The violence on the Internet can sometimes directly translate into physical violence.
Since the emergence of the Internet, it has resulted in a full range of changes in the society deeply involved in the Internet. The impact of the Internet is not just an impact on existing things, but many things need to be redefined. "Fake news" is an obvious example.
Traditionally, society has become a society because people have "consensus" on things, that is, common cognition, while "consensus" is based on experience. For example, as long as people have an "apple" experience with this "apple", they will not treat "apple" as an "orange". But "fake news" effectively changed the fact that it provided "another kind of fact" that people who accepted fake news would interpret "apple" as an "orange".
In other words, "fake news" is not fake, as long as the reader thinks it is true, it is true. Therefore, "fake news" can also have practical effect, thus changing reality. Traditionally, "thought" is power. In the Internet age, "thought" can be false.
The Internet can "dissimilate" anything and people and dissimilate the original thing into something else. The power of alienation between things and people has always existed in history. For example, Marx believed that capitalism leads to alienation. In addition, various religions and technologies often lead to alienation. But there has never been a thing that can bring about the dramatic alienation of things and people like the Internet today. The reason is simple, because the Internet is the most suitable technology for human nature.
Here can borrow a concept of social psychology, namely English self - righteousness (Chinese can be roughly translated as "self-righteous" thought "right"), to describe the process of alienation. Here, "self-righteousness" is a sense of moral superiority, believing in one's beliefs, actions and affiliations, superior to most people in society. People with such feelings tend not to tolerate different opinions and behaviors. The "pagan" concept of religion is such an extreme. Social psychologists believe that the existence of this social psychology indicates human imperfection.
Humans never make mistakes, and humans do it when they get their chance. This is similar to what psycho-psychologist Freud called the "self-defence" mechanism of human psychology. Some scholars believe that this kind of social psychology may start from the original social practice, because the needs of survival, the primitive tribes need to use this psychological reinforcement to strengthen the internal identification. The same is true of later religions. The political ideology produced in modern times can also be regarded as the product of this social psychology.
The Internet age meets the needs of the individual.
The characteristics of the Internet have effectively satisfied the human psychological needs. But one thing is very different. Whether in primitive tribal times, religious times or ideological times, this social psychology occurs at the social level, which is to meet the needs of groups or groups. However, in the Internet age, this "social" mentality takes place at the "individual" level, satisfying the needs of the "individual" first, and the needs of the group are secondary. This is because the Internet has the characteristics of decentralization, decentralization, individualization, individualization, democratization and so on.
The impact of the Internet on individuals can be understood at least in the context of individuals, groups and individuals. At the individual level, everyone can achieve "self-belief". On the Internet, every individual can "choose" and find "another me" or "companion". The choice of the Internet is voluntary rather than traditional. Because there are so many choices on the Internet, the individual can choose almost anything he needs and always find himself.
That is to say, for an individual, the human nature and form of expression seem no longer by any external environment, objects (and others) to define and as a medium, but by the people choose to define themselves, from the people themselves. For example, an individual can change his or her gender at any time, on one occasion to be male, and on another occasion to be female, or other gender. No matter what sex, it can find "companion".
The result of this completely free choice is the formation of different virtual groups. In the Internet age, people have formed small circles, or circle of friends, "gang members". The ideal of "group sharing" was fully realized in the Internet age. These groups have a very strong sense of community, and because the same consciousness of competing with each other, and constantly to develop in the direction of extreme group consciousness and strengthening, eventually lead to the radicalization of group consciousness.
The most typical is an organization like the islamic state, where people can sacrifice their lives for a "consciousness". Organization of the islamic state of nature is an example of a negative, but in fact, various circles such as "star" (including political star, entertainment stars, sports stars, etc.), "circle" of speech (concepts), the academic circle, circle "underworld" (different), just different levels.
Each group is a small group of "self-serving" groups that seem to live and develop without any relevance to other "circles". Each "small circle" is consolidating itself, separating itself from the whole society and isolating itself. Although in the real society, there is also the phenomenon of "people with groups", but each "group" is interrelated and interactive. The "division of labor" theory in economics is an illustration of this phenomenon. However, the "group" on the Internet is like the phenomenon of "monomer clones", which can leave other "groups" and exist temporarily.
