Covenant Eyes Radio – Episode 55

Covenant Eyes exists to help people have open and honest accountability conversations about Internet use. This not only means developing good accountability software, but helping people to go deep in their friendships with one another.

We recently contacted Christian psychologist Dr. Larry Crabb to ask him about we can foster deeper accountability relationships. Using material from his book, SoulTalk, Dr. Crabb talks with us about how we can have the kind of Christian friendships that spur us on to be more like Christ.

Dr. Crabb has been talking with us about what he calls the five dance steps of redemptive Christian conversation, five important ways of thinking that help us to interact with our friends in a way that stirs our passions for God. He has already spoken about the first two steps.

This week he talks about the third step, “Think Passion.” This step is about identifying the hidden motives of our own hearts as we converse with others. The more deeply aware we are about our own sinful motives, the more quickly we can repent of them and identify the godly motives the Holy Spirit is placing within us.

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Over a year ago the Witherspoon Institute published paper drafts about the social cost of pornography in our culture. Recently they have released video presentations from these scholars on their new website: SocialCostsOfPornography.org.

You can now order the 6-hour DVD and the book of these publications. These presentations talk about the negative effects of pornography on our society from a variety of perspectives: philosophy, economics, law, comparative religion, and psychology.

Is the Internet diminishing or enhancing community? Does the Word Wide Web help us feel more connected or less? Is distance education through Internet media making knowledge more available, or is it robbing people of face-to-face learning experiences? Are online communities real communities? These are the sort of  questions raised by Hubert Dreyfus’ On the Internet.

If one ever wondered what influential philosophers like Soren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, or Martin Heidegger would have thought about the World Wide Web, On the Internet is the first, and perhaps best, place to look. Dreyfus is a leading existential philosopher who offers a compelling and persuasive assessment of the Internet’s benefits and limitations.

If you are one who looks to the Web for a disembodied world of ubiquitous learning, connection, and meaningful life, Dreyfus’ book is a friendly killjoy.

What this book is and is not

Dreyfus’ discussion of the Internet is somewhat narrow. He doesn’t write about file sharing, Internet porn, blogging, newsgroups, or chat rooms. Rather he does a much broader sweep of Internet technologies.

On the Internet is primarily a critique of cyberlibertarian principles. Dreyfus cites the authors of the 1994 document, “Cyberspace and the American Dream: A Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age,” or the more “far out” example of the Extropy Institute. These groups look with great optimism to the world of cyber technology. For example, the Extropy Institute optimistically looks to a “posthuman future” when we are no longer limited by our physical bodies. Written on the eve of widespread Internet use, the Magna Carta looks with great expectation to the creation of “electronic neighborhoods,” where “cyberspace will play an important role knitting together in the diverse communities of tomorrow.”

At first it may seem like Dreyfus is positioning straw men to knock down. After all, who really believes computers will utterly replace human teachers? Who believes all can one day receive as good an education via distance learning as being an apprentice to the masters? Who thinks risk-free virtual worlds will some day completely replace the dirtiness of real life? Few would articulate such things.

But Dreyfus’ aim is not to merely question the far-out cyber-utopian thinkers but to help us spot the corners of our own minds where we expect more from the World Wide Web than what it can truly offer. Dreyfus does not see the Internet as a phantom threat, but rather wants to help us balance offline and online life, creating a down-to-earth symbiosis of embodied life and virtual life.

The importance of the body

The primary thrust of On the Internet is the importance the human body and physical presence plays in helping us make sense of the world, acquire skills, build community, and give lasting meaning to our lives. Dreyfus taps his knowledge of cyber technology, epistemology, and educational psychology to show that cyberspace is not the final frontier of learning or meaningful connections.

• Chapters 2 and 3 attempt to show that even the best technological telepresence experience (live streaming video, live chat, etc.) cannot capture all the benefits of bodily presence in the classroom, meaning that virtual students are not likely to pass beyond mere competence and become truly proficient, let alone gain mastery in a subject.
• Chapter 4 attempts to show the Internet, like the newspaper before it, creates a global “public sphere” where information is readily available but makes us into detached, anonymous spectators, guilty of endless reflection and commentary while taking neither risks of vulnerable involvement nor passionate commitment.
• Chapter 5 attempts to show how virtual worlds like Second Life can become unfortunate diversions from facing the harsher realities of life, can drive us away from meaningful real-world risk-taking, and, most significantly, take us away from deeply significant communal practices where people share a “common mood” and are caught up in the contagious moments of joy, grief, nostalgia, awe, and celebration.

