirmirati koncept nade: 1. potrebno je cjelokupni sistem dovesti u vezu sa „sistemom čovjek“ gdje se identificiraju funkcionalni problemi (gospodarstvo i dobrobit ljudi) te, 2. osvijestiti sve veće ekonomske podjele na bogate i siromašne kao i razvitak civilizacije smrti^[139]. Ovo zadnje ogleda se u tendenciji živog čovjeka da ga ne bude, stoga čovjek, kao živo biće, tehnički napredak gotovo pa nesvjesno zaziva kao materijaliziranu smrt. Čovjek nestaje u orgazmičkom bunilu nekrofilne glorifikacije tehnike. No Fromm na umu ima samo tehniku u njenoj uzgrednosti, onu tehniku koja kako veli Heidegger, jest samo priručna (Zeug). Supstancijalna tehnika nikako ne smije biti ukinuta. Ona je elementarna čovjekovom biću, ali njegovo biće neprestano nastaje i to je ono što mnoge buni. Zauzimanje prostora i vremena, već spomenuto kod Andersa, može biti i zauzimanje nekakvog performativa, koliko god on prozaičan bio i stoga procesualna etapa transdukcije Bitka^[140]. Suština za Simondona ionako ne dolazi iznutra, već izvana na jedan procesualan način. Tijelo upravo tehničkom prisilom na mehaničke operacije stremi k tome da supstanciju, koja je ona supstancija „unutra“, duša, poprimi tek nakon dovoljno snažne inercije tijela koja će tu mikrodijalektiku moga tijela i moje slike tijela učiniti doista i mojom dušom tijela. „Bit“ tehničkog oslobađa se spontanošću tijela koja zacrtava razvoj „novoga.“

Decentralizacija preko narcističkog efekta nužno dovodi do egzistencijalističkog efekta. Dakle, „društvena svijest“ koja se oslobađa putem niza individualnih „obnažujućih“ oblika nesvjesnog, osobnog i privatnog, dovodi do grižnje savjesti. Na to McLuhan i upućuje u zaključku kada kaže kako „u električnom dobu, cijelo čovječanstvo nosimo na sebi kao svoju kožu.“^[141] Cijelo čovječanstvo je moje tijelo, ono je moja percepcija i kada govorim o klimatskim promjenama, globalnom zatopljenju, uništavanju Amazone, trovanju oceana…, ne govorim o pojedinačnom iskustvu konkretnog geografskog pojedinca ili zajednice, govorim o društvenom tijelu čovječanstva.

Tu se, McLuhanovim riječima, nazire hibrid dvaju medija, onog tijela i onog tehnike, kao masovnih medija ili interneta. Taj spoj je prema McLuhanu spoj istine i otkrivenja koji rađa novi oblik^[142]. Taj sukob, spoj, hibrid, kolizija medija drže nas iznad razine narcističkog dubokog mora, on je „trenutak slobode i oslobađanja od običnog zanosa i otupjelosti koje nameću našim osjetilima“^[143]. Prostor, ambijent, okoliš, životni prostor nije mistično nešto čime smo okruženi. To nije edenska iščezla geografija, toponimija rajskog života, nego je i čemer, i otužnost, i žrtva, i jad, i bijeda. Prostor je pun „začina života“, stoga McLuhan tako kritički govori o protivnicima reklamiziranog tiska^[144]. On je suptilna pojava uključujućeg, isprva samo kao eksploatator hedonističkog potencijala, a nakon zasićenja kao efikasnog medija propulzije medijskog kao tehnoevolucijskog, ali i proto-(a)političkoga potencijala koji se krije u mozaičkom posredovanju i doživljaju vijesti. Taj vrhunac sudjelovanja ali ne i angažiranosti vodi nas prema McLuhanovu pojmu reklame kao „oblika razonode zajednice, koji sam sebe likvidira“^[145]. Reklama je medij kolektivnog obmanjivanja, tip sudjelovanja koje je bijeg od turobnosti svakodnevice zarad hedonizma unutar virtualnosti. To znači da se slikovno iskustvo reklame, te mozaičnost, kako iskustava, sadržaja, tako i inkluzije, pokazuje kao izvanredna sposobnost utopističkog kolektiviziranja proto-(a)političkog potencijala.

Ako medij doista jest poruka, onda je važna poruka kojoj je ultimativni doseg priopćavanje tijela. Iako je električno doba doba u kojemu je živčani sustav baza produžetka, ciklus medijskosti završava na ljudskom tijelu. Medijska “eshatologija” ili možda cjelokupna tehnička eshatologija, ako ćemo tehničko ovdje uzeti kao medij u mekluanovskom smislu, završava na tijelu. Saturacija, redundantnost, gomila puke informacije prije ili kasnije vraća nas na tijelo. Bolje bi bilo reći, agoniju tijela, kao agoniju povijesnosti.

