Project Vision 21

Last week, two people (a young man and an older woman) told me separately that they had lived for a long time inside “a bubble.” Life circumstances (an unexpected and positive trip for the young man, a tragic loss for the woman) led them to leave that “bubble.” Many others, however, never do.

The situation is certainly not new. Plato already warned us some 2,400 years ago in his Allegory of the Cave that we might be living inside a cave without even knowing it. But in that case, the “cave” or “bubble” was shared. Now, however, the “bubble” has become not only an individual world but, in numerous instances, the whole world.

Moreover, whereas in Plato’s cave there was at least the possibility (however remote) of escaping that confinement—and of someone entering the cave to free those held within—the techno-“bubbles” of our postmodern age function as filters of reality. For that reason, the chances of “escape” are even slimmer than in the allegorical cave.

Slimmer, but not impossible. The man told me that his first trip outside his home country made him aware that, until then, he had been so enclosed within his bubble that he believed the entire world lived, spoke, and acted like the “world” he knew. Realizing that this was not the case led him to leave his bubble.

The woman, for her part, suffered a loss in her life that was impossible to recover—something she never imagined would happen. Yet it was not the tragedy itself, but rather the reaction of those around her (family members, friends, coworkers) to that tragedy that led her to rethink her own beliefs and priorities and, ultimately, to step out of her bubble.

Unfortunately, my experience suggests that these two cases (entirely real, I emphasize) are exceptional. I believe that many people—perhaps even the majority—have set aside encounters with others and with real life to withdraw into bubbles shaped by digital platforms and algorithms.

The South Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han describes these “bubbles” as “digital prisons” or “transparent cages,” whose main feature is to function as “echo chambers” that repeat self-confirming messages over and over again, without those messages ever being interrupted by challenges (intellectual or practical) or by different viewpoints.

Within today’s techno-bubbles there is no friction, no delay, no surprise. In other words, there is no Other. As Han explains, the Other has disappeared and has been replaced by sameness and by a pseudo-communication that seeks nothing more than “likes.” Any difference with the Other is eliminated or blurred.

We must therefore ask ourselves what kind of world we are creating when we expel the Other from our lives—knowing that without distance, resistance (friction), and the alterity of the Other, a healthy human life (individual or collective) cannot exist.