The Internet and Its Discontents

One of the more interesting things about the Internet is that, being a totally abstract plane composed of symbols, images, and other abstractions, it allows ideas, their consequences, and their effects on people and society to be seen quite clearly.

Technology as such is nothing other the reification and externalization of the human will, which itself acts based on the ideas contained in the human mind. Technology, then, always creates systems that are to some extent rational in nature; and as such these systems necessarily shape all those who, as rational beings, make use of them or exist in the environments they create.

The Internet takes this basic principle to a heretofore unseen level. The digital frameworks into which people pour themselves are human artifacts composed of abstractions. The digital identities into which people invest themselves are human artifacts composed of images, symbols, and abstractions. There are no concrete natural substances at all on the Internet; only universalized abstractions. The man who interacts with the Internet takes his place in a vast system of ideas--and he cannot help but be shaped by it.

Most of the characteristic social and political realities of our historical moment are the direct result of the Internet as a shaper of society and personality alike. The identities and frameworks and images and ideas that people imbibe and are shaped by on the Internet have come to profoundly affect and even define them--and so increasingly, whenever people act in the political and social spheres, they act out of those identities and based on these ideas and images.

The modern 'alt-right' is only the most obviously pathological form of this phenomenon; it is far from the only one.

This is not, of course, in itself a negative thing. Human beings are rational creatures, and abstractions and systems are to an extent necessary if people are to find the truth, grasp it, and learn to live it out. Yet symbols and images are, by their very nature, infinitely interpretable and so infinitely deceptive; and even more decisively, a world composed solely of abstractions cannot contain those things of which the world is actually composed: that is, concrete particular substances, including those rational, relational substances known as persons.

Hence it is that people trained in the Internet as it exists now naturally, as a matter of course, ignore and elide natural realities and concrete particulars in favor of symbols, images, and other abstractions; and they likewise learn, in varying degrees, to ignore, instrumentalize, and be indifferent to the actual concrete existence of persons, including themselves.

Even so, it is in fact possible to create technological systems, as well as systems of ideas and abstractions, that communicate truth, goodness, and beauty--systems that mediate and embody and make known the concrete existence of persons, the world, and God. This basic principle is the basis of the sacramental economy of Catholicism--as well as essentially all cultural and artistic production, of whatever sort.

The problem, then, is not so much the existence of abstraction as (1) the relationship of abstraction to reality, and (2) the particular ideas reflected in our systems. It is not merely that the Internet is abstract, but that, as it exists now, it relates to concrete realities in certain ways, and embodies certain ideas; and so causes great harm.

If we are unsatisfied with our society and its politics, we would do well to look to the Internet; if we are unsatisfied with the Internet as it now exists, we would do well to look to the ideas, the philosophical and moral conceptions, that it is shaped by and shapes. If our ideas, embodied in the Internet, torment and destroy people, make their lives a living Hell, and plunge them into falsehood and shame and hatred--then there is something wrong, not just with the Internet, but with our ideas, and ourselves.

If we wish to actually save our society and ourselves, there is no other option but sincere repentance founded on the examination of conscience. To examine our conscience, as individual persons and as a society, requires a recognition of the systems we have built and lived in, what ideas they embody, and the relationship of these ideas to the concrete reality of other persons, the world, and God.

Let us pray that God will give us all the ability to do this, soon--for all our sakes.

Manicheanism, Good and Evil, and the Sorrow of Christ

The Manichean is the person who believes that evil can and ought to be be entirely externalized: that it is a separate substance from the good, capable of being isolated, identified in its purity, and removed. Yes, the Manichean may truly believe that this evil exists within himself as well--in the same way, say, that there may happen to be some sand or granite mixed in with the cup of water he's drinking. Still, the water can be boiled, and these bits of external matter removed. Maybe this evil is very widespread indeed, mixed in so much that it comes to form the very substance of people or places or societies, so that there is, in the end, no real hope of separating them without destroying the things infected. Very well, then; societies and people and objects are all capable of being destroyed if necessary. The situation may be very dire indeed; but when all is said and done, the *solution* is quite clear: find the evil, isolate it, separate it from the good, cast it away, and be done.

If we treat evil in this way--and, I believe, pretty much everyone in our society does--then this will define and circumscribe all our responses to it.

To begin with, we will strive to become very sensitive to evil: its taste, its smell, its touch. We will expend great efforts trying to isolate evil in its chemical purity, to figure it out, what it is, what makes it tick. The more we do this, the more we will find ourselves in a constant state of *annoyance*: aha, I have detected it! I have smelt it, I have tasted it, I have sensed its presence. This annoyance will give way easily to rage: whenever and wherever we find it, we will want to point out this evil to others, to crush it, smash it, excise it. This rage is, in a sense, unbounded; there is no natural limit to it at all, since in its essence it aims at nothing less than the complete removal and annihilation of the evil inasmuch as it is perceived. In any event, our task is clear: we will exercise all our powers to find evil, and then to see it mocked, hated, despised, rejected, and denied--until the victory is won, and the substance of the good remains alone, as it ought to be.

