Get angry to death - Polish Economy Forum

Getting angry to death – Polish Economy Forum

It’s not even about the phenomenon of switching your attention from one tab to another and trying to scroll to the end of the Internet, which makes about as much sense as looking for the beginning of a rainbow and the treasure hidden beneath it.

And no, I didn’t read old books on May Day, although the title of this column is an obvious reference to a classic. Neil Postman wrote in “Amusing Ourselves to Death” about how destructive television is to public discourse and what it implies. Yes, many of his theses are debatable, but at least he formulated them and fueled a debate about what happens when we mix serious conversations with entertainment. I read Postman’s book by the way and some time ago.

What the techno-pessimistic American did not foresee and did not appreciate was the development of the Internet in the direction of images and films, and not texts. Because the old Internet, from the Reagan era, and it was then that Postman warned against having fun, was first of all small, secondly difficult to use. In fact, its text part still is. Compared to the part, here I will support Dukaj, operating on the principles of “After Writing”, the text part is modest in volume, although of course it has grown enormously. A great example is Wikipedia and still partly social media. However, if you compare it with how much content on the Internet is film – it does not look so impressive anymore. The written Internet is also difficult to use. It requires some preparation for even reading longer texts, and this skill is not at all a default today. The fight on the Internet is for seconds of attention. I am leaving aside the problem of secondary illiteracy here as an obvious obstacle to reading, including what is on the web.

However, both the part of the Internet, provisionally called the image-film part, and the text part are not for entertainment. For while Postman’s conclusion is true that television in his time and in his homeland was primarily for entertainment, mixing everything with entertainment, thus simplifying the discourse and creating it anew, the Internet is based on a different emotion. It is anger. And it is on this basis that the exchange of ideas on the Internet is built.

Postman’s descriptions of television are dominated by the image of politicians as actors, led by Reagan, who know how to make a show out of politics. Today, there are very few such shows, and if there are any, it is a “game” of gritting one’s teeth with anger and stories about litanies of wrongs suffered by the other, politically different, whoever they may be. Because anger at politicians of one or another persuasion generates views, drives the entire political caravan, because all its participants live in a never-articulated agreement, which is based on the fact that sharing an interest in politics and politicians pays off for all of them. Of course, it is difficult to have a serious debate on serious topics, instead its subject is alleged May Day drinking (if you read this column, for example, a year after its publication, you will not know what I am referring to – this is one of the weaknesses of contemporary conversation about politics) and similar events that can be understood immediately and about which everyone can have an opinion. The same is true of the social “debate” on encountering bears and men in the forest. Once again, this topic will be a fossil in a month. Because it will be chased by another, equally trivial problem.

Politics, however, as a part of our lives, is not for relaxation or entertainment, and yet in such a context – post-May Day – I wonder about revitalizing Postman’s thoughts. However, entertainment is also increasingly focused on generating anger. Today, social media is increasingly an industry of free time anger. But anger is also embedded in the activities of streaming platforms and even cinemas. Of course, Disney will not go bankrupt because it releases another hopeless film about political correctness (poorly pretending to be a superhero story), but the point is not to make money, the point is to irritate. To divide and then spin a narrative around it that is satisfactory for the ultras, but tiring for the people who constitute the majority, whose views oscillate around the center, not the ideological peripheries. The same thing happens in the social media mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph, which, if entertaining, are only at the lowest level, usually below the belt. The dominant emotion there is once again anger, not joy, because anger simply pays better. Anger clicks.

And is that a bad thing? Not necessarily at the individual level. Someone is making money on something, and if the transaction is voluntary, why should I be interested in it? Maybe people like to be angry? But at the same time, there are “external effects” of such a market. Postman complained about the infantilization of public debate (but also religion and education) caused by TV-style debating. Today, we can boldly argue that anger as a driver of internet debate is something that will hit us all, because the political market is clearly different from the market: the consequences of who votes how and for what reasons will also hit those who have different political or ideological views.

In addition, just as Postman wrote that he understands the entertainment formula of television and that it is often the only entertainment available, for example for lonely people, one must admit that the Internet, with all its meme-streaming superstructure over good old text, is some kind of entertainment, and easily accessible at that. Except, well, it is increasingly difficult to amuse yourself to death on the Internet, and it is increasingly easier to get angry to death. I can imagine people who, simply because of their duties or other circumstances, could relax during the May Day weekend only by using the Internet intensively. In my opinion, this is currently impossible. Using the Internet today is really an effort reminiscent of Ziemkiewicz’s famous swimming in jelly. Every move costs a lot. Avoiding the reefs of content that is deliberately intended to irritate, anger, raise blood pressure: of course, too.

And it’s not about being that graying gentleman who says that it used to be like that, because complaining about one’s times has been repeated forever and examples of this can be found among the oldest monuments of literature. It’s too easy. It’s more difficult to isolate yourself from intrusive content. And while the knowledge that not everything we see on TV is true has somehow seeped into society, it’s harder with the Internet. It’s still a space that we haven’t learned. Hence, exactly, the annoying memes of all freethinkers about turning off the TV and turning on thinking. However, you can also write about the Internet today in the same way. Turning off the Internet can also equal turning on thinking. And turning off getting angry, which, as I work on the hypothesis, people simply like, since they pay for it – even with their time and attention. But we have to understand this as a community, because our Internet is basically a kind of television on demand today, only based on anger, not fun. And one from which the messages coming out can manipulate us more easily. It’s something like a campfire that provides pleasant warmth, but if left unattended it can burn down a house.

The sizzling can be heard more and more clearly.

Marcin Chmielowski

Each FPG24.PL columnist presents his/her own views and opinions.