Inner Emigration
Hannah Arendt's concept
Last June, we published a survey on changing habits in the so-called “new normal”, together with #podcast @resumido.podcast. Among several other questions, we asked: “what media have you been using to keep up to date?”.
In response, 23% out of the 840 people who have answered the survey declared they were somehow avoiding the news. It was something that actually caught my attention, but at that moment I wasn’t really able to read it beyond the feeling that, for a number of reasons, things didn’t seem to be going well at all.
Well, in this edition of our newsletter, I’m back to the “avoiding-the-news” behavior, approaching the matter from a phenomenon called Inner Emigration, described by the theorist Hannah Arendt in “Men in Dark Times”. The book collects biographical essays of men and women who lived through the “dark times” in the first half of the twentieth century.
Among the narratives of dark times as a consequence of Hitlerism, persecution and rejection of identities, the author reports that many people lived in a kind of inner exile. Due to the (difficulty to face) struggling reality, part of the population started to behave as if they did not belong to their country, seeking the “invisibility of thinking and feeling” away from the public, social, and political life spaces.
In this issue, I’m stitching this concept together and mixing dark times from the past with some current (dark times) manifestations, considering society, politics, and technology.
Pandemic and Infodemic
Concomitant with the pandemic, we were affected by the infodemic. Trying to summarize these two facts: 1. a virus on a global scale, not concerned with political or affective borders, a threat to all human beings; 2. information and content tsunami on various social networks, with waves of live streaming, TikTok and fake news with any other goals but the truth. Two manifestations that can be read as endemic side effects of the internet that we’ve created and consume, currently reduced to not even half a dozen companies, known as “Big Five”, Facebook (Whatsapp and Instagram) Google, Microsoft, and Amazon.
You’re lucky if the effects of this pandemic context on you are simply tendinitis, insomnia, bruxism, and deep sadness.
Away from the news
Many pieces of evidence show the need to keep a distance from the news. It is even recommended, in many cases.
“Infostesiados” (anesthetized by information) was one of the captured vibes in the Saídas 2020 report by @floatvibes, which describes the anesthetic overload of information and apathy towards catastrophic headlines. The increase in the time we spend online has further shaped the relationship of obsession with information. Through positive or negative triggers, rewards or punishment, the infinite algorithmic possibilities pave the way for engagement, a term that refers to people’s habit of posting more and spending more time on social media platforms.
The neutrality of the term engagement has favored the adoption of the search for involvement and was consolidated as an objective both individual and social. Getting likes, views, followers, reposts and comments are manifestations of involvement, relevant examples to describe online engagement, far away from the interaction, connection and community building potential, though. It most resembles (or is it inspired by?) the neurological, biological addiction process, gaining strength through the mathematical process.
Engagement is designed to produce dopamine, “the neurotransmitter dopamine plays a role in pleasure and is thought to be central to the mechanism of behavior change in response to getting rewards” (Jaron Lanier, p.20). A sensation that, most likely, has already been consolidated in the habit of not spending much time away from our smartphones.
Contributing to the infodemic, the Brazilian government has an authentic political influencer. Bolsonaro, the president of Brazil, uses Whatsapp as his main electoral tool, internet troll as his digital strategy, increasing engagement from the amplification of controversial news, or rather, from baits that, by promoting disinformation through combative speeches, trigger primitive and negative emotions, recruiting extremist and nihilistic groups and avatars. An engagement strategy that proves to be powerful and has consolidated itself as a way of calling up canvassers and “doing politics” in the 21st century.
In addition to the effects of about 1 hour and 30 minutes increase in the infosphere, the following behaviors described in the results of the research were noticed: among the given options, there’s an increase in the purchase of alcoholic beverages, chosen by 36% of the respondents, coming in second, behind only the “Supermarket” option. Next, chocolates and candies, chosen by 31%. These are answers that later confirmed, in a current and elaborated research, the transformations in the population’s behavior during the pandemic. A study that, among other findings, reveals an increase in negative feelings, such as anxiety and lack of will, as well as addictions.
The survey “ConVid Behaviors”, carried out by Unicamp and UFMG (two major Brazilian universities), interviewed 45,161 people.
40.4% declared having sadness or depression feelings.
