Certain features of the self in an enchanted world are now reemerging in the Digital City. Digital technologies influence us and exert causal power over our affairs. In the Digital City, we are newly aware of operating within a field of inscrutable forces over which we have little to no control. Though these forces may be benevolent, they are just as often malevolent, undermining our efforts and derailing our projects. We often experience digital technologies as determining our weal and woe, acting upon us independently of our control and without our understanding. We are vulnerable, and our autonomy is compromised.
I describe the essay as a collection of loose threads. Many are interesting, but none are sufficiently well developed for my taste. Still, I think that the basic theme strikes me as increasingly important: our media environment is novel, and this has a significant impact on individual psychology and the culture at large.
Sacasas writes of our “re-enchantment” in this media environment, as we feel ourselves captive of invisible forces. He refers to algorithms as these hidden forces. But I think that the belief in systemic racism is another example of re-enchantment.
His thoughts on the anachronistic nature of fact-checking struck me as spot-on.
In the Digital City, we are newly aware of operating within a field of inscrutable forces over which we have little to no control.
Sorry, but no. Life has always felt this way.
And travellers, now, within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows see
Vast forms that move fantastically
To a discordant melody;
While, like a ghastly rapid river,
Through the pale door
A hideous throng rush out forever,
And laugh—but smile no more.
-Edgar Allan Poe
“His thoughts on the anachronistic nature of fact-checking struck me as spot-on.”
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? The problem is, who fact-checks the fact-checkers?
The old saying was, “magna est veritas et praevalebit.” But not if falsehood is necessary to power, and the opposition’s truth harmful to power.
“
NaturamImperium expellas furca, tamen usque recurret.”Power is a salmon that swims all the way upstream. Anything that tries to block the way is either (1) the true power, or (2) inevitably doomed.
If any person, institution, or mechanism could serve an influentially trusted inconvenience to the lies of power, then it becomes a target, either for destruction on the one hand, or intimidation, corruption, conversion, and co-option on the other.
So, media technology is not really so important, since the same thing has happened many times throughout history. Once power grabs all the checkers, “fact checking is over.” The cleverest scheme in the word to preserve the checks and balances just means that when power figures out how to overcome those obstacles, it will become invulnerable to everything but invasion or suicide.