The Creation of the Modern Self - The filter bubble as the new embodiment of the underlying problem of modernity

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Title Page

Title: “The Creation of the Modern Self”, argues that humanity may have the power to select among cultural influences to create the inner modern self. To be modern, is defined by Baudelaire, as having the human capacity to invent the self. Creating the self is about framing the cultural influences that fit and excluding those influences that don’t. Subtitle:“The Filter bubble as the New Embodiment of the Underlying Problem of Modernity” explains that the creation of the self is not a new phenomenon. According to Michel Foucault: Humanity has to deal with these ‘modern’ problems for a very long time. With the rise of the Internet and the resulting platform society, the filter bubble became the technological embodiment of this phenomenon. Technology has the aim to put everything together and people stay as users in reverse to that aspect.

Supervisor:Marc Tuters, researcher and teacher in New Media and Digital Culture at the University of Amsterdam. His focus is on how online subcultures constitute

themselves as political movements.

Second Reader: Alberto Cossu is a post-doctoral research fellow from the University of Milan, Italy. He is from the department of Social and Political Science and focusses his main research on the processes of cultural, organizational and economic innovation between human social life and production spheres.

Personal information:

Vera Jane Seegers, Student Number - 10757384 Private email - verajaneseegers@gmail.com

Telephone number -

0031657248037

Address - Vinkenstraat 14D , 1013 JS Amsterdam

In 2013, I started studying Visual Art in the direction of Lifestyle Design at the University of Applied Science in Rotterdam Willem de Kooning Acadamy . During my studies, I developed a special interest for personal identities and their relationship with society. After one year I switched to the Bachelor’s of Media and Culture in the direction of Television at the University of Amsterdam. Finally, I started this Master’s degree in New Media and Digital Culture with the aim to relate my special interest in Art with today’s modern post-digital world.

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Preface

The motivation to write this thesis comes from my special interest in the creation of identity. During my time in art school, I realized that there is little room for the expression of the individual self in current post-modern digital society with its fundamentals rooted in capitalism. Human expression seems to be approached as a form of cultivation instead of as an autonomous outcome due to capitalist mass consumption. With the shift from web 1.0 to web 2.0, the platform society has generated a profitable environment. An environment in which individuals have become central, with their identities transformed into the products of a pre-programmed disciplined power structure. Platforms such as Google and Facebook have found a profitable product to be generated from a user’s personal data which is extracted to promote consumerism and serve advertisers. This commodification of user data has resulted in the imbedding of constructs within the algorithmic filter bubble, which is as a result of Google’s “personalized search” concept. The filter bubble might be a new construct but is actually the technological embodiment for the existing human modernity of creating the self. The filter bubble might form a problem for society that leads to homogenisation, which can influence the

development of the inner ‘self’ of the individual. The individual user and his inner ‘self’ have been placed into fixed patterns in pursuit of the goals of consumerism instead of supporting the developmental process of the individual (Pariser, (2) 83). The outcome of this is that the individual user of the platform society seems to compromise his individual values.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Marc Tuters for supervising this complex and challenging thesis and for guiding me into the direction of Michel Foucault’s philosophy on the

underlying problems of modernity. This gave me several new motivations and insights to construct a niche question and to make a decent claim. Secondly, I want to thank a very special person, whose name I will not disclose because of privacy. Thank you very much for all the moral support, the countless inspirations, and all the new opportunities you have given me to develop myself into the person I am today. You gave me the right guidelines to realize my ambitions so far. Lastly, Yael

Hoogland, a very special woman I met at a conference last January about the influence of cybernetics on human life. Thank you for being my critical reader on my academic English. It is very commendable that you could turn my often, vague assertions and imaginations into worthy academic statements. I would also like to mention that I admire you very much for the free-spirited woman you are. For me, you are one of the examples of the individual who completely chooses her own path. An individual creation that is so central to this thesis.

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Abstract

Technological advances in connectivity have resulted in increased and sustained use of the Internet. Cybernetics and social media have given rise to an online society that is made up of cultural groups that have the capacity to influence and shape an individual. Algorithms have been designed to personalize the User’s online

experience. These algorithms have created a bubble that filters what cultural types of media; news, opinions and sources reach the User when navigating the Internet and social media platforms (Pariser (2), 5-9). This thesis offers a cultural diagnosis of contemporary experience in the tradition of the ideal social type (Simmel, 141). Additionally, how Capitalistic forces impact this technological tool (filter bubble) of connectivity and how the commodification of user data has further influenced the process of constructing the individual modern self. The analysis attempts an

evaluation of a general condition, which may be used to characterize contemporary modernity; to which end I work with the theoretical framework of the “filter bubble” (Pariser (1), 11) and Platform Capitalism (Srnicek, 16) from new media theory. Going beyond a mere analysis of the contemporary new media moment, my objective here is to identify certain broader themes as well. To this end the thesis draws upon the Gestalt theory (Jünger) in order to consider the construction of subjective experience more generally. The argument is thus that the contemporary new media moment can be seen to represents a new object of modern philosophy, the filter bubble, as a digital tool for the construction of the self. Literature and media review have

revealed how predicative analytics can limit the individual’s online world. The filter bubble has created a static environment that is difficult for the User to disrupt. The coding inhibits the User’s ability to freely connect with serendipitous influences by placing the User in a repetitive loop of stimuli calculated by previous habits (clicks). These filters create a pre-programmed user environment within a fixed structure that does not easily permit flexibility or change. Additionally, the data collected to

improve connectivity has become a commodity itself. This data can be used for personalized advertisement by capturing consumer habits, preferences and interests. The filter bubble can then be manipulated to target consumer practices. This permits advertisers to manipulate the online environment resulting in the User navigating an even tighter loop further limiting cultural variety (Pariser (2), 83). The “construction of the modern self” might become influenced by technological tools that are a part of the post-modern digital capitalistic society. Internet connectivity, social media

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platforms and predicative algorithms have created a filter bubble that censures cultural variety thereby challenging the formation of the Gestalt. This study demonstrates that technology has opened access to a limited diversity of online communities. However, the human process of development requires that the

individual liberate themselves from the limitations of the filter bubble to construct the modern self.

Keywords

Gestalt; Construct; Modern self; Superego; Social type; Platform society; Filter bubble; Serendipity;

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Introduction

“The essence of technology is nothing technological.”

