Deo B.

de los Reyes November 22, 2019

Special Questions in Contemporary Philosophy

A Critical Response to Arendt’s Vita Activa and the Modern World

We find in Arendt’s political theory that the human

condition vis-à-vis the individual is a Homo Faber, thus

presupposing a social and moral being. This concept has the

implication for what we should consider as a kind of spheres of

the human condition. Arendt’s conceptions of labor, work, and

action can be considered as spheres that are seen as fundamental

manifestations of human, social and moral activities of society.

Hannah Arendt bases her respective political theory on the

presupposition that human beings exist in conditions under which

life on earth or nature, has been given to man. Nowadays, we

find the Internet as a new field of the human condition that

caters to the individual’s care and exploitation, where everyone

has the right to view, voice-out, blog and even block others, of

which lets people experience in a sense, what we can call

digital freedom. However, digital alienation can also happen

when people use the Internet in less honorable ways. Digital

alienation here can be considered as an act of misrecognition

when people experience the opposite and face discrimination of

sorts. It seems that human behavior and thinking can be studied

by how individuals interact with the Internet.

In today’s trends, much communication is done through social

media networking sites, like Google, Facebook, Youtube,

Instagram, and Twitter, just to name a few. From history we have

seen the development from the telegram to the telephone, from

electronic mail into websites, and now towards the rise of

social networking sites; we have seen the evolving process of

social communication define preceding generations and shape the

current sociological landscape. But with the development of

highly sophisticated means of communications, this does not just

improve easy methods but this also brings with it certain

ideologies and social inequalities. These so-called new fields

in communication bring within also new forms of ideas and

mindsets that greatly impact the public sphere. These ideologies

have interests, that when seen in the lens of political theory,

play parts in the social struggle of different social groups and

communities. Social networks have become a field of social

communication that requires social analysis and thus also a new

field of study to scrutinize and criticize. The digital rise

leads to the ability of individuals to first view the world from

a technological standpoint, from everywhere to nowhere, as

opposed to seeing the world from personal experiential sense of

their position in the world. Social media facilitating posts of

memes, tweets, and photos has replaced Arendt’s modern diagnoses

of the discovery of the telescope and the task of old mapmakers.

Satellites roaming earth’s outer space and the microscope

uncovering minute layers of unknown details of nature have

replaced Arendt’s contention of the mapmakers and the telescope.

The entire world has been reduced into “GoogleMaps” and

curiosity compromised by “googling” search engines. These

evident distance and demystification led to a generalizing view

of all the world, including our relations with others, from a

dis-embodied, 'world-alienated' position. And so with the

Reformation, which exhibited a revolt against a complacent

system of the Medieval Church, into the present revolting

activism of individuals advocating post-truth. The rise of

populism, a brand of activism that caters to the post-truth

aphorism, “I believe therefore I am right” has infiltrated

social issues from the likes of Gender equality and political

correctness of both Right and Left-liberals, and even the

bizarre conception of animal rights by the so-called millennial

activists. In addition, post-truth mentality has downgraded the

issue of climate change; being masked by big corporate

institutions’ interests of Neoliberalist stance. The only thing

then left in this world that we could truly sense, trust or

believe in, are the things we created and create ourselves,

nature through our active participation, the Vita Activa. Our

models, our tools, the digital screen, allowed us to encapsulate

the vastness of the world into our minds, but the task at hand

as Arendt proposes, the Vita Activa against Vita Contemplativa.

The Digital era as represented by the Internet presents new

grounds and new ways of political action yet it also breeds the

opposite, new forms of world alienation to the individual.

Social systems should take on an active role, the Vita Activa in

creating value systems in the digital landscape where political

action becomes an integral process of maintaining moral

standards in the modern means of communication. People interact

in the digital world, bearing with them their own identities and

ideas radical or not, of which they encounter that may create

and transform social activity. And so in the process, they

experience both recognition and alienation. The human condition

comprehends more than the conditions under which life has been

given to individuals. Humanity is political because everything

they come in contact with turns into a condition of their

existence. The society in which the Vita Activa persists

consists of things produced by human activities; but technology

that owes their manufacture exclusively to individuals

nevertheless constantly condition their inventors. The example

of Facebook as a human invention shows that notions of freedom

and alienation have not ceased in the world of Social Media, but
have become more difficult and dynamic. The exploitation of

digital identities, the covert surveillance of certain business

establishments and government agencies and compromised online

privacy like in the case of the infamous issue of the Cambridge

Analytica, create forms of digital alienation. The contradictory

and somewhat elusive characteristics of Social Media make it

sometimes difficult for digital natives to be conscious and

detect alienation in digital conditions. They sometimes tend to

mistake digital alienation for digital freedom. Digital

exploitation and digital alienation can only be overwhelmed by

analysis of the social struggles. Actions must be made that aim

at appropriating the Internet and put it back into the control

of its users. Digital media as it must be intended to be should

be designed, shaped and used in achieving a communicatively

active community that promotes democratic principles originally

conceived by Greek philosophy, championing mutual understanding

and respect. Attaining such a world grounded on respect requires

not just changes in the way people ethically use technology and

create social spaces in the digital landscape. Arendt’s Vita

Activa represents not only movements that promote respect and

recognition, but also a change in the political landscape.

Government programs should safeguard information from

misinforming fake news and emphasize laws for maintaining

responsibility of actions in the digital world. The Vita Activa

as a radical political action, demands Social Media to reform

whenever there are forms of alienation so that the present

society can be able to provide space, time and alternatives for

digital freedom. The real social problem is that it is easier to

look at Social Networking sites as less alienating than the

rising poverty level or political issues on corruption. One can

easily use and enjoy Social Media, even when it exploits and

monitors. And so it seems that the damages caused by digital

alienation are more indirect and invisible. This does not,

however, imply that they are out of problems, but rather that

they are a difficult challenge in social struggles. Millennials

argue that Facebook is great because it promotes sociality and

that individuals don’t feel or don’t mind digital exploitation,

or fake news and express post-truth. Some see social media more

as advantage. At the same time as a new class consciousness,

Millenials, cannot see beyond rationality, and only think about

the advantages and not about the disadvantages that some users

suffer for example from being discriminated because of gender,

nationality or color or being victimized by fake news from

social media and degraded as commodity or data by companies or

government institutions. Online sociality must be safeguarded

from the realities of digital. Therefore, an effective and

creative response is needed in order to transmit the fundamental

visions, truths, and values. However, the danger now rises in

the temptation of “trimming the ‘Truth’” in order to fit into

the trend of the new culture, which is never to be allowed since

throughout the mankind’s history, what society had developed as

principles, and its truths and values must be continued to be

communicated effectively. It must not be in any way be distorted

or lose its authentic meaning in order to fit the present

context. But rather society must be creative in bringing the

true message of freedom and emancipation from slavery to the

present context. exploitation, control, surveillance, and

exclusion.