Out, Out, Damn Spotify! Are we individual thinkers or are we submitting to the group in order to affirm preconceived notions that have nothing to do with truth or, even, the search for it?
By Emina Melonic
February 1, 2022
Manipulation of information in the media is not exactly new. P. T. Barnum’s famous phrase, “There’s a sucker born every minute,” still rings true, especially since journalism has become a clown show. Manipulation by the mainstream media is pseudo-journalism, and leads us to question what is true and what is fake.
To make matters worse, we are caught in a digitized loop of absurdity, where conformity reigns supreme. The recent Spotify debacle, in which Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, and other aging musicians decided to remove their music from the music streaming platform because Spotify is home for comedian Joe Rogan’s highly popular podcast, illuminates some problems.
First, there is a problem of conformity. You don’t have to be a profiler or a mathematician to notice a pattern of pseudo-moral repetition. One person (in this case, Neil Young) decides to do A, then another person (in this case, Joni Mitchell) decides to follow, and so on. The same goes for the ritual condemnations of whatever it is fashionable to condemn today on social media. Sometimes, the intentions are harmless, but often this is only illustrative of collectivism, rather than an individual’s decision. People rush to post because they don’t want to be left out. But how much thought is involved?
Conformity is linked to following authority. In his seminal work, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View, Stanley Milgram writes that “Conformity leads to homogenization of behavior, as the influenced person comes to adapt the behavior of peers.” In addition,
the requirement of going along with the group often remains implicit . . . there is no overt requirement made by group members that the subject go along with them. The action is spontaneously adopted by the subject. Indeed, many subjects would resist an explicit demand by group members to conform, for the situation is defined as one consisting of equals who have no right to order each other about.
Notice that most members of the media elite—in other words, propagandists–—implicitly claim that they are free and individual thinkers, yet there is never any room for dissent, including and especially from the members of their own group. Anyone who questions the group orthodoxy is quickly ostracized until the behavior is corrected, but even if the “offender” is welcomed back into the fold, he or she is never quite a true member anymore. Milgram’s definition of conformity is fully applied to the world of social media because platforms like Twitter and Facebook thrive in an environment of repeated conformity.
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Source:
https://amgreatness.com/2022/02/01/out-out-damn-spotify/