Martin Heidegger – The Question Concerning Technology, P3. 1977

Humanity is the connected outcome of its own constructed culture. Humankind’s direct influential environments are his (self-chosen) social family and friends, his community, town, country and place in the world (Williams, 4-9 & Chun, 9). Since the Internet shifted to web 2.0 in 2007, cultural communities and influences became more compartmentalized and differentiated within a technological box (Tarnoff, 2016). In an effort to improve connectivity on different Internet platforms, code was designed to capture user behavior with the intention to improve the personal

experience of the user. As a result of these technological “boxes”, a hierarchy was created that gave rise to a cultural society on the Internet. This Internet platform society is the product of Google’s web personalization algorithms and has resulted in an infrastructural environment called the filter bubble (Pariser (2), 119-152).

As a technological tool, the filter bubble may represent a new challenge to the construction of the modern self. In current post-modern digital society, the filter bubble seems to have become the technological embodiment of individual’s self-constructing process. It frames every cultural aspect into a box. These boxes digitally narrow the user’s perspective of the world (Pariser, (2) 83). German Philosopher Martin Heidegger states: “there is an essence to technology.” Technology is an instrument, which frames objects and the behavior of the user (Heidegger, 4-5). The algorithm of the digital world uses this behavior to frame the user’s environment resulting in the behaviour of the user becoming an instrument to the technology. This data feeds the filter bubble phenomenon and is embedded in the structure of the platform society. This is a technological embodiment of self-creation since the filter bubble is driven by a user’s online behavior and navigation history. Where the user visits, clicks on, logs into, likes, comments and searches, are bits of data collected and aggregated by online analytics (Pariser, (2) 88-91). Eli Pariser

postulated in his research the concept of how the Internet limits the user’s access to information, and what sort of consequences can arise from these limitations. The use of personalized algorithms on Internet platforms has resulted in an environment of

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structured patterns, a hierarchical community, which places limits on exposure to cultural relationships and variety (Pariser, (1) 94-97). It is from this that the filter bubble platform society has evolved.

Individuality is defined by a human being’s cultural construct of his own past and connected influences. Pure individuality is defined as owning the rights to master the power to pick one’s own interests and to create that inner individual self (Lorey, 2017). This human capacity is set out by the Gestalt theory founded by Austrian philosopher Christian von Ehrenfels in 1890. This theory approaches objects, elements, environments and people as a “whole form” which ultimately creates a person’s individual gestalt. The gestalt is an outcome of a system containing several dynamic cultural relationships (Woodward & Cohen, 1988).

A user of the platform society, which can be seen as the new environment of modernity, needs to gain an understanding to what extent this construction of the self is embodied by today’s technological systems. What does it mean to own the power of constructing one’s self? What kind of power does the filter bubble, as a digital tool, hold over the individual in this process? The user needs to be aware that his online activity is generating a form of cultural interconnectivity when navigating online. Cultural connectivity can influence the shaping of the inner self. To what extent does the user still own his power of awareness? To what extent is the filter bubble affecting the user’s ability to govern the construct of self within this platform society? How far does the platform society move the user away from his natural aspirations and serendipitous creativity, by rerouting him to hierarchical frameworks based on past behaviors?

The algorithmic infrastructure of the filter bubble seems to be driving the nature of the individual user environment. Users of the platform society are limited in their ability to take control of their digital society and online personality because the platform society generates a habitual (filtered) environment (Chun, 9). In addition, users became disciplined subjects under the tendencies of bio-power (Faubion, 5) as they navigate the Internet, they are watching and being watched. According to Michel Foucault, it can be conclude that the theory of constructing the self is nothing new however the filter bubble creates a digital tool that embodies a new condition of

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modernity that influences the cultural environment and thereby the development of the individual self.

The self is a construct of cultures, a conscious project for the individual to create his “self” (Jünger, 77). From this essential theory of the self, it can be understood that the structure of the filter bubble is not a new phenomenon. The quote at the

beginning of this thesis, by Foucault and Baudelaire, argues that an individual has to accept himself as an object, which emerges out of modern society’s complex effects. Modern people do not search for their identity, but try to reinvent their individuality through modern power structures continuously. One cannot free oneself from society's cultural boundaries. One must approach this forming process as producing an identity through these cultural boundaries (Foucault, 33-34) by framing and excluding entities. French philosopher Michel Foucault (1926 – 1984) has examined the individual in relation to cultural aspects such as politics and power. The individual is a construction resulting from cultural influences that play games with human 'freedom' and power structures. From this theory of forming the self, it can be concluded that the phenomena of influencing or taking over people’s self is not a new problem. The filter bubble is just a new powerful technological embodiment of this human ability. Heidegger’s question: what is the technological instrument itself? (Heidegger, 4-5) Illustrates how the current individual has to relate himself to contemporary modern digital power structures embedded within today’s platform society. This platform society, with the filter bubble as power structure, forms the new underlying problem of modernity (Berardi, 2017).

The filter bubble can be interpreted as the new condition of modernity. A condition that is actually blocking the process of creating the ‘self’ since this process is based on fixed pre-programmed algorithmic patterns. This aspect seems to limit cultural serendipity and variety. According to Dutch author and professor for autonomy in art and design Sebastian Olma (1964), serendipity means the capacity of being exposed to other cultural influences (Olma, 16-19). The filter bubble is hindering this ‘free’ interactive process through its pre-programmed patterns (Pariser, (1), 83). This may create a ‘new’ humanity in terms of a user with two sides of his inner self, a ‘true’ self, which is the inner self that might be suppressed, and a ‘false’ self that is constructed through the fixed cultural patterns (Winnicott, 56-59) of the filter bubble.

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The data aggregated from the user, was found valuable by advertisers as it was comprised of “personal” information that could predict and anticipate influences and consumer habits. As a result, the platform society transitioned from a cultural force to a Capitalistic one. The individual user’s identity became the Internet’s main target of commodification and a platform capitalistic society was created. The platform society evolved to sell a product (Srnicek, 57). Marketing, targeted advertising and product placement driven by user data dictated an environment of structured patterns, which further limited cultural options. This in turn seems to have exerted an additional control over the user, driven by pre-anticipated algorithmic behavior. Therefore, the individual has further lost his access to an open non-hierarchical community platform (Berardi, 2017).

To make a decent diagnosis of this complex and paradoxical issue of contemporary modernity, I want to ask the following research question: To what extent is the filter bubble a new phenomenon in the construction of the self?

Sub-questions that emerge out of this question are: What's new about the filter bubble? And how does it influence the creation of the self?

