The Internet Conundrum: Finding Lost Meaning

Response Article To "Charedi Internet: A Contradiction in Terms?"

The new medium of screens, flashing into our human consciousness with its color and sound, has changed the way in which we appreciate meaning itself. It has shifted the fundamental balance between humanity and the world. But for a Charedi individual growing up in a system of rigid meaning, encounters with this new medium can be unsettling, to say the least. At the same time, they can provide huge opportunity.

Sivan 5780; June 2020

A woman gets up in the morning and hastens to wash her hands. A awakens from his slumber and wraps himself in a four-cornered garment with tzitzit strings attached. A woman ties a bandana that covers her every last hair. A young boy mumbles something before he takes a bite out of an apple. What are all these people doing? How can we understand their conduct?

A woman ties a bandana that covers her every last hair. A young boy mumbles something before he takes a bite out of an apple. What are all these people doing? How can we understand their conduct?

In this short piece I will try to plot a historical-cultural map which has the internet as a key factor in our ever-developing conception of truth and meaning. I will examine the connection between the various forms of mass media that have developed over the modern period, and the manner in which people form worldviews. And I will end by emphasizing the crucial contribution of an eternal Jewish consciousness in the infinite tangle of the virtual world. The discourse concerning internet as a vessel that can contain a tremendous range of content sometimes misses the great human story of which the internet is an important part. Formulating our policy vis-à-vis internet and its multiple challenges requires a high degree of awareness of this story.

 

Man: Representation, Meaning

Clifford Geertz was an anthropologist who sought to closely examine communities and people from distant places. In his books, he describes encounters with foreign cultures and analyzes them through a lens he dubs “thick descriptions.” According to Geertz, any human encounter as such is an opportunity to touch the true pulse of life, the internal meaning that creates and defines human conduct. Geertz called for delving into simple phenomena, into routine representations of human living; he wished to extract from therein a deeper mindset, a hidden sign or a Divine word that are unseen and unheard at first glance.

Thinkers from a variety of fields have sought out the secret, seeking the hidden depths of daily living, believing them to hold the key to our psychological and spiritual existence. Life itself is our ability of looking past the seen and drawing meaning from beyond.

A simple act of wrapping oneself in a tallis, just as the routine act of washing one’s hands, is thus imbued with multiple layers of meaning deeper than the sea—layers that form the crux of Jewish experience and contour our consciousness in myriad shades. It is worth deepening our perception of them to live a life of meaning. Thinkers from a variety of fields have sought out the secret, seeking the hidden depths of daily living, believing them to hold the key to our psychological and spiritual existence. Life itself is our ability of looking past the seen and drawing meaning from beyond.

Throughout history, the ways in which we perceive meaning within human life continue to change incessantly. These changes go hand in hand with changes in our mindset and with technological advancement—world-transforming changes in the form and the content of human thought. Human consciousness, in which resides the entire edifice of meaning, is never constant; it fluctuates drastically from one generation to another, from one year to the next.

 

Birth of the Subject

The internet brings the technology of modern thought to its latest and most extreme incarnation. Modernity broke through with a bang during the French Revolution, beginning to change the way people grant meaning to their own lives and to those of others. This new thought unraveled the old thought patters by which people infused their lives with meaning, and created new, original forms.

The essence of this form, the new god on the pedestal of modern thought, is the “subject”—the private individual called upon to think for himself, to be autonomous and independent, to take his freedom into his own hands. Meanings that originated in prophecy, in the holy spirit or in the Torah of Moshe—indeed, anything that is not “autonomous” or “authentic”—became condemnable and even abominable as primitive and pointless. The institutions of religion, ancient thought, the chain of tradition that hitherto transmitted all truth and meaning—all were mocked and derided worthy as devoid of true meaning. Philosophy and culture provided the newly empowered individual with a clear message: he, only he, can be sovereign over his life and control his choices. Nietzsche, the presiding philosopher of secularism, granted this new world order a sharp edge: “Under every tree they burn God at the stake and crown a new god: the subject.”

