Who Will Tame the Giants?

Summary

Tech giants like Google, Facebook, and Twitter function as modern-day 'principalities and powers' in a Pauline sense, shaping how people perceive and interact with the world. Users who live within these digital frameworks become participating members of the giants' bodies, influenced by their telos. As people access the world through these placeless platforms, their existence becomes more disembodied, accelerating a shift toward a less embodied and more polytheistic worldview. The concept of egregore, or shared thought-form, is introduced to discuss whether these online principalities can be exorcised or redeemed. Online activists attempt to manipulate egregores through 'meme-magic,' but any church-led exorcism risks excarnation by participating in the tech giants' hollow bodies.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This article investigates tech giants such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter in the light of the Pauline concepts of principalities and powers. It is argued that as people subjugate themselves to the digital frameworks of these modern giants, the way they perceive and interact with the world changes. The tech giants, similarly to the giants of mythology, constitute the very “place” where we, as users of the internet, are standing. The study argues that individuals who live their lives according to the frameworks of these modern-day principalities become participating members of the giants’ bodies and are thus influenced by their telos. As people increasingly access the world through these placeless platforms, and thereby giving sustenance to the principalities’ hollow bodies, their own existence becomes more and more disembodied. As modernity recedes, this kind of excarnation seems to have an accelerating effect on the shift in people’s worldview. The world which is formed by the tech giants’ frameworks is found to be less embodied and quite polytheistic. In a final discussion whether it is possible to exorcise or redeem these online principalities and powers the concept of egregore, or shared thought-form, is introduced. It is described how online activists try to manipulate these egregores through the reshaping of viral narratives by means of so-called “meme-magic”. It is concluded, however, that any attempt by the church to exorcise the demonic egregores on their home turf seem to necessitate a participation in the tech giants’ hollow bodies, which in turn might result in a sort of excarnation. A word of warning is therefore given against over-estimating one’s capacity to tame the tech giants through any form of social exorcism or political action.

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