The Corrosive Nature of Soundbites and Memes

The flood of soundbites, and their visual equivalent the meme, on the internet is permeating society, and like a corrosive acid, these fragments are eating away at it. 

Soundbites and memes are essentially bits of information, fragments.  Normally (and traditionally) we encounter information (and things in general) in a context.  We come across a thing along with the time, place, environment, etc. that has caused or influenced it, and then we see the things that it causes and influences.  The best way to put it is that we see it in its natural and active environment, its context. 

The context helps us to give the thing meaning and significance.  The relationship between the thing and everything around it makes it what it is.  In addition to that context, there is the worldview of the person that is encountering the information.  The worldview also helps give the thing meaning and significance, but it also goes beyond that and starts to extrapolate from meaning and significance and rules on truth and falsity. 

Anything that is considered true—even fragments like sound bites and memes—have a context that gives them meaning and a worldview that makes them seem true.  Part of the reason why people with different worldviews can often agree about things is that the context limits how much the worldview can shape the thing.  The stronger the context the less difference can be made of things by differing worldviews.

The internet (and even television) are very good at stripping things of their context and presenting them to us as if they are discrete things that have meaning and significance on their own, without a context.  This leaves the worldviews with more leeway to shape the thing. 

Part of the problem is that people usually are not conscious of what makes up their worldview, and they often bring a context to a fragment without being aware of it.  This means that different people can see the same fragment and have very different reactions to it.  Without a common context and an awareness of the differences in worldview between different people, one may see something as important and true; another as important and false; and yet another as unimportant and not worth attributing truth or falsity to. These differences become a reason for people to doubt the intelligence, intentions, education or even humanity of the others that don’t share their view of the thing. 

These differences and doubts becomes virtually irreconcilable until and unless people start to recover the context and become aware of differences in worldviews.  Yet, that is a difficult process that is often shunned in favor of simply accusing others of being stupid, inhuman, and the like.  This is where information can become divisive and destructive.  Information without context easily becomes a catalyst for arguments and insults between people especially when they are without awareness of (and reverence for) differences in worldviews.  

It is in this way that soundbites and memes tear apart society; they present information and things in a detached and isolated way that easily leads to animosity and division.