eConomy

Jobs are out there. But we can't help you find them.

To friend, or not to friend.

In 1979, Christopher Lasch published The Culture of Narcissism, a book which diagnosed contemporary American society and found it wanting: wanting attention, wanting to feel good about itself, wanting to remove obstacles from self-fulfillment. Morevoer, as an historian Lasch was quick to indict the prevailing obsession with the present, the obliteration from memory of the past, and the careless neglect for the future. Pathological narcissism had supplanted the individualistic and pioneering impulse in the American spirit, spawning a generation of "me"-ists afraid of commitment (to others and to society at large), yet seeking approval and affirmation for unworthy accomplishments.

So Lasch was a bit of a pessimist.

But I return to the Culture of Narcissim whenever I think about Facebook (or any other social media network), which has revolutionized the concepts of community and personal relationships at the cost, arguably, of "real" community and personal relationships.

Now, to play the devil's advocate:

Studies have shown, and laymen lament, that Facebook unwittingly encourages and enables our own narcissism. It thrives on it. We post pictures of ourselves, sometimes hundreds of them; record our banal activities, which increase exponentially thanks to hand-held computers, and wait for others to remark on our grafitti, while we remark on theirs. In some ways, Facebook has set up a mutual admiration society, in which members can legitimate each others' starkly boring lives, befriend (and unfriend) each other with impunity, or become voyeurs of one another's worlds. In the absence of work or more creative endeavors, we have virtual scrabble, Farmville, and Mafia Wars for our shared recreation. Our days pass on a perpetually refreshed screen of activity; but that screen is of a contant, relentless present. The archive of our textual activity is always gradually being purged.

Of course, the success of this jeremiad against Facebook depends on its simplification of the medium. Its benefits are not usually addressed (assuming there are some) because its pathologies are easier to discern. With respect to community, Facebook provides an alternative village, a democratic arena of sharing and playing, of general belonging without physical contact. Not only do we air the bric-a-brac of our lives but also important news stories, information about causes important to us, and appeals to support those causes. Some of the videos we share are quite funny and intelligent, like the ones produced by the Onion, and to an extent, like those by CampusHumor. I might even hail the imaginative merits of Facebook, particularly in the way of inspired status updates, those reflecting a tongue-in-cheek or madcap sense of humor, that we can't help but laugh at and participate in. In nothing else, the medium provides a wonderful opportunity to practice our irony.

But where does that leave non-virtual reality, the world of historical continuum, where Descartes reasoned out his existence, where people do, of necessity, meet? The land of sensual experience, where Johnson refuted Berkeley's solipsism by kicking a stone? The reality of war and poverty and disease and injustice? I think Lasch would say that Facebook inhibits us from really engaging with that world by marginalizing it. We don't generally post images of the brutality of life, though when we do, rarely, their serious effect is mitigated, then swept away, by the rush of unserious content. What does that say for our instinct to deal with the world? Have we been conditioned to shrink from it and find refuge in the general safety of social networking? Have we become too comfortable?

Conversion experience averted

One day several weeks ago, I was visited by two young men in white shirts and neckties, wearing black name tags and carrying backpacks. If I didn't know better, I would have assumed that the IRS was at my door to whisk me away on a camping trip. (I am a relatively scupulous tax-payer, after all). Well, it certainly wasn't the IRS, judging by the callow faces of these young "elders" asking me about Jesus Christ; to be sure, though, a kind of "trip" was involved. They were Mormon missionaries, and I had made the stupid mistake of opening my door.

The peripatetic Mormons have become a fixture of modern life. Like salesmen, they are inescapable, but whereas door-to-door peddling has become a thing of the past, missionary work, particularly in the suburbs (where souls really do need to be saved), continues to thrive. Principally speaking, the Mormon missionary and the traveling agent have a core objective: to sell a product. In the Mormon's case, that product is the Church of Latter-Day Saints, an odd strain of Christianity whose authority depends solely on divine revelation and gold tablets. To be fair, the traveling Mormon is not exactly like the salesman; he not only affirms its value but he actually believes in it, as well.

I allowed the two young men to come in. We sat down in the living room, where I was promptly interviewed about my faith. The questions were all predictable, of the "What kind of relationship do you have with Christ?" sort. I had quickly decided that I wouldn't wax skeptical about religion, lest I become the object of a feeble persuasion campaign. I figured that if I claim Roman Catholicism as my dominant faith, from which I do not stray on pain of death, they would leave me alone. (In fact, I have strayed from it, and very, very far at that). The young Mormons were relentless, invoking passages from their Book--which they directed me to read with them--that legitimated and reinforced their faith. When they spoke, it was with a pacific tone of voice unheard on the East coast--sincere, guileless, devout. The voice of thorough and unquestioned indoctrination.

I wondered later why I invited them in the first place. I'm almost sure it wasn't because a voice in a dark corner of my soul was pleading in small whispers for the comforts of Mormonism. I figure if it was a gesture of tolerance (to patiently hear their cause), then it was a naive gesture. Hadn't I learned from vampire lore? I had opened my door, perhaps not to demons but to agents of a mysterious religious order bent on "saving souls." Afterward, I was baffled that I wasn't more indignant about it, outraged that my freedom of self-determination was being subtly threatened. To "save one's soul" is really to lose one's reason, to voluntarily surrender one's critical faculties in the name of an authoritarian power structure founded on a myth. I should have tarred and feathered my missionaries! I should have grilled them on a spit!

Instead I wondered if, as a good secular humanist, I shouldn't try to disabuse these impressionable fellows of their simplistic and unquestioned beliefs. But, most likely, there weren't any arguments that I could make that they hadn't already heard and rejected. We could easily have engaged in some futile conversion competition. But it would have prolonged their visit, and I badly needed to read my Nietzsche.