What I find interesting about this book is its' recognition of a growing narcissism in today's culture. What Twenge is discussing in her book is manifesting itself in several of our societies traditional institutions: family, school, the workplace... even the pews of our local churches! As a result, her research is something which is uncomfortable, but necessary to engage if we are going to know how to effectively engage in ministry to today's youth.
After working with several teens and young adults over the past ten years and recognizing a shift taking place marked by a rapid growth in a mindset of entitlement, I began searching for resources to help me understand this growing trend. Besides Twenge and a few other social theorists, I didn't find much. As a result, I have decided to write this paper which I have entitled, "Me, MySpace, and IPod: Tales of a Culture Stuck in the Mirror Stage of Development and its Moral Implications." In this paper, I propose that we are currently living in a culture that has mass-marketed the idolization of self. We have created a series of technologies that has inundated us with media mirrors that fuel what I call "hyper-narcissism." Unfortunately, this image has been bought and consumed on a mass-scale. In many ways, we could say that our society - Christian and non-Christian alike - have "drunk the Kool-Aid" and joined the cult!
THE MEDIUM IS MASSAGING THE ILLUSION
It seems as though so many youth today are living in a fantasy world - a
simulacrum of self-absorption - an illusionary world which we are convinced is real. As the French sociologist, Jean Baudrillard satirically proclaims: "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear!" (Baudrillard,
America; 1) Youth sojourn in today's world convinced that they are all that exists because they are living in a consumer economy that caters to their every whim - whether this be voting for your latest music idol, personally reviewing movies, choosing the latest sandwich at fast-food chains, or participating in hand-crafted religious worship experiences. Everywhere youth go they are saturated with one message: "we are here to serve
you."
Time Magazine even picked up on this at the end of 2006 when
their
person of the year ended up being ourselves. On the cover is a computer with the word, "You." A quick viewing of the article identifies how we are living in an age where everyone has a "voice" in our society. I would argue that this is a good thing, but when everyone is expressing their voice on any and every issue... at what point does this all simply become noise? When all that a person does is speak their opinion, at what point do they begin to listen to the opinion of others?
We live in a culture where iPods are marketed as blank canvases where a person paints self-portraits via music and media which provide a window to their soul. Even the human body has become a canvas to communicate self through tattoos and piercings. As the late
Marshall McLuhan once said, "the medium is the message." The medium (whether flesh or machine) projects to the world and back to us who we think we are - psychologically and socially. He goes on to suggest later in life that the medium is also the massage - that it coaxes us to live with the psychological and social repurcussions that come with a new form of technology (McLuhan,
The medium is the massage). We have been 'massaged' into believing in the very marketable idea that our iPod gigabytes contain (Pod) the essence of self (I)!
MAGIC MIRROR - OFF THE WALL DEVELOPMENT
This has fueled this self-absorbed trend. Think about it:
MY-Space,
YOU-Tube,
FACE-book,
Second LIFE... These are some of the most popular socal networking sites on the planet. At what point do we begin to see this as a giant golden calf - the creation and idolization of self?
The Queen from our popular myth,
Snow White articulates the heartbeat of our culture today when she states:
"Magic Mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?" Unfortunately the Queen lived in the protective cloisters of her palace where people would tell her all that she wants to hear. When the mirror doesn't tell her what she presupposes is true, she competetively sidelines morality to champion self - she literally wants the heart of her fairest competition. Why? Because the ultimate response that she wants to hear from her magical technology that she is the fairest of them all. Does this sound like a familiar syndrome we enounter in today's culture? In what ways does our hyper-narcissism undermine the moral fibers of our being? In what ways does this self-consumption convince us that we are the only god we need?
In Dante's
Divine Comedy, he outlines
seven deadly sins and recognizes
narcissism or
vanity as the original and most deadly of sins. He defines it as "love of self perverted to hatred and contempt for one's neighbor." Dante illustrates this with the image of a bourgeois woman admiring herself in a mirror held by the devil - whom he suggests is no less than Lucifer himself - assigned to fuel vanity and pride.
Another illustration of this radical form of
ethical egoism is the
Greek myth of
Narcissus. This was the story of a young man who one day took a drink from a river only to see what he was convinced was ultimate beauty (naturally... himself!). He gazed into the river and was so consumed by the mirroring of his own self-reflection that it eventually destroyed him. It is no coincidence that the definition of
narcissism is "inordinate fascination with oneself; excessive self-love; vanity."
