Tea at Trianon: Tyranny of Numbers in the Digital Age

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, January 20, 2014

Tyranny of Numbers in the Digital Age

From The Star:

This tyranny of numbers, distracting from more far-sighted views, goes hand in hand with the “selective exposure” that the Internet encourages.

The Internet’s illusion of proximity to the like-minded, no matter how dispersed — the fellowship it creates in the virtual sphere that affects our behaviour in the real one — is one of its most distinctive properties. In the digital age, we gather all too easily alongside those whose messages are consonant with our own. Our aggregation into groups of the like-minded confers legitimacy through the mass of numbers, rather than by engagement with rival opinions that might enrich us. It says, “Look how many think just like me! I must be right and you must be wrong!” and allows us to disregard our true neighbours and the worth of their opinions and grievances.

Engagement across the parapets — what we used to call “dialectics” and regard as a positive thing — is destined to be a rare phenomenon until that moment when it becomes a property of the web that we debate rival views unhesitatingly. Until that moment, perhaps, when some bright Silicon Valley dude invents a site with categories for Friends, sure, but also “Rivals,” “Opponents” and “Nemeses” and a respectful way to contend with them.

The variety of opinions and healthy argument that we used to depend upon in the march towards the better society are casualties of exactly the kind of discussion — better said, the lack of it — the Internet promotes. We click on a video with the most prior views, trust the tweeter with the most followers, and as we push that with which we are in agreement, for whatever reasons bad or good, the count of likes vaults forward and creates a momentum of its own. It does not occur to us to ask if a thousand lemming views amount to the gatekeeping of one intelligent expert. To wonder as much is to pander to “elites.” It is to put the opinions of a select leading few above those of the following masses and to challenge the vindication of numbers in today’s counting world. (Read more.)