[13] Technology and Sentimentality

To my friend, Mr. X.

Luis Buñuel was fond of saying he preferred sad endings in his social movies rather than happy ones so as to not rob the audience the anger the film inspires and with it the impulse to change the world outside the cinema: If the pretty girl who sells roses on the screen doesn't become a princess, but instead lives forty years of unjust pain, maybe we'll get out of the theater more concerned about the woman selling roses at the entrance.

Buñuel —like Fassbinder and Herzog— understood that the process of documenting the world is hurt when tainted by sentimentality.

By sentimentality I do not mean either an excess or misplacement of emotion. Herzog is very emotional about jungle animals and Fassbinder makes love declarations to whores. In the words of the master: "Who can judge when emotion is too much? People vary not only in the power to feel and express feeling but also in their imagination."

Instead, the problem with sentimentality is action. Sentimentality is feeling that paralyzes action. It is self-serving and a brand of bullshit.

The mechanics of sentimentality

Sentimentality works by dulling legitimate urges and providing feel-good, simple, and ineffective solutions.

A friend of mine often mentions how he hates "Prince Caspian" because after killing thousands of foot soldiers, they finally get to the top bad guy who made all the trouble and in a teary moment they spare him. It is a good example. Barzun also mentions how on "A Sentimental Journey" William James has the woman shedding "tears for the plights of the poor heroine on the stage while her coachman is freezing outside the theater. "

Examples abound online too: Feel bad about the killings in Rwanda? become a fan of our facebook group!

There is in the last example a positive element of dissemination and some people do use those online groups as a first step towards action. But for the most part it is a placebo and a self-promoting platform.

Consuming placebos or taking action (or not consuming anything at all) is an affair between each man and his conscience. Instead I want to talk about the issue of producing this sentimental content, in particular doing so to sell social positions related to technology.

The technology brand

Technology sentimentality starts from the conclusion a priori that technology (especially online, sharing, free) is essentially good and desirable and should be pursued and encouraged by everyone. It presents a world full of "success stories in sharing" so people are encouraged to accept, even rejoice in the assumed fact that we live in a "society of perfect information and sharing your value away online is the way of the future."

By painting this picture, pundits seduce people into non-critical thinking and obscure the most important aspects of the discussion; Worse, they recruit people not just for their personal brand but for interests beyond their scope and control. Given that those interest can have serious negative consequences, the technology sentimentalist may be doing a great disservice to its herd. We'll come back to this point later on, let's review now a compounding aspect to the issue,

Accelerating sentimentality through technology

Technology can be not only the focus of sentimentalism, but its delivery mechanism. Chronic online sentimentality occurs when commentators pushed by the need of a theme and pressed by the tools of social networks take a "positive" idea, such as "technology is a progressive and democratic force," and become their pundits online, reporting in snippets every successful example of the cause. This has some distinguishing features:

1. Because the format of social networks is fast and short and the piece of information is competing with so many others, the message is tailored to elicit a quick emotional response, not an intellectual one. It is garbled with status symbols and disjoint examples are mixed to maximize impact. In short, it is manipulative.

2. If the underlying veracity of the theme is challenged, so is the legitimacy and existence of the pundit. Therefore, the pundit's goal is to proselytize a conclusion, not to analyze a problem. Information "useful" for the cause is pushed through and "problematic" information is hidden. This is not new to propagandists, of course, just emphasized, accelerated online.

3. Because the goal is to attract as many followers as possible and expand the profile, association with other groups is mandatory. Because association with other "positive causes" is so simple and quick, the pundit rapidly becomes a fan of many causes that sound good or popular but are unrelated and the space in which he can disagree becomes smaller as the mixed interests become larger.

4. Because the medium is made of snippets and the audience is so broad, the message must be simplified, shortened, sanitized. Inspiring and Infantile.

In short, technology pundits tend to deal in sentimentalized information. To make it worse, their medium of choice pushes them to further idealize and simplify their conclusions.

The consequence is a very effective indoctrination, a feeling of "inspiration" on the masses and with it, non-critical thinking and paralysis towards the serious underlying questions.

A particularly troublesome case

There is one particular case of technology sentimentality that encompasses everything said above and worries me especially. It is selling the idea to people in developing countries that giving intellectual products away online is "good," "invitable," and they must "catch up."

