Dialogue Between Theorists. Social Sciences Essay.

Dialogue Between Theorists
Lasch: Do we agree that social interaction has changed significantly with the inclusion of social media?
Baudrillard: No, we do not. What is your basis for saying that friendship is transformed by the modern day? We have always had friendships. We have always dissimulated and simulated (Baudrillard, 1994) according to who we are with, and what we are doing.
Lasch: Yes, but not the extent we do today. Our ‘sense of self is shaped by institutions or cultural forms in the larger society’ (Elliot, 2020, p.6), but we can shape how we present our self. And modernism allows us more scope to do so. I believe that identity is linked to social transformation. What does modernism do except offer more opportunities for that?
Baudrillard: We have always hidden behind our own simulations. Information does not imply meaning. You seem to be suggesting that we now have more of an ability to move beyond social norms (Elliot, 2020). Hasn’t this always been the case? We have always put different faces on for different social groups. Why should it be any different now?
Lasch: Because the spaces themselves have changed. The digital world has given us new ways and means to conduct ourselves (Lasch, 1994). When they didn’t exist, we didn’t have these means of expression.
Baudrillard: Are you arguing this from the viewpoint of Sedgwick’s ideas about a binary of private and public (Elliot, 2020)? Are you perhaps arguing that the balance between public and private has shifted, allowing people to remain public while still being private?
Lasch: Exactly right. Remember that narcissism is a function of self-hate, rather than self-love. Social media is the perfect breeding ground for such narcissism, as it encourages envy.
Baudrillard: I disagree. Why would you put up a front if you hated yourself? People with huge social media followings must love themselves, even if the front they show to other people is a fake one. Why would self-hate drive you to showcase yourself to anybody who cared to watch? Especially because influencing does always involve some degree of fakery anyway.
Lasch: I think is precisely the self-hatred that leads to the unreality of the situation. Social media has given us a world where being seen is the ultimate currency (Lasch, 1994). The gap between what is real and what is not will only widen because of that. Despite social media users going for an authentic look because that is in vogue (Elliot, 2020), we know using fakery to lead people on (Baudrillard, 1994) is becoming ever more prevalent. Why would we need to know the difference between a real influencer and a fake influencer otherwise?
Baudrillard: I still don’t see why narcissism is therefore a form of self-hatred.
Lasch: Don’t you see the connection between increasing unreality in our friend networks, and how that might impact the way we present ourselves? We now have the ability to hide who we truly are. Not only that, but we can now hide who we truly while at the same time amassing huge followings (Baudrillard, 1994). Our current culture rewards unreality in social media.
Baudrillard: So you are saying that narcissism does not necessarily drive unreality, but can come from it?
Lasch: Exactly. I think that our culture rewards these things. I think that people – especially young people – can get caught up in these things. And then whatever good intentions they might have had are subsumed into narcissism. Remember that young people are experimenting with their identities anyway. We should encourage that, but our modern culture goes beyond mere encouragement.
Baudrillard: Butler suggests that unreality can be useful for people who are experimenting with their gender, for example (Baudrillard, 1994). If the whole thing is a fabrication, then people should surely be able to experiment without buying into the narcissism?
Lasch: There are always people for whom this level of unreality is a blessing. I am not advocating for taking away somebody’s access to a world where they can be who they feel they are. That is a good thing. Again, it is not the unreality of social media in itself that is the problem. It is how people use it.
Baudrillard: I feel like simulations are a good thing. We all put on masks, every day. It doesn’t mean we hate ourselves, it means we are doing what we have to. Doesn’t everybody have unreality in their lives to some extent? We act differently with different people.
Lasch: But we don’t normally construct an entire reality around that persona. Even if we wear a mask for different people, the fundamental rules of our lives stay the same. We aren’t telling one group of people different stories about our lives. We are simply emphasising one part of our personality over another.
Baudrillard: The rise of the internet means that you can do a lot more than simply show one aspect of your personality though. You can create a whole new you that better fits your own self-perception. That doesn’t mean people are narcissistic; they are just taking advantage of their newfound self-expression
Lasch: There is a difference between the type of personality that takes advantage of the anonymity of the internet to have some fun with their own self-image and the type of personality which will actively benefit from it. The latter group are the narcissists, who use this new reality as a way to benefit themselves at the expense of others. This is not strictly to do with social media. We have had the internet for a while now, after all. But it is only in recent years that the strictly narcissistic ‘influencer’ phenomenon has cropped up. Why is that? We have had years of chat rooms and internet anonymity to work with. Why is it only now that this is happening?
Baudrillard: Social media and video platforms have given us new means to show our new personas?
Lasch: Exactly! Our society is seeing more narcissists for a reason. Narcissism has been growing since the last war (Lasch, 2018), but it has reached a nadir now.
Baudrillard: I agree that there is a lot of narcissism around these days. Can you explain to me your theory about how narcissism has transformed what friendship means?
Lasch: The initial problem we are dealing with is that social media is transforming friendships, yes? It has changed the way we interact with others, and how we see others.
Baudrillard: Yes, that’s true. We can now create simulations and simulacra. Who is to say whether we are interacting with a real person or not? We know that people use so-called bots on various social media. Everything is subsumed into media representations (Baudrillard, 1994), so how are we to know what is real?
Lasch: Exactly. What is real and what is not are becoming very difficult to determine. This is a prime ground for narcissism to thrive.
Baudrillard: But why narcissism specifically? Wouldn’t a narcissist want people to know who they were? Anonymity doesn’t seem like something they would want.
Lasch: As established earlier, narcissism comes from self-hate. This can manifest in a number of ways. You have heard people talk about the age of envy we are currently living in – maybe social media has helped to create it (Lasch, 2018)? This envy can lead to the narcissism we see.
Baudrillard: But surely that could be solved by simply acknowledging the unreality of the situation? We all know by now that social media is only a snapshot into people’s lives.
Lasch: Do people realise that? Rising levels of mental health issues can be directly attributed to social media usage. If people know that social media is the best parts of someone’s life, why would there be such a reaction? I believe that this is why social media is leading a huge change in friendships. Do you agree that there are huge changes happening?
Baudrillard: Yes. I believe that the modern world is now marketing people and their information for profit (Baudrillard, 1994). Everything has become a sign and a ploy to draw people into a market.
Lasch: So we have people encouraged to commodify themselves. We have a mental health crisis. And we have a way to avoid being seen as who we really are.
Baudrillard: Yes, and all of ...