52.6% declared experiencing nervousness or anxiety feelings, often or always.
Regarding addictions, the number of cigarette consumption per day increased, and so did alcohol. Another behavior pattern confirmed in both surveys is the decrease or absence of physical exercise: about 72% of the people were either exercising less than usual or not exercising at all. The survey carried out by Fiocruz (Brazilian scientific institution for research and development in biological sciences) shows that the percentage of those who performed weekly physical activities fell from 30.4% to 12.6%.
Meanwhile, the search for meditation on Google grew by 4,000%, Instagram therapists stand out as the new poets and the urban exodus movement is gaining more space. These manifestations are capable of revealing the need to deviate from the seemingly unbearable reality and to turn to some psychosomatic and existential limit.
After all, the feeling is like experiencing a dizzying cacophony of different forms of language, information and intentions that shape the inflation of information. The multiplication of simple, sharp and potent phrases define the vast universe of signs, codes, and memes, bringing up the concept of semio-inflation by Franco Berardi, which I’ve mentioned in the last edition of the newsletter. “Semio-inflation is when you need more signs, words, and information to buy less meaning” — Asphyxia: Financial Capitalism and Language Insurrection, (p.76). For William Burroughs, a great critic and forerunner of the beat generation, inflation is essentially the fact that, over time, you need more money to buy less things.
I think it is worth setting side by side the concept of inflation, the idea that you need more to buy less, with the engagement process, where the goal is to repeat social involvement through more personalized and intuitive tools, which easily bargain for greater engagement with less effort. This is a process that, in a way, might resemble or could be compared to developing addictions.
Alert and strong
Hannah Arendt, when receiving the Lessing Prize, delivered a speech that is included in her book “Men in Dark Times”, in which she unravels the idea of inner emigration. Arendt also comments on the fact that it would have been a mistake to imagine that inner emigration had only happened in Germany at the time of the Third Reich. I, here and now, agree.
Here we are, since last March, trying to decode the coronavirus as well as the pandemic meaning, while a significant part of the population has decided to “withdraw” from this context. As a means of avoiding such reality, some have chosen to “stay out of it”, ignoring the existence of the virus (of isolation, of the mask), in a sort of self-exile from the pandemic daily life.
With too much information and memes, the current flow of engagement rejects what’s complex, accommodating the post-truth like watermelons on a moving truck. A world with less psychoanalysis and more coaching, set up by binary linearity that does not follow the concept of mutation and complex systems. This world succumbs to primary feelings, which consolidates the speech of a single enemy behind this virus, in this case, China. Linearity (and the idea of an end) supporters understand the pandemic as either a novel or a fairy tale, a narrative that heads to the final chapter, comes to an end, and then to the humanity shelf, like any other moment in the history of the planet.
In rhizomatic reality, the end of the pandemic no longer depends on the virus, but on us humans. Hopefully, along with collective intelligence, which has already proved itself powerful at creating good vaccines in record time, we might be able to get closer, nurse, and probe into all daily, economic, social, and biological developments the pandemic has caused.
As a reflection of this moment of inner emigration, we are experiencing an indication of a negationist speech that favors anecdotal evidence over scientific evidence. As Carol Pires well explained in “Bolsonaro’s Narrated Portrait”: “The anecdotal evidence confirms what you think. For example, if you or a friend of yours tested positive for covid-19 with only mild symptoms, you may think that the virus is just a minor cold, but this example is not representative of reality, which is composed of thousands and millions of other pieces of evidence that, when collected and analyzed, become scientific evidence”. This inevitably contributes to one of the largest global anti-vaccine campaigns, about 46.9% of the Brazilian population claim they would not get a vaccine against Covid-19 from China.
What kind of human being would not be concerned about the awaken of diseases that have already been eradicated from the face of the Earth (aka home of humanity)? Alienated, in spite of being information addicted. A semiotic fog that hinders vision as well as decisions making. Complex decisions, not at all simple to make, but pro-humanity.
Only a population that ignores a pandemic can wait, with many lives, for imminent death (and for a vaccine that is made elsewhere in the globe, other than China, one of the world’s greatest powers).
