THE FAÇADE
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We view the world through different perspectives and contexts, and some might even argue that we do not see the world as it is.
This is synonymous with Immanuel Kant’s Transcendental Idealism, where Kant says that we do not view time and space as they truly are, but we interact with them as we perceive them, which is not how they truly are. This can be stretched not to say that we do not see the world the way it is but we view the world with different contexts and perspectives.
Someone even tweeted that smart way of saying someone is stupid which is by saying that they have a small context window (LOL).
Most of us either consciously or unconsciously know this fact and we most times manipulate it to our benefit. We try to manipulate how others perceive us because we can. This, however, seems a bit prominent in human society following the age of social media. Moreover, that might not entirely be the case.
Drawing back to basic communications, some of the basic components of communication are the medium and the channel, and while at some point the two concepts were referred to have the same meaning there are some disparities.
The medium is the form of the message whose purpose is to generate meaning takes, while the channel is the technical route or device that carries or amplifies the message.
Innovations, especially in the form of tech have seemed to flourish since the 18th Century. This has also promoted the development and advancement of communication-related technology. From the printing press, radio, television, and social media, advanced communication channels have come through. This makes communication, especially long-distance and heterogeneous, seem prominent. But communication has always been there.Nevertheless, the dynamics of the channels, have made communication seem more present and prominent even though communication has always been present.
Bringing this knowledge into the discussion of humans manipulating the perspective of others, humans have always manipulated how they are viewed before the inception of social media. The creation of social media only made it all easier. Hilariously, we are quick to blame most of the vices of the present world on the media. Social media is simply a channel that amplifies and carries information. It can do this by exploiting mass socialization which makes the whole world connected, a global village. The acts, information, and attitudes being disseminated, that are considered bad did not originate from social media but from the individuals employing the media.
The example of pornography is a proof. Pornography is considered a vice that has been present for a long time. Though it seems prominent during the age of the internet and social media, it has always been there. Since the inception of the printing press, the radio, the television, and now the internet. It has also been exploiting technological advancement for its benefit just as some other things. The same we humans have always manipulated how we are perceived by others.
Psychologist Carl Jung believed there are different archetypes that humans possess, and one of them was “The Persona”, which is the social mask we wear in different situations. We tend to change our personality depending on the situation we find ourselves, which is definitely to our benefit. We try as much as possible to take up personalities that paint us in a good light to others.
Proof of this is the Communication Accommodation Theory, developed by Howard Giles, which explains that we will often adjust our communication style, both verbal and non-verbal, in an effort to fit in and meet social and contextual expectations. We might sometimes act like who we are not to garner the approval and admiration of others for our benefit and advantage. This is however not limited to the media age. This was done in our methods of verbal (oral) and non-verbal communication.
There is also an evolutionary perspective. It can be related to the selfish gene. A concept propounded upon by Richard Dawkins. We imbibe behaviours that seem to give us an advantage over others such as the approval and admiration of people. Funny enough, it seems the human body is programmed with some instructions to deploy some mechanism at different moments.
Some time ago, I suffered a serious hit (blunt force) on the head and my head almost doubled in size. I was intrigued and I got to research why such a physiological change occurred when I hit my head. I got to learn that it was a mechanism the body deploys to protect the skull (brain). When you get hit on the head, the swelling that comes through is the body trying to put a barrier between the source of the hit and the brain. In case there is another hit, the swelling serves to cushion the second hit in a bid to prevent damage to the brain.
Like this mechanism, there are others programmed in the human body to ensure survival.The present human mind considers a good impression so important that it triggers a time-old system or mechanism when we are faced with circumstances that might cause people to have a poor perception of us. This system is the flight or fight response. The brains of our ancestors deployed the flight or fright response when such individuals were faced with life-threatening dangers such as a confrontation with a wild animal, war, disasters, and other serious threats. The flight or fight response is the body’s reaction to a threat to survival. When the brain perceives such a threat, it sends signals for cortisol and adrenaline to be released. These hormones are released and they cause myriads of physiological changes in the body, that empowers such an individual to fight, flee, and sometimes faint or freeze all in a bid to escape danger. In today’s world, this same response gets triggered when we are in situations where we feel we might damage our reputation or how others perceive us. This is most noticeable in (public) speaking situations. The stage fright we feel is just us being scared of “rubbishing” ourselves, and the resulting physiological changes that occur are simply the flight or fight response in motion triggered by the brain to cushion our fear and save us. In extension, the fear of not meeting up to standard is synonymous with the threat of survival to the human brain. This explains why most of us unconsciously want to give good impressions of ourselves.
When we can control how we represent ourselves and our lives, we find it either consciously or unconsciously imperative that we make a good impression. Social media gives us that power. We can control how others see us. We can generate and sell a faux reality to others.
Nevertheless, the fact remains that there cannot be a perfect representation of ourselves in the media. It is not all that encompassing for a truly perfect and total representation, but we tend to judge and get judged by the minute perspective that we and others can see or perceive, which might not be able to give the full picture.
A quick diversion to the Indian Parable of the Blind Men and an Elephant. It is a story of several blind men who have never come across an elephant but then had the opportunity to meet an elephant and imagine what an elephant is like by touching and feeling it. A blind man felt the trunk and described the elephant as a thick snake. Another touched the elephant’s ear and described the elephant as a kind of fan, and another touched the tail and described the elephant as a rope. As different blind men were touching the different parts of the elephant, they all had different perspectives of the elephant. Each person was dead sure that the elephant looked exactly as each person felt. According to their perspectives, they are right but the inability to see the whole picture also negates reality.
In the same way, social media just provides a very minute perspective into the life of an individual and judging an individual based on that perspective may probably negate reality.
This has always been the problem with expression. Those who express themselves either through writing or speaking are mostly perceived without the context of their reality, but just the expression in isolation. Others tend to make up an image of such an individual that might be partially true or completely false.
In either case, such judgement cannot be accurate due to its limited perspective.
This problem of expression has been a major issue for the receptive side of things. Due to the limited perspectives, people create unrealistic conceptions of the lives of others, which makes people see a picture that might be different from reality.
This is most pronounced in preachers, and performers, whose lives might not be the totality of what people make of them due to the little perspective people have of them. Social media, through the amplification of the message, also amplifies other factors such as this even though factors such as this is already present before the inception of the media.
The realization of this has hindered expression on my part both on the media and outside the media. But it seems inevitable that judgement is made through limited perspectives when just a portion of reality is exposed and others are left to fill the gap. Inconsistencies are inevitable.
Sometimes, we just have to judge a book by its cover, if not we lose even the little sense of touch and the feeling that the blind men possessed.
I have decided to be more of an expressionist, but I’m a tad uncomfortable with people creating inconsistent realities.
“So, irrespective of the mirage that might appear, do not be fooled because these are just the ramblings of a confused Nigerian boy trying to demystify life and the world.”
If you have read up to this point, it would be fun if we rambled together, and who knows maybe one day we might make sense of the world.
