Digital Culture in the New Millennium /The Fascination with the "Cult" of Computing

"These are the waning years of the 20th century, and out on the margins of spiritual life there is a strange phosphorescence. As predicted, the approach of the 2000 is coaxing all the crazies out of the woodwork. They bring with them a twitchy hybrid of spirituality and pop obsession. Part Christian, part Asian mystic, part Gnostic, part X-Files... When it all dissolves in overheated computer chat and harmless New Age Vaporings who cares? But sometimes it matters, for both the faithful and the people who care about them." -Richard Lacayo /Time Magazine April 1997


According to the research done by Mr. Lacayo, studies show that psychologists have arrived at a specific profile of the person that attaches themselves to these intellectual techno cults (I refer to them as high-tech asylums) just about anyone is a likely candidate. Applicants require only an unsatisfied spiritual or esthetic longing, a condition apt to strike anyone at some point in their lives. Social status is no indicator of susceptibility and no defense against it.


"A free proliferation of raptures are upon us, with doctrines that mix the sacred with the tacky. Now that we are approaching the year 2,000, the ranks of the fearful and credulous have swelled. On the Internet any sort of cult combination can proliferate. On the Internet, cults multiply in service to Ashar and Sananda, deities with names you could find at a perfume counter, or to extraterrestrials- the Zeta Reticuli, the Draconian Reptoids- who sound like a softball team at the "Star Wars" cantina." -Richard Lacayo /Time Magazine April 1997


The modern era of cultism dates to the 1970’s, when the free spirit of the previous decade led seekers into intellectual surrender. Out of the debris of the counter cultures came such groups as Scientology, est, and the Unification Church of Rev. Sun Myung Moon. Since the 70’s two more startling developments have fostered the spread of cultism whether intellectual or spiritual. One was the end of Communism in which Marxism provided an outlet for utopian beliefs. Now that universalist utopian thought seeks to place itself within the digital community.


The second recent development in cultism is the proliferation of the free world market and technology. For the speedy recruitment of disciples, the Internet is a breeding ground for so called "utopian opportunity." It is clandestine, compelling at times and far reaching in its power to communicate to like minded individuals.


"I think that the online context can remove people from a proper understanding of reality and the proper tests for truth."
-Douglas Groothuis, Author of "The Soul in Cyberspace"


"The Internet allows different belief systems to meet and mate...what you get is this millennial stew, a mixture of many belief systems ...Which is the very way the latest kinds of cultism have flourished. As it develops generally, real ideas sometimes rise from the muck, which is why so free societies willingly put up with so much muck."
-Steven O’Leary, Author of "Arguing the Apocalypse"


My belief is that the "impulse" or the "emotional need" to spend 12-18 hours a day at a computer terminal is digital cultural brainwashing. In the search for meaning the digital artist is apt to slide down the treacherous road that has no outlet, only to find a "sucker sign" posted at the end of it.


My Interactive Journey Through the Light of The Pixel

The information super highway which delivers vast amounts of information is said to be the roadway to power in progress. After all, isn’t information power? Powerful people are seldom informed. CEO’s of corporations don’t just sit for hours surfing the net! Plus there is no connection between information and knowledge. Knowledge, I mean wisdom, which we ought to be seeking is, for the most part, not information, but a sense of understanding, a sense of judgement, a sense of when to ignore information. If you think about how one is inspired , it is not by information but by ideas, unique and divergent hypotheses, untried and untested theories. This is where the true creative wheels start to grind ...when eureka we stumble across creative solutions that we might have never come across before!


It is in the grappling of my thoughts and theories about information that I have come across my own ideas about technology today. The Internet with its powerful interactive communication value is perhaps the most oversold, overpromoted communications system ever created. I believe as we reach the millennium, we as a society are collectively beginning to complement the work of the mind with the work of the heart and the work of the soul. What is this crazy compulsion in our culture, in trying to define the very moment we live in? In defining the emptiness of our culture combined with the over abundance of information swamping every waking synapse. I see this intellectual and spiritual battle as a barometer of what is happening between digital technology and the larger society. There has been for decades this belief that humans can tackle any problem, reflected as the "dominant motif" of western culture, since the Enlightenment. But now, we are recognizing that searching and surfing the Web is the "rounding out" or "completed circle" in this spiritual quest for enlightenment.


One comes away with with disturbing questions... What resources can we as a culture (digital culture) call upon to deal with the reluctant discovery that "progress"- understood solely as acquisition of information-is being scrutinized? What ideals do we have left besides the "bitter sweet" rule of technology? The digital movement far from civilizing the human race, has been corrupted by itself. I doubt that upward mobility alone is enough to confer meaning on the lives of web surfers anymore than watching infomercials on the TV tube will enlighten the minds and hearts of all men.


The Web and Interactive technology has a tendency to appear to be phenomenally surface-oriented, a sort of "shallow monument" to ego gratification and narcissism.

© Copyright 2002 Denise Urban