[Keywords:] network; Chat; Subjectivity; speak
"Self-knowledge is the highest goal of philosophical inquiry" (1). In any era, exploring the essence of subject is the goal that thinkers are striving for. Through this development clue, we find that the understanding of this theme is closely related to the contemporary background. For example, in ancient times, due to the limited cognitive ability of human beings, they believed that there was an ultimate power that dominated the world. Plato believes that this power is a kind of "idea", and everything in the world is a copy and reflection of this idea, and human subjects are no exception. "Individual people live and die, but the prototype or concept of people always exists" (2). At this point, thinkers believe that subject is equal to ontology; In modern times, due to the development of science and technology, people's ability to understand nature through scientific means is getting stronger and stronger, thus realizing the rationality of the subject itself. Subject is no longer the product of freedom determined by mysterious forces, but rational and dynamic. Descartes believes that the subject stands outside the object and obtains the understanding of the object world through thinking, that is, truth. The so-called "everything that is clearly recognized by people is true." (3) Therefore, the core issue of subject cognition in this period is "epistemology". With the further development of human society, people gradually find that the subject's understanding of the object is inseparable from language in any case, and language often determines people's way of thinking and cognition. Descartes' so-called rationality actually runs through a medium, that is, language symbols, and Cassirer asserts that "man is an animal of symbols". After entering the contemporary society, with the development of mass media, people find that the language symbol system exists independently of the subject. As roland barthes said, "the subject is dead", language can play from signifier to signified, and the subject floats on these signifiers and loses himself.
In short, the investigation of subjectivity has a profound social background. In any era, people's efforts to understand subjectivity have never stopped, and in the contemporary information society is no exception. This paper analyzes the subjectivity of online chatters from the perspective of the Internet, trying to describe how this subjectivity changes in this new media environment.
First, language symbols, media and subjectivity
An important feature of contemporary social background is the large-scale development of media and the increasing expansion of information, which directly led to the linguistic turn of western philosophy in the 20th century. That is, to study philosophical problems from the perspective of language, thus denying the modern philosophical paradigm of thinking, spirit and concept. An important result of this study is that language is becoming the dominant force of social culture and human subject. Therefore, language has some ontological status. The stability and independence of human subject have been impacted unprecedentedly here, and even "the subject disappears", only language exists. This idea of structural linguistics is of great significance for us to understand the main features of online chat.
Let's first look at the collocation effect of language on subjects. Structuralist language view holds that all symbol codes are arbitrarily agreed, so there is no "natural expression" of thoughts and feelings at all. For example, "It really doesn't make sense for China people to say' chicken' and Britain and the United States to say' chicken' about the same animal". (4) In other words, we can also think that people know chickens through language symbols such as "chicken" and "chicken", which has nothing to do with people's thoughts and emotions. "The way we define the world ultimately depends on the language we speak ... and the meaning cannot be explained by facts outside the language." (5) We know the surrounding society by knowing language, so what kind of language has what kind of meaning and what kind of meaning has what kind of human thinking. Therefore, the allocation of contemporary social subjects cannot be separated from the shaping of language.
Then, does the subject always grow and improve gradually through the shaping of language? Here we can learn from the post-structuralist psychoanalyst Lacan to answer this question. He believes that people's childhood has gone through a mirror image stage. For example, when a child can stand upright and find another self in the mirror, he can control himself in the mirror through gestures, which brings great fun to the child. Therefore, children can only know themselves through themselves in the mirror. This is a process called "self-identity" by Lacan, in which children gradually form their own subjective consciousness. When a child has the ability of language and communication with others, he enters the so-called "symbolic world", that is, the field of language and social culture. Just like knowing oneself through the mirror, at this stage, children know themselves through symbolizing the world and finally complete the process of self-identity. But at this stage, self-identity in the mirror has developed into ideal self-identity, and Lacan distinguishes the concepts of ideal self and self-ideal. The so-called "ideal self" is the image you unconsciously show through the communication with the "symbol world". "Self-ideal" is a symbol point and a point to observe yourself. Lacan gave a very interesting example, "When you drive fast in expressway, you will imagine yourself as an idealized self, such as the racing driver you admire;" On the other hand, you will imagine a pair of eyes (self-ideal) looking at you, which is what you expect, such as the worship and appreciation of a beautiful girl. "
The thinking process of "imagining yourself as a racing driver for appreciation and worship", that is, "pretending to be ideal" (6), is a process of forming the subject, and the basis of this pretending comes from the language symbols (symbol circles) in society. In other words, we determine our ideal self according to language, that is, what kind of person I want to be and what kind of person I want to be. For example, I determine my position in society according to the evaluation of others. Like my parents, I will use this evaluation to determine the concept of intelligence and what is a smart person. At the same time, I will also know some subjective elements according to relevant reports in the media. For example, through the deeds of heroes to determine the concept of being brave, in order to reflect on whether they are a brave person, want to be a brave person. The meaning of language will constitute an important factor of subjectivity.
