The Social Aesthetic Paradox

With every new technological advancement, we are birthing ethical quandaries that need to be addressed.

Social media was thrown into the world without precedent, and our many profiles have made it infinitely more difficult to figure out who we are when we spend more time defining them than we do defining ourselves.

The following essay investigates moral questions we must answer in the advent of social technology.

• First, we will take a philosophical look at social media and identify what role humans actually play in a digital world.
• Next, we will see if the freedom awarded by social media challenges our ability to achieve aesthetics.
• Finally, we will question if the liberty social media awards us is in conflict with the freedom of our minds.

Social Media’s Existential Crisis

Social Media isn’t a platform. It’s creationism. It’s our chance to play god and write an origin story. With this power in our hands, it is wise to understand exactly what we create.

Sartrean Existentialism
Existentialism aims to answer what it means to be human, and French Philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre’s work gives us an interesting look at creating identities:

1. Existence precedes essence — There is no design to our individuality like there is for a car or a desk. When we are born, we are a blank canvas. Our values will mold the essence of our individuality. Every action we take further defines our values and world view. Inversely, only our actions define our worldview. Basically, there is no divine being that shapes who we are. Note: if you’re nonsecular, don’t get hung up on this point. The rest of this essay will still apply to you.
2. Humans are responsible for all humans — With no ethical rulebook to precede human existence, humans must forge their own values with respect to all humans. Therefore, the actions you take define the values you want to contribute to “the greater good.”
3. Humans are condemned to be free — We don’t choose to be born, so we are condemned to the freedom we receive at birth. This means we must choose virtue or vice in every situation, and whatever we choose will be displayed through our actions.

With complete freedom and complete responsibility, the most virtuous choices are the ones that pursue aesthetics through the designer’s medium.

If we look at Sartre’s model of existentialism, it should look a lot like our relationship with social media platforms:

1. Humans create an avatar and it is up to them to design the character through its actions.
2. The avatar’s actions contribute to the platform’s global values.
3. In our socials, humans have complete freedom and complete responsibility to embody the values they give their avatars.

So we’ve established that participating in social media means we are given a blank canvas to work with, but does this mean that an avatar has the same values as its human designer?

Your Avatar Is Its Own Moral Agent

Social existentialism doesn’t go very far if you still believe that you are your social media avatars. At best, they are a greatest hits album.

Sure, we aggregate characteristics out of our personality purse, but consider this: have you ever befriended someone URL, and when you meet them IRL, they were unbearably underwhelming?

• Video Games give us an interesting look into the difference between human values vs. avatar values.
  If an avatar murders an innocent person in a video game, does the player value murder? Of course not. The player only instructed the avatar, but it was the avatar that committed murder in its digital world. Inversely, the avatar does value murder.
• Your avatars continue to interact with other avatars through archived posts even when you sleep.

So how could you possibly be your avatar? You aren’t. We are the mere designers of another being with it’s own life, it’s own relationships and it’s own reputation.

As the social “world” gets built out by new platforms, avatars are obtaining more liberties that are only limited by the internet’s imagination.

Therefore, the “complete freedom” given to us in human life is no where near as great as the “complete freedom” given to an avatar. So how big is the “great responsibility?”

Social Media Marketing Ethics

We need to be progressive about deciding what our and our avatar’s ethics will be before social media gets too big to handle.

When using social media to display an avatar’s personality and the human’s work, the account has crossed over into the world of digital marketing. At what point does the documentation of an avatar’s personality distract from the aesthetics of the human’s work?

• If an avatar gains a following documenting their human’s art as a chef but then pivots to cute puppy pictures because they perform better, is the avatar oppressing the human’s art?
• In brand deals, is an avatar responsible for notifying the audience that the human was paid to endorse a product?
• If avatars are their own moral agents and a social media manager randomly uploads content that conflicts with the avatar’s established ethics, who made the ethical slip up? The avatar or the manager?
• With the audience’s interest in mind, at what point does it become advantageous to have one avatar dedicated to marketing and one for the human’s personal design?

Tribes and Defending Values

Does digitally marketing an avatar’s personality tip the scales of inequality if you have a charismatic personality? Of course. But, assuming acting isn’t the human’s medium, what does the avatar’s charisma have to do with the aesthetic of the human’s work?

It’s safe to say that optimizing social media marketing is just the competitive nature of business. But if socials give us the complete freedom to create an avatar for business, than there must be complete responsibility to not get carried away.

