{"id":8350,"date":"2018-03-29T05:00:57","date_gmt":"2018-03-29T09:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.justrightmedia.org\/blog\/?p=8350"},"modified":"2024-01-28T17:39:07","modified_gmt":"2024-01-28T21:39:07","slug":"549-the-social-metaphysics-of-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/archives\/8350","title":{"rendered":"549 – The social metaphysics of social media"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"social

The term \u2018social metaphysics<\/strong>\u2019 was coined by philosopher-novelist Ayn Rand<\/strong> to describe the philosophy of those who regard the consciousness of others as superior to their own \u2013 and to the facts of reality. Fascinatingly, the term \u2018social media\u2019 appears to describe much the same phenomenon. <\/p>\n

Having passed away long before the evolution of on-line social media, Rand could never have guessed just how literal and visibly explicit her description of a social metaphysician would become. \u201cIt is only a social metaphysician who could conceive of such absurdity as hoping to win an intellectual argument by hinting: \u2018But people won\u2019t LIKE you!\u2019\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our experience with posters to Just Right\u2019s Facebook page regarding our past two shows offered us a glaring illustration of just how impossible it is to have any meaningful dialogue with social metaphysicians \u2013 in this case, with Progressive Conservative and Doug Ford (\u2018Ford nation\u2019) supporters<\/strong>. Their blatant (and proud!) dismissal of unequivocally accurate facts, of history, and of ideas goes a long way in explaining many other negative observations increasingly being made about social media. <\/p>\n

The recent controversy involving Cambridge Analytica<\/strong>\u2019s use of Facebook<\/strong>\u2019s database to spread false news to millions of people during election periods is merely one of many scams made possible thanks to social metaphysicians.<\/p>\n

At the heart of beginning to understand the many on-line manifestations of this phenomenon, we must come to learn that just as \u2018social justice\u2019 means \u2018not justice,\u2019<\/strong> so too, \u2018social media\u2019 means \u2018not media.\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite its potential to be much more, \u2018social media\u2019 has disturbingly become the vehicle that best suits those more concerned with group acceptance (i.e., getting \u2018likes\u2019 despite the unlikable, being on the winning team despite being on the wrong or evil side<\/strong>, etc) than with facts, truth, reality, or reason.<\/p>\n

But what of those interested in objectivity, and not just in what others \u2018like\u2019 or believe? As always, it is each individual\u2019s responsibility to discover the reliable and trustworthy source of information and commentary that, for them, is Just Right.<\/p>\n

<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The term \u2018social metaphysics\u2019 was coined by philosopher-novelist Ayn Rand to describe the philosophy of those who regard the consciousness of others as superior to their own \u2013 and to the facts of reality. Fascinatingly, the term \u2018social media\u2019 appears to describe much the same phenomenon. Having passed away long before the evolution of on-line [Continue Reading]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8343,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,51,596,84,28,6,3,3030,598],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-audio","category-conservatism","category-ideas","category-journalism","category-latest","category-politics","category-reality","category-social-media","category-society","issues-conservatism","issues-social-media","issues-social-metaphysics","category-12-id","category-51-id","category-596-id","category-84-id","category-28-id","category-6-id","category-3-id","category-3030-id","category-598-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8350"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8374,"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8350\/revisions\/8374"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justrightmedia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}