 

Treća točka, kao treća tvrdnja, tiče se upravo eshatološkog kod McLuhana. Ona se može iščitavati kao tumačenje koje medije shvaća kao svrhovite bez-svrhovitosti. Možda je to utjecaj tomističke filozofije na McLuhana, a možda je to trenutni doseg vremena koje u njegovoj misli ne može dalje od onog što njegova „logika“ medija nalaže. Naime, mediji su ekstaza neprestane informacije i to doista informacije kao informacije o nečemu što se događa sada, zbiva sada, nečega što jest sada. Sadašnjost i dalje, dakle, postoji kao polje informiranja subjekta. Otvoreno polje je polje zbivanja već gotovog svijeta i subjekta. Ono što čovjek jest, kako smo to već spomenuli, recepcijska je točka, dakle već uspostavljena struktura doživljaja, osjećanja, ako ne i već uspostavljena struktura djelovanja. To potvrđuje i McLuhan kada ističe da se iracionalnim i nelogičnim ponovno otkriva transakcija između čovjekovog ''ja'' i ''svijeta'', odnosno između subjekta i objekta^[146]. Međutim, McLuhan otvara novu temu ali ju nedovoljno eksplicira, pa čak i u knjizi Razumijevanje medija koja dolazi nakon Gutenbergove galaksije kada tvrdi da je pismenost, opet u jednom linearnom smislu shvaćanja, „od prosvjećenog pojedinca načinila zatvoreni sistem i postavila ambis između privida i stvarnosti kome je došao kraj s otkrićem kao što je tok svijesti“^[147].

U takvom kontekstu kako smatra Donna Haraway, kibernetika jest transgresija binarnih pozicija poput one temeljne – duh i tijelo. McLuhan transgresiju vidi u koncu linearnosti u vidu abecede ili euklidskog prostora^[148] ali u globalom smislu homeostaza se postiže tek nakon ponovnog iskustva kraha tijela, da bi se ponovno afirmirao u susljednom ciklusu nekog novog tehno-medija. Shvaćajući čovjeka kao neprestanog biološkog ponavljača, ne smije nam se potkrasti pogreška kako biologija znači egzistencijalističku dekadenciju. Biologija je pri samo bitkovnom padu najneposredniji doživljaj prirode od strane čovjeka. Ono što u tom ponavljanju ostaje najveći problem je – što ako se ponavljanje ne uspije ponoviti zbog „tehničkih“ razloga, naime, onih da biološkog supstrata čovjekova ponavljanja ne bude. Taj mogući izostanak Virilio uočava kada ekologiju optužuje za scijentističku enkapsuliranost^[149]. Ekologija je u potpunosti indiferentna spram psihološkog vremena. Pasivna optika^[150] doduše jest inertna s aspekta svoje percepcije, stoga ona zaziva aktivnu optiku koja ju predstavlja kao buduće, idealitetno, ali i dramatično i katastrofičko ja, upravo ono juvenilno Ja koje nastupa nakon postdramatske fuzije^[151] biološkog i tehnološkog sraza. No, to je zasada stvar ekološke etike ili etike životne sredine.

Na tragu McLuhanove sintagme tok svijesti jest Viriliov princip događajnosti. Viriliovo poimanje događaja ili događajnosti podrazumijeva i dalje subjekt. Upravo tu leži Virilijeva pogreška kada čovjeka smješta u kozmičko vrijeme, vrijeme neprestanog sada zahvaćenog u mreže svjetlosti, odnosno, u škripac „trećeg intervala“. Taj doticaj subjekta - bića s fotonom kao nosiocem ili bolje rečeno fenomenom neprestanog sadašnjeg, anulira ili biće/bitak ili vrijeme, budući da vrijeme, a onda i ono neprestano sada, zahtjeva nekakav koncept subjektivnosti. Ovo potonje destruira svaku opstojnost relativnog te nam ostaje zaključiti da se apsolutno vrijeme ne može shvatiti niti percipirati. Dakle, subjekt iščezava, što nas nagoni na pitanje može li se uopće doseći trenutak kozmičkog vremena ili se uspostavlja novi ciklus novog vremenskog intervala. Uspinjući se prema svjetlosti, po nužnost stvari vosak naših krila se topi i pero naše elacije opada, a čovjek ponovno pada u prostor-vrijeme.

 

Ambigvitet kao otvorenost tijela spram svijeta

Jedno od važnijih mjesta u filozofiji Mauricea Merelau-Pontyja jest pojam ambigviteta (ambiguïté). Tim pojmom Merleau-Ponty želi reći kako tijelo postoji na dva načina: fenomenalno i objektivno^[152]. Dakle, fenomenalnost tijela pojavljuje se kao istodobno i prisutno i neprisutno.^[153] Ono je prisutno jer već postoji prije same svijesti, ali neprisutno u smislu svog autentičnog bivanja u svijetu. Takvo bivanje je trenutak „izvornog jedinstva svijesti i svijeta“, tj. bitka koji nismo u mogućnosti konstituirati, ali iz kojeg se sve ostalo konstituira^[154]. Konstituiranje je to koje se ostvaruje putem intencionalnosti ili „operativne intencionalnosti“ kako ju imenuje Edmund Husserl. Operativna intencionalnost, za razliku od intencionalnog akta, jest „prirodno i predpredikativno iskustvo svijeta i našeg života“^[155]. Svijet i tijelo mogu se doista tumačiti kao odvojeni entiteti ako postoji samo jedno, a da istodobno ono drugo ili „ne postoji“ ili postoji na pasivan ili, u kontekstu medija, radikalno i banalno receptivan način. Mogli bismo ipak zaključiti da ono što se Merleau-Ponty pita jest, ako postoji samo jedan entitet, postoji li uopće bitak. Bitak je, dakle, uvijek dvosmislen (ambiguïté).

Jednostavno rečeno, Merleau-Ponty pokazuje kako tijelo i duša jesu jedno. Tijelo je permanentno prisutna stvarnost, stoga nije puki objekt naspram duše kako to tumači kartezijanski stav. Moje tijelo je moj susret sa svijetom i angažman u njemu. Tijelo i svijet postoje kao već konstituirani, ali tek u srazu tijela i svijeta kao angažmana tijela u tom svijetu započinje projekt tijela-subjekta. Projekt subjektiviranja tijela moguće je ostvariti jedino percepcijom samog svijeta koja je za Merleau-Pontya pred-prisutna stvarnost, ali ona koja je takva jedino u spoju s perspektivom te tako i s tijelom^[156].

