Time and Death from Likeness
Time is not linear, not static. Time is a movement, a change, a development. The pre-Enlightenment Time was understood as a circle, with non-existence that was a starting and ending point. From birth to death, a circle of life. Before and after was nothingness, eternal bodiless life in a cosmos of spirits. The Enlightenment changed the focus from heading towards the Eschaton (end of Time) to looking into the Future. Time became Prospect and not Fatum.
Nowadays, we seem to be losing the Enlightenment’s notion of time as we are heading back to eschatology. Conspiracy theories draw upon the idea of Fatum. We are back under the spell of indefensible forces that govern us. Big Firms and Financial Moguls: Gates, Zuckerberg and Bezos resemble Greek gods ruling over human lives. If destiny has been written up, we are under the power of the malevolent force of the Digital Universe creators. Our life becomes meaningless. The meaning of our lives is owned by new gods, who set trends for a living. The contemporary ideology for humanity is to fulfil individual needs, to become unique. This uniqueness, however, has nothing to do with idiosyncrasy. Idiosyncrasy means doing things in one own way, being incomparable. Uniqueness refers to exceptionalism. Encouragement to Be-Unique-Yourself, commonly understood as out-staging others, leads us nowhere. Where everybody is different, everybody is the same. Moreover, our uniqueness is limited to an eccentric, self-focused, meaningless existence.
TikTok dances reproduced by millions of users following the same choreography with the same tune illustrate this fake uniqueness. What differs from others is the shape of bodies, the age of dancers, and vaguely different backgrounds. YouTube videos of skaters jumping over the walls in an endless competition to perform the same move with greater smoothness gather millions of views. The boredom of these scenes is covered by unhealthy excitement brought about by repetition. On Instagram, people bend their bodies in the same pose, Facebook is flooded by billions of exotic holiday photographs picturing romance-in-the-sunset scenes.
Those monotonous photographs and videos produce billions of likes that produce billions of digital coins. Like and not the Bitcoin is the currency of our time. Like exchanges to attention that exchanges to adverts that prompt the consumption. We consume TikTok videos and Instagram photos like popcorn. The first few grains are tasty, salt and sugar burst out dopamine in our brains. It feels too good to stop. To stop means to abandon the sense of pleasure. Our new Gods of Digital tell us to follow the enjoyment. They promise limitless entertainment, like never-ending TV series. After consuming a bucket of popcorn, we feel full and nauseous, and we slip into a lethargic state of mindlessness. The next day brings the same.
The promise of endless pleasure is a lie. Unlimited pleasure brings about Pain. Bingeing TikTok videos, Instagram photos, and Netflix series leads to the emotional pain that reveals itself in boredom, emptiness, depression. The ideology of uniqueness is also false. In our craving of eccentricity, we become aLike. Like is a symbol of our time. We do what we Like, we pay with Likes and become aLike. We perish in Likeness, we die in timeless repetition.
Where gods are, a rebellion must happen. Greta Thunberg is Prometheus of our time. Greta and her people dare to save humanity from Gods of Digital, of Greed, of Likeness. Perhaps her fate of being chained onto the rock and having her liver ripped daily by Twitter vultures have already begun. If the time is circular, she is already dying. But, if the time is a prospect, she may live.
Time is neither linear nor circular. Time is not an ontological entity. Time is a synonim of physical or psychic motion. Where there is no movement, there is no time. We decide whether we move in circles, forward or backwards. Depression is a time in which we move backwards. History is a time when we move in circles.
The future stays open.
Concepts of Likeness and dyschronicity of time were first described by German Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han. In this article, I draw on his books: The expulsion of the other and The scent of time.
