A Requiem For A Dream

The Real Deal In A Fake World

Man, finding the real deal is so fucking hard now these days with the Internet.

Here's the thing: people have opinions, strong ones at that, and the Internet has allowed people an open, irresponsible way of expressing those opinions. By irresponsible I mean that people are no longer afraid, they don't feel accountable for what they say or how they say it.

We all have opinions, and everyone and their mom has a blog these days, be it xanga, livejournal, blogger, whatever, you name it, someone has a blog for it. And on these blogs we speak our minds, and often times what we speak of is moral imperatives. We say certain things should or should not be done, we make judgments on actions and on people, we argue that what we believe is true or right. All in all, a large portion of any content of a blog is an informal, casual lecture on moral actions: what one should or should not do in certain circumstances.

Don't believe me, just take a look at a blog and see what you find. People complaining about people who complain; people saying the war in Iraq is wrong; people saying liberals are pinko-commies and conservatives are nut-jobs; people saying other people are stupid; people saying that people shouldn't make judgments. All in all, it really just boils down to the expression, albeit disorganized and incoherent (for the most part), of one's own moral truths.

There is no accountability here. We just spit shit out without thinking about them, without any real empirical evidence. Hell, I fucking do it all the time. In fact, I'm doing it now by saying that blogs make people unaccountable for their moral opinions. Right now I am making a judgment about what people do and I'm saying they shouldn't do it. If that is not an expression of morality, of "ought" or "ought not", then I don't know what is, because all I'm really doing is issuing a moral imperative.

But I have no goddamn right, no evidence, no structured argument to back me up with. I'm just basing this on personal observation. Yet I never follow those rules because well, it is my blog, and I can do whatever the fuck I want with it. You see the hypocrisy don't you? But that doesn't mean I really give a shit. Look, there it is, that sense of not feeling held accountable for what I say or write.

So each day, across the world, on these millions of personal, annoymous soapboxes, people spew out their imperatives. It's like hearing a million tiny voices across the globe shouting out what they think is right. But they are never going to do anything; hell, what makes you think they will conform with imperatives that they issue? There is no accountability, no responsiblity, no authenticity.

After all, how can you be real when all it is is basically some worthless opinions? The paradox is inescapable: I'm criticizing blogs by posting on my own blog. I'm criticizing the casual issuing of moral judgments by casually issuing my own moral judgments. It's a trap: you can't argue against something by using it to argue against itself, but it is the only way. You know why? Because no one else really gives a shit about what me or you have to say. The reason why blogs exist is because it gives a sense of empowerment to people whose opinions would otherwise be unheard. Blogs exist for people to speak their mind without having to think about accountability and reason.

So what's the real deal when the world has become fake? People take on different personalities when they are online, and the guy sitting quietly next to you in bio class could be the guy who writes a blog about cooking with sperm. You just never know, and you don't even know if what you are saying is completely true. Are you just saying shit because you have a safe place to say it, or are you saying shit because you actually believe it? You may know in the beginning, but as time goes on, the distinction blurs.

All I'm saying is that the explosion of the internet, and the gift and the curse of annoymity it gave to millions of people who would not otherwise speak up, has made authenticity of ideas nearly impossible. No one can take you seriously if all you are doing is writing extremely subjective shit in a blog, but yet everyone take their own blogs so seriously. There is no respect accorded to some guy sitting in this room writing about ideas that he can't be held accountable for? Where is the impact of ideas? Where are the persuasiveness and moral force of an argument when everyone can casually write about serious and controversial topics so freely? The gravity and the weight of the debate are gone because annoymity destroys the connection between the ideas and reality. So no one takes you seriously, and eventually everyone who writes in blogs end up sounding fake because you just don't take them seriously enough. And soon enough, you may even sound fake to yourself.

Are you going to take this seriously? Hell no you won't; you probably won't even read it, and that's the ultimate result of a blog: whatever you write in that blog becomes self-defeating because it just sounds hypocritical coming out of your mouth, and not just your mouth, but everyone else's too. So even if you meant it with every ounce of your being, with all the sincerity you can muster, it just doesn't seem real and authentic.

There's just no real deal anymore.

Oh by the way, I wrote this rant on the spur of the moment after reading this entry in someone else's blog

Posted by humanflyz at October 13, 2005 01:09 AM | TrackBack