Što se dade zaključiti u vrlo kratkom uvodu u Merleau-Pontyjevu filozofiju? Budući da tijelo i svijet jesu modaliteti jednog dvosmislenog bitka, to dvoje je istodobno fundament perspektive koja ako izostaje, uklanja i percepciju svijeta i tijelo. Prostor je već uvijek tu i jedino se u njemu odvijaju percepcija i perspektiva; jedino se u prostoru odvija shvaćanje svijeta i shvaćanje na određen i za onog koji percipira, određujući način. Perceptivno iskustvo je za Merleau-Pontya iskonski susret s bitkom, a bitak je sinonim za biti situiran^[157]. Ili, rečeno u kontekstu filozofije medija, „svaki je medij u svojoj povijesno-epohalnoj određenosti tjelesnom strukturom djelovanja istodobno spoznajni aparat i tjelesno situiranje u prostor-vremenu društvenih odnosa i kulturnog poretka značenja“^[158].

Biti u svijetu pa tako i u svijetu medija nikako ne može biti bez angažmana samo tijela ili samo svijesti. Prema Merleau-Pontyju tijelo, svijest i svijet jesu jedno, ali jedno na perspektivistički način. Taj način nije ništa drugo negoli vlastito oblikovanje u svijetu koji nam je dan jedino kao percepcija, ne kao recepcija. Ovo prvo (percepcija) bilo bi u filozofiji Merleau-Pontyja fenomenalno tijelo, a ovo drugo (recepcija) puko objektivno tijelo, tijelo koje u korporativno-tehničko medijaliziranom svijetu jest uvijek samo objekt. Dakle, u vremenu masovnih medija kao sinonima korporativnog kapitalizma tijelo se želi svesti na ono objektivno, puko biološko vođeno čistim hedonističkim nagonom ili okovano jarmom pukog preživljavanja u ambijentu neprestane proizvodnje. U tom smjeru i ide Husserlova kritika znanosti u djelu Kriza europskih znanosti i transcendentalna fenomenologija koju je Merleau-Ponty pozorno iščitavao. Objektivno tijelo važno je isključivo za znanost, a fenomenalno za nas same, iako su nam na kraju potrebna oba aspekta tijela ali i subjekta koji se njime bavi. Stoga se suvremene znanosti i bave isključivo onim refleksivnim i uvjetujućim aspektom čovjeka, naravno, zbog aplikacije učinkovitih praksi korporativnih proizvoda na same konzumente.

Novomedijski pad tijelo podstiče na dvojaku reakciju – ono je tlačeno sobom i drugim. Tijelo je podvrgnuto jarmu sebstva s ciljem ponovne samoafirmacije, ali i drugima s ciljem instrumentalizacije. Pad tijela je dakle pad slike tijela koja nije produktom tehnike samopostavljanja u interferenciju spram Drugog i drugog, već slike tijela/sebstva kako ju postavlja pragmatika kapitala ilustrirana slikom Kazimira Maljeviča Crni kvadrat na bijeloj podlozi^[159]. Medijalnost kao jedini medij današnjice i koji predstavlja perpetuiranje tijela/tehnike kao nosioca isključivo komercijalnog značenja, nužno mora rezultirati u padu tijela kao ponovne uspostave izvornosti života, naime, izvornosti povijesnosti tijela. Tijelo koje postaje virtualitet nije više tijelo povijesnog i kao takvo djelatnog bića. Ono se ne može odrediti kad jednom biva transponirano u virtualno i imaginarno, odnosno, kad i samo postane samoperpetuirajuća fantazma, odnosno fantazma prepetuiranja.

U tjelesnom angažmanu nazire se potreba čovjeka da familijarizira svijet, odnosno učini ga ambijentom primordijalnog shvaćanja prostornosti^[160]. Merleau-Pontyjev primordijalni prostor apliciran na objektivni okoliš može se povezati s plemenizmom; to je riječ koju u Razumijevanju medija McLuhan spominje na nekoliko mjesta. Ta poveznica se ogleda u „naviknutosti“ na prostor kao dokaz da moje tijelo nastanjuje prostor na egzistencijalan način. Prostor nije isključivo fizička datost ili geometrijski prostor. Medij je simbol tjelesnog koje želi biti planetarno, tijelo koje želi nadići skučeno plemensko i lokalno da bi u jednoj višoj instanci bilo globalno egzistencijalno tijelo. Informacijsko postaje egzistencijsko i egzistencijalno. Putem tijela su za Merleau-Pontyja moguće mnogostruke dimenzije svijeta percepcije. Tijelo je izvor simbola putem seksualnosti koja je otvorenost bitka tijela.

Otvorenost bitka tijela nužno se mora promatrati kroz medije kao produžetke, odnosno kao fantomske udove putem kojih smo trenutno u stanju osakaćenosti. Mediji čine da se „zaborav“ tijela ne odvije nužno kao gotovo i dovršeno zbivanje. „Amnezija“ jest reverzibilni proces ponovne uspostave tijela kao stožera svijeta. Međutim, nešto je uvijek izgubljeno, stoga je reaktualizacija tijela uvijek i rekonfiguracija. Ili je fantomski ud u pitanju ili je bionička ruka, ili premosnica ili sintetički neuron. Vraćanje je uvijek tjelesno, putem tijela ili k njemu, i uvijek uz žrtvu (tijelo pamti). Zaključak ove palingeneze je kako tijelo ili možemo izgubiti i time izgubiti jedan cijeli svijet, ili putem povratnog procesa svijet aktualizirati u tijelu kao iskustvu općeg u pojedinačnom. Stoga mediji nisu ništa drugo, nego – fantomi tijela.

