Engaging with the Reality of Cyberspace
Introduction
Reality is a dynamic
phenomenon and we could harness the niche to deal with this process of
inevitable change lest we do not fear. The greatest fear we should possess is
the fear of stagnancy. Stagnancy stinks. Stagnancy stays at loggerheads with an
ever-renewing God. Obstinacy makes us a
heretic before the ontology of God which is always in the process of ‘becoming’[1].
Staying indifferent to the happenings around us is a sin. Obliviousness often
costs lives. We must understand that the revelations of God continue in myriad
forms but could only be discerned by the one who has the audacity to grapple
with uncertainties. Cyberspace is one such realm which impregnates our minds
with contingencies. Cyberspace may be a virtual reality nevertheless it is a
reality and this needs to be primarily acknowledged. Unless we affirm this
reality we cannot decipher the magnitude of possibilities this domain has to
offer us. Cyberspace needs
to be recognized as one of the mediums of expression of God’s progressive
revelation. Moltmann reckoned, “God has not laid down authoritarian forms in
the past which must be followed.”[2]
This fluidity urges us to seek anew ways to reach out to people in terms of the
changing trends in revolution. God is the God of networks and dwells where
community dwells either physically or virtually. William Fore in his article entitled
“Theology of Communication” remarks,
Community is where our human existence takes place. Community
is established and maintained by the relationships created by our
communications. We establish our relative individuality within this community.
The more we participate in this community, the more we become true individuals
and the more we become individuals, the more richly we participate in
community. Community, the fulfillment of effective human communication is
essential to our becoming human.[3]
Community is where one feels
the sense of belongingness. When the ‘real’ world fails to offer this on discriminatory
ground, people create a ‘virtual’ real world where they reaffirm their belongingness
proving the subversiveness of virtual reality.
1. Cyberspace: A Counter-public Space
Public is a term which has
lost its credence. It is just a docile conglomerate that takes pleasure in
surviving on the morsels of corporates. Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, an ethicist, problematizes the
term ‘Public’. Liberalization has divided the society into public and private
spheres presupposing a singular public where differences are erased for the
singular common good. But we need to be mindful that “unquestioning acceptance
of a singular public with singular common good may become a veneer for the
legitimation of elite interests excluding the perspectives and interests of the
less powerful.”[4]
Such a situation demands a counterpublic space which propagates the
‘oppositional gaze’ thereby questioning the polities and pedagogies of the
dominant and the powerful. Nancy Fraser defines counterpublics as “parallel
discursive arenas where members of subordinated social groups invent and
circulate counter discourses, which in turn permit them to formulate
oppositional interpretations of their identities, interests and needs.”[5] A
public without ‘oppositional gaze’ gives credence to the colonizers. Bell Hooks
further comments on oppositional gaze; “We do more than resist. We create
alternative texts that are not solely reactions.”[6]
Counterpublic interface gives rise to new hermeneutics and epistemologies that
are counter hegemonic.
For such a time as this when public space is no more
public in essence but the playground of the fascists; when mainline media and
journalists have traded their ethics to confirm their loyalty to the political
bigots; when freedom of expression serves as a precursor of sedition; when
identity is an aggravated crisis; when community ethos is usurped by
communalism vices; when life itself becomes a burden of survival; cyberspace
becomes a counterpublic space with the oppositional gaze. Cyberspace provides
people the fecund ground to assent, dissent, question, argue, boycott, protest,
accept, reject and to do many more things which may not be possible in a ‘real’
world. The fact of bureaucrats being offended by tweets and/or facebook posts
ascertain that this ‘virtual’ world is not that virtual. The oppositional gaze
initiated by cyberspace strikes them where they ought to be struck. Fr. Jerry
Kurian pens;
Cyberspace is not just a space which has been taken
over by governments and the corporate sector. It is also the space which is
very much a part of ordinary people who are oppressed in different ways. What
this does is to make cyber space a place where the oppressed can congregate and
where they can feel the recreation of community for them. This will also bring
back a place where they can be what they want to be…Controls over cyber space
are fast becoming the norm of several governments the world over because they
realize that the cyberspace has become a voice for the voiceless and a space
for the space-less.[7]
Mary Flanagan in
corroboration opines;
Technology allows us an
alternate space within which we can invent unique methods of telling stories,
forming identities and remembering…Perhaps the most famous advocate of this was
Oscar Wilde when he wrote: “Man is least himself when he talks in his own
person. Give him a mask and he will tell you the truth.”[8]
2. Electronic Neighbour: Transcending Spaces of
Geography
Today in India in the midst of the rise of nationalism
‘neighbour’ becomes the most contested concern. Who is my neighbour? What are
the yardsticks that define a neighbour? Is neighbour an object or subject?