This kind of "self-identity" is particularly important in the contemporary society with expanding information. Language symbols become the interval and intermediary between man and the objective world. "People no longer live in a simple physical universe, but in a symbolic universe. Language, myth, art and religion are all part of this symbolic universe. They are different silk threads woven into symbolic networks. They are intertwined networks of human experience ... People no longer face reality directly, and face-to-face intuition and reality are impossible for them. " (7) In the process of communicating with the symbol system, refer to the relationship between the symbol system and me, and gradually clarify the subject of self. In this way, in contemporary society, all kinds of media with the right to publish mainstream discourse can easily form the hegemony of the controlling subject. The critical school is deeply worried about the hegemony of contemporary mass media in this respect. Different from classical Marxism, Frankfurt School believes that human alienation does not come from the capitalist mode of production, but from the mode of information dissemination of mass media. The mass reproduction and dissemination of media information has contributed to the sameness of contemporary people, that is, the so-called "one-dimensional person" (Marcuse). Louis althusser revealed the shaping effect of ideology on the subject. The so-called "ideology calls for the individual to become the subject", "We look at our social identity by educating our language and ideology to become the subject, and our views on ourselves are not produced by ourselves, but given by culture" (8). Ideology, on the other hand, "depends on some consistent public opinion and viewpoint" (9), which is inextricably linked with mass media in any case.
Whether people like it or not, it is an indisputable fact that the subjectivity of contemporary people is dominated by information and media. The internet world still has to follow this logic. It is worth noting that although people surf the Internet for various purposes, such as watching news, conducting e-commerce and playing games, it is an important purpose for most people to use the Internet to enter a brand-new environment and communicate with others (represented by online chatting). "I can prove that I and other tens of millions of internet addicts know that I am looking for more than just information, but I can immediately enter the relationship that another large number of people are forming. This discovery also makes us. (10) More importantly, this kind of activity can best reflect the personality of the network subject. In other words, in the process of "posing as a subject" in online chat rooms, a typical network subject will be formed.
Second, the reconstruction of the Internet subject-the active media of the subject (networking)
Different from traditional mass media, Internet information and its media logic have a two-way interactive effect on the influence and shaping of human subjects. We know that the influence of traditional mass media on people is one-way. Television, for example, uses images, sounds and pictures to form a virtual environment different from the objective real world. The audience's acceptance of this information environment when watching TV is completely one-way and passive. Psychologists and physiologists have done such experiments: when people enter the state of watching TV for 20 minutes, their brain waves become π waves, which are usually the brain waves of people in a calm state with their eyes closed; But when people are awake, their brain waves are ρ waves, and the frequency difference between them is 6 ~ 12 weeks. This shows that "when most people watch TV, the state of their brains is just equivalent to closing their eyes and having no enthusiasm." ( 1 1)
The internet is not like this. People's acceptance of Internet information is positive and two-way. People are willing to use the internet as a medium, and this initiative is manifested in:
1. If you want to surf the Internet, you must actively master certain computer knowledge and Internet knowledge, which is an active learning process. For us, it is unnecessary to receive information from traditional mass media such as radio and television. If our thinking is lazy and passive when watching TV, our thinking is positive and active when we are exposed to Internet information. In other words, our subject is willing to accept the mediation of the network. In order to travel in the network world more smoothly, network subjects will constantly strengthen their network literacy from two aspects of technology and skills, such as constantly using new software to speed up the link speed and improve the search efficiency, and constantly improving the typing speed to speak first and speak more to establish their position in the chat room. In short, the clearer the network subject is, the deeper it is influenced by the logic of network technology.
