Sorcery of the Spectacle

So, the world’s a complex place, right? I don’t need to tell you that. Civilization is an amalgamation of people, who are amalgamations of cells, which are amalgamations of molecules, and it’s turtles all the way down. Maddeningly chaotic, if you spend the time trying to piece it all together. But, despite being in the midst of an incredible mind-boggling soup of all sorts of parts and pieces, there are overarching laws and patterns which can be defined at various levels of magnification.

What I mean is, although there are innumerous processes happening every moment within society, there are clear trends in how things work. I want to take some time to bring awareness of one such phenomena that is central to running the world from a human perspective.

Attention.

We can say our time is our most valuable resource. After all we don’t get more sand in our hourglass; once it’s gone, it’s gone for good. By extension, we can say our attention is equally as valuable. Functionally, I see them as the same thing. What we focus on in the now is all we can be conscious of. If we’re not aware of where our attention is going, then we are not in control of our own time on this Earth.

This is particularly problematic as we live in an age where people are consumed by technology. The attention economy is something anyone familiar with marketing is well-versed on. Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase “The medium is the message,” meaning that anything transmitting information will create a symbiotic relationship with the receivers: namely, us. How many people are addicted to Facebook, or Snapchat, or Reddit, or any of the countless attention-grabbers in the tech-sphere that we have embraced uniformly as a culture?

This is alarming. There are countless people who are completely immersed in these artificial realities. By itself, in itself, I don’t think this is hugely problematic. It is in our nature to seek novelty to capture our active attention, and those are the greatest sources of novelty available to the average person. What is problematic, however, is that people are completely unaware of how they are hypnotized and manipulated by the complex forces at play.

To illustrate this, think of society like a super-person. No, I don’t mean like Superman. I mean this in the sense that a person can be said to be a super-cell, and a cell can be said to be a super-molecule. Our interconnected communication network is an emergent phenomena: a brain made from many brains. Combined, we have a collective output: the spectacle. Now, we can’t fully perceive that output, it’s like trying to bite your own teeth, but we can know the pieces that make up that sum. Everything from government propaganda, to advertisements, to even this article, creates a combined force on the whole.

This means that there is a constant force on you, altering your perception and opinions on a constant basis. To remain unaware of this, you strip yourself of any ability to maintain your own agency. The concept of “hive-mind” comes to mind. Just think when there’s a big news story, or some celebrity drama, or a viral meme. How much attention do people sink into consuming, thinking, and talking about it? How much of their time is stolen from them because a screen and speakers made certain patterns?

Take a step back and ask yourself: did I really want to spend my whole afternoon talking about something that has no tangible impact on me? Our individual agency, that which gives us the semblance of free will, is being stolen from us: both intentionally and accidentally. Big companies want your attention put on their products, actively trying to steal it to make a quick buck. Governments and political entities want you paying attention to their party lines. The entertainment industry wants you plopped on your couch, consuming every bit of that 60-inch TV you just bought because it looked so good on the last TV you owned.

This is not good. The direction our collective is taking is not a survivable one. I would liken it to the early stages of life, where protocells would form from self-replicating molecules only to fall apart. In order to survive the transition into a unified collective living in harmony with one another, we need as many people embracing their personal agency and free will.

Agency is a skill. One which is improved by bringing your attention to it and making the choice to be your highest self. Actualize it and help all of us walk towards a brighter future.