Either this, or--if it ever seems that this victory is impossible--nothing remains for the Manichean but utter despair.

This is not how the Christian views evil, nor can he ever react to it in this way. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, Manicheanism and other dualistic systems are essentially the opposite of Christianity. This is quite right and proper, for Christianity has always viewed evil in a completely different light, and defined it in completely different terms, than the dualist.

For the Christian, evil strictly speaking does not exist. The definition of evil, according to the Catholic tradition, is simply a privation of being. Evil, in other words, is nothing other the absence of what ought to be there.

There is, for the Christian, only one unlimited and eternal Being--and from this arises a cosmos of limited, partial beings, existing in harmony under the governance of their sole Cause and End. Each limited being has a nature, a partial and participatory being, and an end at which it aims. Each being is, inasmuch as it exists, operates according to its nature, and achieves its end, necessarily good and true and beautiful--for by these things, it participates in the goodness and beauty and perfection of the first and undiminished Being from which it comes.

Evil, then, is not a substance alienable from the good: it is rather the reality of the failure of creatures to participate in the Good as they ought to.

Evil then, is nothing other than a diminishment of what should exist; the failure to gain something beautiful, good, and true that is aimed at: that is, a tragedy. Evil is a wound in the living body of the cosmos governed by Eternal Goodness.

For the Christian, then, evil can never simply a matter of *annoyance*: nor can it be a matter of limitless rage: and least of all can it ever be a matter of final despair. Rather, as the Christian tradition shows, evil can only really be dealt with in two ways, exemplified by the life and works of Christ our God.

In the first places, one can react to the presence of evil with *anger*; that is, with a limited drive to action to correct and chastise and set right. The rightly angry person is not seeking to isolate and annihilate evil, as though it had any existence of its own: he is seeking rather to find where a particular creature or system of creatures has gone wrong, and then work to correct it so that it will exist and operate as it should--and to do this, of course, he will first have to understand and appreciate that creature's existence, its nature, its aims, and its place in the cosmos governed by God. Thus, Christ casts the money-lenders out of the temple, so that the House of God will be as he knows it should be: he teaches on the Mount, so that men will live as he knows they should be. Yes, he preaches at the same time the real possibility of eternal damnation--that is, final and permanent exclusion from the vision of God. But for the Catholic, not even the damned are entirely annihilated; not even the damned are entirely separated from God. They still exist, dependent on his Being, and serve his Will, and his Justice.

Yet anger is not, and cannot be, the principal way with which Christians respond to evil; for it is not the principal way with which Christ responded to it. For all evil, inasmuch as it represents a diminishment, a loss, of what is aimed at and desired, by each creature and the cosmos itself and God, represents first and foremost a tragedy: that is, something for which the correct response is sorrow. Christ truly defeated evil, after all, not in the Cleansing of the Temple, but on the Cross. It is here that he willingly bore and took into himself all the evil of men and of the cosmos--and suffered it. In the Catholic tradition, it is dogmatically maintained that Christ suffered on the Cross for all men, including even the damned: and in many Catholic mystical texts and visions, Christ is shown as suffering and mourning even for the eternal loss of the damned, whom he has loved and desired. Christ mourns and suffers, for those whom he willed to be with him forever are forever lost.

For the Christian, the response of God to the evil of the world is the Paschal Mystery, the Cross and Resurrection of Christ. The love of God responds to evil by mourning for it, and suffering it, so that what has gone wrong may be set right, so that what has been been lost may be restored, and even increased: so as to bring all things and all persons to the Source of their Being, and unite them to it forever in love. The Good is never alone.

When the Christian looks out at the world, then, when he perceives evil in it, in his neighbor and himself, he does not perceive a Manichean substance to isolate in its purity, root out, and cast away. He perceives rather the violation, the diminishment, the loss of that which is good, true, beautiful, fair and desirable, and most precious: human souls, for whom Christ died. And like Christ, his deepest, truest response must always be one of sorrow. Often, yes, anger is called for, to defend the good, to prevent its utter ruination, to set things right: but always, in his heart there must be the same love, and the same sorrow, that dwells in the heart of Christ--as well as the joy that comes only by the Resurrection. In this is our hope, and in nothing else: Christus mortuus resurrexit.

The Manichean, then, defeats evil by casting it away from himself, and rejoicing: the Christian defeats evil by taking it into himself, and suffering. This is the greatest divide there is, or could be.

God help us.