The metaverse has attracted a lot of attention for creating a technology-dominated model of time and space, and it can’t be denied that the three-year-long COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated its rapid development. In the post-COVID-19 era, we may have pinned our imagination on technological innovation, but we often neglect that the social transformation brought about by the epidemic itself may be far more profound and complex than technology.
The metaverse may, with high probability, be more than just a technological realization, but today we should pay more attention to the metaverse may have become a social concept. As we imagine the future of the metaverse today and worry about the emerging ethical/moral hazard of the metaverse, we should worry more about the coming of a post-pandemic metasociety.
Spatiotemporal nature in metacomverse societies: Space-time folding
Spacetime folding is a phenomenon in which space is distorted by strong gravity. Perhaps the pandemic is this powerful gravitational force, accelerating the folding of our space-time. As many literary and artistic works using space-time folding as metaphor reveal, the organization form of social life depends on space-time, which is the overlap of physical and social meanings. The setting of the world view that maps class rupture with spatial division is, of course, a figurative fable of social class gap, but in the post-epidemic era, the boundaries of social space and time may be undergoing substantial changes.
“Time and space” is the core line of Giddens’ theory. Giddens emphasizes that time and space are the basic attributes of society. All social interactions are situated in the world of time and space. The development of capitalism and technology has brought about the bridging of the boundaries of time and space. The spatiotemporal and temporospatial are separating our society into multiple parallel spatiotemporal Spaces. In a changing social order, differences within social groups are not uncommon. However, the problem lies in the overlapping impact of the digital society era and the epidemic, and spatial isolation brings the parallel in time dimension. Under the same time conditions, different social groups gradually split into many “cocoons” to absorb homogeneous information, as different forms of social interaction exist in different places/Spaces of the epidemic, but they are also highly connected through the network. Spreading out the homogenous ideas and squeezing the space of heterogeneous ideas, finally forming the polarization of ideas and the intensification of confrontation, thus constituting a kind of “space-time folding”. “Space-time folding” makes people in the modern “later-development” society face the time-honored original system memory and the new external system memory at the same time, which gives birth to the conceptual differentiation of different groups in the society, and eventually leads to the different groups occupying the collective memory together, but the memory of sharing space is divided in time.
Different from the space-time folding brought by the digital Internet in the pre-epidemic era, the arrival of the epidemic as an emergency element further expands the space-time folding from the virtual space to the physical space, and the physical space becomes time-oriented. In the same type of space, the social facts and social interactions may be completely different due to the differences in the epidemic or other social attributes. And this kind of interactive form and fact construction has strong constraint and universality. At the same time, time is also spatialized. In the same dimension of time, different social situations are completely different in fact and exist in the form of groups. At the same time, different Spaces may lead to obvious isolation of social behaviors generated. In this case, space-time folding really has a great effect on real life, and social space-time gradually overlaps on the basis of behavioral facts.
Connectivity in a metacosmic society: Tribalism
Like other primates, humans are tribal. We need to belong to groups, which is why we always like to join clubs and teams. Once people are associated with a group, their identity is tied to that group. They will pursue the goals or interests of their group according to their group identity, confront and punish outsiders, and in extreme cases even cause death and killing.
The sociologist Maffesoli predicts that as the institutions of culture and modernism decline, society will embrace nostalgia and look for organizing principles in the past. Therefore, the postmodern period is the period of new tribalism. New tribalism, or modern tribalism, is a sociological concept that posits that modern humans have developed tribal rather than large-scale societies, and that human social networks will therefore form unique “tribes”.
A more appropriate metaphor might be “schism” events, such as the historical split between religious sects, such as Sunnis from Shias, or Protestants from Catholics. Today’s “tribalism” seems to have something in common with “sectarianism”, especially when we try to understand the rise of extremism in recent years, the emphasis is no longer on the differences between “tribes” in religious and scientific basis, but on “political identity”. The other side is not just wrong, it’s evil. Those on our side who are not pure enough are “apostates.” Sectarianism generally has three core elements. The first is “not my kind,” or the tendency to see your opponent as fundamentally different or different from you. The second element is disgust, which is a strong feeling of dislike and distrust towards the other person. The third element is “moralization”, that is, the belief that the crafty sycophants are evil or even criminal.
