When we want to digitize our emotions as well, we will become illiterate in expressing our feelings [FRAGMENT]

Reinhard Hellar “The Power of Respect” (translated by Marta Książkiewicz), Otwarte Publishing House – excerpt:

(…) the cause of the decline of respect is the digitization of communication. With the impressive possibilities of the network and the exchange of information, the emotional aspect is relegated to the background. While emoticons are becoming more and more varied and diverse, they will never be able to replace real emotions and the exchange of feelings between people. Even the best programs will not offer a holistic view of a person with their individual personality traits, distinctive expressions and emotional diversity. And this is precisely the condition for a respectful meeting with other people. Computers and robots can take over many functions and surpass the human original in more and more areas. Their productivity is infinitely faster, their work pace is much faster, their knowledge and memory are unlimited. Soon, thanks to artificial intelligence, they will also gain those intellectual skills that were previously reserved for humans.

But never a computer or even a humanoid robot will be able to feel true emotion, sympathy, compassion and respect. Even if the Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, a master of hedonistic architecture, manages to build smiling houses, it is not a substitute for real emotions. Likes, regardless of their number, are not able to evoke the same emotional satisfaction as a warm smile or heartfelt praise. When we want to digitize our emotions as well, we will become illiterate in expressing our feelings.

Lust for scandals and humiliation

In social media and elsewhere, people are now often warned against the harmful fashion for scandals, depreciation and humiliation. “Bad news” has always been important to the media world, but the new media imposes it with unprecedented urgency and satisfies the urge to scandal and degrade it with all sorts of tricks. The desire to watch catastrophe coverage seems unsatisfactory. the hunger to discredit and humiliate others in a hateful way is made visible, malice expressed verbally instead of aggression, anonymous hypocrisy instead of open hostility, sometimes with tragic results.

A fateful photo

Canadian schoolgirl Amanda took her own life at sixteen. In the chat, an unknown interlocutor persuaded her to send him a photo showing her bare breasts. With this naked photo, a stranger blackmailed her, posted it on the internet, and sent it to students in her class. They, in turn, launched a hunt against Amanda and terrorized her day and night via virtual media and the telephone. In despair, Amanda resorted to alcohol and drugs, took antidepressants unsuccessfully, mutilated herself many times and changed schools several times. As the cyber mobbing did not stop, there was a drama.

A few weeks before her death, Amanda published a video in which she reported her drama on handwritten cards – the last one had a sad face painted on it. “I cried every night and lost all my friends … I will never be able to take this picture back. He will always be out there … “- that was her cry for help.

Historian Ute Frevert has shown that humiliation and humiliation are still used in child rearing, criminal law and politics. Also in modern times, the “pillory” was not liquidated, but reinvented through the possibilities offered by the Internet. Today, however, it humiliates and humiliates not the authorities, but the entire society. People use the Internet to its full potential to ridicule and discredit others on an unprecedented scale. without revealing your own identity.

The new space that opens up for humiliation and humiliation by the Internet is most dramatically revealed as cyber mobbing. This form of slander, discredit, humiliation and coercion is widespread especially among adolescents and young adults. According to various representative studies, every third internet user has fallen victim to internet mobbing at least once, and what is even more terrifying, every fifth of them might imagine acting as a so-called bully. Among the students asked, almost 50 percent even admit that they have mobbed other people on the Internet before.

Cybermobbing and cyberstalking take advantage of the effect of losing inhibitions in the online space, caused by the anonymity and invisibility of the perpetrator, the elimination of social control, but most of all by the lack of emotional feedback. The perpetrator does not have to expose himself to emotional face-to-face communication, he does not have to look the victim in the eye.

From a psychological point of view, there are likely to be several mechanisms behind the lust for scandals and the tendency to degrade others. One of them is the sensational craving through which people try to combat boredom and inner emptiness, as well as overcome their own emotional indifference. Negative and fearful messages seem to serve this purpose better than harmonious and positive relationships. Failures and the (attributed) guilt of other people also relativize one’s own insecurity and a sense of inferiority. Thus the wickedness of the world confirms the moral superiority of one’s own position and the decency of one’s own conduct.

The human longing for a benevolent emotional interest clearly cannot be satisfied by the internet. Incidentally, this has been confirmed by research into the growing skepticism towards the Internet. A representative study of the Internet generation, that is, people who were between fourteen and twenty-four at the time of the survey, revealed a growing distrust of the Internet3. 38 percent of the young people interviewed justified their stance on social media with “cultures of insult.” Two-thirds, a total of 1,730 respondents, perceived the internet as a space where all people speaking must reckon with being insulted and insulted.