Međutim, fantom nije nešto negativno. Postoji svojevrsna tehnika znaka koja omogućuje da čovjek putem svoje fantomske obrazine postane ono što jest. Osim fantomske konkretnosti, kao što je, npr., tetovaža na ljudskom tijelu^[161], imamo i fantomsku diskretnost u području virtualnog^[162]. Emotikon, kako tvrde Argyle i Shields^[163] pozivajući se na Lucea Irigaraya, odražava prisutnost tijela, a konkretno tijelo, tijelo nekog osobno, pronašlo je znak putem kojeg se može ekspresionirati. U jednoj mikro-dijalektici između konkretnog tijela i znaka (emotikona), tijelo se na paradoksalan način reafirmira u virtualnom da bi putem tehnike kao „priručnosti“ bitka samoga u njegovom samo-perpetuiranju doseglo temeljnu točku bivanja uopće.

Reafirmacija tijela, ne kao puko biološkog entiteta, već kao vječno prisutne mogućnosti životinjske, čovječje i prirodne neprestane otvorenosti, ono je što u jednom moralnom smislu treba ostati netaknutim. Stoga ekološka etika, primarno kao etika tijela, danas i jest bitna disciplina etike. To više nije ekološka etika kao etika okoliša ili etika životne sredine, već je to etika mogućnosti života, njegove permutacije, pluri-formativnosti, polisemije.

Točka singularnosti koja nužno ide uz pojam reafirmacije tijela, jest prisutnost Mnoštva (kulminacijske točke metamorfoze bitka) na kojoj točki individuacijska modalnost tijela postaje supstancijalna osnova svake individualizacije čovjeka i su-svijeta. Upravo uz ovu točku pristaje Deleuzeov pojam imanencije kao života^[164] koji označava kontingentnost bitka, odnosno mogućnost tijela kao percepcije da ponovno pokrene percepcijske prakse uspostave novog bitka svijeta. Kulminacijska točka metamorfoze predstavlja a-morfnost bitka, te na taj način petrificiranost postojanja koja tim više svoje postojanje izvrgava jačim silama inercije puknuća.

Da zaključimo, dvoznačnost ili ambigvitet nije isključivo percepcijske naravi, ona je i tjelesne naravi, odnosno, ona je tjelesna perceptivnost. Ukoliko tijelo uzmemo kao medij, a dvoznačnost kao temeljnu odrednicu medija, tada medij prethodi izvorniku^[165]. Tijelo jest svijet, a nije svijet tijelo, odnosno, dolazimo do Deleuzeovog koncepta postojanje/bivanje kada tijelo jest procesualnost koja čini temelje bitka, a ne bitak koji leži u osnovi procesualnosti tijela.

 

Zaključak

Svijet nije ništa drugo nego tehnogenetska budućnost, budućnost koja je kozmički moment „tehničke“ nagonskosti tijela čovjeka kao medija konstrukcije. Svijet jest ono što jest, a slijedeći Heideggera, Ništa jest vječna preokupacija metafizike. Stoga tijelo kao medij svijeta nije ništa drugo nego medij nečeg postajućeg, nečeg što ima biti, određena stvarnost koja to tek ima postati. Vuk-Pavlovićeva biologička nužnost određena kroz njegov pojam odgoja, odražava potrebu za razvojem otvorenosti spram vrijednosti. Međutim vrijednosti nisu neke određenosti, već ono što se putem odgoja mora neprestano otvarati spram svijeta pa tako i otvarati vrijednosti kao postojanosti. Potrebna je nova „vjera u svijet“ kako je to formulirao Deleuze u jednom intervjuu^[166].

Tijelo je prvo, zatim je tehnika, potom jezik te naposljetku govor. Tijelo je sjecište trijade tehnika - jezik - govor iz kojega izvire smisao svijeta ili svjetova. McLuhan jasno pokazuje metamorfozu tehnike u njenom priručnom potencijalu za čovjeka, međutim, izostaje onaj bitni moment metamorfoze samog bitka. Tehničko je kod McLuhana i dalje odvojena stvarnost od tijela, kao utjelovljene percepcije i nečega što tek treba razviti strukture po-sebnosti. Iako se takav scenarij nazire u onome što smo opisali u točki tri, kao trećoj tvrdnji, McLuhan nije dokučio razinu potpunog rastemeljenja subjekta koji je referentan do početka post-novovjekovlja. Premda McLuhana možemo bez puno oklijevanja uzeti kao filozofa medija, kao filozofa iconic turn-a, čini se da je on ipak filozof medija kao posredovanja, a ne medija ili tehnike kao nove ontologije ili nove metafizike. Medij se još uvijek u McLuhanovim razmatranjima ili razumijevanjima uzima kao objekt naspram tumačenja koje je subjektivno, te se njegovu poziciju razumije kao antropologiju medija^[167] u kojoj nema mjesta transmedijalnosti medija kao onog čime mediji danas uopće i jesu u centru filozofske pozornosti.