Contrary to what it might seem, withdrawing from the state of inner emigration is not about being closer or spending more time watching the news or getting information through Whatsapp, Instagram, Facebook, Google, and TikTok. It is a matter of opening yourself to the impossible and to courtesy. According to Hannah Arendt, for Lessing, thought does not arise out of the individual and is not the manifestation of a self. Rather, thought is a discovery, another way of moving in the world in freedom.
Based on this reflection, I assume that the suspension or transformation of the inner emigration state becomes feasible with the possibility of expanding consciousness, of exploring new territories for the creation of consciousness itself. Away from social networks or the internet, by creating conscience traces out of the contact with different narratives and poetics, whether existing or possible to create. If you feel the need and have the opportunity to try further ways to explore and build up your perception, thinking, and interpretation about this moment, do it!
It is a subjective exercise, which involves making a commitment to the harmony of your humanity, as well as cooperating with other evolutionary models for humanity as a whole. An encounter with your “affection to-be”, from those who have already learned from Hannah Arendt that “thinking not only appeals to intelligence and depth but above all, courage”
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{01} Troll
Troll, the term was born in the 9th century and became a relevant concept for the 21st-century internet. The adaptation of the concept created by the Nordics to the English language became “trolling”, and it referred to the technique of fishing with line and bait. The first time the term was used to describe actions taken in order to provoke a reaction dates back to 1972: US pilots used “trolling” to refer to Russian military aircraft, rivals in the Vietnam War. Online, “troll” is a slang word and it refers to an intentional form of speech that seeks engagement by inciting hatred, posting violent messages that bring up both easy and negative emotions.
{02} Diminished Reality
Virtual Reality concept that focuses on virtually masking any aspect of an environment or a person, eliminating characteristics, attributes, and objects. Examples can include digitally removing obnoxious buildings from a city skyline, automatically smoothing out traffic noises, or dissolving the appearance of strangers in a crowded bar so you can focus on the person right next to you.
{03} Hearken
I’ve heard that expression in a movie recently, an “old fashion” version of listening, giving respectful attention. Used in the Middle Ages, by biblical characters such as prophets to designate the exercise of carefully listening to words, advice, but also, understanding metaphors, I would say. It seems to me that going back to the root of the archaic meaning of the verb to listen allows us to improve such art or, at least, speak a little less.
Horizon / \ / \ / \ / \ / \/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \
Slpng_giants_pt
The name “sleeping giants” refers to the unfamiliarity of large companies regarding the publishing of their ads via programmatic advertising by services like Google’s AdSense.
In Brazil, the movement’s profile was revealed last December. Leonardo de Carvalho Leal and Mayara Stelle, both 22 years old, interviewed by Folha de São Paulo, left anonymity and assumed the authorship of the page that has been knocking down the monetization of websites that spread fake news and hate speeches all over the internet.
Bioharzard
Ansel Oommen is an artist and a clinical lab technologist. Just as the pandemic broke out, Ansel began deconstructing shiny biohazard tags with scissors, then reconstructing them with the precision of a surgeon on the floor of his Manhattan apartment. “In order to metabolize trauma and pain, I use the arts because it is a way of transforming something intangible, turning it into something that has a shape,” said Oommen.
Egg room
Gala was the wife of the surrealist painter Salvador Dali. They have actually co-authored several works. From 1930 on, they started signing their names together: Gala-Salvador Dalí. In 1969, Dalí gave Gala a castle as a gift. She loved the gift, they say, but she did set a few rules. She has even created a resting room, all to herself, and has named it “egg room”.
A roundish room, adorned with an oval sofa and a low ceiling. Light and cozy colors. Although surreal, ignoring straight-line shapes, the room offers a particular way of being in it, totally intimate, a kind of nest, like being in a mother’s belly. Among all the majesties of this house-museum, that room was the most outstanding and unforgettable experience I’ve had while visiting.
Magic Flute
The Magic Flute is an opera that presents itself as an allegory of the ordeals men have to go through in order to move away from the darkness of medieval thinking towards the Age of Enlightenment’s light. The opera was the result of a period of increasing involvement of Mozart with the Schikaneder theater company, which had performed at the Theater auf der Wieden since 1789. In search of your own enlightenment strength, look for this piece online and press play!
