'It is not enough to prove something, one has also to seduce or elevate people to it.'' - Friedrich Nietzsche.
This week, I decided to be even more of a twit. Yes, I joined Twitter. It is disarmingly simple. It begins by clicking the ''follow'' button. If I follow you, I see every one of your tweets: short messages of 140 characters, sent by phone or over the internet. If I follow 50 people, I have hundreds of these communiques a day. If a thousand people follow me, they all receive my quips and maxims - together with photos, videos, links to websites. And all instantly.
Just how popular is Twitter? According to The Wall Street Journal, there are 50 million regular twits. There are superstars, such as Lady Gaga, with more than 13 million followers - more about her celebrity than her gifts with the English language. A little more interesting is the comedian and actor Steven Fry, with 3 million electronic fans. Ordinary Joes have smaller networks, and this is laudable. Beyond about 150 souls, personalities become numbers. Social networks might be the Next Big Thing, but they are still social; they have to answer to our native gregariousness, not the pleading of public relations gurus.
A more interesting question is this: what does Twitter do? What does it promote in thought, language, relationships? On the positive side, it has a witty irreverence to it. Like the 18th century French court, it likes the bon mot, the mot juste. Politicians are parodied. False solemnity is mocked. And, because it is instant, this all happens during the press conference, interview or news report.
As a philosopher, this is a challenge. Instead of hiding my ideas in labyrinthine jargon, I have to be bold and clear. And, perhaps as importantly, I have to do it quickly - Twitter rewards decisiveness. It is a lesson in clarity of thought and brevity in language - exactly what many rambling, muddled boffins need. And everyone can use Twitter to sharpen their ideas.
Twitter, like most social networks, is not for genuine intimacy. Proper friendship requires more than 140 characters. But Twitter does provide opportunities to meet and greet - what might be called e-ntroductions. Someone tweets a funny or smart message. One of their friends re-tweets it to you. You re-tweet it yourself. And voila: you've discovered a new acquaintance, and so have your followers. Circles of professional and personal association widen.
On the negative side, Twitter can promote laziness, banality and superficiality. The simple availability of Twitter on iPads, laptops or smartphones means folks can publish anywhere, any time. Because they are free and instant, tweets often lack discipline. The laborious work of writing, editing and rewriting is skipped. Brevity is replaced by shortness - which is different. The first encourages economy, the second false simplicity.
Similarly, many tweets are not clever maxims or bold bon mots. They are reports of breakfast, dodgy three-word film reviews or clumsy non sequiturs. Despite the hype of this new social network, much of the content is dull. And it is dull, not simply because modern, middle-class life is humdrum. It is mostly because this life has not been transformed by an artful consciousness.
Motives are important in this. Often folks are not tweeting for the sake of clarity or parody. They are looking for distraction. In this, Twitter is training in a fractured consciousness, which cannot linger for long. Bad tweets are not criminal or immoral - they simply give red cordial to an antsy mind.
Like all technologies, Twitter is no simple cause. It can be used to sharpen blunt prose or bolster one's vulgar opinions. It can promote new friendships or aid intercontinental bullying. Most pressingly, it can distil experience into fine phrases, or it can dilute experience with distraction.
The vital thing is recognising its value and using it judiciously - to enhance consciousness rather than weaken it. Twits are as twits do.
Dr Damon Young is a philosopher, and the author of Distraction.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-a ... z1ZqeixtsO
A philosopher tweets...
A philosopher tweets...
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”