Začetke upravo takvog jednog rastemljenja nalazimo u misli Merleau-Pontya koji konceptom tijela-subjekta, odnosno tijela kao proto-individualne uronjenosti u unaprijed postojeću perceptivnost, koncepte novovjekovne konstitucije subjekta izvrgava vjetrometini samoprojektirajuće snage inkarnirane perceptivnosti. Tu će započetu misiju rastemljenja Deleuze dovesti do još značajnijeg nivoa, ali ostaje za vidjeti koju značajnu ulogu u takvom razvoju događaja za njega igra tijelo, budući da je tijelo za Merleau-Pontya jedina mogućnost ostvarivanja svijeta, dok je kod Deleuzea ono možda tek manjim dijelom bitan aspekt postojanja previše prepušten diktatu želje, a time i nečeg puko nagonskog. U svakom slučaju, Mereleau-Potyjevo tumačenja tijela kao ambigviteta ostavlja nas sveđ u mogućnosti tumačiti otvorenost Ja - projekta spram perspektive. Tijelo kao imanentna prisutnost u materijalnom smislu i tijelo kao imanentna transcendentnost sažeto je u tijelu kao percepciji. U takvoj konstelaciji tijelo je ujedno i tehnika i medij. Tehnika predstavlja potencijalnost/aktualnost onoga što može biti/jest, a medij ono procesualno realizacije. Medij i tehnika neprestana su otvorenost jednog spram drugog. U toj otvorenosti tijelo ne može bez žrtve, tijelo je žrtveni jarac, a tehnika (glas, riječ, tisak, mediji…) otpor, kontrapunkt pukom karnalnom koje, iako iznova pokazuje pad tijela, istom uvijek daje ponovnu razinu dostojanstva.

 

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Literatura:

Anders, Günther, Svijet kao fantom i matrica. Filozofska razmišljanja o radiju i televiziji, Europski glasnik, 10 (10/2005), str. 215.

Deleuze, Gilles i Guattari, Felix, Što je filozofija, Sandor, Zagreb 2017.

Fromm, Erich, Revolucija nade, Grafos, Beograd 1978.

Gojković, Boro, Dvosmisleni Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Svjetlost, Sarajevo 1979.

Habermas, Jürgen, Tumačenja uz pojam komunikacijskog djelovanja u: Katunarić, Vjeran (ur.), Teorija društva u Frankfurtskoj školi, Naprijed, Zagreb 1990., str. 593-619.

Katunarić, Dražen (ur.), Carstvo medija, Litteris, Zagreb 2012.

Kermode, Frank, Između dve galaksije, u: Đorđević, Slobodan (ur.), Makluanova galaksija, Biblioteka XX vek, Prosveta, Beograd 1982., str. 131-139.

McLuhan, Marshall, Gutenbergova galaksija, Nolit, Beograd 1973.

McLuhan, Marshall, Razumijevanje medija, Golden marketing, Zagreb 2008.

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, Fenomenologija percepcije, Veselin Masleša, Sarajevo 1990.

Okić, Tijana, Maurice Merleau-Ponty: Problem tijela u fenomenologiji percepcije, Sophos, ZINK, FFSA, Sarajevo, 11 (2011), str. 48.

Paić, Žarko, Tehnosfera II, Mizantrop, Zagreb 2018.

Shilds, Rob (ur.), Kulture interneta, Jesenski i Turk, Zagreb 2001.

Virilio, Paul, Brzina oslobađanja, Biblioteka Psefizma, Karlovac 1999.

Vuk-Pavlović, Pavao, Filozofija odgoja, Hrvatska sveučilišna naklada, Zagreb 1996.

 

Body as a Media of the World

 

Abstract

 

We will try to link Merleau-Ponty’s interpretation of the body-subject with the idea of mediation. The body thus becomes the mediating part of the human body towards the human body, human body and the world, and also human body and the Being. Within the phenomenological field of network interaction there is a corporate intersubjective game, usually speaking, between the man and the nature, in which man is constituted by nature as nature is constituted by man, and all this through technique as something that is yet to be.

 

Key words: media, body, technique, perception, being.

 

 

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9(16)#10 2020

This journal is open access and this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

DOI 10.46640/imr.9.16.10 UDK 621.397.13:28-183.5 Pregledni članak Review article Primljeno: 23.12.2019.

 

 

Daniela Blaževska

Univerzitet „Sv. Kiril i Metodij“ u Skoplju
Pravni fakultet „Justinijan Prvi“ u Skoplju, Sjeverna Makedonija
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Televizija i ljudska duša

Puni tekst: pdf (448 KB), Hrvatski, Str. 2607 - 2616

 

Sažetak

 

“Kakva je korist čovjeku ako sav svijet zadobije a duši svojoj naudi? Ili kakav će otkup dati čovjek za dušu svoju?”^[168]

      

Cilj ljudskog života je spasenje duše. Čovjek mora čuvati svoju dušu od štetnih prizora. Cilj ovog rada je istražiti kako televizija kao masovni medij utječe na ljudsku dušu, pri čemu autorica analizira utjecaj televizije na um, želju i volju čovjeka koji je izložen medijskim sadržajima. U radu se izvode zaključci o negativnim efektima televizije na ljudsku dušu te se preporuča selektivna i što kraća izloženost televizijskim programima.

 

Ključne riječi: televizija, ljudska duša, masovni medij.

 

 

1. Uvod

U Svetom pismu su zapisane Isusove riječi: “Kakva je korist čovjeku ako sav svijet zadobije a duši svojoj naudi? Ili kakav će otkup dati čovjek za dušu svoju?”^[169]

Cilj ljudskog života je spasenje duše. Čovjek mora čuvati svoju dušu od štetnih prizora. Masovni mediji napadaju ljudsku dušu sa svih strana. Televizija je audiovizuelni medij, proizvod 20. stoljeća.