Over the past nearly three years of the coronavirus pandemic, the Internet has at times been flooded with unverifiable information that has shaped people’s opinions. The tense and complex international situation has also led to the sharpening of disputes between different positions. This sharpness and polarization transcends our past tolerance of differences and gradually evolves into an insistence on one idea or a confrontation with another. The reason is not only that people only trust or identify with their own side, but also that people despise the other side as “not our kind” and more immoral, which has gradually evolved into an existential threat.
In today’s post-pandemic era, the basis of sectarianism or tribalism may be far from religious or tribal identity itself, but rather a “knowledge idea”, a “scientific opinion” or a “narrative discourse”, which is beyond the scope of being falsified or verified by rigorous scientific spirit. It is more of a passive stance choice and a zero-sum game, a competition without exit mechanism. The social generation mechanism established in the past gradually breaks down, and the group will only act according to the position and gradually enter a meta-social stage.
The independence of metacosmic societies: The Rise of individuality
The change of social structure leads to the drastic change of cultural outlook. Every individual is faced with the crisis of identity and self-realization. German sociologist Andreas Reckwitz’s new book, “Society of Singularities,” uses the dramatic increase in the rate of lone-wolf terror attacks in recent years as a starting point to analyze and explore the situation of each individual under the structure of modern society. From a cultural sociology perspective, Reckwitz explores the Singularity that dominates postmodern society and starts with social logic, pointing out cultural capitalism, the rise of digital technology, and the contrasting aesthetic views of the new middle class. It derives its uniqueness from Individualism. Individualism emphasizes still enjoy equal rights and to each other using the same norm, while a different sex the other refers to the individual distinctive Originality, Originality, and with it as a unique cultural capital, being Incommensurability (Incommensurability) between different individuals.
“Society of Singularities” cover
In contrast to “late modernity” and its universal social “special logic”, the first few eras of modernity are characterized by “universal logic”. Universal logic requires technical, cognitive and normative rationalization of social practices and institutions, which emphasizes and replicates standardized, formalized and universalized observation, evaluation and production, as well as ways of appropriating object, subject, space, time and collective. “Bourgeois modernity” (c. 18th to early 20th century) and “industrial modernity” (c. 1920 to 1970) fundamentally follow “a universal social logic that promotes standardization, formalization, and normalization.” Since the 1980s, however, individualistic logic has increasingly begun to shape the economy, work, lifestyle, and political tendencies, so that we are “witnessing a structural transformation of society in late modernity, including the giving up of general logic to individualistic logic”.
The direct consequence of individual involvement in the political field is the Decentralized collective action movement model. The single logic is reflected in the political pattern, first through a “exclusive and differentiated liberalism”, in which the traditional political elites in the democratic system appear to be in a dilemma, thinking that everyone is happy when the ink falls out in the middle, but in reality, both sides are not human, and nobody is happy.
The development of the pandemic has further intensified the existence of special characteristics. Due to the isolation of time and space in the era of COVID-19, individuals become a competitive resource of attention. Incommensurability between individuals becomes particularly prominent with the loss of physical communication and the disappearance of “proximity” in the digital age. But seemingly alienated individuals are integrated or brought together in an extreme and mechanical way in tribalism, thus constituting a mechanical connection. Therefore, we can see that seemingly connected individuals on the Internet platform, but in the fierce confrontation and conflict of views, strengthen the different compatibility, and each other can no longer be understood and accepted.
In the post-pandemic era, we may have entered an accelerated path of metacosmic society, which has far exceeded the experiential innovation brought about by technological progress. More importantly, the lag in institutional matching brought about by the epidemic may further tribalize and individualize our real lives, thus losing the possibility of organic integration brought about by real social interaction. This loss of social organic attributes will lead to further social tear and polarization, requiring our extraordinary imagination to bridge the independent and mechanically connected multiple universes. Once we miss the wholeness, coherence, and organic window of space-time bridging, social metauniversalization will emerge with greater risks. Therefore, we need to use careful, empathic, dynamic and systematic vision and action to bridge the gap between tribes, between individuals and between tribes. Perhaps we should pay more attention to the arrival of a new form of metacosmic society than to technology.
References:
Chen Yunsong. The Concept of “secession” — the intra-group Division of contemporary Chinese Internet Space [J]. Social Science Abstracts,2022(9):94-96
Harrington, Austin. “Book Review: Andreas Reckwitz, The Society of Singularities.” (2021): 866-868.
Andreas Reckwitz. The Society of Singularities. Polity.2020
Eli J. Finkel, Cynthia S. Wang. The Political Divide in America Goes Beyond Polarization and Tribalism. Kellogg Insight. 2020
