2023-11-03 12:00:57
The Internet is to blame for everything. It “may have been intended as a tool, or still is to some extent. But an ability that no one would have previously recognized as having a disadvantage has wreaked enormous havoc on people: digital mass communication.” This is what Eva Menasse writes at the beginning of her essay “Saying Everything and Nothing,” in which she examines the “state of debate in digital modernity.” That’s bad. And that’s not all that surprising.
The simultaneity and apparent equivalence of information that is available around the clock and around the globe (assuming you have the appropriate device, electricity and network) has often been described in terms of its advantages and disadvantages. Eva Menasse adds some aspects that are important to her. For example, developments surrounding the pandemic, the promotion of vaccine skepticism or the spread of false news. Surprisingly, she also uses a term whose recent use in politics has been met with irritation: “‘Common sense’ (…) has become ineffective in the age of digital modernity.”
The enormous acceleration of communication in the age of digitalization has overridden important protective mechanisms such as the use of reason, elimination of emotions, and gaining distance (“time as an airbag”), writes Menasse, and he doesn’t even mention recent, embarrassing mishaps domestic politics in which messages were sent to false distribution lists as evidence. The reference to a counter-movement is interesting: multi-chamber systems, control bodies, appeal options in politics and the judiciary “ideally do not waste time, but rather gain it in order to deepen arguments, optimize decisions and be able to reverse wrong decisions”.
Eva Menasse reminds us of well-known facts (such as the virtual indelibility of statements once made in the global digital archive) and dangerous paradoxes: “The digital world celebrates itself for its freedom, even though the major digital corporations have created the most powerful cartels in history; the users almost remain in the foreground Everything is allowed to distract them from how attached they are to their strings.” For them, social media has less to do with an ancient agora where arguments were exchanged and more to do with the animal baiting and gladiator games of the past – instinctual rejection for the masses and conscious distraction from the essentials.
Finally, the Viennese, who has lived in Berlin for a long time and whose first book was regarding the trial of Holocaust denier David Irving, comes somewhat suddenly to German discussions of anti-Semitism, the influence of which is not entirely clear by the rules of digital debate. In view of the recent wave of anti-Semitism recorded following the Hamas terrorist attack, one thing is clear: the topic is unfortunately also explosive in Austria.
Eva Menasse called her essay “Saying everything and nothing,” and in the end one has the suspicion that the book that has just been published is more of an inventory of what is going on with Citoyenne Menasse, who is similar to her colleague Juli Zeh as an active observer of current events, has built up resentment over undesirable developments in recent years, rather than developing a coherent thesis on digitalization. Surprisingly, the topic of artificial intelligence does not play a role.
The ones and zeros are there, as are the smelly garbage cans, erupting volcanoes and melting glaciers, which she cites as examples of the analog world that still exists. Menasse ends with the Tasmanian devil, whose survival is threatened by a highly contagious facial cancer. Humanity will probably die out for other reasons. It’s quite possible that ones and zeros will be involved.
(SERVICE – Eva Menasse: “Say everything and nothing”, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 192 pages, 22.70 euros)
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