AEI’s own Walter Berns once told me to “never, ever think you are smarter than Alexis de Tocqueville.” His comment may say more about my own intelligence that anything else, but my preferred interpretation is that the astute 19th-century French thinker should be taken seriously where relevant. Social networking and friendship is one of those matters.
Social networking is a very democratic form of communication, enabling any and all to share information. On this subject, Tocqueville has much to say. He observed that democratic societies have a tendency to encourage isolation. They remove institutions and values that push people together. He writes that “each man is forever thrown back on himself alone, and there is a danger that he may be shut up within the solitude of his own heart.” Without incentives that bring people into contact with each other, democratic individuals’ social horizons shrink such that “mankind … consists in his children and his personal friends.”
Social networking enables the kind of isolation and solitude that Tocqueville talks about. Broadcasting unfiltered thoughts to no one and everyone simultaneously, with zero emotional investment, enables people to burrow within themselves. They are freed from any serious attachments or relationships which might demand something of themselves. Friendships cannot be built without this foundation.
Just in the past couple of days, friends of mine have used social networking sites to share thoughts of how hard their life has become due to a lost cell phone, the superiority of 2 percent milk over all other types of milk, and how cost-effective constructing the Death Star from Star Wars would have been. While these thoughts are amusing and innocent, I doubt that they bring people closer together in a meaningful way.
Andrew Rugg is a research assistant in the political corner at AEI. This post is part of a series tied to the May 11 AEI debate between Tyler Cowen and Roger Scruton on whether social media destroys human relationships.
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