The psychology of a large crowd inevitably sinks to the level of mob psychology
– C.G. Jung
The sage uses the Yi to relate to the mind of the people
– Chung-Ying Cheng
In the early days of the internet, people thought it was a new era of democratic expression. It was compared to a Greek agora, described as cyberspace, and could only be good. People built Home Pages with free web space, then linked to others. They told the world they liked walking, reading, and Bach.
There was said to be a Web 1, 2, then 3 as network communications developed. Internet theorists studied online games and one example was notorious. You built an avatar then met others. What could possibly go wrong? A woman had her avatar hacked, so she couldn’t control it, then saw the figure subjected to sexual assault by male avatars. It was a new subject and the academic described how the experience was simultaneously traumatic but unreal.
America Online were one of the first corporations offering internet access. Yahoo, Northern Lights, Excite and Google were building search engines to make sense of the new medium. Everyone liked Google because it was a clean white page. The others were full of adverts. The Google algorithms became impressive, and the brand grew slowly but powerfully. Amazon started with books. Now they experiment with drone delivered food.
Myspace arrived, YouTube, Blogger, Facebook, Twitter, and everyone relocated to “social media.” The term “interaction” was used within internet theory as if it were something special. But we “interact” reading a book. We “interact” listening to radio. The social “like” seems to elevate a thought, but in reality doesn’t. It might spread across the network, but it’s the same thought. Social exchange is another matter, where you meet delightful people; but most of the internet is politically organised.
I made an early web site myself called recumbentgaze.net. I wrote the code, made an image for the top of the page, based on me lying on a bed with a book. You could see what it was, but as a stylised graphic. I wrote about cyberspace, The Matrix, Jean Baudrillard’s simulacrum and Chuang Tsu’s Butterfly Dream. When I joined Facebook it didn’t last long. The final exchange was dynamically similar to the raped woman avatar. There was me, making an observation, and there was him, doing identity politics. No matter what I said, I was someone who had to “check my privilege.” Bizarrely, that meant education as if knowing more meant you should be considered less. I wasn’t judging him, told him so, but he was judging me and I couldn’t stop it. Then you become anxious about the mob, because that’s what happens with the politics people.
Since that time and finishing with Facebook (I might return but not now) I saw more of the same at Twitter. I started there naively, some years ago, and a hiking friend explained how people viewed everything according to socio-politics. That proved correct but I found it strange. What is it supposed to achieve, why the obsessive interest? Hannah Arendt wrote this as a fine description:
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (the standards of thought) no longer exist (The Origins of Totalitarianism)
Nonsense becomes reality at Twitter. That’s a subject I studied before it was a big problem, as part of my first MA degree. Twitter is a monstrous digital machine, defined with code and a restricted interface which is neutral but abused. The “like” becomes an obnoxious tool with a cheering on logic like revving a car engine. Twitter does however reflect politics thinking as Arendt identifies. It amplifies what already exists in people’s character.
Twitter is pleasant with people interested in walking, books, nature and photography. It’s a sewer elsewhere. Tim Berners-Lee, who built the internet, expressed concern a few years ago about fake news in particular. He was building a browser which avoids the problem. Elon Musk has introduced Community Notes at Twitter which seems effective but with limited influence. If someone posts false or misleading content they can be noted: context explained, facts restored, for everyone to see. It’s sad when so much human energy is needed to establish a simple truth. Such as they never said this, implied that, or was expressing anything noxious.
Twitter can be understood with I Ching psychology, and as a reflection of psyche. Context collapse is one of the problems, where appearances replace meaning. If you’re not aware of the meme dynamic, you stumble into subjects viciously fought by people (you realise) you don’t want to engage with. The chaos feels like disordered lines in a hexagram. A yin line in a yang place is receptive and complementary. Yang in a yang place means a clash. Yin with yin means malicious soft gossip. When you first start with the I Ching, lines and words don’t make sense. But they have an order, which is stratified and connected.
Hexagrams represent Heaven in the top two lines, Man or Woman in the middle, and Earth at the lower lines. This corresponds to the Maslow hierarchy and thus different levels of need. Politics fighting is at the base of the pyramid. Self realisation is at the top. The sixth hexagram line is a philosopher disengaged from lower concerns. The Chinese term wu wei means effortless action, part of which is not having a fixed place. It’s the essence of Taoism, symbolised as flowing water. Nietzsche’s Zarathustra begins at the top of a mountain (sixth line) and is horrified when he descends into society.
Problems are solved, the I Ching says, when order returns. They don’t necessarily stop, people always fight, but you can acknowledge it philosophically and gravitate elsewhere. Read a book. Go for a walk. Consult the I Ching about the nonsensical chaos found on the internet. One of the principles of Taoism is not to fight and oppose. If you do, you build an obstruction in your psyche which is ultimately harmful, because it contradicts greater reality.
In hexagram 52 the I Ching advises “The superior man / Does not permit his thoughts / To go beyond his situation” (Wilhelm). This is an antidote for anxiety and in relation to the internet means switch off your computer. Some part remains however, because the code never stops, so you must psychologically disengage from the machine. Consider these words and the therapy of woods, hills, coast, fields, and rivers:
Even broken in spirit as he is, no one can feel more deeply than he does the beauties of nature. The starry sky, the sea, and every sight afforded by these wonderful regions, seems still to have the power of elevating his soul from earth (Mary Shelley, Frankenstein)
One of the strategies of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is observe events to disentangle the meaning. Something happens objectively. Then, you observe, it makes you feel a certain way. Then, you realise, that makes you think something negatively or positively. This is similar to an I Ching consultation as you disassemble a situation then rebuild it coherently. Jung calls the I Ching “psychological phenomenology” and we see hexagram lines either yin or yang, harmonious or discordant. Moving lines are an energised part of a hexagram about to change. Maximum pushing yang becomes exhausted and changes to yin. Yin, tired of being passive, becomes yang.
We operate with six hexagram lines, as dimensional human beings. Lower might need balancing, higher activating, because it’s less obvious. Some people say you can only ask deep I Ching questions. That’s not correct. You can ask any question, such as “how can I understand what I’m experiencing on the internet” or “why is this damaging me.” You can weave together again the sense you lose when thoughts insert into the machine.
Richard Wilhelm is deservedly famous for his I Ching translation. Carl Jung was impressed and wrote the foreword to his book. It was ten years of work, in consultation with a Chinese scholar called Lao Nai-hsuan. Wilhelm provides a fine summary, saying the book “manifests itself as kindness but conceals its workings.”
I write like this is a magazine column. With research, references, and a lot of time. If you like it, perhaps you would support me.