The filter bubble is not a new phenomenon. It is a new technological object of philosophy for current modern society to consider. It is a condition of humanities’ habitual online environment, the platform society. This society seems to frame user identities into homogeneous cultures, generated by predictions of their behaviour. Additionally, user behavioural data has been commodified. This has resulted in a product source for companies to create advertising revenue models for selling products. This commodification has further influenced the structure of the filter bubble environment. Technology turned into a feature that was central to platform capitalistic commodification (Srnicek, 57). The user of the online platform society may have been turned, according to Gilles Deleuze, into a ‘dividual’. The user has to operate between autonomy and collective society, which is governed through digital forms of subjective powerful control (Deleuze, 3-7). The individual user is then subdivided by inner values and the dominant powerful structures that overwhelm and remove one from the inner self.

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In this research, I analyzed to what extent the user’s inner self is directed by the fixed cultural patterns of the platform society’s filter bubble. This complex situation of contemporary modernity is analyzed through extensive literary research with the following authors leading:

French philosopher Michel Foucault’s ideas on power, specifically bio-power and how the individual deals with such problems in modern society are used to diagnosis the filter bubble as the technological embodiment that influences the user in his construction of the self.

German philosopher Ernst Jünger and his examination on the Gestalt theory (1963) is used to find an answer on how humans form their personality by picking elements that coalesce to an individual whole. Psychoanalyst Donald Woods Winnicot’s ideas of forming the personality online, the “True and False Self” (1971), are used to make the distinction between the inner values and the dominant power tendency of the filter bubble embedded in the platform society in which the user moves.

French author Eli Parise’s filter bubble theory is utilized to give an explanation of the algorithmic infrastructure.

Dutch author Sebastian Olma’s book In Defence of Serendipity (2016) provides an understanding of how serendipity can have access again to the creation of the individual self. Discussions about how humanity must find his purest form of autonomy by being aware of the distinction between modern society’s outcomes and his inner values in order to become just like Baudelaire his dandy of the inner self (Baudelaire, 127) once again. The basis of creating an identity is achieved by overcoming these struggles and producing exclusions to frame what is relevant to the individual self.

Lambros Malafouris’s theories are reviewed to clarify how people relate and identify themselves with technological cultural objects, relationships and social phenomena.

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This thesis contains three chapters to create a comprehensive analysis and

evaluation as to what extent the filter bubble, as a new phenomenon, has become an underlying problem of current modern technological society:

Chapter 1 explains how individuals shape and pick their cultural influences to turn themselves into a unique whole form (Gestalt) of the self.

Chapter 2 defines the filter bubble as a digital embodiment that seems to construct the self, how it works, to what extent it might influence the creation of the inner self, and how it can emerge on the basis of habitual use.

Chapter 3 expresses how the commodification of predicative data has the potential to overwhelm creativity and serendipity in digital cultural society and how institutions try to direct personal identity for Capitalistic purposes. Lastly discussed are counter cultural reactions to market forces and considerations for overcoming the effects of commodification.

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1. The Construction of the Self

Prelude

Theoretically every human being is different from one another. There should exist in every person, an eccentric personality and an identity of individuality. This identity is developed and designed by that person in a unique way. It is created as a result of cultural phenomena, historical moments and other factors that manufacture a frame of reference related to one’s cultural habitat (Williams, 4-9). Humans belong to families, a social community, and a folk part of a specific environment with cultural codes and habits (Chun, 9). The individual is an outcome of these cultural trends and tendencies that play a never-ending game with one’s ‘freedom’ and sense of reality in order to find a balance to construct the inner self. One can never be freed from society’s cultural boundaries. A person approaches his forming and construction process as the product of his identity through these existing cultural boundaries. This process includes the creation of the self, as a ‘subject’ (Foucault, 33-34). A subject that lives within modern power structures resulting in a subjective outcome due to social environmental connections and elements. The outcome is a result of the choices picked by the person and come together in a new construct that forms the “whole” of a unique human being (Jünger, 90). Since the Internet shifted in 2007 to web 2.0, cultural communities became limitlessly accessible to users and created a new sort of geography in online connectivity (Tarnoff, 2016). This made the Internet’s platform society a new social institution. One that executes a social form of power over its users that seems to be associated with subjectivity. A sub-question that therefore comes up is: What is this underlying infrastructure in the platform society, and why and how might it form an embodied tool for the user to construct the ‘modern’ self?

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1.1 A Subject Against Subjectivity

“The individual in the middle of the underlying problems of modernity.”

Michel Foucault (1926 – 1984) The main focus of research for French philosopher and social theorist Foucault was the human relationship between power and knowledge. He was interested in how these components were used in society as a form of social control. Foucault studied under the influences of philosophers Jean Hyppolite and Louis Althusser at Sorbonne University of Paris and was associated with left wing politics. His public

characteristics of open society and sexual orientation are important to note, as they make his philosophies relevant to the challenges of “constructing the self” in human social-cultural life (before the ubiquitous use of the internet). It is pertinent to examine how the current individual has to relate himself to contemporary modern digital power structures embedded within today’s platform society. This platform society and its new forms of societal power create today’s new underlying problem of current modernity (Berardi, 2017). German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) is one of the central representatives of German idealism. He coined the term ‘subject’ in 1794. He defines a ‘subject’ as the unique individual or an entity that has a relationship with another entity that exists outside of itself. The outer existence makes it an interesting alternative of influence that will enrich the subject. The individual is a perceived object or thing, where 'the subject' is central to human autonomy within the nature of the self (Hegel, 28-31).

Foucault proclaims in his book Discipline and Punish (1975) that humans became subjects under sovereign power. This was an element that changed them as individuals (Foucault 33-34). Humans turned into ‘compliant subjects’ through the imposition of specific disciplines. The Internet and its platform society can be perceived as today’s sovereign power, a modern societal institution, which can produce a new kind of disciplined subject. The Internet’s platform society shaped a re-connection that enabled a certain form of control over its participants by

reconfiguring them into compliant subjects. This conception of discipline holds two different elements: (1) A subject, the individual, turns into a compliant subject because he is being subjected to regulation by other individuals, institutions or a state. (2) Subjectivity includes having aims, desires, and most important today, a

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self-image or a sense of whom and what one is reflected back (Prado, 53). This makes the concept of the ‘subject’ ambiguous because it can be approached as two conceptions. The first interpretation forms the “subject”, a self-aware entity, which is the profile of the self. The second understanding is “subjectivity”, a member of a governed society or a cultural social environment (Hegel, 38). These two elements appear to be imbalanced in the platform society, because “subjectivity” appears to be a dominant factor since it seems to navigate the user in a certain cultural direction. The modern ‘self’ in the form of a subject, according to Hegel, has the capacity to approach his intentional consciousness as an intrinsic property. A ‘subject’ with consciousness that has the capacity to “self-constitute”, and who is able to deal with a variety of rules and opinions constructed by the governed and social cultural environment (Hegel, 40). The ultimate ‘self’ is able to occupy different natures in many various contexts without losing his habitat. If one is not aware of his original cultural habitat, it will be easy to execute influence. This influence is situated in a structure that is nudging one with other options (Thornberg, 2018), cultural options that may have secondary aims, such as those of the platform society. This capacity makes it possible in the platform society, as a new natural environment, to shape the self through a cultural discipline outside of the aim to act “correctly”. This “correct” behaviour is nudging people to act to the standards set to serve certain higher goals, which may not always benefit both parties. Foucault infers that as more precise levels of discipline are formed, people are influenced by 'correct' social and governmental convictions with the aim to serve a particular higher collective goal. This takes place via convictions originating from active trends derived from relevant social environments and the subjectivity from which they are extracted (Prado, 57). This makes the influencing process an unnoticed phenomenon and therefore a natural part of the human environment.