In 1984, the MIT scholar, Sherry Turkle wrote an interesting book entitled,
The Second Self. She was studying the relationship of children to technology. She uses the mythic story of Narcissus and links it to the work of French psychologist Jacques Lacan who speaks of the "
mirror stage" of development. She states, "Mirrors, literal and metaphorical, play an important role in human development. In literature, music, visual art, or computer programming, they allow us to see ourselves from the outside, and to objectify aspects of ourselves we have perceived only from within" (Turkle,
The Second Self; 155).
Turkle proposes that our constructed technologies serve as a conduit for identity development: "But of the computer we ask more. We ask not just about where we stand in nature, but about where we stand in the world of artifact. We search for a link between who we are and what we have made, between who we are and what we might create, between who we are and what, through out intimacy with our own creations, we might become" (Turkle,
The Second Self; 12). In many ways, there is a direct relationship between
who this generation understands "ME" to be, and
what our iPods and MySpaces reflect back to us. At what point though, do we begin to ask whether this generation is developmentally stuck in an infantile stage of development?
IDENTITY CRISIS: WHO MIMICS WHOM?
Challenges emerge when identity is in a continual entropic (i.e., changing) state. In today's culture, some propose that one's identity is composed of multiple possible selves (see Markus & Nurius, "Possible Selves"
American Psychologist, 1986). Kenneth Gergen suggests that "...as we become increasingly conjoined with our social surroundings, we come to
reflect those surroundings. There is a
populating of the self,
reflecting the infusion of partial identities through social saturation. And there is the onset of a
multiphrenic condition, in which one begins to experience the vertigo of unlimited multiplicity" (Gergen,
The Saturated Self; 49).
Gergen therefore suggests that people eventually end up not really knowing who they are at all. As Oscar Wilde said, "Life imitates art far more than art imitates life." In other words, when all that we do is interact with the world in a narcissistic way, not only do we become blind to others, but we also really begin to become confused about who we are, which eventually leads to becoming anything, everything... and eventually nothing. Therefore, hyper-narcissism does not fuel individuality, rather the individual simply becomes a mimic of all that surrounds them.
If you go back and look at the iPod campaign from a couple of
years ago, you will notice how the individuals are colored black (shadowed), the iPod is white (like a canvas) and the backdrop is a multiplicity of colors. In fact, many campaigns would combine several of these images together in a way reminicent to Andy Warhol's depiction of the silk screened Mickey Mouse. Warhol was the king of pop - producing mass-produced art.
I would like to suggest that iPod's promotional campaign about individuality actually is a campaign for mass-concession -
willing consent to popular culture. At what point does this move from a healthy means to navigate through the social spheres of everyday life to something that becomes hegemonic and dangerously
self-contradictory? I fear that we might be crossing that line in today's culture... and that the Church is not standing as a prophetic voice, but rather the champion salesman! (See my article
Lolli-pop Spirituality: Why Youth Are Crashing From Sugar-Coated Christianity.)
One could easily propose that our culture is in a state of identity crisis. It is rather ironic that the
Socratic mandate to "know thyself" has become so difficult in the hall of mirrors that we live in today. Amusement parks historically have had halls of mirrors where people are invited to enter into a labyrinth of optically reflective materials. These rooms are intended to stretch and distort people's reflections of self... and often leave people either laughing or crying as they get lost in their journey through the maze. I wonder whether this is an apt metaphor for where we find ourselves in today's culture? Could it be that the distorted mirrors which surround us have acutally confused our journey to understand who we are? These distortions particularly become deceptive when we begin to try to understand who we are in Chirst.
When a person becomes convinced that they are all that exists, it is no surprise that a spirit of entitlement eventually ensues. People who are stuck in the infantile mirror-phase of development will obviously often resort to acting spoiled. It's no surprise that one of the most popular dolls sold to tween girls these days are called "Bratz." Jean Twenge's book picks up on this. She says, "Many young people also display entitlement, a facet of narcissism that involves believing that you deserve and are entitled to more than others... The rise in narcissism has very deep roots. It's not just that we feel better about ourselves, but that we even think to ask the question. We fixate on self-esteem, and unthinkably build narcissism, because we believe that the needs of the individual are paramount. This will stay with us even if self-esteem programs end up in the dustbin of history..." (Twenge,
Generation Me; 70f.). Journalist Martha Irvine referred to today's youth as the "
Entitlement Generation." Beverly Smallwood, exploring the dangers of our culture's
sense of entitlement states that, "A dangerous cancer is eating away at the soul of modern society, causing distress in our homes and workplaces alike. What is it, and what is the antidote?" It seems that our society simply proposes solutions that add fuel to the fire - more self-esteem classes, therapy sessions where people reflection on Maslowian 'self-actualization' ...even popular films recognize the problem but lack solutions.