Hubert Dreyfus, a renowned scholar on the existential phenomenology of Martin Heidegger, brings a philosopher’s mind to bear on the questions of how the Internet is affecting our culture. Citing the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Dreyfus writes of the “intercorporeality” of the human body—our physical presence in a situation which gives a holistic sense of our environment, a sense that is greater than the sum of our five senses.

Dreyfus relates his philosophical ideas to recent neurobiological studies about mirror-neurons, systems in the brain that specialize in helping us understand and resonate with the actions and emotions of others, as well as the social significance of those actions (pp. 113-115). Using current research from roboticists, Dreyfus powerfully argues that the best technology cannot simulate this crucial social/physical dynamic (pp. 54-57). In other words, we need face-to-face interactions to carry on meaningful lives.

Some criticisms

Dreyfus fails to cite a variety of opponents to his positions. Certainly many would feel like their online communities are not deficient. Many would say that the Internet has not decreased their awareness and involvement in worthy causes, but rather increased them. Many would believe their online friendships to be just as “real” to them as face-to-face friendships. Dreyfus does not engage with these opinions, but rather launches his analysis on the basis of his philosophical interests.

Dreyfus praises the limited benefits of distance learning, but he neglects to mention how schools have tried to overcome obstacles in distance education, creatively weaving together distance lectures, face-to-face apprenticeship, on-site teaching, and Internet discussion forums. The more virtual schools have begun to see the need for interaction among students and professors, the more they have begun to put in place measures to bring this about.

Dreyfus at times misrepresents the Christian/Biblical worldview as being anti-body. Dreyfus claims that Christianity and Platonism share a common desire to get rid of the body to arrive at an ideal disembodied state (pp. 143-144). Speaking of Nietzsche’s battle with Platonism’s and Christianity’s vision of immortality beyond the body (p. 6), Dreyfus neglects to mention the strong tradition in biblical Christianity of resurrection, a belief that affirms an eternal, albeit glorified, physical state. God not only affirms the value of the body by giving it immortality, but (using Heideggerian terms) by bringing divinity together with humanity.

A great start to a great topic

Some might think it ironic I found Dreyfus’ critique refreshing. I make my living as a corporate blogger, I am earning a degree via distance education, and I met my wife on eHarmony. I like the Internet. It is where I spend a great deal of time. But being immersed in the virtual world, I  cannot help but enjoy the overall thrust of Dreyfus’ book. The Internet is a wonderful tool, but it is no replacement for real-life, flesh and blood community.

“You have been given the choice between war and dishonor.
You have chosen dishonor, and you will have war!”
-Winston Churchill to the English Parliament, 1938

After the English Parliament’s 1938 appeasement in Czechoslovakia, Churchill saw the danger of choosing peace, when honor and common sense called for battle. History, of course, would confirm his point: Refusing to fight an honorable battle may afford a temporary peace, but in the long run, it’s a peace too costly. Delaying a necessary battle may well result in devastating, full scale war. Every man who’s gotten involved in sexual sin makes a decision between battle and dishonor. And as always, dishonor looks like an easier choice.

Dishonor means making peace with your sin. It means telling yourself that after so many years, it’s become such a part of your life that trying to cut it out would be too traumatic, too uncomfortable. It would mean saying goodbye to a reliable (though destructive) friend, and the battle to abstain from this “friend,” with all the temptations and struggles it would involve, seems too demanding. So a dishonorable compromise is reached when a man decides to live in peaceful co-existence with sexual sin.

But tyrants never co-exist peacefully. By their nature, they demand increased territory, fewer limitations, more captives. So the sin that a man decides not to go to war against – the pornography, the affair, the commercial sex – soon demands more territory. It begins invading his career, his family, health and reputation. By the time he realizes he has to go to war against it, he’s already relinquished too much ground. Now he finds that what could have been a brief skirmish, if paid attention to early, has become full blown war. He chose dishonor over battle. In the end, he winds up with both.

Men of Honor, fighting mad, enlisted, and committed, no longer surrender territory that belongs to sexual integrity. I hope you’re one of them.

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This article is by Joe Dallas, Program Director of Genesis Counseling. Joe is also the author of several books, including, The Game Plan: The Men’s 30-Day Strategy for Attaining Sexual Integrity. He is a pastoral counselor and a popular conference speaker. For over three years Joe taught and conducted the nationally recognized Every Man’s Battle conference as the originating Program Director, and from 1991 to 1993, he served as the President of Exodus International. Joe and his wife Renee reside in Orange County, California, with their two sons. © 1999 by Joe Dallas. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be duplicated in any form without express written consent from the author. www.joedallas.com