Previous Section: Psychology (Turkle, Road Warriors, and the Social Implications)
David Lochhead , a theology professor at the Vancouver School of Theology, has been writing on the effects of cyberculture and CMC upon the theological community for at least 10 years, and has ventured into the deeper questions of how this online culture, and computers themselves, are affecting the way we view text, the Bible, and authority. He has written a book, Theology in a Digital World, which explores some of these questions, and presented talks expanding upon these themes which he first included in the book in 1988. Some of these later presentations are online at:
The fundamentalist approach to the Bible down the years has been similar to that of the techno-utopians that Dery describes. These "techno-utopians" tend toward absolutizing the technology to the level of "liberation" via the machinery; thus via technology. To hold the Bible; the printed text as the ultimate conduit of the Spirit is to deify the book. The ultimate container is humanity; history of God and humanity;"Salvation History", not adherence to a set of dogma. Regarding the technology of Computer Mediated Environments and Communication, the computer as "Highway" places the emphasis on the destinations rather than the carrier. We do not embark uncritically upon the journey anymore than we do so as we head out the door to life everyday to work and go about what we sense God calling us to do (and sometimes these two intersect).
There is a disturbing tendency in Christendom toward "bibliolatry"; worship of the book. It comes up frequently in the tone of many attacks on the legitimacy of online community and online communications. For those who seem to feel that people ought to be more interested in being "more intellectual", and thus less interested in going online, there seems to be an air of pomposity; of disgust toward "electronic media" in general.
The Net is like life, and a much better sample than we have in most other media; certainly either television or in print media. In both of these, the test of editing and marketing may produce better and slicker production value, but also edits out much of the real in life. Bad news, damaging news, and unpleasant news is filtered according to assesment of marketing research and ratings, which often produce lowest common denominator results. Books are published by publishers who have sales and popularity in mind. Subjects considered "not so standard" will not get the circulation and exposure of the printing press. Publishing does provide us with a kind of filtering of quality, but someone else decides this for us.
On the Net, we have noone but ourselves to do the filtering. And there is plenty to keep our filters busy, but as the Net grows and the diversity of it, so also will "Intelligent agents" and "smart search" programs which help us to narrow down what we find in our travels.
In Internet Dreams Mark Stefik gives us a socio/psychological study of how we use methaphors to "think with" and envision the Internet and the NII:
Cyberspace as Metaphor for Spirituality- Much has been made about the fact that in cyberspace we deal with "virtual worlds", and many have called for a "return to real life". They say that these virtual worlds are not real, and that there is little of value to the relationships forged in the manner of online correspondence. I wonder about how this closely corresponds with the notions we have that God speaks to us, and that we have experience of God as we live in the world. In fact, some insist that it is when we turn "away form the world" and its ways that we can best hear and see God.
How is this different from "virtual reality" in which we are indeed communicating with real people, in a way which is more direct and objective than the experience which most would describe as their experience of God? Most are not as certain about when one's "inspirations" are God-sent and when they are a product of our own preferences and prejudices (and usually they are a combination of both) as they are about interaction with what can most often be certified as a real person on the other end, and that they find out quite a bit about the other person in this "online relationship" than they would otherwise be privileged to discover, due to time, geopgraphy, and convenience restraints.
There are certainly a lot of similarities in comparing "virtual worlds" with spiritual worlds. This is not to say that all "spiritual worlds" have the character of the types of "Virtual Worlds" that are often portrayed in the neo-Luddite diatribes against online communications. It is not unfair to say that there are many "Spiritual Worlds" that may be based on self-delusion, just as there are "Virtual Worlds" which may either admit this fact up front, or be just as self-delusional about its reality.
"Spiritual Worlds" are also inscribed with a deeper sense of reality by their participants and spokespersons. As a theological community, we also lay claim to this deeper, often much more subtle sense of the truth of this "realm" in contrast to the "false values" that we are called to confront in our society. And yet we are hard-pressed when called upon to describe this world.
It seems that we of the theological community, and the church in particular, should be familiar with the distinctions and the areas of overlap between "reality" and "other worlds".
This is much of the problem I think I have been having with the amount of cynicism I see from within the theological community concerning the value of online communications and the possibilities for online community. I received a note from one concerned reader that:
The problem comes when there is a lack of such opportunities for "fellowship" and mutual support within the ongoing structures and emphases in the church. Are we to stubbornly assume that these problems will correct themselves , or should we be struggling to introduce ourselves to each other again, with the possibility that perhaps once we know something of what is going on within many of us, we might see more real value in renewing face to face meetings again where we can explore the difficulties and challenges of our journey together?