Chassidus sought to augment the power of the simple individual; the mussar movement spoke directly to the greatness of man; and Rabbi Hirsch, while refraining from addressing the matter head on, articulated traditional meaning in a new language—the tongue of the subject

The Jewish response to the newly defined human spirit will over time produce Chassidus, the mussar movement, and the school of Torah and Derech Eretz. All these streams, each with its distinctive style and through the leadership of its men of spirit, developed a response seeking to remedy the new spiritual ailment that was hitherto unknown. Old circles of meaning were stretched out with new ink, and new lines were drawn plotting the image of the “Jewish subject.” Chassidus sought to augment the power of the simple individual; the mussar movement spoke directly to the greatness of man; and Rabbi Hirsch, while refraining from addressing the matter head on, articulated traditional meaning in a new language—that of the subject.

Even before its scientific, economic, and political significance, the modern revolution is first and foremost one of consciousness. In order to maintain its relevance, Judaism was also forced to adopt the new model, and pour its ancient wine into a variety of new vessels.

 

Subjective Rise and Fall: Newspaper and TV

The ideas of the modern revolution were initially spread throughout Europe by means of the newspaper. Marshall McLuhan, a prominent scholar of communications who specialized in mass media, saw the newspaper as a cultural tool marking the shift from a community and tribe culture to an individualist mindset that prioritizes rational analysis—a culture presided over by the interpreting subject. Via the novel innovation of mass media, a reporter’s voice and opinion could reverberate far and wide, directed at individuals over whose minds different publications had to compete. There is nothing new of course about politics and social cohesion, but the medium in which these are promoted shifted to ideas, language, and the analytical processes of human consciousness. The modern subject writes and reads his world of meaning on the crumpling pages of a newspaper.

From the newspaper, the medium of greatest influenced moved to the TV screen, invading the quiet privacy of the subject’s home, and totally changing the rules of the game. A slow and process-oriented method of internalizing meaning quickly made way for the tribal bonfire of images, pictures, an endless mass of colors, non-stop events, and infinite stimulations projected by invisible waves into the heart of our living rooms.

The subject, just recently born into a newly found freedom to shape his own beliefs, is force-fed a scripted set of meanings. His soul is fused into a porridge of fashionable slogans, a stream of global experience that contains neither identity nor independent thought.

McLuhan is less interested in the content delivered by media, and more in our mass devotion to it and the way it affects us. The enlistment of technology in the service of humanity inevitably changes our relationships with others and the very way in which we think. Specifically, television aggressively supplants the subject—the thinking, analyzing individual who reaches conclusions—with itself at the center of the stage. By contrast with a newspaper read in thoughtful isolation, sitting in front of a screen fills our consciousness with concentrated entertainment. The machine tells us how to think and how to dress; the screen informs us (in schmaltzy Portuguese) who love is and how to mourn death. Gods are born and die on TV, nourishing our fantasies with forever decreasing originality. The subject, just recently born into a newly found freedom to shape his own beliefs, is force-fed a scripted set of meanings. His soul is fused into a porridge of fashionable slogans, a stream of global experience that contains neither identity nor independent thought.

A hundred years after Nietzsche’s burning of God—the ultimate revealer of all meaning—it is now the subject’s turn to be burned at the stake.

 

From Loss of Subject to Loss of Meaning

The next stage diminishes the dimensions of our screens, splinters its channels of expression into millions of fragments, and becomes the “magical square” held by every pocket. The place of the television screen is taken by the smartphone; and this time, all the prohibitions and bans in the world are uncapable of preventing its penetration into Charedi space. Internet includes a range of worlds that no television set could compete with. We use it as a source of information and news. We surf the open space and consume a huge variety of visual content—movies, social media, reality TV, you name it. And we employ it as a means of education. It’s all there.

Cultural scholar Jean Baudrillard defines these realms as “hyper-reality.” Entertainment, which was once confined to a block of time defined to escape the hardships of labor, has become the ultimate arena of events. The experience of tangible existence is pushed aside, replaced by a kind of parallel universe of ongoing fantasy. The subject, already crushed under the wheels of modern mass media, is now invited to entirely melt in the face of the postmodern internet revolution.