These are few questions which often disturb us. Neighbours are often spoken
more in terms of objectivity and reception. The lawyer’s question to Jesus i.e.
“Who is my neighbour?” is a question that reverberates in our minds as well.
This question seeks information on neighbour as object of one’s love. Thus we
should expect answer such as “Your neighbour is anyone who needs your help.”
But Jesus through a story illustrates neighbour as subject rather than object.
Instead of answering “Who is my neighbour?” Jesus challenges the lawyer to ask
questions like “How can I act as a neighbour?” or “Whose neighbour am I?”
Neighbour is defined in terms of Neighbourliness. It is love that births
neighbourliness and not vice-versa.
In cyberspace, neighbour is the one who can be anyone
but connected with the internet from wherever s/he lives. This issue of online
neighbourhood or electronic neighbour raises the need of redefining the
question asked to Jesus by the lawyer “Who is my neighbour?” Neighbour is not
only someone who could be defined in terms of geographical frontiers but also
someone who dwells in electronic neighbourhood in the cyberspace which
supersedes all tangible borders of countries and nations. We have become so
much fixated on our geographical locations which in turn has confined our
relationships and narrowed their prospects. We must bring to mind what the
semanticist Alfred Korzybski said “Map is not the territory.” It is no longer
possible to live within the metaphors of maps and nations but it is important
to move away from these signifiers to ones that address the more authentic
lived experience of web-maps, hyperlinked-spaces and cyber-communities of the
cyberspace. Over-emphasising the vices we failed to explore,
propagate and nurture the virtues and possibilities of cyberspace. Jeff
Zeleski’s book “The Soul of Cyberspace” reports the event of Tibetan monks
blessing the cyberspace after a long prayer on February 8, 1996. He writes that
they did it because blessing means ‘a transformation to the better’. It is a transformation
to the higher state. Certainly it will depend upon us how we design this new electronic
social space. He remarks; “Our souls become what we make of them. So will the
soul of cyberspace; for cyberspace mirrors us in our entity, including our soul.
Our soul is its soul.”[9]
Cyberspace also offers people especially youngsters an
orifice to vent their emotions. Aaron Ben-Zeev states; “Cyberspace is a kind of
mentally nude commune where people often strip of their masks. What nudity
leaves undone, imagination finishes.”[10]All
the socio-economic-religious impediments which instigate us to keep certain
relationships at bay in the real world, dissolve in the solvent of cyberspace.
Appreciable and prudent attempts are being made through cyberpsace to overstep
and even eradicate the human made regressive constructs.
3. Cyber Ecclesia: An Emerging Hypothesis of Church
Christianity emerged in and as an ecclesia – a called
out radical democratic gathering of equals. Over the course of time things
turned for worse. Countering Empires from its inception the church is at the
cusp of becoming an alternative empire with ferocious imperialistic repercussions
and implications. Institutionalism crept in usurping the ecstatic freedom of
ecclesia. George Zachariah argues;
History of Christianity is the unfortunate story of
our journey from Ecclesia to Church. As we tend to believe, the etymological
roots of the English term ‘Church’ is not Ecclesia. Rather it derives from the
Greek words ‘Kuriakon doma’ (house of the Lord) and ‘Kyriakon’ (belonging to
the Lord/Father/Master). In the New Testament, the Greek word Kuriakon appears
only in two places whereas the word Ecclesia appears approximately 115 times
and except in three cases the word is wrongly translated as Church….This seems
to be a conscious attempt to replace the self-understanding of the gathered
faith community from a radical democratic community of equals and disciples
into the model of a Kyriarchal and hierarchical model of state and household
ruled and controlled by the kings, masters, lords and men.[11]
The legitimacy of ecclesia is being reclaimed today
through cyberspace. When the institutionalized religious structures including
Church suppress the spirit of polemics, cyberspace breaches and gives birth to
online faith communities. Heidi Campbell explicates;
Religion is an expression of the faith and practices
of different people. Online users can be called faith communities. The
cyberspace that they make use has been converted into their own sacred space.
