"The Gyges effect, the well-noted disinhibition created by communications
over the distances of the Internet, in which all speech and image are
muted and at arm’s reach, produces an inevitable reaction — the desire
for impact at any cost, the desire to reach through the screen, to make
somebody feel something, anything.
Without a face, the self can form only with the rejection of all otherness, with a generalized, all-purpose contempt — a contempt that is so vacuous because it is so vague, and so ferocious because it is so vacuous. A world stripped of faces is a world stripped, not merely of ethics, but of the biological and cultural foundations of ethics.
-nytimes
Without a face, the self can form only with the rejection of all otherness, with a generalized, all-purpose contempt — a contempt that is so vacuous because it is so vague, and so ferocious because it is so vacuous. A world stripped of faces is a world stripped, not merely of ethics, but of the biological and cultural foundations of ethics.
The
neurological research demonstrates that empathy, far from being an
artificial construct of civilization, is integral to our biology. And
when biological intersubjectivity disappears, when the face is removed
from life, empathy and compassion can no longer be taken for granted.
The
new facelessness hides the humanity of monsters and of victims both.
Behind the angry tangles of wires, the question is, how do we see their
faces again?"
-nytimes
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