{"id":40589,"date":"2025-02-13T06:52:43","date_gmt":"2025-02-13T14:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=40589"},"modified":"2025-02-13T06:52:43","modified_gmt":"2025-02-13T14:52:43","slug":"social-media-and-neo-gnosticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/social-media-and-neo-gnosticism\/","title":{"rendered":"Social Media and Neo-Gnosticism"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been familiar with Jonathan Haidt for the last couple of years. I subscribe to his Substack, After Babel, and have read his most recent book, Anxious Generation. <\/em><\/span>Today, I want to share what I\u2019ve learned from this week\u2019s articles and create an idea that is not new.<\/p>\n

I want to understand people who \u2018find themselves\u2019 on social media. The former US Surgeon General says, \u201cSocial media can provide benefits for some youth by providing positive community and connection with others who share identities, abilities, and interests. It can provide access to important information and create a space for self-expression.\u201d [1]<\/a>\u00a0 At the same time, Social Media is algorithmically driven to engage and enrage. In 2009, Twitter added an algorithmic timeline to drive engagement, and Facebook followed soon after. Haidt points out that outrage is a feature; he says, \u201cCitizens are now more connected to one another, on platforms that have been designed to make outrage contagious.\u201d [2]<\/a> This engage and enrage creates a hook \u2013 an emotional connection and reason to return to the site.<\/p>\n

How do we make sense that people have found community and connection in these spaces when social media has often been enraging? Let me show how Social Media, which enables community and connection while fostering frequently hostile and outraging engagement, connects with an ancient idea: Gnosticism.<\/p>\n

Gnosticism, from the Greek word for knowledge, was an early Christian set of heresies. The common belief of Gnostic schools is that secret knowledge is revealed to special people, leading to salvation. Gnostic schools all held their own secret knowledge that revealed the true and hidden nature of God and people.<\/p>\n

Let me draw a connection between Gnosticism and the influence of Social Media on self-discovery \u2013 the self-revelation of who we are as people.<\/p>\n

When done well, Haidt says, relationships are embodied, synchronous, entail one-to-one or one-to-several communications, and have a high bar for entry and exit.[3]<\/a> Online relationships lack these qualities. Smyth, drawing on Haidt, says, \u201cIt is arguable that social media \u2018communities\u2019 aren\u2019t communities<\/em>.\u201d (emphasis original)[4]<\/a><\/p>\n

When people doom-scroll, it changes their soul. When they bring their identity questions to social media, the algorithm influences who they become. Social media companies hope to hook you and bring you back. They hope to change you so that you come back. Haidt makes a similar point: \u201cDuring that crucial sensitive period for cultural learning, from roughly ages 9 through 15, we should be especially thoughtful about who is socializing our children for adulthood.\u201d [5]<\/a><\/p>\n

We see young people in particular (and our crazy uncles) influenced toward extremism on social media in a gnostic way. Impressionable people, through their research on social media, uncover and have hidden knowledge revealed to them, showing the \u2018true\u2019 nature of people and themselves.<\/p>\n

Social Media companies, their communities, and influencers are poised to provide the necessary secret knowledge for a Neo-Gnostic revelation. However, confusion happens when impressionable people mistake algorithmic influence for self-discovery. They struggle to live in a community that lives in reality apart from the revelation. The community is fractured. Consider the role of the deep state in the last three elections – or every family holiday since. Or, read this article that tells the story of a girl using self-harm for belonging on Social Media (also from After Babel).<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

I think there\u2019s hope. In my American context, how can we live with our neighbors and family who have become \u2018woke\u2019 (woke itself being Neo-Gnostic\u2014awakening to the truth) or alt-right MAGA (awakening to the deep state)? Let me answer this with the Tower of Babel.<\/p>\n

On the story of the Tower of Babel, Haidt says, \u201cBabel is not a story about tribalism. It\u2019s a story about the fragmentation of everything.\u201d [6]<\/a> I think Haidt misses the big picture of the Babel story. While the story moves through fragmentation \u2013 God works with purpose.<\/p>\n

Haidt doesn\u2019t say why God scattered the people. There\u2019s an important theological point that God is continuing \u2013 God wants his people spread worldwide. The first commandment given to people in Genesis 1:28 is to \u201cbe fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth\u2026\u201d God wanted his people to leave the garden. We, as humanity, were always meant to take the goodness that God started and spread it over the world. God repeats that command to Noah in Gen 9:1, \u201cBe fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth.\u201d That\u2019s the only part of the original command that God repeats \u2013 the rest changes slightly. The command to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth doesn\u2019t change.<\/p>\n

The very next story after Noah\u2019s genealogy is the Tower of Babel. In Genesis 11:2, the people are beginning to migrate, but they stop and come together in one place, breaking God\u2019s command to fill the earth. Therefore, God spreads them out and fulfills his purpose of filling the earth. Jesus also picks up this motif in Matthew 28:18-20, the great commission, \u201cAll authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations\u2026\u201d Jesus continues God\u2019s desire for his people to fill the earth.<\/p>\n

Haidt says Babel and our world have experienced fragmentation. Gnostically, people find authority in secret knowledge. Neo-gnostically, we find it in ourselves, or algorithmically, we are convinced we have found it in ourselves. Jesus says all authority belongs to him. The answer to fragmentation is embodied relationships. Jesus being embodied himself invites us into embodied relationships. In these relationships, people come to know who God has created them to be as they fill the earth with his goodness. God spreads us out to live embodied lives. In embodied relationships, we develop communities and soften the hardest parts of ourselves.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Nicholas Smyth, \u201cSmash The Technopoly!,\u201d March 9, 2023, https:\/\/www.afterbabel.com\/p\/smash-the-technopoly?r=2cgdda&utm_medium=email.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Jonathan Haidt and Tobias Rose-Stockwell, \u201cThe Dark Psychology of Social Networks,\u201d The Atlantic<\/em>, November 12, 2019, https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/magazine\/archive\/2019\/12\/social-media-democracy\/600763\/.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Jonathan Haidt, \u201cEnd the Phone-Based Childhood Now,\u201d The Atlantic<\/em>, March 13, 2024, https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20241001130745\/https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/technology\/archive\/2024\/03\/teen-childhood-smartphone-use-mental-health-effects\/677722\/.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Smyth, \u201cSmash The Technopoly!\u201d<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Haidt, \u201cEnd the Phone-Based Childhood Now.\u201d<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Jonathan Haidt, \u201cWhy the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid – The Atlantic,\u201d April 11, 2022, https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20250129045916\/https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/magazine\/archive\/2022\/05\/social-media-democracy-trust-babel\/629369\/.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been familiar with Jonathan Haidt for the last couple of years. I subscribe to his Substack, After Babel, and have read his most recent book, Anxious Generation. Today, I want to share what I\u2019ve learned from this week\u2019s articles and create an idea that is not new. I want to understand people who \u2018find […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":220,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3431],"class_list":["post-40589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-postman-dlgp04","cohort-dlgp04"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/220"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40589"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40590,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40589\/revisions\/40590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}