2. Compared with the relationship between the physical reality world and the traditional mass media (12), the relationship between the information environment of the Internet and the physical reality world is parallel. For individual subjects, the relationship between traditional mass media and reality is either simulated. For example, what happens in reality, TV stations will truthfully report it in the form of objective reports, then TV news reports are simulations of the real world. Either it's a prank. For example, although no one can feel burned by the real flame when eating hot pot in real life, TV advertisements creatively show the excitement of enjoying the fire after eating hot pot in order to highlight the spicy flavor of a certain brand of hot pot seasoning. Television has created a situation in which the objective world is completely absent, and the audience can only understand it through association. The internet is different, although simulation and spoof are also reflected on the internet, such as online news, online advertising and so on. But more than that, the Internet has formed another complete objective world. For example, in online chat rooms, all communication is the real participation of the subject, and the sense of respect and excitement brought by this chat is also real and sensible, so it is not parody at all; On the other hand, this kind of chat, as well as the feeling brought by chat, can't be found by the subject in the world outside the network, so simulation has nothing to do with being simulated. For the network subject, it is a part of the objective world.
We can compare the difference between TV and Internet in this respect. It is absolutely impossible for a person to completely distinguish the real world from the TV world. Television and people are influenced and influenced. In other words, the audience will regard TV information as a means to assist real life. For example, an ordinary city audience saw a TV series about white-collar workers of foreign companies in metropolis on TV, and he thought it was a good life. Then, TV can give him two kinds of psychological shocks here. One is psychological catharsis, that is, although the audience can't be white-collar, they can learn about the situation through TV, and rely on this understanding to pin their emotions and get a sense of satisfaction in the process of watching TV. This process of watching TV can be regarded as a "daydream". Through imagination and association, temporarily forget the reality, resulting in an idealized psychological experience (only in some special disciplines, daydreaming and real life are often combined, such as immature children and some mental patients who directly imitate virtual people and things in TV to engage in real life. ); The second is to give the audience a realistic impulse. He may have the motivation to change reality because of the stimulation of this TV series, and he will regard the protagonist in the drama as an idol and as the goal of life to change real life. For the former, the audience experienced a purely illusory imagination, but the psychology was really satisfied; For the latter, the audience will imagine that they are pragmatic in real life in order to fulfill their ideals. In a word, TV information and the real life of the audience will be easily unified. But on the internet, the subject's experience often has nothing to do with real life. For example, the same audience wants to experience the feeling of being a white-collar worker, so he only needs to build a white-collar identity for himself in the chat room, take a name with strong white-collar meaning, and have relevant conversations with other chats. Then, although he doesn't have the income and social status of a real white-collar worker, he can still feel the feeling of being a white-collar worker in this virtual community. On the one hand, this feeling is not an illusion produced by subjective association and imagination, but is accepted by other community members and has little to do with real life. In real life, he is still his past identity and the initial subject experience. In this regard, the virtual gender in the network (male registered female identity and name, female registered male identity and name) is the most extreme example.
In this sense, language is the identity in the network. In such a virtual situation, we abandon the methods commonly used in real life to confirm our identity, such as checking documents, observing his appearance and behavior, dressing up, consulting others and so on. But through language imagination to determine what kind of subject he is. Network language and characters constitute the elements and attributes of network subject. Therefore, network discourse becomes a key to understand the network subject.