This choice is broken down into two schools of thought:

• The Teleological position can be distilled down to “the right choice is the one that does the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people.” It emphasizes the notion that values must consider how they contribute happiness to everyone affected by those actions.
• The Deontological position states that it is our duty to act on our values regardless of the good or evil that presents itself in the outcome.

1. Is it ethical to hurt one person for the happiness of five avatars? What about hurting one avatar for the happiness of five humans?
2. Does sticking to our “duty” prevent us from accepting factual evidence that challenges our accepted duty?

-isms Also Have Moral Agency
When the avatar decides on its values, it likely aligns with several tribal “-isms” (e.g. activism, post-modernism, Judaism etc.) The human must decide which ethical code will allow the avatar to remain loyal to the -ism and still achieve aesthetics in it’s platforms.

This pursuit is immediately more complicated when you toss in the fact that we currently live in a society plagued by -isms of vice and oppression.

Oppressive-isms are born out of vice — primarily judgement. But does that mean progressive-isms are inherently virtuous?

(Progressive)Equality-isms act differently because, by nature of their doctrine, each member is equal and free to express their freedom how they see fit. This means that each member must choose to express their freedom through virtue or vice.

• At what point in liberty are you also opening the door for an avatar’s vice to derail the virtue of the human’s message?
• At what point does that vice start to affect members of the avatar’s or human’s tribes?

The Equality Paradox

We can use the Law of Syllogism to figure out if loyalty to an equality-ism is inherently virtuous, and it will give us an idea of what to expect out of our reliance on social media.

For the sake of this hypothetical: we’ll define vice as the line in which liberty inadvertently oppresses a member of the -ism. However, this is a line that each equality-ism needs to decide for itself.

1. If (P)Vice is (Q)Unvirtuous
2. And (Q)Unvirtuousness is (R)Oppressive
3. Then (P)Vice is (R)Oppressive✓

Things get more complicated when we add an -ism

1. If (P)Equality-isms permit (Q)Vice
2. And (Q)Vice permits (R)Oppression
3. Then (P)Equality-isms permit (Q)Oppression — ✓ — *sorta

*In order to to validate the conclusion, we need to look at American philosopher Thomas Nagel’s “Moral Luck.”

Moral Luck states that conditions that are out of a moral agent’s control will allow us to appear virtuous or vicious; however, we do not deserve praise or reprimand for a contextual variable.

For a quick example, consider two scenarios:

• Nazi A is in 1942 Germany and values oppression. Nazi A oppresses jews under the rule of the Third Reich.
• Nazi B is in 2042 Boca Raton, FL and values oppression. Nazi B isn’t enabled by the Third Reich and doesn’t oppress anyone.

Was Nazi A less moral than Nazi B? Moral Luck says no.

In both situations the constant was valuing oppression. The conditions of the time they lived in enabled Nazi A to oppress, but those conditions were a variable that were out of the nazi’s control. Nazi B chose not to act on its value of oppression because it wasn’t enabled by the time it lived in. However, it still valued oppression all the same.

This means the core values of each moral agent are constant despite the outcome of their moral luck. One of the values of complete freedom is the option to give in to vice. If we know vice to be oppressive than our model becomes more fine tuned:

1. If (P)Equality-isms value (Q)Vices
2. And (Q)Vices value (R)Oppression
3. Then (P)Equality-isms value (R)Oppression

And then:

1. If (P)Equality-isms are (Q)Oppressive
2. And (Q)Oppression is (R)Inequality
3. Then (P)Equality-ism are (R)Inequality ✓ — A moral paradox

In Conclusion

The uninhibited freedom embodied by equality-isms shows us that one can not expect virtue or aesthetics when the moral agent separates freedom from responsibility. It is absolutely possible, but it is a complete gamble.

The same applies to your social media avatar. The human must choose where complete responsibility lies according to what the avatar’s virtues will be. However, forgoing responsibility for the sake of liberal activism leaves your avatar’s chances of achieving aesthetics up to luck.

Therefore, The logical path to virtue and aesthetics is to tether freedom and responsibility.

Parting Favors:

1. Is a social media manager (designer) loyal to the avatar or the human account holder? — *My favorite head trip*
2. Where on an avatar’s complete freedom spectrum does vice occur?
3. If a human adopts an avatar’s values for the sake of content, is the human still free?
4. Does the practice of liberty equate to liberation?

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