Further, whether individuals or groups, the commercial environment they are in is reinforcing the "anti-social" nature. The Internet has a powerful push function. Once an individual or group chooses each product or group of people, the Internet pushes the same type of goods and people to him, and it is a never-ending push. This undoubtedly reinforces the selectivity of the chooser to a thing or person, and consequently leads to "only knowing this, not knowing there are other" situations.
In all of these processes, human alienation is obvious. Today, the real world is becoming more and more regionalized and globalized, but the people on the Internet platform are becoming more and more self-imprisoned. Behind the surface of "interconnection" is "disconnected". The real world is becoming more and more diverse, but the people on the Internet are becoming more and more unidirectional. The individual's one-way choice, the reinforcement of the group and the environment, makes people more and more distant from their origin.
Today, a grid society similar to "well field" has been formed, realizing the ideal state of "birds of a feather flock together". The Internet is powerful enough that everyone can build their own "castle" or find the "castle" they want to enter. When everyone has a self - built "castle", and other "castles" are not connected with each other, the sociality disappears. And because everyone can, society will disappear.
Not only that, in this process, people's self regulation finally towards the opposite, that is stipulated by other people or things people completely, and the rules and without their participation, therefore is completely dissimilar. Here we can take the example of consumption. In traditional society, consumption is based on the consumption of what you need and what you need to consume.
But is the consumption of today's alibaba era really the consumption that it needs? For today's consumers, the answer is unclear. To a large extent, consumers are actually consumed, and what they consume is not what they really need. This is the typical "supply side" of consumption, that is, the consumption of people who provide consumer goods. In the age of the Internet and big data, a person may not know what he needs, and the push man already knows what he needs and has already sent it to his eyes.
The "group" on the Internet
It is clear that this is not only happening in the consumer sector, but in other areas of the Internet age, such as politics. People choose to join or be invited to join a party, such as the republicans and Democrats, who do so simply because of the "idea" they identify with. In the political field, if people don't pay attention to the actual situation of the society, and don't pay attention to the words of others, the result will inevitably result in self-talk. If you look at western Internet politics, it is not only easy to see this phenomenon, but also to understand it. Political figures are like this, public intellectuals are like this, and so are ordinary people.
As the "group" is not connected with each other, with the realization and reinforcement of "group", the conflict between "group" is inevitable. The "group" on the Internet is not mutually exclusive, once contact, the inevitable conflict. This is the case with today's Internet language, including images. Sometimes, violence on the Internet can directly translate into physical violence.
Can this be changed? Marx proposed capital in the era of "alienation" proposition, although still exist, but through the transformation of political democratization and capital itself (that is, from the transformation of raw capitalism to welfare capitalism) eased and control. This transition process is related to the human knowledge transformation. Human beings have ideals and values that are realized through human behavior, whether government policy or other organizational behavior.
It is not hard to find that the transformation of each technology brings about the transformation of the human thought system. On the one hand, the new thought system must reflect the change of technology, on the other hand, the emergence of new thought system shows the digestion and control of new technology.
But the Internet age is different. There is no other factor in the self-alienation of the Internet. So far, at least, there is no sign that humans can digest and control the Internet. No one can change the status quo of the Internet. What we see is that people are changed by the Internet. It's very clear that there is a change in the role of the intellectual elite or the philosophical elite. In modern times, thought or philosophy is the change of the leading times. But in the Internet age, ideas and philosophies not only can not lead change, but also can not keep up with the change.
So far, no thinker or philosopher has understood the significance of the people of the Internet age. The truth is simple, the essence of thought and philosophy is systematic, while the essence of the Internet is fragmentation, dispersiveness and separability. In order to lead the change, thinkers and philosophers must "override" the era and impose a world view or value on the general public.
But that is no longer possible on the Internet. To make an impact, thinkers and philosophers must first fragment themselves into "traffic". In the process, it was not the thinkers and philosophers who changed reality, but the Internet that changed thinkers and philosophers.
To a large extent, the Internet world is like a casino: the casino reason effectively sucks away the money of the gambler and makes the gambler die happily in the gambling process. And the Internet has effectively and effectively sucked the intelligence of Internet addicts, making the addict die foolishly in the process of addiction.
Without a miracle, the direction of human development led by the Internet is hard to reverse. But this is a process of alienation. Unless "human" is redefined, the outcome of this process must be "inhuman". What is it like when technology dominates human beings, or when humans become subservient to technology?