Radicalization of language

As linguists have shown, there are complaints in the social discussion about the increasing radicalization of language. In part, this may be related to the digital culture of insult described earlier. In the flood of information, however, people also try to gain attention by radically expressing themselves and evoking some emotions in others by making strong statements. Educators complain about hate speech, disregard and discrimination in school yards. Similarly, in media and political discussions, one can notice a selection of vocabulary devoid of respect for others, which largely determines the atmosphere in society, and thus the culture of disrespect.

Often, by simplifying and exaggerating a bit, people invoke the need for “simple messages” as an explanation for new, destructive ways of behaving. However, in this way, an emotional factor far more important than purely linguistic one is largely ignored. which refers to the feeling of humiliation and inferiority of favorable recipients and indirectly offers them a “cure” for their ills, is of much greater importance. Behind the hate speech of radical Islamists is always the promise of seventy-two virgins waiting for them in Paradise.

A mask of a casual lifestyle

Probably through the combination of the above-mentioned phenomena, an emotional ideal was formed in our society, which can be described as a mask of a free lifestyle. Show as few feelings as possible or do it in an artificial way. Indifference is what counts, and in interpersonal contacts, emotional distancing prevails. In this way, the face becomes similar to a mask, and the person loses the possibility of showing various emotions. The process of becoming like a machine takes place.

Uniformization by not showing emotions, however, does not change the fact that behind the mask there is an emotional, very sensitive creature. Man as a whole has not become less emotional, it is not more difficult to hurt him, and he does not need less attention. However, he does not want and can no longer show his feelings and desires, so he keeps them to himself. And this is how an affective-emotional disconnect arises. This means that emotional expression (affect) and inner feeling (emotionality) do not match. Uniformization, also visible in makeup, makes the affective vitality diminish and the face resembles a mask. On the other hand, the inner feeling of emotions is not one iota less than before (see also pages 23–41). On the contrary, the longing for emotional interest and uplifting feelings is perhaps greater than ever before. Inside, man remains a sensitive being, in need of love and praise, even if he defends himself against it and shows something else outside.

Treatment of the elderly

The crisis of respect in our society is also connected to a large extent with an increasingly deprived attitude towards a growing part of society, namely the elderly. Due to the rapidly increasing life expectancy, the percentage of people over 60 has risen to 20 percent in society.

This tendency, the most positive for individuals, is by no means accepted by society with joy and respect. The main focus of the discussion is the social and economic aspects of the aging of the general population. There are complaints about a hole in the pension system, about the costs of care, the usefulness and quality of life of seniors are analyzed and the meaning of life for older people is questioned in general. A European study published in 2018 found that discrimination against older people occurs much more often than acts of sexism or racism. Swiss sociologist Christian Maggiori4 from the University of Freiburg, who was significantly involved in the aforementioned research, rightly emphasized that there is no legal regulation to protect the elderly. Unlike sexism and racism, there is no law that prohibits discrimination and stigmatization of this part of society. Maggiori wants to investigate whether introducing a sensitization program for children from four years of age could reverse this disturbing trend.

Depreciating the elderly begins with the indiscriminate adoration of youth and targeting only young people with advertisements, it is seen in job advertisements that covertly (because legally prohibited) discriminate against the elderly and end with their isolation. In a world governed by the principle of economic utility and profit optimization, it seems that the dignity of old age no longer has any value. The knowledge, experience and wisdom of old age have been replaced by Google and Wikipedia, and the quality of existence in the fall of life is marked by the image of troublesome old age.

Constant complaints about the lack of sense and hopelessness in old age, as well as the increasingly open sympathy for good death and active euthanasia, put enormous emotional pressure on elderly people in need of care and depressive. These people literally feel worthless and no longer want to be a burden to their loved ones or to society. However, the wisdom of the fourth commandment shows us how important it is to appreciate old age in the context of the sense of a fulfilled life, including its last stage, and in the aspect of the healthy functioning of society: “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land that the Lord Your God will give you. ”It not only emphasizes the requirement of respect for the elderly, but also points out that today’s young are tomorrow’s old. than is the case with the even more disrespectful treatment of minorities such as refugees and asylum seekers.