Cilj ovog rada je istražiti kako televizija kao masovni medij utječe na dušu čovjeka koji je izložen medijskim sadržajima. Postavljaju se tri istraživačka pitanja na koja trebamo dati odgovore:

1. Što je televizija?

2. Što je ljudska duša?

3. Kakav je utjecaj televizije na ljudsku dušu?

 

2. Televizija

Iz etimološkog ugla, riječ televizija znači: gledati na daljinu. Ova riječ je grčko-latinskog porijekla. “Tele” na grčkom znači: daleko, na daljini^[170]. “Visio” na latinskom znači: gledanje (gledati)^[171]. Ova riječ potječe od glagola “video”^[172], koji na latinskom znači: gledati, primjećivati^[173].

U Suvremenom leksikonu stranih reči i izraza Ljube Mićunovića televizija se definira kao “predavanje i primanje pokretnih slika iz daljine pomoću električnih metoda za vezu, koje se zasnivaju na rastvaranju slika na veliki broj posebnih svjetlosnih elemenata, „točaka“, odnosno signala, koji se kad dodirnu TV prijemnik pretvaraju u slike”^[174].

John Fiske^[175] televiziju definira kao “izazivača značenja i zadovoljstva”, kao “kulturnog agenta“, posebno kao „izazivača i cirkulatora značenja”.

Fiske misli da “televizija i njeni programi ne vrše utjecaj na ljude”^[176] te da su “gledaoci i televizija u interakciji”^[177]. U knjizi “Televizijska kultura” govori o televizijskoj “efektivnosti”^[178]. On smatra da: “Televizija ne ‘izaziva’ efekte koji se mogu identificirati kod pojedinaca, ali ipak djeluje tako da ideološki promovira i preferira određena značenja svijeta, da cirkulira određena značenja radije nego druga, i da služi jednim društvenim interesima bolje nego drugima”^[179].

S druge strane, Marie Winn u knjizi “Priključak na drogu” (“The Plug-in Drug“)^[180], sumirala je različita strahovanja koja se odnose na televiziju Glavni zaključak je da televizija može izazvati ovisnost i biti štetna za one koji je gledaju.^[181]

Najčešće optužbe su da televizija podstiče eskapizam, pasivnost i ovisnost s jedne strane, a nasilje i delikvenciju s druge^[182]. Paul F. Lazarsfeld i Robert K. Merton otkrili su sljedeće disfunkcije masovnih medija: dodjeljivanje i potvrđivanje statusa, potvrđivanje i nametanje društvenih normi i narkotizirajuću disfunkciju^[183].

Dosadašnja istraživanja pokazuju da televizija ima uglavnom negativni efekt na gledaoce. Teorije o televizijskom nasilju nude “silnu podršku vezi gledanje - agresija”^[184]. Američka istraživačica medija Aletta. C. Huston^[185] zaključila je da “akumulirana istraživanja jasno demonstriraju korelaciju između nasilja i agresivnog ponašanja” i da se pritom gledaoci koji provode više vremena ispred televizora ponašaju agresivnije nego oni koji su manje izloženi medijskim sadržajima^[186]. Ona sumira obje eksperimentalne i longitudinalne studije koje podržavaju hipotezu da je gledanje nasilja kauzalno povezano sa agresijom. Eksperimenti s djecom preškolskog uzrasta i adolescentima pokazali su prisutnost povišene agresije između gledaoca koji su dobili zadatak da pod određenim uvjetima gledaju nasilnu televizijsku emisiju ili film^[187].

Jedna od najstarijih teorija koja se bavi medijima, teorija katarze, koja tvrdi da gledanje nasilnih sadržaja i agresije na televiziji djeluje „pročišćavajuće“ na negativne osjećaje gledaoca, bila je odbačena od većine znanstvenika. Nakon analize znanstvene evidencije, Scott Andison^[188] je zaključio da televizija stimulira veću agresiju kod pojedinaca. Pokazalo se razumnim prihvatiti teoriju da je televizijsko nasilje stimulans za agresiju a odbaciti teoriju katarze^[189].

Joseph Klapper je godine 1972., u Kongresu SAD rekao da je nesvjestan čvrstih dokaza da gledanje nasilja na televiziji ili na nekom drugom mediju djeluje katarzično ili uzvišeno^[190].

Neki autori misle da televizija izaziva loše navike slušanja. Sheila Bentley, američka konzultantkinja za komunikacije, objašnjava da kada čovjek gleda televiziju, sluša na način koji od njega ne zahtijeva da išta zadrži i ne suprotstavlja mu se ako napusti sobu. U prilog ove teze navedene su činjenice da je televizijski program često prekidan reklamama i da ljudi provode i po šest sati dnevno prakticirajući takav način gledanja^[191] . Joseph Turow^[192] navodi da su u slučaju televizije studije pokazale da ”ljudi ne sjede mirno hipnotizirani svjetlom ekrana, oni se kreću, rade razne stvari i razgovaraju s porodicom i prijateljima”^[193]. Istraživači “korištenja i zadovoljenja” masovnih medija smatraju da je publika aktivna, “da pojedinci nisu samo pasivni primatelji poruka”^[194].