Third, the analysis of network discourse patterns
The mainstream symbol spread on the Internet is words, and the spread of words is also called "signifier representation" (the representation of thoughts and consciousness by words) (13), which is the product of printing media and linked to the stability of the subject. On the one hand, this is the requirement of self-discipline of print media. To put it simply, once ideas and thoughts resort to words, the author's identity as an information producer is determined. Therefore, in the print media era before the birth of electronic media, whether we read books, letters or contact official documents, the producers of texts are clear; On the other hand, it is determined by the way of point-to-point communication. Due to the characteristics of mass communication, the text makers and disseminators of print media must be in a dominant position. They have the status of "meta-narrative" in the dual pattern of communication/acceptance, and in a sense, they have the central position of "logos". But the subject of network communication, once named, is false and virtual. People tend to be closer to their "ideal self" (in Jacques Lacan) when determining pseudonyms and new identities (online identities). According to Lacan's point of view, there is a gap between the initial promise of language and the final arrival of the subject in the process of shaping the subject, which intensifies the "unsatisfied" experience of the human subject. For example, a boy learned the charm of this concept from a man through the word "brave", but when he grew up, he found that he was born weak and could not reach the realm implied by the word "brave" in any case. At this time, he will have a "dissatisfaction" with the self-subject. At this moment, the subject has the impulse to create a "brave" and "ideal self". (14) The Internet just provides this possibility. In this sense, the Internet is an effective way to meet the needs of the "ID".
In reality, if you want to be a brave person, you must do something brave. The subject agrees that courage also requires a brave mind. None of this is needed in the network, and the only thing the subject needs to do is to use language. Here, the internal and external languages will constantly strengthen the subjective consciousness. Internally, the subject must write a series of brave languages on the internet to determine his brave identity, so as to constantly pretend to be brave with language; Externally, the response of the chat object can strengthen the consciousness of the brave subject. In other words, when others regard you as a brave man, the consciousness of being a brave man is more clear. In this sense, the shaping of network subject has a distinct post-structuralism color, that is, the process of language structure network subject is not static, but a gradual state. Usually a person enters a chat room, first registers the name of a brave person, and then starts to communicate with other people in the chat room. In the process of communication, on the one hand, the subject himself constantly strengthens his brave consciousness and considers expressing his ideas in the language of the brave; On the other hand, he will pay attention to the reflection and evaluation of others (chat objects) on his own words, so that through internal and external reinforcement, the subject's cognition of his new identity will be gradually strengthened, and the brave symbol on the network will be gradually stabilized in this chat context. On the contrary, if the subject just pretends to be brave at first but can't get a response from others, he will gradually lose confidence in his new identity and eventually quit the chat room or change his identity again. Then, a process of shaping the subject of "ideal self" will fail. Jacques derrida called the process of determining symbolic meaning "delay", that is, delay, and "different" means different. (15) To put it simply, when a symbol is created (for example, a chatting person registers a name on the Internet to start chatting), its meaning is uncertain. Only when it is placed in a discourse system (a chat room) and has established a relationship with the discourse system will its own meaning be finally established ("delayed"), which is delayed. The symbol "the endless game from the signifier to the signified will only end if it is put in a certain discourse and interpreted in a certain context" (16). The so-called "from signifier to signifier" is just mentioned. The subject's self-brave consciousness and others' evaluation of pretending to be brave shape the network subject's "courage". At this time, the meaning of "courage" is constantly changing.
Therefore, the interaction of subjects in virtual space has a brand-new relationship because of their brand-new identity. The false identity and the change of surrounding environment make participants get rid of the obligation burden that they must follow when communicating with people in the physical environment. Due to the lack of visual verification characteristics of language and words, behind the mask of words, participants often involve more taboo topics in the real environment, and participants have no sense of inhibition when expressing themselves. This has played a complementary role in real life. This supplement comes from the "specious" of internet space. "When they communicate with each other, they seem to be in a physical space, and this space seems to be inhabited by bodies, which can be drawn from Descartes' point of view" (17). That is to say, although the network is virtual, participants still prefer to regard it as real, which is accompanied by an arbitrary freedom and an idealized space. Therefore, the shaping of the network subject is a process of continuous improvement of the subject itself and a supplement to the imperfection of the subject in real life. As Jameson said, under all desires and passions, there is always a desire to change the world (18), which is actually the same as the desire to realize self-worth. In this sense, the ultimate goal of the subject always points to the highest level of Maslow's pyramid-the realization of self-worth, which is a feeling of self-identity and can be separated from the material world. So the Internet gives people a chance to realize their self-worth, which is very rare in reality.