The argument goes something like this:

"The future is sharing (a priori conclusion). Those who do not share and adapt to new technologies will be left behind (fear, uncertainty and doubt). Here are examples of how a few in the first world monetize social networks, peer to peer content, and free technologies (extraneous, aspirational example), here are samples of mavericks, innovators, pirates (symbols of status, cool) in our own community who benefit from the publicity and collaboration of social networks (discourse changes from money to love as needed).

Here is a gadget you don't know about (exoticism and status) in which you too can create content for free (let the others hold the means of production, you just pay your fee and put on your work). The future is great (sentimental, unsubstantiated claim) and although is not a perfect world (fundamental issues glossed over) there is hope in these technologies and the path is to 'catch up' and join the first world in sharing our products online! (back to a priori conclusion, and an inspirational message resembling more religious ecstasy than intellectual conclusion)."

It is effective propaganda and the audience loves it. Whether it is a good idea or not remains a hidden question.

The mechanics of selling it can be extremely sentimental. Here's a sample from a conference from one of my best friends and 15 year counterpart on this discussion: Mr. Pablo Arrieta. I don't doubt my friend's good intentions, in fact I vouch for them. This makes it all more worrisome, because it shows the messenger is as susceptible to the kool-aid as the audience (the caption reads: "Someone had an idea. To prevent it from becoming stale he posted it to the web. The idea became a movement and then it changed the world. The man who had it had a beautiful life, and everyone that shared to make the idea grow loved him forever")

This position bothers me because of its sentimentality and because of its audience. It can mislead capable people down a difficult and conflicted path.

So what would I do differently? In the spirit of Buñuel I'd suggest to end with uncomfortable questions. Here are some I'd ask a Colombian audience thinking of giving away their stuff for free:

• What is the proportion of your goals? to be cool with the new gadget, to play around while you make your real life elsewhere, to get free stuff, to make money, to make a profit by distributing others work, to belong to a group, or to expose your work without further expectation? Your logical position towards sharing may change dramatically depending on this answer.
• Are you a fan of sharing because of altruism or because you don't know how to hack/break into the market? Honestly, if you could do the same and get paid for it would you still share for free?
• If your work is so-so maybe you know you wouldn't make any money off it anyway. Maybe you don't care about money. But if your work is really good and you'd rather be paid to do it, have you explored fully your options? wouldn't your interests be best served by questioning the assumptions (your current location, for example) and learning how to monetize your work instead of assuming the world is about sharing?
  
• The name pirate sounds cool. But if you were really a pirate, wouldn't your interest be best served by stealing all you can and giving nothing away? Wouldn't you tell others to give things away but don't do so yourself?
• If you're a pure artist, live for your art only and already have some means for subsistence, you may share without further expectation. For you, leaving the monetization issue in the air is not a problem. I've met only a few of such artists, they are indeed untouchable. Have you met many? Are you one?
• Suppose you care about exposure. Do you honestly think getting 4,000 hits on a blog does the same for you as selling 4,000 books?
• A running assumption is that new media is the queen of exposure. It is certainly quicker, but do you think you'd get more chances of publishing a book to a national audience if you (a) win a local literature award, (b) submit academic papers to US conferences or (c) get 4,000 hits on your blog?
• Suppose you are producing intellectual content other than art and you want to eventually make money. Do you think google and those other examples from the US give away their knowledge for free? do they sell a product on the web or their brand in the stock market?
• Is the google game a feasible one in a place like Colombia or are you playing a different one? what good is to play the goals of one game within the rules of another?
• Do you control the means of production or just your labor?
• Suppose you want to take this to the next level and care about a group, like a developing country. Can It afford to invest the labor of its brightest on the sentimental promise that one day it'll be as open, cool, and progressive as the US is suppossed to be?

Fabio Arciniegas, San Diego California July 2009

1. "On Bullshit" Harry G. Frankfurt
2. "The House of Intellect" Jacquez Barzun
3. "An unspeakable betrayal - Selected Writings of Luis Buñuel" Luis Buñuel
4. "Begin here: the forgotten conditions of teaching and learning" Jacquez Barzun