The platform society has created a form of subjectivity over the individual that might result in the disappearance of his self-consciousness. The platform society has become to the subject, his main second living environment and in many ways has taken his critical awareness away as a result of the subjectivity (Faubion, 5) “hidden” inside the platform infrastructure.

The “arts of government”, from which the platform society functions, provides an incentive to being governed. It influences the codes of conduct and modes of

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governing oneself within a social society (Faubion, 06). These “arts of government” is what makes the user unaware of any form of disciplined power being exercised over him by the environment itself. This is what turns the user into a subject. It creates the perception that users in the platform society have earned another ‘new’ form of freedom (Pariser (2), 102-105). This feeling is the conception of earning more governmentality, hidden in levels of discipline and bio-power.

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1.2 Becoming the Gestalt

To become a “whole form” human, one that is to be a subject (a self-aware entity), requires a return to the principles of constructing the unique self by nature. Christian von Ehrenfels, a member of the School of Bretano, found in 1890 a philosophical and psychological approach to this process: the Gestalt Theory. This theory considers cultural objects, elements and phenomena together as a global construct that leads to a unique “gestalt”, a human “whole form”, being his personality. This whole form is a result of person’s principles of perception, and innate mental laws that determine the way cultural objects are observed and approached in order to be framed or exclude. The gestalt is based on the “here” and “now” constructed from the approach of the dominant culture on that particular moment. The gestalt theory examines the individual’s principles of totality and the dynamic relationships that are part of the current cultural system. A gestalt is the individual of the psychophysical isomorphism. One who creates connections between conscious experience and cerebral activity in the surrounding cultural environment (Woodward & Cohen, 1988). The gestalt psychology turned into a movement that started in Berlin,

Germany around the beginning of the 1920’s. This movement endeavoured to make sense of the perceptions of the human mind that functions in “whole” forms, rather than on individual elements. It is about the relationship that arises from a certain interconnection that takes place.

German soldier and entomologist Ernst Jünger (1895 – 1998) further developed the Gestalt theory in his book Typus, Name, Gestalt (Type, Name, Embodiment) (1978). This book examines the on-going developmental process of the construction of human identity. Jünger describes the gestalt theory in a genealogical way and argues that man is only a constructed form, within a type, that can be designated to a family, a family that belongs to a certain order and species, which together form the realm of the individual. The human unity that has revealed itself is not

particularly uniformity or monotony, but is a constitution for defining the individual self (Jünger, 8). Cultural boundaries are set up in a very broad sense. Every

“gestalt”, as an individual, has the possibility to expand his horizons broader than the type of culture from which descended. Depending on the particular environment in which he exists on that moment. Jünger states that influences of intrusion are natural and used to determine the type. Intrusion is the element from where the

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individual can evolve into a certain type and eventually develop further into his unique constructed gestalt. This process starts at childhood, which is the first phase of development that is mainly encompassed by language. Language is nothing more than returning learned skills in the form of questions and answers, a starting point in which humans begin to develop their unique individual identity (Jünger, 77-86).

Jünger’s definition of intrusion focuses on the limitless process of life, a process that never stops. Even in late adulthood, the human gestalt is always in motion. The same form of intrusion also takes place in today’s modern online world, particularly in the platform society. It occurs at a much faster and more interactive level of influence and seems to have such secondary interests and goals. The ‘individual’ user, who thinks he is developing deeper and faster, is in reality picking up fast influences that do not differ much from one another. These are in fact part of a larger homogeneous realm. Distinction as a phenomenon barely seems to exist in the platform society. The ‘typus’, ‘name’ and ‘gestalt’ forms are programmed into a few fixed patterns in which the individual user‘s unique construct of himself is matched and adapted (Pariser, 101-104). The individual user is not continuously inventing the self, but actually moving through prescribed loops that are designed to anticipate online behaviour to satisfy him for a short moment. The gestalt theory is challenged in such an environment because a form of serendipity is needed to confront and expose the individual to as many cultural influences as possible (Jünger, 90). The psychological isomorphism in which the connection between conscious experience and cerebral activity are needed is absent (Pariser, (1), 83). Junger’s type has a limited chance to develop into a new “whole” form of the individual gestalt because within the filter bubble there are no inputs and outputs that differ from one to the other. The loops are constantly repeating. This creates a fixed pattern in which the Internet platform society anticipates user behaviour in order to “personalise” the online experience. This infrastructure leads the user to entrances and exits based on his predicted type, which the user already embodies. Evolution in its purest form may not occur because niche forms of intrusion are limited or prohibited altogether.

The type is surrounded by influences that form the model for the image of the gestalt. The gestalt is a human who always needs to be in an environment that offers him variable ‘higher’ forms of life to construct a “whole” form. Adoring the influences he possibly allows as a result of the forms of his specific choices (Junger,

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90). This ‘higher’ life is what the individual strives for, but today within the

frameworks of society, human life largely takes place in the online environment. The user believes higher forms of development can be found online, because it is

assumed that ‘everything’ is easily accessible online. Which is true, but paradoxically the Internet platform society limits the user’s online expression and perception in that abundance, to imbed possibilities for commercialisation. By anticipating user behaviour, the user is prescribed a fixed identity (Pariser (2), 83-85). This identity can then be earmarked with particular distinctions that feed the filter bubble for marketing purposes. The collected data intended to personalize the online

experience has become a commodity. Companies can buy the user’s data (current personality) and place products, advertising, news and other sources of media within the user platform (Srnicek, 47). As a result, these companies have influence over the user and can tempt them with capitalistic trends that reflect his predicted type. These trends are set into fixed patterns and restrict serendipity. The user is

increasingly moved away from possibilities to expand and further develop his type. The user does not innovate, but accepts the established order that is provided. The platform society develops just a few certain gestalts. Users still have the ability to pursue their inner self, but within the platform society the user thinks that the platform knows him very well and will therefore make the right navigation choices to be able to develop further. Everything around humans is a comparison (compare and contrast) that is used by the individual to further develop his gestalt to the highest attainable level as an unconscious process (Jünger, 100). An unconscious process that now takes place within the platform society and in which the user is not aware of the limitations to the online environment.