Sherry Turkle wrote a book in 1995 which introduced me to the idea of Identity on the Internet (Life on the Screen), in which she studied the ways people formed their identity online, or used their online personas to learn about their "offline" self. She helped me to realize how the distinction can be not so seperable from the whole of the person. There can be hidden aspects of the self that , if they can be drawn out or encouraged out through the unique character of certain kinds of online experiences. When this happens, then their online life can be a therapeutic experience.
Turkle's work was the first to get me thinking about the online world as not only supplemental to community, but also as an experience which could , in some cases, become a way to tell our story and get a more encouraging response, or find people who identify with us when our particular geographic location may be otherwise out of the range of possibility that we would meet.
Virtuality need not be a prison. It can be the reaft, the ladder, the transitional space, the moratorium, that is discarded after reaching greater freedom. We don't have to reject life on the screen, but we don't have to treat it as an alternative life either. We can use it as a space for growth. Having literally written our online personae into existence, we are in a positionto be more aware of what we project into everyday life. Like the anthroplologist returning home from a foreign culture, the voyager in virtuality can return to a real world better equipped to understand its artifices. (Life on the Screen, p.263)
I would ask Clifford Stoll or Mark Slouka if it is not better to have someplace we can turn in the society where we can feel reasonably confident that we will find people discussing a topic with which we find ourselves preoccupied, rather than facing the usual reality that there is no apparent place to go or people to find who just happen to be in the state of mind to tackle your topic of concern. These critics of cyberspace relationships point to the preference in face to face relationships which the absence of is the primary motivation for online flight in the first place.
We have learned to take things at interface value......The screen desktop I am currently using has a folder on it labeled "Professional LIfe". It contains my business correspondence, date book, and telephone directory. Another folder, labeled "Courses", contains syllabuses, reading assignments, class lists, and lecture notes. A third, "Current Work", contains my research notes and this book's drafts. I feel no sense of unreality in my relationship to any of these objects. The culture of simulation encourages me to take what I see on the screen "at (inter)face value". In the culture of simulation, if it works for you, it has all the reality that it needs. (Life on the Screen, p.24)
I feel that the protest against online life is in a way a cry of protest of the former "entertainers" and "teachers" who , like the church, belittle the choices of those who have gone searching for alternatives; for a place to be heard, and a place to be a part of the audience that listens.
Slouka states that "the new global citizen may actuallyturn out to be a new kind of exile -- an electronic wanderer wired to the world but separated from much that matters in human life" .....Because cyberspace, quite literally, is nowhere --an electronic space that mimics the forms of social life even as it confines us in our isolation" (p.132).
Slouka ignores that the telephone is also "nowhere"; nothing but electrons carrying pulses across wires. Never mind that we actually can carry on a conversation with someone regardless of where the other person happens to be. This happens in online communication as well, and often with a greater sense of confidence between the parties, since there is no "hurry" to keep from "inconveniencing" the other person, or about saying something just right. But in both places, electronic signals are passed between two points, with each end decoding the message and then "encoding" a response. The time shifting possible with online communications (outside of "chat" situations where real time typing and messaging takes place) allows us to speak our mind knowing that people will read it when they want to be receptive to it, and we may hear from people more frequentlyabout what we have offered, instead of the blank stares we often get in ftf when we say something; and often we feel slighted, when it is simply a matter of the other with something else on their mind, somewhere else to go, or not enough information to know what you mean.
No, the online world IS INDEED "SOMEWHERE", and often a better place than "the place to be". It seems that there are fewer opportunities for the kind of community that is talked about online. Critics say that there is little substance to this talk. I don't hear it at all in many places these days, EXCEPT in online places. There simply seems to be no more time for real "communion" at a personal level. The public places have very few "meeting places" accomodations. NO, there does not seem to be a flight away from life and onto the information highway. It seems to be more like a pilgrimage there to find out what it is we're missing in life.
Slouka's online world is what he assumes about the character of cyberspace. It seems very similar to the world Mark Dery describes in Escape Velocity: Cyberculture at the End of the Century. The difference between Slouka and Dery, however, is that Dery knows he is describibing sub-culture; while Slouka projects this out as the sum-total of the online world.