Paradox Of Connection

Someone once asked me, on another website: How has online communication changed the way we interact with others, and what are some of the benefits and drawbacks of this new mode of communication?

A lot of people turn their noses up at questions like this one, because of how open-ended it is. One’s reaction to a question like this will hinge on the manner in which they were educated. If you come from a very “problem-solving” sort of background, in which there needs to be a defined goal so that you can get some real work done, you’re likely to snub. If you’re from a more creative background — say, if you’re a creative writer or continental philosopher — you’re more likely to be delighted by something like this, as if someone handed you a blank check. Personally, I’m someone who really sucks at following directions and prefers to do it my own way. So, I’ve got something to say.

Here's the deal. Human relationships have a certain paradox. This paradox is very subtle. It's hard to even see what the paradox is or why it's important. You have to pay very close attention to understand where the contradiction is. But once you see it, you'll realize what a huge problem this is for modern human beings.

Again: this is very subtle. It can be hard to fully understand what I'm saying here, but it's deathly important. Take your time, read it over again, go take a walk, read it again the next day. Once you have seen it, you'll never be the same. The insight you'll get here is something that was once considered basic, 101-level learning, but which has been lost somehow. If you want to reap the full benefits of reading this, then you'll read it more than once, over the course of perhaps a week or a month.

Both of the following are true:

1. You can only have a meaningful relationship with another human being if you need them.

2. You can't live without having relationships with other people.

Let's unpack those two.

For 1), you can only have a meaningful relationship with another human being if you need them. You have to need them for something besides just having some company. In order to have a really deep connection with someone, you have to have some urgent need to have them around. For example, you never pay someone to come hang out with you and be your friend. It wouldn't work out. The relationship would feel totally pointless. But let's say you have some crippling disability, and you pay someone to be your personal assistant and caretaker. That person is likely to develop a very deep relationship with you, because that relationship is founded on a real, material need. You need someone to help you, so your relationship acquires a certain depth it would not otherwise have. Another example is marriage. In order to create a good life for your children, you must have a spouse with you. You and your spouse develop a deep relationship, in part, because you need one another to make it wrok with the kids. Your love for your spouse is predicated on the deep, urgent need to care for the children. Without that, you would not have such a deep relationship. Of course, people without children can still have a deep relationship, but it's usually predicated on some other need besides children. You might have, for example, two artists who make art together, and who need one another to make their art; in this context, the art serves the same need that children normally would. This could also happen if two people in a romantic relationship started a business together. The take away here is not, "You must have children to have a meaningful relationship." The take away is, "Ties between human beings are always founded on some material need."

For 2), you must understand that human relationships are utterly fundamental to our well-being. You see, the previous paragraph may have led you to believe something like this: "Human relationships are not really important. They're just some parasitic entity that forms on top of our economic interactions." But that's not true. Human relationships are utterly fundamental and we cannot go without them. It's true that human relationships can only be authentic when founded on material need. But at the same time, we still need relationships, even if all of our material needs are being met by other means.

The take away is this paradox: authentic human relationships only form on the basis of material needs. But if you meet all of humanity's material needs without authentic relationships, humanity still perishes, because authentic relationships are ALSO a need.

The big problem with modernity is that we have found ways to meet our material needs, in almost every single circumstance, without the need for a personal connection to another human being. You don't need to have a personal connection with a cobbler to get shoes. You don't need to have a personal connection to a tailor to get clohtes. You don't need to have a personal connection with a butcher to get meat. You don't need to have a personal connection with a mason to build a house. In every case, you simply exchange currency with some impersonal corporation to get what you need. All of your material needs can be met.

But then, where do your personal relationships come from? Remember, an authentic personal relationship comes from material need. In the old days, your personal relationship with a cobbler was important because you needed shoes, so you had to develop a human connection based on a real need. Your personal relationship with a tailor was based on the fact that you needed clohtes, so it was based on a real need. But now? Now all relationships seem to be superfluous. All relationships are casual flings at the bar or meetups based on dating apps. We no longer need other people. I, for example, work from home. If I have food and supplies delivered, I can go for months without ever leaving my house or speaking face-to-face with another person. I can have all of my material needs fully met, and still wind up going crazy because I'm not having real, authentic interactions with other humans. Real connections must be based on material needs; but if my material needs are already met, then I have no need for real connections.

Now I have to come to the internet. What is it doing?

To be frank, it's mostly ersatz connection. The people I meet on the internet are people with whom I have common interests. It's not like the 1950s when my best friend is just automatically whoever lives next to me, when whoever I hang out with is just my next door neighbors. Supposedly, the modern era should be paradise. I can talk to strangers from all around the world, and pick and choose whomever I feel a personal affinity with. Ah, but that personal affinity is not based on a material need! It's based on "whom I like", or who I "vibe with", or whatever. In other words, it's based on a whim. And those relationships are broken a easily as they are formed, unless the personal resonance is deep enough that the relationship lasts for many years.

Perhaps that last sentence brings some hope. Tolkien's poem Mythopoiea famously states, "The heart of man is not compound of lies/But draws some wisdom from the only Wise". Perhaps the faux-friendships I form online, based on "vibes" or "personal affinity" rather than material need, really can turn into real friendships. To select someone online is not merely to select based on a whim. The light at the end of the tunnel here is the idea that, perhaps, human feeling is not just random whim, but resonates to something very deep. Deeper, perhaps, even than material need. After all, people have died for their friends in the past. And isn't dying for a friend the most decisive possible refutation of the idea that all human relationship is merely material in origin?

I don't have the answer. Right now, it seems to me that we're very quickly running out of time on a Faustian bargain that was destined to end on a sour note, as Faustian bargains are wont to do. My prediction for our future is an increasingly chaotic multicolored light-show ending in an explosion and followed by something Frank Herbert-esque. But, my crystal ball is defective. It only shows probabilities.