The psychology and philosophy of the gestalt is related to the term social types. German sociologist Georg Simmel (1858 – 1918) created descriptions and configurations of several cultural types like the stranger, the adventurer and the metropolitan. These were later developed from a neo-Kantian approach into the concept of the ‘social types’. Social types emerge out of particular circumstances of modern life like poor, religious, strangers, workers. Each era owns a particular form of modernity with a related type (Simmel, 141). The Internet and its platform society are the latest modernity. Several philosophers invented already certain forms of social types: Max Weber (the Protestant), Karl Marx (the Proletariat), Werner

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important as this created the standards in capitalism to make commercial companies profitable. Industries are perpetually looking to profit from new services and

products (Simmel, 144). A new product has been found in the user data and has become the main driving force of the Internet platform society. The ‘social types’ defined by the early forms of social media formed a construct of individuals and groups. These entities arose through the ‘wording/ becoming events’, social events that coincided with the emergence of a new social type. This social type, with its characteristics, formulas and rules, formed an ideology that brings a reaction to new social events, and then repeats. A new trend, a new starting point for the individual, can emerge therefore out of one single changing cultural aspect as it repeats.

A ‘new’ social event today is the emergence of online interaction in the platform society, which creates again a new social type. A social type, which I call the intercessor, inspired by Deleuze his ‘dividual’. The intercessor is the one who has to mediate between his inner values and the values imposed by the culture of the platform society. Polish-German Marxist theorist, philosopher and anti-war activist Rosa Luxemburg (1871 – 1919) argues that inside society there are two aspects within the class of doctrine. The imposed culture of the platform society can be compared with this doctrine. The first aspect is an abstract category for economic and political analysis. The second abstract represents concrete groups and cultural communities, both objectified and pelleted by capitalist relations that emerge through production and consumerism (Luxemburg, 9-15). The manifestation of the self in the platform society has become a form of production because the outcomes have been commoditized for the purposes of profit. The individual user perpetually mediates to find a balance between these two abstractions to create the self.

However the production aspect limits the self in his manifestation because it has the aim to make profit from the consumer practices (Pariser (2), 63-67) of the user instead of supporting users with a unique developmental process of their type. The Internet platform society has become a capitalist institution. Users need to be aware of this aspect in order to give voice to their inner will to develop a unique self. The user is just one influence in contrast to the numerous influences that change trends and inspires users with serendipitous events. The process of self-creation is blocked by fixed programmed patterns that dominate the Internet. Human expression and the process of self-creation take place within an organized politic that confronts relations of power with each other. These relationships keep the individual user

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within the platform society because he thinks it is the ultimate environment for self-creation. In reality this environment is mainly focussed on production and

consumerism which occurs at the expense of the development of the inner ‘gestalt self’. Within the norms of the platform society, a new type is slowly being created that derives from human habits, as a result of just being present online. This is a one-sided formation for the gestalt of the platform user. The new cognitive abilities of the online platform user, which is employed by the online knowledge economy, continuously carries out tasks in the background to gather behavioural data while online. The platform society uses the creation of the self in the form of a new social type. This particular social type blocks the real creation of the individual gestalt, because from a capitalist point of view, it limits exposure to elements outside of the social type by reinforcing elements for the purpose of profit.

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1.3 The Role of Meta-plasticity in the Development of the

Superego

The interactivity with 'other' cultures, objects, and elements form a neural change in the human brain. The relationship that is set by the individual as a result of cultural phenomenon is also referred to plasticity because it is an influence coming from the outside. I surmise that plasticity is therefore defined as an unnatural external

construct that influences the individual and can become part of the autonomous self-construct. The neural change of plasticity influences the organisation in the brain of the individual. Plasticity is a central concept in her book The Future of Hegel (1996) from French Philosopher Catharine Malabou (1959). Malabou derived this concept from German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Hegel (1770 – 1831) who is also the original founder of the concept of ‘subjectivity’ used by Foucault in chapter 1.1. The augments can be made that once plasticity has taken place, the individual can be regarded as a subject because of his interconnectivity. Once plasticity emerges and becomes part of ordinary human development a component of the learning process that is key to the construction of the self. This evolution is a result of two distinctive connections between brain cells, the new synapses that are continuously added (synaptogenesis) and the removal of unnecessary synapses (pruning) (Hegel, 28-32). Together these two elements form the process of self-construction. According to Malabou, plasticity means owning the capacity to form and to produce the formation of connections. In imitation of Hegel, Malabou surmises that plasticity plays a role in the expression of humanity and divinity, which are elements that are susceptible to future transformations of the self (Malabou, 9). By combining the review of the theories of Malabou and Hegel, plasticity can be seen as the awareness of the individual about its own formation process. As this self-awareness takes place, there is the conversion into a new individual gestalt.

The plasticity of the ego is embedded and inextricably enfolded within the plasticity of general culture called meta-plasticity. This term was founded by Lambros

Malafouris (1953) research and teaching fellow in creativity, cognition and material culture at the University of Oxford, England. His research included analysing

components of creativity, cognition and material culture that focussed on how things shaped the human mind in relation to technology. He called this technological

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plasticity is at heart within human archaeology, philosophy and anthropology. He claims that materiality plays a large role in daily life. Computational techniques like artificial intelligence (AI) form a component of this phenomenon, which narrows according to Malafouris’s perception of “what seems to go beyond” (Malafouris, 352). Artificial Intelligence is associated with the desire to demystify human

representation, discover shortcomings and supplement these shortcomings with digital replacements. As dependence on digital technology increased, humanity has become more dependent on material gadgets, rather their own human capacities. This is why the unique human predisposition to reconfigure their bodies and the cravings to what extend their minds are severely constrained. A constraint that is imposed by the various over-accepted conceptual splits reflecting on the way in which one naturally thinks within human archaeology, philosophy, and anthropology to go beyond the status quo. These accepted conceptual splits form a problematic structure to look beyond the present. The present has become additionally more based on habitual behaviours, habits based on predictive behaviours which have become deeply embedded in today’s daily life and therefore more problematic to overcome (Chun, 9). In order to overcome these conceptual splits, Malafouris argues for a more balanced continuous relationship between the brain, the body and

culture.

