Commit Facebook Suicide

Facebook is a scary, commercial dead-zone that's killing our real-world relationships.

Like most Americans in their mid-twenties, I am a child of the computer age. That I did not immediately jump on the Facebook wagon is not due to an innate dislike of technology or an irrational fear of the web, but merely because I graduated from college before Facebook became a university fad. I was, like an ever-decreasing number of people, happily oblivious to this social networking website. But then something troubling happened: my wedding photos appeared on Facebook.

In a typical website, a user may upload a photograph, write a funny caption and that's it. But in Facebook, users are asked to identify who else is in the photo. This is the crucial difference that allowed a friend of a friend of a friend to view pictures of my wedding a bridesmaid had uploaded. Although neither my wife nor I had ever joined Facebook, our names, pictures, social connections and wedding photographs were already in its database. With 60 million users busily adding information about their hobbies, political positions, employment, education, friends and plans for the weekend, you too might be in Facebook without your knowledge.

My first reactions to learning about my presence on Facebook were contradictory. On the one hand, I felt the thrill of social connectedness – an exhibitionist feeling of delight at having my existence confirmed by a third party. But I also felt violated and confused. Having never used Facebook, I couldn't understand how my wedding pictures had gotten there or who was now able to view them. And I became concerned about what Facebook will do with the information it's collecting about me.

In a recent Fast Company magazine article, Facebook's vice-president of product marketing and operations explained that while companies like Google are concerned with "demand fulfillment" – helping a consumer find the product they want – Facebook is cornering the market in "demand generation" – subtly encouraging individuals to consume products and services they'd otherwise not care for.

The first step toward demand generation was encouraging users to share information about their interests, favorite movies and books, and political beliefs that would allow Facebook to send advertisements targeted to their demographic. The second controversial step that Facebook took is to partner with dozens of online retailers so that when a member buys a widget on a partner's site, all their Facebook "friends" find out. This sinister system would be akin to my computer automatically emailing my address book when I purchase a book online.

By turning members into consumers who involuntarily advertise to their friends, Facebook hoped to extract profit from social interactions. However, by commercializing friendships, Facebook has irrevocably destroyed its image. Now a vanguard of the anti-Facebook movement is developing out of an increasing disenchantment. No longer a fun, harmless place to hang out, Facebook has become just another commercial enterprise.

Because Facebook has intentionally made it very difficult for users to leave the site, demanding that they manually delete every bit of information that they added into the system before their account will be removed, a growing number of users are fleeing by committing what has been called "Facebook Suicide." By manually removing their Facebook friends before deleting their account, indignant users ensure that their friends are fully aware of the real reasons why they are leaving.

The movement could reach epidemic levels if more users kill off their electronic selves rather than submit to corporate control over their friendships. Facebook, and the other corporate lackeys, will then learn that they can't exploit our social relationships for profit. From viral growth will come a viral death as more people demand that Facebook dies so our friendships may thrive.

Philosophy at Zero Point

For disciples of Western philosophy, the gathering of the sages happens each year in a Swiss Alpine resort. Secluded among the peaks where thin air brings reverie, the world’s most prominent intellectuals welcome an eclectic mix of students – artists, thinkers and eccentrics – into their midst. Only here, at an experimental institution known as the European Graduate School, is one granted access to Slavoj Žižek, Alain Badiou, Avital Ronell, Giorgio Agamben, Judith Butler, Michael Hardt, Jacques Rancière and Jean-Luc Nancy among others. This congregation of masters lasts for three weeks of seminars, night lectures and communal dinner discussion. No other school in the world boasts a more exceptional faculty whose calling is to philosophize. But ultimately what makes the European Graduate School unique is the educational style. Eschewing the approach of traditional academia, the European Graduate School encourages professors to come without a syllabus in favor of speaking extemporaneously about the ideas they are currently wrestling with. What one grasps at the European Graduate School is a reflection of the subterranean ideas bubbling up in our historical moment.

In the four years since I began my studies at the European Graduate School, I have always returned home with a deep insight into the direction of our culture. My first year was the summer of 2006, in the midst of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. The air was charged with political intensity and the most frequent subject of discussion was anarchism. The next year conversations tended toward discussions of political violence. Together, these years anticipated the reemergence of insurrectionary anarchism as a cultural force and heralded the publication of The Coming Insurrection. In my third year, the flock seemed divided over what constitutes an organic human, suggesting increasing anxiety over the post-human era and the consequences of our continued cyborgization, themes which have yet to be addressed by society at large. In my fourth and final year, from which I just returned, discussions did not circle around a single point but seemed to be fleeing from some truth none were willing to speak of.

What a surprise that big name philosophers, who in previous years did not hesitate to share their profound wisdom in a language that was philosophical but plain, nuanced but direct, now seemed to be hiding behind words. It was as if there was something they could not say. Their presentations became more academic, their focus more narrowed. The absence of a theme was obvious and that, I believe, was the only theme.

We are in a moment of cultural stagnation where the only thing to say is that we have nothing to say. The great contemporary philosophers of our age are in intellectual retreat. Something about this historical moment is leaving the discipline of Western philosophy blind. The great minds seem aware of a presence, but unable to get to it directly. So they fill the air with empty words that, while philosophically interesting, simply serve as a placeholder, a time-filler while events unfold.

It wasn’t until the year was drawing to a close that I caught a glimpse of what had rendered us all so speechless. Žižek, in his nightly lecture, remarked that we are reaching a “zero-point” of systemic collapse and civilizational crisis. And although he did not go so far as to say it, I believe that we have become paralyzed in the face of the imminent ecological, economic and cultural catastrophe facing humanity. We are staring into the abyss and we see nothing on the horizon to save ourselves. Is this the end of philosophy?