The postmodern internet and its infinite flood of contradictory messages, competing narratives and fluid truth is uninterested in conventions or identities. These are washed away by its irresistible tides. If granting meaning is the task of discovering hidden layers, the internet declares that no hidden layers remain to be discovered

Modernity sought out truth—Truth, rather—by means of its penetrating analysis, its all-encompassing scientific proof and philosophical meditation. But now all this is erased, all meaning lost. The postmodern internet and its infinite flood of contradictory messages, competing narratives and fluid truth is uninterested in conventions or identities. These are washed away by its irresistible tides. If granting meaning is the task of discovering hidden layers, the internet declares that no hidden layers remain to be discovered. All is exposed, open, externalized; no mystery ground remains from which to mine hidden meaning. Reality shows, unending posts, live broadcasts from our innermost chambers and from subcutaneous layers of our individual being—alongside the online documentation of every butterfly’s wing motion in the suburbs of our reality—all these wildly deconstruct the very concept of meaning. Our new media obliterates meaning in a virtual flood of words, excitements, and imagined experiences. People become puppets, standing hollowly in a theater that knows no end. We film incessantly, flashing ourselves to death on some screen, somewhere. Consciousness is trapped in a bewildering room of mirrors—we see ourselves, and yet we do not.

Newspaper reports activated our imagination, tying words to the realities of life; but in the infinite sea of superficial realities there is no message to be discovered and no worthwhileness to strive for. The show is more important than the meaning. The show projects itself alone, without adding any value. And the show must go on.

 

Charedi Youth and Internet: From Packed Meaning to Random Emptiness

Charedi youth of both sexes hail from public and private sphere saturated with meaning. The absolute principles of those faithful to Hashem and His Torah are translated by educational institutions into a daily reality which sometimes buckles under the weight of its own ideas and messages. Every trip is laden with meaning; to every basic pleasure is attached a variety of justifications anchored in traditional sources. It seems that this unbalanced multiplicity is often one of the reasons for the desire step outside, to take a breath of air that involves no order or purpose. The Charedi subject, who has long since absorbed modern consciousness, weeks to thin the thickness of the network of meanings into which he is woven. The seam between first order meanings tied to Torah and faith and second order meanings created by social conditions and community conventions is often hard to locate. Meaning is everywhere.

The absolute principles of those faithful to Hashem and His Torah are translated by educational institutions into a daily reality which sometimes buckles under the weight of its own ideas and messages. Every trip is laden with meaning; to every basic pleasure is attached a variety of justifications anchored in traditional sources

What takes place at the curious meeting point, charged with the taste of forbidden fruit, between a subject whose cart is too heavy with meaning and a path etched in outer space? Oftentimes, against the background even of light and gentle exposure, we can hear the sounds of a painful and crisis-laden crash. Youth growing up in Western culture are accustomed to a life in which meanings are liquid and all too fragile. But for a Charedi youth who moves, even in tiny steps, from a totality of meaning to a vacuum thereof, the result can be complete breakdown, a fall into nihilism without distinctions, and a sense that “all is permitted.” In the face of the infinite virtual world, the Charedi youth finds himself powerless to adapt. Unable to distinguish between the wheat and the chaff of his own society, there is no space for him to construct a tailored framework of tradition and religious thought—one in which the hues of the picture alter at the contact point with a new reality.

In my work with young Charedi women, I encounter many for whom the virtual world provides an escape from the burdensome sense of meaninglessness that pervades their life—a feeling that draws on an inability to translate the language of educational meaning they were raised on into a language that can enrichen their internal life. The online deconstructing of meaning provides them with a temporary reprieve. But in the long term, this charged encounter itself only deepens their sense of pointlessness:

“Why does everyone look so perfect on Facebook, prepare million-dollar meals, and dress kids like they were in a catalogue? Why am I the only one who’s such a loser?”

“The truth is that I’m sick and tired of reading posts. It’s all the same, the same empty words. To be larger than life. To follow your dreams. But nobody really intends or knows how to follow a dream, what bus line to take and when to get off.”

The excitement of discovering something new, often accompanied by a loss of trust in the Charedi educational system and some of its fundamental values, quickly makes way for a feeling of shallowness and the dulling of senses. Ostensibly, what we have is a cul-de-sac: on the one hand, innocence has already been lost and the passion of youth spent; on the other hand, the desire for an alternative meaning, one that speaks to the inner self, is nowhere to be found. Yet, given time, an occasion for calm reflection and a sense of personal responsibility, it is precisely here that we find an opportunity for repair and correction: an opportunity to return to a world of meaning, this time in a more sober and adapted sense.