ABOUT FACE: THE TRUTH ABOUT NARCISSISM
This begs me to ask the hard, but important question: what are the moral and theological consequences of this radical form of egotistic practice? How does this effect how we live in this world, what we value, what we pursue? What are the repurcussions of self-absorption (or self-love) in relationship of oneself to the other (particularly the marginal other)... or more importantly, the relationship of humanity to God?
I am always encouraged by the work of C.S. Lewis. Regarding his book,
Till We Have Faces, he
uses a retelling of the ancient greek mythlogical tale of Cupid and Psyche to address distorted and true beauty, justice and love. Lewis uses this relationship as a metaphor for the relationship of self to God: "The idea was that a human being must become real before it can expect to receive any message from the superhuman; that is, it must be speaking with its voice (not borrowed voices), expressing its actual desires (not what it imagines it desires), being for good or ill itself, not any mask, veil, or persona" (CS Lewis in a letter to Dorothy Conybeare, 1964).
As long as we continue to buy into the idea of burying ourselves in our own process of creating things in our image we will continue to distance ourselves from our true Creator in whose image we have been made (Genesis 1:27; 2 Corinthians 3:18). Just looking at the story of the Tower of Babel jumps out as a powerful reminder of what happens when we try to build things which deify self (Genesis 11). When we pursue such a goal, it will inevitably result in confusion, divison and then eventual destruction of what we create, those with whom we are in community, and eventually ourselves.
There is great potential for selfless, Christ-like altruism in today's culture. Encountering God and loving others unconditionally, I would argue, provides the proper framework within which to understand the deep and profound question, "Who am I?" Jesus says, "If your first concern is to look after yourself, you'll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you'll find both yourself and me" (Matthew 10:39 MSG).
I am not proposing that everyone destroy their iPods or never utilize a social networking site. I am rather suggesting that we keep things in perspective - that we don't get lost in the labyrinth of our mirror-driven technoculture. As Catherine Booth understood so aptly in the 19th Century, what we wear directly interacts with who we are. This is why she was set to ensure that she not cultivate vanity in the hearts of her children by pursuing simplicity in the clothes they wore (see the quote at the beginning of this paper).
My prayer is that we recognize that our mirrors can be strongholds... and that the destruction of the hold these mirrors have on us will not bring about seven years of bad luck - as the traditional legend goes, but rather a freedom from the bondage that has held this generation in its grip for way too long.
"Heaven is not here, it's There. If we were given all we wanted here, our hearts would settle for this world rather than the next. God is forever luring us up and away from this one, wooing us to Himself and His still invisible Kingdom, where we will certainly find what we so keenly long for."
Elisabeth Elliot Keep a Quiet Heart
What are your thoughts? I would love to interact with others who have also been wrestling with this issue.
WORKS CITED
Baudrillard, J. (1989).
America. Verso.
could easily perceive of the online world as a new frontier - as it has many similarities to that of an undiscovered tribe or people group. However, the shift from physical to virtual space is only one of many barriers that must be crossed by youth workers. Cultural engagement requires a person to learn new, online languages (whose code is continually changing); operate under new social structures; learn new customs, etc. It actually might be easier to go to a foreign country than it is to continuously be up t speed with the never-ending morphing culture of the online world. When looked at from this perspective, it becomes clear that there is a distinction between those who are completely foreign to the codes and customs of online tribes; those who have become familiar through continuous, intensive study; and those who have grown up in this virtual culture.
Marshall McLuhan has observed that when a new technology is introduced into a culture that there are significant psycho-social shifts which take place in a culture. Often these shifts are not easily perceived of by those who are in the midst of such entropic change. I think that one of the most significant changes in social structure is that those who are considered children and youth are in the position of authority as they are natives to this culture while parents are perceived of as socially and culturally incompetent. This places a great deal of strain on the parent-child relationship. Similarly, those who are in positions of leadership in ministry to youth often find themselves in the vulnerable position of being a cultural outsider. We don’t understand the psyche of youth who are growing up online. We haven’t considered what I would call ‘virtual ethics and moral development.’
Walt Mueller