Malafouris presents the concept of meta-plasticity as a conceptual bridge between neural and cultural plasticity (Malafouris, 353). Malafouris sets three objectives to achieve a healthier human ‘plastic’ environment:

(1) to contextualize recent developments about the life of the brain and to avoid sterile neuro-reductionism.

(2) To support and stimulate critical reflection on neuroscience claims based on what humanity knows about human archaeology, anthropology and the

evolution of bio-cultural origins, in addition to the unity and diversity of the human mind.

(3) it is necessary to provide new possibilities for radical cross-disciplinary exchange and synergies that could help to articulate and address new

challenging questions such as AI and the digital culture emerging today at the interface between the natural brain and plastic culture (Malafouris, 353).

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Meta-plasticity is connected with habitual behaviour. That habitual behaviour has been developed and tracked by interactions with online media. Modern societal culture invokes the ubiquitous use of digital media. This can contribute to a loss of critical objectivity on what is actually happening in the world versus on the Internet platform society. Since the Internet shift to Web 2.0, interactive networked relations became more profitable (Tarnoff, 2016). Internet features such as search engines and social media became mainstream and transformed into a daily habit. Wendy Chun, Professor in Digital Media at Brown University, argues in her book Updating to Remain the Same (2016) that “digital media matters the most when they seem not to matter at all, that is, when they have moved from the new to the habitual” (Chun, 1).

Upon evaluation with Malafouris’s views on meta-plasticity, it is possible to extrapolate that as digital media became part of society’s natural ecology that it resulted in having a greater influence in the construction of the self. Chun explains that a habit is something strange, a contradiction that is both inflexible and creative. Habits create a certain form of stability and if that is what society claims to be looking for, as human beings living in a world where change is fundamental, then habitual behaviours can be interpreted as a potential obstacle to development when tracked and captured to create a filter bubble. The infrastructure of the platform society forms a stabilizing factor for the user. Yet alternatively, it reinforces a constant identification of the self with personal results that provides a feeling of confidence. Chun calls this process ‘homofilie’ (Chun, 9).

‘Homofilie’ liberates the user as a neo-liberal subject from the obstacles and

limitations of a particular state where nature is still very influential. It influences the user to feel satisfied with a particular state of being. This means people can occupy themselves with a sort of final self-image of their own future, by making choices for the purpose of feeling satisfaction. Language is an example of a form of habitual behaviour that distinguishes humans and animals. The human being is exceptional because their force can translate the logical process into a sensory form. This ability makes humans capable of plastic individuality, of transforming one’s own singular essence in unforeseen ways by incorporating what used to be coincidental. By

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embracing the effect of outside influences the user is able to create an autonomous form of individuality (Malabou, 38-74).

But I conjecture that this is a dubious statement because habits can also be interpreted as a contradiction in this process, since habits can be inflexible and therefore not serendipitous and creative. Upon further analysis, although habits create stability in a neo-liberal sense, they force humans into frameworks to define a particular subject type. The autonomous sphere of the individual self is framed as a private subject yet exposed in the public sphere to serve a calculated purpose by way of the filter bubble. It is possible to infer that the platform society is using human habitual behaviour to make a profit, by keeping users stuck in their own habits, by reinforcing ideas based on past behaviors. Plastic individuality according to Malabou can therefore not take place, as users need to consider meta-plasticity as a form argued by Malafouris that tries to mediate between human nature and cultural plasticity. As a result of my analysis of the filter bubble, I surmise that currently users are not able to transform their own singular essence in unforeseen ways, because of the pre-programmed and looping nature of the online algorithms. This aspect results in an environment that does not give much room to the coincidental autonomous subject. Neural change in the form of repetitious plasticity cannot implement new sorts of developments, as the objective is to place the subject in a particular discipline.

Malafouris’s explanation of meta-plasticity can form a relevant way to approach the structure of the platform society that might have become the embodiment of self-construction for its users. To develop an interesting type, it is important for the user to start exploring, transforming and actively investigating the world, instead of adapting passively to the repetitious environment. I propose that humanity must realize that these worlds are not the same. A distinction must be made between the fact they are subjects in an artificial world where the user is led by a certain

constructed infrastructure with secondary interests such as consumerism and profit. The American rapper Notorious B.I.G. (Biggie Smalls, 1972 – 1997) wrote the song “Don’t get High on your own Supply” about this theory on his album Ten Crack Commandments (1997). The song is about life after death, which explains how to succeed in the drug game. It can be seen as a manual, a guide for how to navigate

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one’s personal world amidst habitual structures. I compare habitual media here with drug addiction, because both change the user’s intentions into ones that are not directly correlated to an intended outcome from the inner self, and result in a form of human behavioural addiction. The new digital social environment is distracting the individual user with its own supply, which is the collection of user data. Humanity needs to realize that life exists between two contrasting environments today, the artificial and natural world to which both needs a different approach. It must be acknowledged that the brain is inextricably linked to a body firmly situated in a distractive material world. The action of social practices dominates the distractive nature of the online environment and inhibits natural coincidence from occurring.

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1.4 The ‘True’ and ‘False’ Self

“Now, everyone is required to act like some cross between a hustler always on the make and an addict junketing for contact.”

(Mark Fisher in Capitalist Realism, 2009)

The platform society is an enclosed environment controlled by the filter bubble that initiates influences arose from interactive social communication, between users participating in it (Pariser (2), 106-107). The filter bubble executes therefore a certain form of control over its users, which is a modulation of a disciplined power. French Philosopher Gilles Deleuze argues that since the rise of digital media and its controlling devices, humans have been moved from individual physical embodied subjects into dividual subjects. A dividual is endlessly divisible and reducible to data representations via the modern technologies of control such as algorithms, present in today’s computer programming systems (Deleuze, 4-7). These algorithms are

embedded in the platform society’s infrastructure. Gilles Deleuze (1925 – 1995) wrote on philosophy, fine art and film related to post-structuralism and

postmodernism. Deleuze is relevant to this research because his focus was mainly on the inversion of the traditional metaphysical relationship between human identity and their differences. Deleuze claims that all identities are effects on difference. To confront and understand reality, Deleuze his identities in particular his concepts of the dividual must grasp humans exactly as they are (Deleuze, 5). Technology had the aim to invent a new form of serendipitous living, but it brought “the ontology of the enemy” (Peter Galison, 1994). According to Galison, it reduced human beings into calculable, controllable and predictable subjective factors of the system. A system that became for these subjects their habitual and therefore second natural living environment. Technology works as a “pharmakon”, as both poison and cure (Stiegler, 2013) regarding to the challenges faced today in the digital New Media world. The platform society’s filter bubble dominating that digital environment is distracting humans with elements that seem to develop them in a good way by exposing them to news, opinions and information calculated by predictive

programming. This programming “throws” information in the path of the user, that in not intentionally requested by the user, but triggered by previous human behaviour and indicated interests pulled by the algorithms. At the same time, the platform society distracts users to such an extent that they turn into addicts that are fully

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dedicated to this technology instead of being critical about what is being received and represented, a loss of objectivity. Deleuze’s concept of the dividual is that a human being should be able to find a way to live in between one’s inner values and those of the digital divisible, comprised of reducible data representations of control (Deleuze, 4-7).