 

Bringing Back Meaning

Jacques Lacan, a postmodern psychoanalyst, presented sight as an urge. Many years after the Sages spoke about the seeing eye and the desiring heart (and the person who acts on his drives), psychoanalysis also understands that our vision—the type that is not merely passive—provides a reflective sort of satisfaction. Lacan pointed out that absolute exposure that leaves nothing unexposed is a kind of blindness, creating a situation in which a person’s imagination defines his own reality and empties it of living content. True emotional development, of the type that ties a person with himself, with his loves and with the world, takes place only when something remains hidden. Rabbi Shimshon David Pincus once said that “everybody needs to have a secret with God.”

True emotional development, of the type that ties a person with himself, with his loves and with the world, takes place only when something remains hidden. Rabbi Shimshon David Pincus once said that “everybody needs to have a secret with God.”

The Hebrew Torah, our ancient and eternal Truth, provides fertile ground for the development of this hidden layer. Within it also lies the blessing of meaning; not only an objective meaning, one-size-fits-all, but even our own meaning—the meaning of subjects. The Chazon Ish beautifully describes this experience of seeking the hidden, creating the passion of the believer and the magic in his life:

“If man has a soul and his hour is one of quiet […] and his eye brightens from the sight of the sky above and the earth to its depths. He is excited and amazed. For the world seems to him like a hidden riddle, hidden and wonderful. This riddle caresses his heart and mind and is as if fainting, he is left without a living spirit, without all his energy and direction being aimed at the mystery and his soul yearning to know the solution, and he was chosen to come into the fire and water for it … to understand its secret and know its root.”

Our education system, packed though it is with messages of true meaning, often fails to adapt that eternal truth in ways that fit the needs of our youth. When it comes to the virtual world, it deals with the threats of internet in two ways. One was paved in the manner of the Kingdom of Fear: Threats and warnings, the transformation of the internet realm into something monstrous and demonic from which nobody who enters can return. The second path aims to “steal the spear from the hand of Egyptian”—to create a competition with online pyrotechnics: grandiose productions, massive displays, stage stunts and the like, all replete with didactic messages of distancing from the online evil. I do not dismiss these sincere efforts; I moreover assume that they do indeed moderate the rates of exposure to the evil and chaotic.

Our role as educators is to help the student create a world of meaning drawn from holiness, and to ensure it is lucid enough to inform everyday life. Erecting walls is not enough—not only because all our walls have become porous, but because of the acute need to permeate our basic acts of faith—Shabbos, prayer, blessings, modesty, and all else—with meaning

Yet the field lacks the ploughing it so requires. The online reality is not merely a threat. It is also an opportunity to redevelop a realm of meaning adapted to the soul and world of members of the current period. It is precisely the infinite wisdom of our own Torah, in all its forms, which can form an escape for those who seek meaning and are tired of the wafer-thin products on display. Some mediation is doubtless required between the ancient books and the routine reality. The work of translating eternal words into the language of adolescent students is a task that requires expert training and careful thought. But it is a task we cannot shirk off. Our role as educators is to help the student create a world of meaning drawn from holiness, and to ensure it is lucid enough to inform everyday life. Erecting walls is not enough—not only because all our walls have become porous, but because of the acute need to permeate our basic acts of faith—Shabbos, prayer, blessings, modesty, and all else—with meaning. We must provide our youth with keys to the secret chamber where the concealed is itself the spice of life and its raison d’etre.

Zelda, a poet of holiness in a secular world, best described the psychological and spiritual potential for a life of meaning and an anchor embodied by Torah and tradition, precisely in a world where the springs of meaning have been sealed:

I shall not float in space,

Unbridled

Lest a cloud shall devour

The thin line in my heart

Separating good and from evil

I have no existence

Without the lightning and voices

I heard at Sinai.

The verse is free. The rhythm is unbridled. But the meaning is set in the stone tablets of Sinai.

In the face today’s virtual cloud, a flashing melting pot of meaning that pounds at the door of our consciousness, Torah Judaism presents a line of hope that continues unabated throughout generations—the hope of a scarlet thread that spans from Sinai, through today, and till the end of time.

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