May 26, 2017
Mark Zuckerberg wax figure at Madame Tussaud's
Source: Bigstock
The answer isn”t complicated. The denizens of California’s digital paradise are not civic-minded entrepreneurs. They”re innovated imperialists, wielding technology to progress mankind toward a new evolution. Like all emperors, their desire is uniformity in thought. More malleability means information can be used as a goad to push people toward a higher sense of living.
Zuckerberg himself has imperial instincts. His colleagues all acknowledge his larger-than-life ambitions. That he styles his hair after Augustus doesn”t help the perception.
Social-media enslavement actually seems like a brilliant idea at first glance. It’s not hard to see the conditioning going on with millions glued to their smartphones. To understand the dastardly ploy, it’s good to keep Norman Mailer’s suggestion at the front of your mind: “Think in the style of Karl Marx in order to attain certain values suggested by Edmund Burke.”
In his day, Marx focused on the feeling of uprootedness and isolation sprung by increased capital flows. Today, at-hand access to unremitting entertainment has a transforming effect on our psyches. Just ask former blogger Andrew Sullivan about the harmful impact of the internet age on personal well-being.
The grip social media has on our attention spans was supposed to be an opportunity for enlightenment. If we”re all glued to the same glowing portal in our palm, then we can all be informed by the same message. A better humanity was just a thumb scroll away.
It was the perfect plan. Except Zuckerberg forgot about one thing on his quest for world domination: the economic law of diminishing marginal returns. The Old Right thinker Albert Jay Nock saw that diminishing returns operated “inexorably in the realm of culture” as it did in economics.
For all of Facebook’s illuminating potential, it has regressed into a void of cat videos and shock-and-click headlines. Zuckerberg and his wannabe overlords think of this as a tragedy. The rest of us find it a mighty good distraction from life’s tribulations.
The democracy that could potentially make Zuckerberg president will be the same that causes him endless headaches. It’s a beautiful irony, and one I”d definitely click “like” on.