It can be inferred from all these theories, that human culture has been guided repeatedly by power as observed by people’s connections to others and to certain environments. A personality is a construct of influences. The individual is therefore a paradox because it is likely one never has acted in a fully autonomous way. A human being inhabits many souls and spirits; it is never solely an individual who acts. There is always a layer of mediation, the middle layer. This middle layer is the frame of reference that can be seen as the mediator consisting of several interactions such as linearity, myths, origin, but without a specific beginning or end (Pariser (2), 60). The term ‘dividual’ can be seen as a frame of reference to the endless journey, in which the individual, the dividual forms the middle between origin and future. There is a choice of which forms of expression a person would like to apply in a specific situation, such as acting, writing, and speaking to mediate and navigate in multiple environments. This makes the term and interpretation of the “individual” an

ambiguous one. Because if it is a “me” who speaks (which is supposed to be an individual), this individual “me” has never been entirely alone, as a result that expression (speaking) has several influences built in. These multiplicities of many parts come together in a ‘new’ construct for defining the self (Raunig, 11-12). These expressions can be approached as a new representational form of the self in a particular state of being rather than a fully autonomous individual expression, since the authorial individual establishes lineage and vertical connections to others in a sense of ‘forefathers’ in all sorts of previous connections. The individual is constantly balancing on the midst of struggles about ‘true’ and ‘false’ self: Who was, who is, and who does one want to become? This self is a construct of confirmations; but these confirmations can be picked critically by the individual and enhanced therefore it is a form of autonomous individual acting.

To explain the relationship between the user and the filter bubble as middle layer furthermore, it is relevant to mention the concept of the ‘True’ and ‘False’ Self founded by psychoanalyst Donald Woods Winnicott (1896 – 1971) in the beginning

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of the 1960’s. Winnicott was a major influence in the field of object – relation theory (plasticity). The ‘true self’ has a critical attitude that takes its self-worthiness in protection from a spontaneous authentic experience originated from the natural and cultural habitat. This individual self, experiences the feeling of being alive by owning a ‘real self’. The ‘false self’ is described by Winnicott as a defensive façade: one which in extreme cases could leave its holders lacking spontaneity and with feelings of death and emptiness, that emerged out of the appearance of being real

(Winnicott, 56-59). The 'false self' is therefore a conformation to what the person should have become from the external outlook. In this research the ‘False Self’ can be seen as an embodiment that is slowly emerging in today’s user of the new media landscape, since this digital environment seems to leave mankind in his own delusion of repetition. In agreement with Jünger, Winnicott argues that the inner true self has been rooted since early childhood. The realization of that process is held in the feeling of being alive and arrives already in this first state of life. This sentiment makes life worth living and gives a certain sense of reality to grasp. It stems from human instinct, which sets the basic principles for further possibilities of

development for the inner ultimate self (Winnicott, 62).

This natural instinctive meaning seems to have been wiped out in the platform society, which can become problematic for the inner expression of the ‘true self’. A human worthy environment should respond to natural instinct instead of defining it with pre-existing patterns. The self, participating as a user in the platform society, is exposed to so much external expectations that its own instinctive expectations and desires are replaced. The expectations from the platform society are a homogeneous construct compiled from all the users aggregated (presented) selves. This might be resulting into the creation of a series of false relationships. Relationships established as a result of introjections that achieve a false appearance of authenticity and

therefore represent a ‘false self’. The self will form a shell that is dependent on other external factors to get satisfied, satisfied in one’s ‘false self’. This phenomenon can take society ultimately into human inadequacy (Raunig, 16).

Austrian neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939) ‘states in his abstracted model of the psyche presented in his book The Ego and the ID (1923) that the ‘self’ is impossible to identify as a whole because it is an

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is nothing more than a living body with a functioning brain. There are three phases in the human psyche the ‘Id’, which relies on instinct, the ‘ego’ that deals with reality, and the ‘superego’ coming from morality. This makes clear that the human psyche, its personality, has more than just one aspect. The ‘id’ is the primitive and instinctual part of the human brain that deals with sexual and aggressive drives and personal memories. The ‘superego’ operates from a moral conscience perspective and can therefore be seen as that part which acts very close from the desires of the inner self. And the ‘ego’, forms the mediator between the desires and drifts between the id and the superego. The ego of the self is that part of the id, which has been modified by the direct influences of the external cultural constructed world (Freud, 25-31). Upon analysis, this research considers if personal interests and ideas are framed in a somewhat misleading settings that arises from memory and learned behaviour influenced from an outside hold of a particular culture. The ‘ego’ in the body of the self is a constantly changing organism leading through the cultural atoms in motion that will never stop putting that ‘ego self’ into niches of its own desires. Freud argues that in the human ego exists always a certain form of dissatisfaction on how the self is housed in its ego. This incites one to unthinkable acts in the form of an anti-paraphrase that stays far away from the inner self and causes an injustice to the inner self. It is the natural urge for the ‘superego’, which is minatory in hierarchy to the ‘ego’ of the self to execute more power (Freud, 48). Ego’s can be seen as statuses that can be marked in differentiations where the self is slightly moving through by developing furthermore into a “whole”. Freud’s concept of the ‘Superego’ seems to go further than Winnicott’s concept of the ‘true’ and ‘false’ self since this one has the aim to govern higher forms or statuses of the ego self. The Internet, and therefore its fast changing platform society with the embedded filter bubble can be associated as the ‘new’ main natural environment of the

individual user which changes at a very fast tempo. This might result into a user that will become even more unsatisfied with that particular household directed by the filter bubble of its self. Because this ever, fast changing factor initiates for the user goals, which are unachievable, it will never be good enough. Therefore the platform society can transform into a place that is constantly nudging the user with its filter bubble into unthinkable acts as Freud argued them that stray far away from the inner self.