Arhimandrit Rafail Karelin^[195] smatra da televizija:

 

 

U svom kritičkom osvrtu o televiziji arhimandrit Rafail Karelin objašnjava da je televizija stvorila novu vrstu čovjeka kojeg naziva homo medium, „čovjeka sa živčanim sistemom istrošenim od neprekidnog gledanja kao od stalnog pijanstva, čovjeka u duševnom rasulu koji ne može odrediti granicu i postaviti filter vanjskoj informaciji i usvaja je, tako reći, u sirovom obliku – nekritički, samo prostim mehaničkim pamćenjem”^[197].

 

3. Ljudska duša

Čovjek je sastavljen od tijela, duše i duha. Bog je stvorio dušu^[198]. Duh je “oko duše”^[199]. O postojanju ljudske duše svjedoče Sveto pismo i Sveti oci.

Prvi čovjek Adam je duša živa. U Knjizi Postanka Svetog pisma zapisano je: “A stvori Gospod Bog čoveka od praha zemaljskoga, i dunu mu u nos duh životni; i posta čovek duša živa“^[200].

Sveti Isak Sirijski^[201] tumači da se u Svetom pismu “ne pravi strogo razlikovanje između onoga što je svojstveno duši i onoga što je svojstveno telu”^[202].

Ako dušu razmatramo iz kuta borbe protiv strasti, Sveti oci svjedoče da duša ima tri sile: um, želju i volju^[203]) ili misleni, željni i afektivni dio^[204] .

Sveti Ignjatije Brjančaninov^[205] navodi da “Shimonah Vasilije, pozivajući se na Svetog Teofilakta i druge oce, tvrdi da su tri sile duše – slovesna sila, sila revnosti i sila želje, u srcu raspoređene ovako: u prsima i u gornjem dijelu srca prisutna je slovesna sila; u sredini – sila revnosti; a u donjem dijelu – sila želje, ili prirodna požuda“.

Sveti Makarije Veliki otkriva da duša kao i anđeli ima svoj lik i izgled, a to je “lik i izgled spoljašnjeg čoveka u njegovom telu”^[206]. Duše su “fina, eterična tela”, “na oči, uši, ruke i noge duše odeveni su odgovarajući udovi tela”^[207].

Ljudska duša je uglavnom nevidljiva za ljudsko oko. Sveti Makarije Veliki otkriva da “najsavršeniji hrišćani, očišćeni i prosvećeni Duhom Svetim, vide lik duše, ali takvo savršenstvo i viđenje dostižu samo retki među svetima”^[208].

Sveti Isak Siriјski^[209] objašnjava da prirodno stanje duše jest “viđenje božanskih tvari, čulnih i mislenih”^[210]. Natprirodno stanje jest “podsticaj ka sozercanju^[211] nadsuštnoga Božanstva”, a protuprirodno stanje“ kretanje duše onih [ljudi] koji su pometeni strastima”^[212]. Duša je po prirodi smrtna, a po blagodati besmrtna^[213]. Ljudska duša umire kada ne živi po Bogu i u sebi nema energiju Duha Svetoga^[214].

 

4. Utjecaj televizije na ljudsku dušu

“Čovek je slovesno biće i misli posredstvom reči. Televizija koristi zvuk i sliku i uči čoveka da misli u slikama“^[215].

Za ljudsku dušu posebno su štetne televizijske serije, filmovi, crtani filmovi, reklame, koji stvaraju nerealan televizijski svijet, u kojeg uvlače čovjeka koji na taj način bježi iz realnog svijeta i gubi svoje dragoceno vrijeme. Umjesto da se posveti dušokorisnim, duhovnokorisnim i bogougodnim poslovima, čovjek provodi vrijeme ispred televizora kao opčinjen. Vrijeme ne prolazi, već je nepovratno izgubljeno i šteta koja je duši nanesena ne može se izmjeriti. Pritom postoje dva brojenja vremena: vanjsko ili kalendarsko, i unutrašnje vrijeme svakog čovjeka koje mogu trošiti te njegove strasti^[216]. Sinhronizacije televizijskih serija i ljudski glasovi crtanih likova kreiraju dvostruko lažni svijet.

Medijska stvarnost ne postoji zato što je TV aparat jedina stvar koju čovjek može dodirnuti, jedina materija s kojom može ostvariti taktilnu komunikaciju. Također, ova “stvarnost” ne može se nazvati stvarnošću zato što nije realna već irealna, nije istinita već lažna, ali ona jest stvarnost za ljude koji učestvuju u stvaranju medijskih sadržaja i njihovim dušama nanosi veću štetu. Konzument medijskih sadržaja sam stvara stvarnost od onoga što je posredovano medijima. Za njega je stvarnost to što sjedi ispred televizora i ono što gleda, čuje, opaža. On konstruira svoju stvarnost od bezbroj slika i utisaka koji se urezuju u njegovu dušu i ne može ih se lako osloboditi čak i kad bi htio.

