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I’ve recently picked up the works of Vilem Flusser, a pretty underrated philosopher who touched on this subject in his 1983 book, Post-History. Much of what Flu

I’ve recently picked up the works of Vilem Flusser, a pretty underrated philosopher who touched on this subject in his 1983 book, Post-History. Much of what Flusser writes about is prescient, but in regard to increased loneliness in modern culture specifically, he argues that a major shift from dialogic forms (speaking with) of communication to strictly discursive forms (speaking to) is responsible. Even our so called “social media/social networks” are discursive and not dialogic—aimes more at telling people about ourselves than stimulating converstion. Part of this shift stems from specialization—when our interests are so highly individuated we have no shared grounds from which to speak, which reduces us to speaking about “pop culture” a shallow solutions to this growing gap in mutual experience. (Even this post is discursive, not dialogic, just like many of the other parents in this thread, since the technological collective communication mechanism doesn’t emulate real conversation—in online chats you’re already speaking to everyone and no one thanks to the veneer of anonymity/new identity a user name gives you, coupled with the guarantee that others in an online forum are coming from disparate backgrounds. The notion of an audience with shared values/cultural origins has dissolved and been replaced be a universal Everyman/Noman which in turn leads us toward the dissolution of community outside the realm of technical specialization.

reubenswartz 7y ago
This is a great point. And the irony is that the more discursive the environment is, the less people feel heard, the more loudly (at least metaphorically) they speak, in a vicious cycle. This doesn't fulfill the need for conversation and interaction. (Some people suggest that the rise in therapy for wealthy urban people is largely because this is the easiest way for some people to have someone actually listen to them. I don't know if it's true but it seems very sad.)
petra 7y ago
Great point. Are there any good solutions ? Any place to read about good solutions ?
tenkabuto 7y ago
I suspect that I started to misunderstand where you were coming from, but I think that I caught myself. --- I suspect that you're using the term "Everyman" in a different way than I'm used to it being used — as that every man is set apart from the rest. I'm used to it being used in the way that any man holds in common some/many characteristics, beliefs, and behaviors with all other men. > The notion of an audience with shared values/cultural origins has dissolved and been replaced be a universal Everyman/Noman which in turn leads us toward the dissolution of community outside the realm of technical specialization. Using my view of Everymanism, we would suspect that individualization would not necessarily move us away from shared values. We would need to distill out our similarities from our differences via discourse, and we would suspect that similarities would be found.
atupis 7y ago
Social media where you "speak with" sounds fantastic, but how you would do it Slack/IRC is one way do it, those have usually tightly knitted community but there is definitely other more creative ways do that.
- indigochill 7y ago
  IMO it's just a question of design emphasis. That is, Slack/IRC work well for this kind of thing specifically because their rooms are created for the discussion of some broad topic. Social media (Facebook/Twitter/MySpace/Instagram/etc) generally doesn't because it doesn't have the same emphasis on topical discussions (Facebook groups being something of an exception, although uptake is limited). So to create social media that lends itself this direction, take the focus away from individual expression in a bubble and put the focus on topics, just like Slack/IRC/forums/BBSes do/did. Google+ was actually a step in this direction and was the home to a number of topic-focused communities as a result, but Google wasn't prepared to follow through. Maybe someone else will.
indigochill 7y ago
With you on most of this, but isn't anonymity through usernames orthogonal to the discursive/dialogic shift (hey, turning a discursive text into a dialogic one!)? I'm thinking specifically in the context of an early 00's forum, people had their usernames but if you spent time on the forum and it became a community, you "knew" the people behind those usernames through the dialogue you had with them on the forum. You might have no real name or face to associate it with, but you understood how they thought and felt about things, what their interests were, and that kind of thing. And it's true that a parent post would start discursive, but it would often be an invitation to dialogue. It's sort of like if you're at a party with everyone in the world, and groups start forming around conversations people find interesting, with people constantly drifting in and out of the conversation with less regard for whether you actually know anyone in the conversation than people exert in physical space.
petra 7y ago
The basic problem with written communications, is that it's a just not good for emotional connections. There's some research to back that. Maybe that's why communications degrade to discourse.

reubenswartz 7y ago

This is a great point. And the irony is that the more discursive the environment is, the less people feel heard, the more loudly (at least metaphorically) they speak, in a vicious cycle. This doesn't fulfill the need for conversation and interaction. (Some people suggest that the rise in therapy for wealthy urban people is largely because this is the easiest way for some people to have someone actually listen to them. I don't know if it's true but it seems very sad.)

petra 7y ago

Great point. Are there any good solutions ? Any place to read about good solutions ?

tenkabuto 7y ago

I suspect that I started to misunderstand where you were coming from, but I think that I caught myself. --- I suspect that you're using the term "Everyman" in a different way than I'm used to it being used — as that every man is set apart from the rest. I'm used to it being used in the way that any man holds in common some/many characteristics, beliefs, and behaviors with all other men. > The notion of an audience with shared values/cultural origins has dissolved and been replaced be a universal Everyman/Noman which in turn leads us toward the dissolution of community outside the realm of technical specialization. Using my view of Everymanism, we would suspect that individualization would not necessarily move us away from shared values. We would need to distill out our similarities from our differences via discourse, and we would suspect that similarities would be found.

atupis 7y ago

Social media where you "speak with" sounds fantastic, but how you would do it Slack/IRC is one way do it, those have usually tightly knitted community but there is definitely other more creative ways do that.

indigochill 7y ago
IMO it's just a question of design emphasis. That is, Slack/IRC work well for this kind of thing specifically because their rooms are created for the discussion of some broad topic. Social media (Facebook/Twitter/MySpace/Instagram/etc) generally doesn't because it doesn't have the same emphasis on topical discussions (Facebook groups being something of an exception, although uptake is limited). So to create social media that lends itself this direction, take the focus away from individual expression in a bubble and put the focus on topics, just like Slack/IRC/forums/BBSes do/did. Google+ was actually a step in this direction and was the home to a number of topic-focused communities as a result, but Google wasn't prepared to follow through. Maybe someone else will.

indigochill 7y ago

With you on most of this, but isn't anonymity through usernames orthogonal to the discursive/dialogic shift (hey, turning a discursive text into a dialogic one!)? I'm thinking specifically in the context of an early 00's forum, people had their usernames but if you spent time on the forum and it became a community, you "knew" the people behind those usernames through the dialogue you had with them on the forum. You might have no real name or face to associate it with, but you understood how they thought and felt about things, what their interests were, and that kind of thing. And it's true that a parent post would start discursive, but it would often be an invitation to dialogue. It's sort of like if you're at a party with everyone in the world, and groups start forming around conversations people find interesting, with people constantly drifting in and out of the conversation with less regard for whether you actually know anyone in the conversation than people exert in physical space.

petra 7y ago

The basic problem with written communications, is that it's a just not good for emotional connections. There's some research to back that. Maybe that's why communications degrade to discourse.