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1.5 Governmentality: the ‘Online’ and ‘Offline’ Self

The filter bubble infrastructure of the platform society guides the individual user to its will and creates therefore a sort of alter ego, which can be seen as just an online identity (Tauel, 2016). I interpret these two versions as a comparison with

Winnicott’s, ‘true’ and ‘false’ self. The online version could be the ‘false’ self because it is a conformation of algorithmic data. The offline version could be the ‘true’ self because this version might be easier to protect, since the inner values may not be actualized in the fast changing environment of the Internet platform society (Tauel, 2016). In a more positive way, the online and offline self can be compared with Deleuze’s concept of the ‘dividual’. This dividual is the individual user of digital media who is able to transform itself into endless divisible and reducible data

representations via the modern technologies of control embedded in today’s Internet infrastructure (Deleuze, 4-7). Thai author and professor in philosophy Soraj

Hongladarom argues in his book The Online Self (2016) “The ‘online’ and ‘offline’ self are both just constructs originating from the self. In this application a construct is defined as two selves, which emerged out from their own objectivity that has two sides. In the end, both selves do not have any essence or characteristics inherent to create a clear distinguish in order to show what these selves really are

(Hongladarom, 537). Hongladarom’s research is focused on how technology can be implemented in a responsible manner into human ethical life (Hongladarom, 534). The responsible application of technology is also a question under consideration within this research.

The self arises as a result of certain components and activities (socials, cultures, environments, and influences) that constitute a particular construction (Jünger, 100). The issue is that these components existing online, are not chosen by the individual user but are automatically provided and initiated by the underlying infrastructure of the platform society as options that would possibly match and track the identity of the user. This filter bubble is led by algorithms, which mediate between historical actions by the user and possible outer influences (Pariser, (2), 112-117). These outer influences are an outcome of the blueprint derived from the user’s historical online behaviour and therefore an online identity that represents the ‘online’ self

(Hongladarom, 534). Humans always place themselves naturally into certain cultural groups (Jünger, 100). A cultural group identity distinguishes the user from others.

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Online algorithms produce, guide and navigate aspects of the user’s online identify to filter information that contains the habits identified from a particular group. As a result, this will limit connecting them with ‘something new’ or something that is divergent from previous online behaviour. However, an individual does seem to have the option to choose for oneself what and how to search and engage online (Pariser (2), 220-222). Idealistically ,at every single moment where there is a choice, the user must not allow himself to be led by the unsolicited powerful actors that executes a form of control over individual freedoms on the Internet (Hongladarom, 540).

Today’s challenge to the individual is that the inner self does not become neglected and forced into structures of control that dominates inner values. British philosopher Bernard Williams (1929 – 2003) specialized in ethics and proclaimed by the New York Times paper as one of the most brilliant philosophers of his time, claims that the inner identity will never fundamentally change from its original cultural heritage (Lehmann-Haupt, 2003). A person may go off course, change, and become

influenced, but that does not mean that he will become a completely different person, since he will never leave his original habitat (Jünger, 90). It is not the

molecules that create the identity of the body, but its spatiotemporal cultural location occupied by the body – the same body that has to endure through interconnections even though its constituent parts do not change (Williams, 4).

Williams’ statement declares that the spatiotemporal location of a body, which is today the Internet, turns an individual into a user of one’s own facilities and will not influence fundamentally the self (Wiliams, 8). These facilities have the capacity to change a way of thinking but according to Williams never radically change the original cultural habitat (Willams, 9). What if it does not fundamentally change, but brings the user into a state of being that was not chosen and therefore cannot be expressed? This issue is still a disconnection that exists between that which creates a certain online self and that which differs from the offline self.

The original aim of the Internet was to support human beings by making them users and to get the most out of them in a sense of developing and optimizing their daily lives. This philosophy has turned into a challenge instead of a statement. The opposite has become true; the individual is lost in possibilities, statements, cultural

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boundaries and restrictions created by the current democratic online society which is led by the filter bubble (Pariser, (1), 12). Democracy in this discussion is a method defended as a real embodiment, a decision making group in subjective society, characterized by equality among the participants at an essential stage of collective decision-making. Democracy is an aggregation of individual preferences through a contest (in terms of voting), but on the Internet is an outcome of dominant collective clicks and interests that result in the predictive algorithms for personalizing the online experience (Christiano, 2006). The data from these form the foundation of group preferences for the majority and create a type of policy. This policy shapes the character in which every user needs to fit or have potential to suffer online social ostracism. However, this model has not the possibility to distinguish normative legitimate outcomes coming from the preferences and desires of the powerful, and those of the group. There is therefore no distinction between purely subjective preferences and legitimate and shared (quasi objective) judgments (Cohen, 1997 & Yong, 2002). The Internet user’s attention may have to focus on the awareness of the possibility that the Internet platform society might limit "liberty of thought" by modulating exposure. Independence, presumption, discussion, and action are the necessary influenced conditions (Bozdag & Hoven, 250) for individual development in the self-governmental process of the mind, and autonomous judgment that shapes the 'true' outcome and therefore the real inner self.

Summary

Chapter 2 analysed how humans construct their own eccentric personality by including and excluding cultural phenomena. When humans connect with other entities, they produce another relationship that exists outside of the individual and can be approached as a ‘subject.’ An individual is therefore in the context of this research from now on defined as a ‘subject’, since associated as one who is

connected to the culture of the platform society. This interactive cultural connection, according to Malabou, is explained by the ‘plasticity’ that turns individuals into subjects by connecting them with objects, elements and social groups (Malabou, 9). Malafouris calls this process online ‘meta-plasticity’, to define the subject who lives in online pre-programmed patterns (Malafouris, 353). By confronting humans with other entities, ‘new’ cultural connections evolve and take the ‘subject’ automatically through the imposition of the designed disciplines, a process that creates the

The Creation of the Modern Self - The filter bubble as the new embodiment of the underlying problem of modernity

Title Page

Preface

Acknowledgements

Abstract

Keywords

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

“The deliberate attitude of modernity is tied to an indispensable

asceticism. To be modern is not to be accept oneself as one is in the

flux of the passing moment; it is to take oneself as object of a

complex and difficult elaboration: what Baudelaire, in the

vocabulary of his day, calls dandyism. Modern man is not the man

who goes off to discover himself, his secrets and his hidden truth; he

is the man who tries to invent himself. This modernity does not

‘liberate man in his own being’; it compels him to face the task of

producing himself. This ironic heroization of the present, this

transfiguring play of freedom with reality, this ascetic elaboration of

the self does not have any place in society itself, or in the body

politic. They can only be produced in another, a different place,

which is called art.”