Where There’s No I
We live in the age of narcissism. I don’t believe for one second that this generation is substantially worse than the one before, or the five hundred before that. The young were immoral and lazy and unwise when Socrates walked the streets of Athens, and they are no different now. As were the old. But this generation has developed the technology to perfectly express the same narcissism our parents and our ancient forebears carried.
Nevertheless, in this age of narcissism, there exists an opposite impulse. Matt Webb quotes Borges: “All men, in the vertiginous moment of coitus, are the same man. All men who repeat a line of Shakespeare are William Shakespeare.” In another story, Borges writes: “I am god, I am hero, I am philosopher, I am demon and I am world, which is a tedious way of saying that I do not exist.” There is a saying, everyone’s favorite word is their own name, and there’s some truth to that. But isn’t there something exhilarating about Borges’s statement, too?
There is no actor, there is only the act. All men are every man, and every man is all men. It is the ultimate denial of narcissism: there is no ego. Much has been said about the so-called online disinhibition effect. When online and anonymous, we act differently, and frequently malevolently. But couldn’t this be a healthy antidote to the narcissism of social networks? Many people claim that anonymity is simply an easy way for people to act like assholes with no consequences. But I think part of it, at least for some people, is also a healthy impulse that is opposed to the egoistic drive.
I don’t know if there are any other animals that have such contradictory instincts: are there any creatures as fiercely individualistic, and at the same as fiercely social as humans? And while we celebrate our own egos, while we prop up celebrity mega-egos and build technologies designed for the generation of ego-worship, shouldn’t we also be celebrating this contrary impulse? Both individualism and collectivism can be ugly, but both can also be beautiful. It would be a beautiful thing if we could have arenas for the expression of both. When I get tired of fapping to the magnificence of my own ego, can’t I have somewhere to go where I can get lost in the masses, where I am everyone and everyone me?
This is one of the reasons I’m such a big proponent of anonymity, which seems to be evolving into public enemy number one. Governments want to kill anonymity so they can keep tabs on us. Companies want to kill anonymity so they can make money off us. Individuals want to kill anonymity so they can worship and be worshipped. I want to preserve anonymity so there can be a place where there is no I.
Bolding mine.