Televizor je domove pretvorio u kazališta, kina, kavane. Čovjekova potreba za informiranjem ugušila se u poplavi lažnih i štetnih medijskih sadržaja. Informativna i obrazovna funkcija televizije je svedena na minimum. Čovjek koji provodi više vremena ispred televizora gleda i ono što ne bi htio vidjeti, sluša i ono što ne bi htio čuti. Televizija potiče fantaziju kojoj možemo pristupiti kritički. Sveti oci uče da je fantazija (uobrazilja) „prirodna energija ili moć duše” i „da se aktivirala u čoveku posle Grehopada i njome su počele da gospodare lažne slike i ideje, što je potom počelo da stvara ozbiljne probleme ljudskoj duši”^[217]. Mitroplolit Jerotej Vlahos^[218] fantaziju uspoređuje s televizorom „koji može da emituje televizijsku sliku, ali ne može sam da stvara sliku”^[219]. Izloženi audiovizuelnim sadržajima, gledaoci mogu misli i pomisli, osjećaje, potrebe, želje koje pripadaju nekom drugom prihvatiti kao svoje. Čak i gledaoci koji imaju određeno teoretsko znanje o funkcioniranju masovnih medija ne mogu izbjeći negativne efekte audiovizuelnih sadržaja koje gledaju. Televizijski sadržaji mogu kod gledaoca izazvati zaista loše pomisli. Misli su „razumski predlozi”, dok su pomisli „razumski predlozi koji su smešani sa odgovarajućim slikama (predstavama) i podsticajima što u um dolaze kroz gledanje i slušanje, ili i kroz jedno i kroz drugo”^[220]. Pomisli su „slike i podsticaji, koje utelovljuju određene poruke”.^[221] Čovek se mora boriti protiv loših misli i njegovati dobre. Od izvanredne važnosti je da čovek čuva svoj um, zato što ako prihvati samo jednu lošu misao, može svojoj duši izazvati enormnu štetu. Odmah čim uključi televizor čovjek je izložen određenim sadržajima čak i kad to ne želi. Na primjer, dok gleda neku obrazovnu ili dječju emisiju izložen je porukama reklamnog bloka ili dok mijenja kanale može vidjeti i čuti štetne prizore.

Možemo da zaključiti da televizija vrši negativan utjecaj na tri sile ljudske duše na sljedeći način:

1. Na razumski dio duše televizija utječe tako što smanjuje intelektualnu moć, iscrpljuje nervni sistem, pomračuje moć rasuđivanja.
2. Na želje televizija utječe tako što povećava nerazumne želje i potrebe izazivajući različita iskušenja kod gledatelja.
3. Na volju utječe tako što ju slabi izazivajući apatiju i hipnozu, a na afektivni dio duše televizija utječe tako da izaziva ljutnju, zlobu, bijes, agresiju, podstiče nasilje.

Pritom na sve tri sile duše utječe istovremeno. Kao što je zapisao arhimandrit Rafail Karelin, pod utjecajem televizijskih sadržaja duša postaje «razmaženo mlitava, čulna i histerična”^[222].

Ljudska manifestacija dužeg utjecaja televizije može biti različita u različitim vremenima, u ovisnosti od strasti koja dominira čovjekom u tom vremenu i tipu medijskih sadržaja kojima je izložen.

Religiozni ljudi gledaju na televiziju kao na «neprijatelja^[223] i zlo”^[224]. Sveti Nil Sinajski je rekao da “svako tko gleda na zlo bez gađenja, uskoro će početi da gleda sa zadovoljstvom”^[225].

Televizija je hipnotizer i veoma sugestivna, tako da ono što na početku izgleda odbojno i uznemiravajuće, kasnije može postati privlačno ako gledalac nastavi primati te poruke. Zato štetne slike i zvukove treba izbjegavati, jer ako čovjek s njima započne konverzaciju, duša ne može ostati neoštećena. Čak i nešto što izgleda dobro ima negativan utjecaj na ljudsku dušu a da recipienti i ne moraju toga biti svjesni. Televizija krije opasnosti i za medijske djeatnike koji se bave novinarskim poslom. Stalno u trci s događajima, pod stresom obavljanja zadatka prije krajnjeg roka, u stalnoj žurbi da pripreme prilog ili emisuju za uho i oko gledaoca, novinari sami sebi postaju neprijateljima.

Ljudskoj duši je više potrebna molitva, a manje televizija. Više joj je potrebno gledanje u visinu nego na daljinu. Više joj je potrebno gledanje u sebe nego izvan sebe.

 

5. Zaključak

Televizija ima negativan uticaj na tri sile ljudske duše: um, želju i volju. Ona hipnotizira, smanjuje intelektualnu moć, izaziva iskušenja, ohrabruje želje, stvara potrebe, slabi volju i izaziva apatiju.

Čak i ono što ponekad ljudima izgleda dobro (na primjer crtani filmovi koji razvijaju imaginaciju), ima negativan efekt na ljudsku dušu, čega recipienti ne moraju biti svjesni. Isto tako, ono što na početku izgleda odbojno i uznemiravajuće za gledaoce, kasnije može postati privlačno ako nastave primati isti medijski sadržaj. Čak i gledaoci koji imaju teorijsko znanje o funkcioniranju televizije kao masovnog medija ne mogu izbjeći negativni efekt audiovizuelnih sadržaja koje gledaju. Televizija putem svojih sadržaja zaista može izazvati loše pomisli kod gledatelja. Čovjek se mora boriti protiv loših pomisli i njegovati dobre misli. Izuzetno je važno za čovjeka da ogradi svoj um, jer ako prihvati samo jednu lošu pomisao, može izazvati veliku štetu svojoj duši. Zato ako želi sačuvati svoju dušu, preporuka je - što kraća i selektivna izloženost televizijskim sadržajima.

 

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Television and Human Soul

 

Abstract

 

“What is the benefit of the human if he obtains the whole world and damage the soul? Or what kind of ransom will give the man for his soul?” (Mt 16, 26, Mk 8, 36-37).

      

The goal of the human life is the salvation of the soul. The human must save his soul from the harmful sights. The aim of this paper is to research how the television as mass media influence on the human soul. Thus, the author analyzes the influence of television on the mind, wish and will of the human that is exposed to media contents. In the paper are offered conclusions about the negative effects of television on human souls and it is recommended selective and as short as possible exposure to television programs.

 

Key words: television, human soul, mass media.