The Christian Voyeur

Instagram collage

Voyeur ... the very term conjures up sexual connotations of a sleazy disreputable old man looking through windows or hiding behind bushes as he spies on people. 

Indeed that is one definition.  However, there is a second definition: a voyeur is "someone who enjoys learning about the private details of other people's lives, especially unpleasant or shocking details"

We have become a society of voyeurs; Christians are no exception, for we all participate.

I'm not arguing against the internet ... I'm a total thoroughbred geek, and I can say the internet has transformed my work for the better.  But I also think we should grow into this digital age with our eyes wide open, for there are some disturbing elements that translate even into our very church services, let alone our personal spiritual reality.  For the Christian, put on God's spectacles!

Consider: snapchat, vine, instagram, twitter, tumblr, youtube, facebook, tinder, and the thousands of personal blogs.  Can you say what their common content is made of?  It's largely an unashamed sharing of one's personal life details to all and sundry - and it has entered the permanent public record.

If you look at no other links from here, at least look at this one and consider the stats.  If you're a teen or younger, are you aware of the implications?  If you're of the 1st digital generation, how cognizant are you of these virtual worlds?  If you're a hangover of the pre-internet generation, do you even know what these are?

How much of the social media activity is narcissism,  loneliness, or something else?  Probably all of these - a response to the mix of  twisted values we hold.  If nothing else this digital era has opened the floodgates to reduced inhibitions - easy exposure of our personal trivia, all with the apparent safety net of being hidden by the semi-anonymity of a virtual world (as if the lack of face-to-face contact makes any difference).  But as some have found (like snapchat's CEO), it comes back to bite.  Whatever our motivation, there seems to be a deep seated urge that when the barriers are lowered we put ourselves out there, naked for all to see (are we all masochists at heart?).

That's one side of the coin; this urge to reveal ones inner self, rooted in a fast changing value system where what was once taboo quickly becomes at most embarrassing, before turning into nothing to be ashamed of.

On the other side of the coin we have this insatiable desire for scandal, and the digital age has certainly opened the doors to such revelations.  This is nothing new; the temptation for gossip is as old as can be, because scandal makes us feel we're better than the other person.  What the digital age so effectively feeds is our desire for the macabre, the bizarre, and the sensational.  Its no different to a freak show at the 19th century circus sideshow; only now we're the "freaks" and the internet makes it all only a click away.  Consider these examples:

• The Oscar Pistorius trial in South Africa had world-wide headlines, and for awhile dominated 54% of the South Africa media - more than half!  And that included a dedicated TV channel. (see this article on the media coverage).
• A car crash where the vehicle was on fire, and the surrounding onlookers had their cellphones out videoing the occupants burn to death.  Or in another accident where the driver was killed on impact, and bystanders looted the groceries out of the car.
• Someone was pushed onto the railway tracks in front of an oncoming train, and the newspaper's front page photo of him the instant before he dies carries the headline "... this man is about to die".
• The tragedy of Kim Pham where "... she was knocked unconscious before her attackers continued to beat her. Not surprisingly, there is video footage of the event, with bystanders crowded around, cell phones in hand."

Now, none of this is about the erosion of privacy from nefarious spying, such as facebook tracking your behaviour, or the case where a school supplied laptops with spyware installed that allowed them to activate the laptop webcam and take pictures of the students without them being aware.  And that's not even touching on the Snowden revelations about the NSA.

No, this is about our changing sensibilities.  Some might argue that we are being desensitized, while others may argue that it's the crowd mentality of the internet (its so easy to get lost in the masses) that causes a diffusion of personal responsibility.

I argue that this is no more than technology lowering the barriers to the deviancies in our innate nature - the digital age makes it easier to access and share, and the relativism of the age lowers the senses of values, of morals, with a resulting numbing of conscience as a positive feedback to strengthen the process.  Voyeurism abounds, and there seems to be no shortage of people willing to be the object of attention, seeking self affirmation from the gazes of a virtual world of deviants.

So what then?  I'm not arguing for a return to a previous age.  I am not saying we should turn back the clock.  I'm asking, what is missing from this equation?

The fundamental question must surely be: Where is our reference?

I had dinner with a relativist the other night.  He did not like my assertion (but could not deny it) that a relativist can never claim a behaviour pattern to be wrong; all a relativist can say is that an action does or does not fit their personal value system.  The most reprehensible person one can think of cannot be "wrong" in any absolute sense; the relativist can only say they do not fit into someone's value system.

The Christian is called to reflect the reference.  Yet our Christian practices have aligned themselves with the eroded values of the digital transformation.  Individually, collectively, and institutionally we've lost our focus, and lost the capacity to speak into this instagram-type world of self-centered focus.   Instead we write blogs ostensibly in the hope these will magically change people (it doesn't - people gravitate to the echo chambers that feed their innate desires, and our blogs are often ego-inflating devices).  Likewise, what we post to our social media sites in order to "be a Christian witness" (ignored by the people we supposedly want to reach) is often simply an embarrassing pile of trivia.

What does the internet-age Christian look like?  How should a Christian engage this modern world in a way that impacts with value?  How do we build a dialogue across the boundaries of our filter bubbles?  And where and how do we engage with the culture arising from this pervasive value-neutral technology in the context of our (conflicting) ethics and life styles in the institutional church. 

I have yet to find a coherent discussion on this, and instead hear only the platitudes of a bygone era that roll so easily off our Christian-ese tongues.

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