This is the space where they have their religious and secular discourses and
discussions all mixed together. It is where they make sense out of their lives.[12]
Cyberspace becomes an egalitarian space for the faith
communities where dissent is not curtailed; opinions are not monopolized;
debates are fostered; theological tributaries commingle; faith perspectives are
exchanged; ideologies are negotiated; alternatives are developed and most
importantly knowledge is decentralized. Fr. Jerry Kurian states;
What is good about Cyberspace is that knowledge has
been decentralized and even detached from the academia and so called
scholarship. This has brought back knowledge to the people. Information and
knowledge has to be free and freely shared as well. The cyberspace has led to this
and the people who are likely to share freely are also everyday ordinary people
but people with experiences nevertheless. Copy right has been converted to copy
left and the concept of free sharing through creative commons.[13]
Church deliberately stays to be cyberphobic and warns
the use of cyberspace as it fears that this great avenue of knowledge would
question the legitimacy and monopoly of its magisterium. Bill Gates, the
chairman of Microsoft affirms, “The Internet is a tidal wave. It will wash over
the computer industry and many others, drowning those who do not learn to swim
in its waves.” If the church does not wish to drown in this tidal wave it needs
to change according to the signs of time. The Church being the community of
communicators, can never ignore this new wonder in the field of communication.
The Church has adapted and been involved at every stage of change and growth of
the media of communication. Joseph Palakeel remarks;
Church adapted well to the manuscripts and the print
culture, by translating the oral-tribal Bible into the written and urban
communication and later to print and rational culture by mastering the dominant
medium of each time. Today’s Church and theology still follow print media and
culture and remains rational and conceptual and far removed from the common
language of the people. Can church and theology of another media culture
effectively communicate without the dominant medium of communication of the
present?[14]
Our ignorance or refusal to embrace cyberspace will
not falsify the reality of the emerging cyber ecclesia. Cyberspace is indeed a
space being used by our faith communities to congregate as an ecclesia. If the
church continues to stay digitally paralyzed it would irrevocably drown in the
wave of technocracy.
4. The
Digital Divide: An Extended Poverty
Like any other social issue while we grapple with the
gravity of cyberspace we learn that the margins are yet again digitally
impoverished. Statistics reveal the intensity of the problem.
In terms of numbers, urban
India with an estimated population of 455 million already has 295 million using
the internet. Rural India, with an estimated population of 918 million, has
only 186 million internet users. Thus, there are potential 732 million users
still in rural India… Internet user is still a male preserve in India. There
are estimated 143 million female internet users overall, which is approximately
30% of total internet users. Among the rural internet users, the ration between
male to female internet users is 64:36. [15]
Rural India has almost 732
million potential users. This demands that we equip the people with the
necessary skills to productively use the cyberspace. Our missional priorities
should cater to bridge the lacuna of the digital divide. Digital divide is an
exclusionary practice which needs to be addressed at the earliest. It is an
extended poverty which makes people digitally disabled. Rev. Peter Singh
elucidates the severity of digital divide;
The proponents of cyberspace
argue that income, gender, caste, age and ethnicity have become unimportant in
virtual reality. But it is not true. These traditional divisions still play a
major role in the cyberspace. Jodi O’ Brien argues that these divisions are
reproduced in online interaction. The digitally divided cyberspace is the
majority of the people who live in the rural Indian villages also in slums in
the urban centres. They are the dalits, adivasis and tribals and women who have
been impoverished and because of their poverty they are illiterate. It is a
painful and destructive human condition, largely hidden from those who live in
the virtual reality. Digital divide is deepening the existing forms of
exclusion…The poor in the villages see technology as more sophisticated weapons
the rich use to reinforce and reintroduce new power structures of exploitation
and oppression. Technology is power and that power is never neutral. It serves
the purpose of a few.[16]
The causes of digital divide
are embedded in our social and economic disparities. The bridging of the divide
should be accompanied by the holistic emancipation of the margins. Cyberspace
to be a democratic space the digital divide needs to be undone. One of the
possible suggestions towards achieving this could be to solicit the help of
small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Don Richardson suggests;
One cannot expect less
privileged farmers and food insecure residents of rural communities to list
computers and digital telecommunication services as high priority items for
improving their lives. However, there are various intermediaries serving these
populations which, together small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in rural areas,
could take advantage of these technologies to improve their work, improve
communication capacity, gain efficiencies and reduce telecommunication costs.
