Original post from March 28, 2021
On the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah), I took it upon myself to write a weekly post about a “new and ancient story”, about the animist worldview and an unconventional approach to economics and human nature. I encounter this perspective from multiple sources in English, but rarely in Hebrew. The arrival of Passover marks exactly half a year since then, according to both calendars in local use. I think I only missed 3 weeks (one of them Samhain and another Yule), and I covered the main points I’d wanted to present. Not everything; there is always more. But it’s time to address the doubt that keeps bothering me.
One of the basic principles of magic is that the means determine the end. Or in the famous words of Andy Warhol, “The media is the message.” Or in my favorite slogan from the sixties (not that I was there personally, I was born a little too late), “Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity.” We cannot create a new reality by means that contradict what we seek to create, but only in ways that express the same qualities.
The medium where I’ve shared my writing is Facebook. And social media – Facebook is the prototype, but it goes for all “social” media – are artificial and addictive. Not only does it engage us through screens that disconnect us from the physical, living, real world – enormous, unimaginable amounts of effort, planning, design, and unfortunately also intelligence are mobilized precisely in order to make the experience as addictive as possible, to appropriate our intense need for connection and expression our most treasured ideas. Under a capitalist regime and logic, the internet and social media in particular encourage polarization and violent discourse. But beyond that, they gnaw away at our attention, our ability to listen that is so critical, reducing our attention span and ability to navigate. This is not only while we are online – the detox and rehabilitation after screens have colonized our consciousness requires time and effort. Social media is the most destructive mass drug ever developed. I’m far from immune. I notice the tendency to give in to temptation… to the thought that if I scroll “just a little” I will find something meaningful, connecting, stimulating, alive. Like what I’m trying to provide. Ouch.
Returning to a particularly strong formulation of the same idea, in Audrey Lorde’s immortal words, “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” And the goal for me is the dismantling of the master’s house, which is the sense of utilitarian-selfish-alienated separateness and human supremacy that allows us to consume our living world without batting an eye. If the tool at my disposal itself preserves the consciousness of separateness and weakens the abilities we need to escape from it, what have I done?
But another principle of magic (at least in my view) is to use what is at hand. Plants that grow in our yard and the soil under our feet, with a personal connection to their source, are better than crystals and imported exotic oils we bought at the store. What is required for our work will be provided, and we will find it at hand. The perception of a living and connected world does not allow us to think otherwise. If the work is right, the means will be found. And what is accessible to me now, what is possible, is Facebook as a platform, and the internet in general. We all meet here now, in the virtual city square.
How to reconcile the two?
I started writing with the aim of answering the question and not just raising it. But the post is already long and deserves a proper answer. So I’ll end with a question mark. Here is a topic for thought on the holiday of freedom – how can we be free when even the media for liberation depends on addictive and enslaving means?