Abstraction

Much of physical reality is gradually disappearing into the internet.

The only truly functional advantage of the internet is an extra means of both information and communication (electronic contacting goes quicker than the mail, but is less intruding than a telephone call). Transferring the usual means of information and communication (books, letter writing, telephone) into electronic media alters, through its channelling and presentation, the nature of that which is communicated. Hence the general increase of information together with a general decrease of understanding. When society forces its communication channels into electronic means, reality suffers, and this is also affecting people's understanding of reality, because the abstract representation of reality changes its experience.

Killing another person with a sword, requires a number of emotional and mental attitudes which are entirely in accord with the abject deed; pushing a button so that somewhere else thousands of people will die immediately, 'liberates' the perpetrator from direct contact with the results of his deed. But also in daily life (at least: in the West), the increasing abstraction through technology harms the experience of reality: banks forcing clients to surrender to internet banking, government institutions no longer sending letters and documents physically but only through the internet, shops refusing physical money and force clients to pay electronically, and the plans heard occasionally to make books, paper documents, real money to disappear entirely. Book shops are disappearing, as well as music shops, so that the opportunity of freewheeling, looking around and touching possible books or CD's for possible buying, which is an important part of exploring possible extensions of one's collections, is disappearing. All those developments have a negative influence on people's awareness of reality, of mental and emotional development, and on culture. It is part of the utopian urge of a restricted sense of modernity to do away with things of the past, whatever their merits, and turn the world into some large imitation of science fiction décor with an ever more differentiated technology, the desire of creating the new human being unhindered by heritage. Of course we know that such developments end, eventually, in fascism, totalitarianism, destruction of the human mind and spirit.

'I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.' Albert Einstein

In the arts, one sees already the intrusion of 'electronic means' replacing the capacities and craft of artists. The results are not better than before, but can more easily parade as artistic things before a public which is already digitalized and thus, alienated from reality.

Modern technology is in its sophistication too much ahead of the level of acculturation of a majority of people. The pyramid of human intelligence and sophistication shows that the greater numbers are found at the bottom, so that both democracy and wild capitalism will make sure that barriers to their inroads into the human spirit will be removed. Hence the odd combination of a rising populism with increasing electronization, the two trends are interlinked. Abstraction comes to the aid of such aggressors, because its negative effects are not noticed by the masses. It is to be hoped that the same technology which forms a threat to human civilization, will also help to create the necessary resistance, as long as it is understood as a means to an end and not an end in itself (abstraction as a symbol of progressiveness, disconnected from its function). If society becomes entirely dependent upon the internet, it will become its hostage, and will create immense damage. That is not so difficult to understand - a mere power cut completely lames its functioning, and if fuel shortages intervene, societies may even collapse, because there would not be back-up systems to sustain their viability.