With SMEs, intermediary organizations such as extension field offices, rural
NGOs, health clinics, government satellite offices and church organizations can
offer communication services in numerous ways.[17]
There are ways in which the
internet contributes significantly to rural India. For instance, ‘e-choupal’, a
tool launched by firm ITC ltd., a conglomerate, enables farmers to access
information about weather and other agriculture-related information in their
local language to help manage their farm output.[18]
We need to conceptualize such ideas to help rural India to cope with this
digital tide as it is their right to explore the possibilities of cyberspace.
Conclusion
Cyberspace is a reality. It
being virtual does not compromise on the magnitude of the reality. The way we
decide to deal with it would determine its scope. We could either bless the
cyberspace with an intention of transforming it for the better or we could
curse it and relish in our cocoons of ignorance. The basic nature of God is
communitarian and thus Christ taught us to pray “Our Father in Heaven” in lieu
of “My Father in Heaven.” Community is sacred for it is in community that we
realize the presence of God and hence through cyberspace let us build a
community which is appeasing to God. As the Catholic Church understands, “the
Church herself is a ‘communio’, a communion of persons and Eucharistic
communities arising from and mirroring the communion of the Trinity;
communication therefore is of the essence of the Church.”[19]
Prayers
Dn. Basil Paul
[1] To be fully real is to be in
process and thus, the real is not beyond change i.e. it is not absolute or
unchanging. In Process theology, God does not coerce, rather God offers the
Divine to each actuality. In this manner we are co-creating with God. As we become,
choosing for God, we and God together create. See M. Peter Singh,
“Cybertheology in the Cyber Age” in Sweety Helen Chukka ed. Ecclesiology in the Cyber Age (New
Delhi: ISPCK and CSA, 2016), 36.
[2] “Jurgen Moltmann and His
Theology of Hope”, http://www.ctsfw.net/media/pdfs/editorjurgenmoltmann.pdf.
[3] William F. Fore, “A Theology of
Communication”, https://www.religion-online.org/article/a-theology-of-communication/.
[4] Cynthia D. Moe-Lobeda, Public
Church: For the Life of the World (Minneapolis: Augsburg Press, 2004), 7-8.
[5] Nancy Fraser, Justice
Interrupts: Critical Reflections on the Postsocialist Condition (New
York:Routledge, 1997), 81.
[6] Bell Hooks, “The Oppositional
Gaze: Black Female Spectators” in Feminist Postcolonial Theory: A Reader
Eds. Reina Lewis and Sara Mills, (London: Routledge, 2003), 218.
[7] Jerry Kurian, “Relevant
Theologies in the Cyber Age” in Sweety Helen Chukka ed. Ecclesiology in the Cyber Age (New Delhi: ISPCK and CSA, 2016), 77-79
[9] Jeffrey P. Zeleski, The Soul of Cyberspace (New York: Harper
edge 1997), 147.
[10] Hara Estroff Marano,
“Cyberspace: Love Online”, http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200412/cyberspace-love-online.
[11] George Zachariah, “Church
without Walls: Church happening in the Streets”, http://www.academia.edu/2644195/Church_without_Walls_Church_Happening_in_the_Streets.
[12] Heidi Campbell, When Religions Meets New India
(Abingdon: Routledge, 2010)
[13] Jerry Kurian, “Relevant
Theologies in the Cyber Age”, 81.
[14] Joseph Palakeel, “Communication
Theology in Priestly Formation”, http://older.claretianformation.com/claretian-books/general-plan-of-formation/90-formation-library/articles-library/community-articles-library/237-communication-theology.
[16] M. Peter Singh, “Cybertheology
in the Cyber Age”, 33-34.
[17] Don Richardson, “The Internet
and Rural Development”, http://www.fao.org/docrep/x0295e/x0295e13.htm
[18]
http://www.itcportal.com/business/agri-business/e-choupal.aspx
[19]
http://joshysj.blogspot.in/p/theology-of-cyberspace.html
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