Many network participants have the impulse to unify the network virtual society with the real society. For example, when netizens meet, they try to develop online love into real love, and vent their dissatisfaction with someone or something by means of chat rooms and bulletin boards, so as to achieve the goal that cannot be achieved in reality. However, these impulses and efforts often end in failure. The failure in reality is in great contrast with the success in the internet world, which makes them more obsessed with the realization of virtual value in the network, thus avoiding the real world. This further strengthens the characteristics of network discipline.
Semi-robot: a person who is closely related to a machine.
In order to explore the essence of Internet subject more deeply, we introduce the important concept of "interface" to discuss the cascade of man and machine in contemporary society. Interface, "a membrane that separates and connects mutually exclusive and interdependent worlds" (19). Then, there is an interface between the cyberspace of the Internet and the physical space of the real world. This interface is represented by some kind of operating system or web page settings. For example, as we all know, the interface of WINDOWS system is much more friendly than that of DOS system. One side of the internet interface is the physical space of real life, and the other side is the digital cyberspace, so the interface has become the dividing line between man and machine. In the development of Internet, the interface is becoming more and more humanized. On the one hand, the interface design is becoming more and more convenient, and it is always attractive to people, fascinating and willing to take the initiative to deal with it. On the other hand, more and more people appear on the interface in the form of language, which directly constitutes a part of the network interface, making the Internet, which originally belonged to machines, more and more humanized because of people's participation. However, the more obsessed people are with the network, the more they will be influenced by the network logic. No matter how attractive the interface is, it will always be a part of the machine. The logic of the Internet is: "Make technology more attractive to human beings, ... turn people into' (cyborg'), and turn them into people who depend on machines like lips and teeth" (20). In some patients with internet addiction, the nature of this "semi-robot" is very obvious. They are familiar with the methods and modes of network communication, and more importantly, they are familiar with and accustomed to interpersonal communication and psychological satisfaction on the network, rather than living according to the logic of the real world. "In the past, I was very devoted to my family. Now I live for the internet ... I hide a lot of dirty clothes and cook as soon as possible ... I can continue to surf the internet ... online dating? I have seen some ... even planning to spend a holiday with someone ... Everyone in the family is worried to death ... My husband wants to throw the computer out of the window ... "(21). This is a mother of two children's sincere confession about surfing the Internet. There has been a serious conflict between the online world and real life here. In the main composition of this mother, machine logic has overwhelmed the logic of life.
Therefore, the concept of "alienation" is still the eternal theme of network subjectivity research. If Marx's alienation is the destruction of the subject's personality by the capitalist mode of production, and the alienation of Frankfurt School is the bondage and shaping of the subject's ideology by the mass media, then the alienation power of the Internet on the subject is a virtual lifestyle, which makes the subject indulge in a world of Internet symbols and let mechanical logic invade the subject. This is the process and characteristics of the subject of online chatters.
Precautions:
(1) On Man by Ernst Cassirer, Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 1997, p. 3;
(2) Tilly's History of Western Philosophy, Commercial Press, April 2000, p. 66;
③ Same as above, page 3 10;
④ See Zhou Xian's Twentieth Century Western Aesthetics, Nanjing University Press,199765438+February, p. 360;
5. Ibid., p. 102.
(6) For the above views on Lacan, see Darian Lude and Judy groves, translated by Zhang Yi Lacan, Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, June 5-438+ 10.
(7) The same note 1, p. 33.
(8) A Reader of Cultural Studies, edited by Luo Gang and Liu Xiangyu, China Social Sciences Press, September 2000, p. 12;
(9) same as above;
(10) Ringgold's Global Network: Computers and International Communication, quoted from the Second Media Age, by mark poster, Nanjing University Press, September 2000, p. 45;
(1 1) Miao Di and Fan Zhongli, TV Culture, Beijing Broadcasting Institute Press, April 1997, p. 195;
(12) "Imitation" is a postmodern concept put forward by Paudrat, which refers to artificially creating a model with symbols. This model has nothing to do with reality, which is the so-called "surrealism". For the discussion, see 4 Chapter 7 Section 2.