Education in a Postfactual World. Patrick M. Whitehead

soon as they have been commandeered by Facebook, the “individual,” “specific,” and “living expression” are necessarily lost to abstract representations. Moreover, it is through this abstraction that one now communicates and relates with others. But the opportunity that this presents is compelling. In the concrete social world, there is a possibility that I am not the kind of person that I would like to be—for example, I might be ugly. In the abstract world of Facebook, I can be selective about what abstractions represent me. For example, I can doctor up a picture to remove blemishes, or I can pick one that gets my “good side,” etc. “Thus,” in the land of Facebook, “what I am and am capable of is by no means determined by my individuality” (Marx & Engels, p. 103). I can be whatever I would like to be. While Marx’s discussion concerned the abstractification of persons by money and commodification, it applies equally well to the abstractification of persons by Facebook.

      [Facebook] converts my wishes from something in the realm of imagination, translates them from their meditated, imagined or willed existence into their sensuous, actual existence—from imagination to life, from imagined being into real being. In effecting this mediation, [Facebook] is the truly creative power. (p. 104)

      Now, instead of going about my concrete life, I am instead motivated by a fixed set of potential actions that might receive a certain approval rating when transmitted through Facebook. I can attend a baseball game as a concrete experience, or I can show up and have my picture taken and allow its subsequent feedback to inform my experience of having been there. In this manner, one becomes alienated from one’s own-experience, choosing instead to defer to the experience mediated by Facebook. Fromm (1990) explains:

      By alienation is meant a mode of experience in which the person experiences himself as an alien. He has become, one might say, estranged from himself. He does not experience himself as the center of his world, as the creator of his own acts—but his acts and their consequences have become his masters, whom he obeys, or whom he may even worship. The alienated person is out of touch with himself as he is out of touch with any other person. He, like the others, are experienced as things are experienced; with the senses and with common sense, but at the same time without being related to oneself and to the world outside. (pp. 120–121)

      The camera is a piece of technology that has been commandeered in Facebook’s abstractification of people, used as a portal through which users are alienated from their experiences.

      The camera used to be for extra-special occasions. As such it had little to do with documenting regular events and more to do with a reminder of “this is what Uncle Mac looked like this year,” or “this was that family vacation to Hawaii.” These pictures, now losing their original vividness, have since acquired a singular aroma now bound in albums for walks down memory-lane. While abstractions, these pictures elicit powerful and transformative concrete experiences—“I remember when ….” Here the concrete experience is one of a memory that has been elicited by a picture, which at that time was capable of being held in your hands. Pictures once belonged to a roll of camera-film that would often extend across several such “extra-special occasions,” and this film would need to be developed at the photo shop. When finally developed, enough time had passed from the original event that there was a certain measure of an “oh yeah!” memory recollection associated with thumbing through the prints. The experience of remembering the event is a singular one but distinct from the original event itself. Seeing pictures from my tenth birthday party is not the same experience as me turning ten, but is an experience nonetheless. The photograph has seen a revolution. Like MIDI to music, digital cameras have increasingly replaced exposure cameras. Now these digital cameras are in every phone. Events are captured with the click of a readily available button. No more “extra-special occasions.”

      To be fair, the alienating potential of the exposure camera long preceded that of the digital camera. Fromm explains:

      Indeed, the taking of snapshots has become one of the most significant expressions of alienated visual perception, of sheer consumption. The “tourist” with his camera is an outstanding symbol of an alienated relationship to the world. Being constantly occupied with taking pictures, actually he does not see anything at all, except through the intermediary of the camera. The camera sees for him, and the outcome of his “pleasure” trip is a collection of snapshots which are the substituted for an experience which he could have had, but did not have. (p. 137)

      Here Fromm describes the photographing tourist that is ignoring his own experience for-the-sake-of the abstract experience denoted by the snapshots. In his example, the caricatured photographer would have to wait until the pictures were developed in order to see whether or not he had a good time. The digitization of the camera has increased the likelihood of this type of alienation in two ways. First, the ubiquity of digital cameras is such that every experience is susceptible to “snapshot alienation”; and second, pictures may be reviewed instantly for feedback and the shaping of experience where necessary (as in “that one was okay but have more fun for this second one”). Moreover, with Facebook, photographs may become social capital instantly. A picture may be uploaded to one’s profile while the event is still going on and subsequently receive Facebook validation. The experience of the concrete event and the abstraction may now occur simultaneously. Thus, the abstract world of Facebook hovers about during social gatherings, patiently waiting for the invitation to place its stamp of validity on what has taken place. If a party happens and nobody is there to post a photograph of it, does it occur? With the increasing accessibility of technology, most notably smart-phones, this abstract world now follows us around, filtering our experiences.

      Every experience has the potential for further validation by the world of Facebook. But the latter has increasingly obscured the former. Lanier (2009) explains how “on a typical social networking site,”

      either you are designated to be in a couple or you are single (or you are in one of a few other predetermined states of being)—and that reduction of life is what gets broadcast between friends all the time. What is communicated between people eventually becomes their truth. Relationships take on the troubles of software engineering. (p. 50)

      Friends get together to talk over a cup of coffee. Conversations increasingly feature the discussion of events that have been mediated by Facebook. This is only provided conversation actually unfolds. It would not be unusual to imagine two friends seated opposite one another, each of them on their smart-phones plugged into the world of social media or “Googling” for other bits of information. Since it would be impossible to imagine that they might both put their phones away, imagine instead that they both lose power on their phones and are forced to be in each other’s presence. Are they saved from the looming influence of Facebook? Or do they continue speak in the generic manner endorsed by Facebook: “yes or no” questions; replies limited to “that’s good” or “no, that’s bad.” Descriptions of one’s morning might read as would their status feed: I did this, did this, felt that, listened to this, so-and-so did this, etc. Once again, Fromm (1990) would describe this as a social exchange where both parties are alienated from each other. He writes,

      In any productive or spontaneous activity, something happens within myself while I am reading, looking at scenery, talking to friends, etcetera. I am not the same after the experience as I was before. In the alienated form of pleasure nothing happens within me; I have consumed this or that; nothing is changed within myself, and all that is left are memories of what I have done. (pp. 136–137)

      While these two hypothetical friends might be sharing spatial proximity, their exchange is of no consequence. Lanier (2009) explains what happens when two people risk a personal encounter. “A real friendship ought to introduce each person to unexpected weirdness in the other” that “cannot be imagined or accessed in any way but through genuine interaction” (p. 39). Here one finds the relationship between man and man that Marx (Marx & Engels, 1978) has described, the one that is not obscured by abstractions or imagination, but is infinitely personal.

      Social networks were originally available to serve as a tool that might facilitate concrete social interaction. As such, the breadth and depth of singular personality has been fitted into an abstract representation called a profile, available for review by a much larger audience than concretely practical. However, over time, this abstract