There’s something almost poetic about a tweet. Consider what Audre Lorde had to say about poetry:
“Of all the art forms, poetry is the most economical. It is the one which is the most secret, which requires the least physical labor, the least material, and the one which can be done between shifts, in the hospital pantry, on the subway, and on scraps of surplus paper … poetry has been the major voice of poor, working class, and Colored women. A room of one’s own may be a necessity for writing prose, but so are reams of paper, a typewriter, and plenty of time.” (Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches)
If we replace ‘poetry’ with ‘tweeting’, you can begin to see what I mean. Perhaps the Internet is not universally accessible, but there is something empowering about Twitter as a medium of communication.
#AcademicTwitter
Twitter is one of my go-to apps for news on my phone. Why? Even though some of the content has to be verified, people tweet about breaking news way faster than reporters can get on scene or journalists compose quick pieces. In fact, in about 280 characters, I can usually get the gist of what’s happening and then look up any other relevant information later on. Pretty nifty! (Thanks @katiebeeismee for the advice years ago.)
That’s how I got started on Twitter. I would scroll to find out what’s happening in the world. Shortly after, I noticed that Twitter had sub-communities that I might be interested in ‘joining’, like #AcademicTwitter or #PhilosophyTwitter. The folks using these hashtags always seem to have interesting questions to ask or funny and relatable anecdotes to share, so naturally, I’ve kept up with their tweets. And that’s how it hit me: what interesting things do I have to say? What or how can I contribute to the conversation?
Arendtian public space
Hannah Arendt conceived of the public as a place to appear before others. For her, it was the place of freedom, the site for speech and action (though, on Arendt’s account, speech and action can be the same thing). But she argued that the public wasn’t always accessible to everyone. Indeed, she writes, “in order to be free, man [sic.] must have liberated himself from the necessities of life” (Between Past and Future, p. 148). Arendt maintained that a person has to take care of their biological needs first, before they can enter the political realm. In times past, this meant that it was mainly men who were free to be free, since women often took care of the family and household. But in today’s day and age, things are different.
Powered by the Internet
On the one hand, the Internet has created a virtual and relatively accessible public space. There are now dozens of platforms that can connect you with others, as long as you have an Internet connection and a device that allows you to communicate. All in all, you can be connected to almost anyone around the world; all you need is the time for it.
On the other hand, time is pretty scarce. People are busy. We’ve got responsibilities, obligations; there are needs to take care of before we can get online. So, as accessible as a virtual, Internet-powered public space is, it can be quite inaccessible for a lot of people because of their real-world obligations. So, how the heck is it that some of the busiest people I know make time to be present on Twitter? (I’m thinking about your Christmas movie polling, @ShannonDea1)
Arendt on the Social
It’s important to keep in mind that my characterization of Twitter as a virtual public space is not one that Arendt would have agreed with. Part of the appeal of (virtual) public spaces like #AcademicTwitter, for me, is that it’s not just about academia. Tweets are often of a more personal nature. Twitter is where I get to see philosophers, whose names grace some of my first philosophy texts, be human. They complain about noisy neighbours, having to run errands, or about a rejection or cruel reviewers. But Arendt might suggest that this is just a way of the private leaking into the public. For her, public spaces are public matters – those matters we can organize ourselves around. So, displays of ‘human-ness’ doesn’t count as appearing in public.
In fact, Arendt is liable to say that what I think of as a virtual public space is actually the rise of the social: the increasing visibility of the biological needs that were previously sequestered away at home in the public realm, where we ought to think about political needs and aims. She was worried that the rise of the social would mean the decline of freedom and democracy, but maybe Arendt was overly pessimistic because she never predicted the rise of social media. It is true that, on platforms like Twitter, people may choose to be non-political. However, their displays of humanity still opens them up to me and me to them; there is a chance to connect over life’s trivial matters first, then as comrades for some aim we might share.
Wait a minute…
In response to my musings, maybe Arendt would say something like, “Well, then, you aren’t really enjoying the social as much as you are finding a new ‘sub-realm’ within the public realm.” For Arendt, freedom is contingent on the separation of the public and the private. Recall that her claim is that we can’t be free unless we are free to be free. So, the rise of the social categorically threatens Arendt’s concept of freedom because, as a place dominated by biological needs, the social could squeeze space out of the place for political projects. The social rises, in some sense, because the public declines. But I don’t think I agree.
Seyla Benhabib’s thoughts on the political realm align better with mine. In her examination of German salons in the 18th century, Benhabib notes that friendships forged in ‘social’ places like a salon can lead to Arendtian action. She asserts that this is possible because the conversation can always steer towards the world, even when the participants in the conversation are not in the world. And aren’t virtual communities like #AcademicTwitter a 21st century salon?
Tweeting for good
On Twitter, people aren’t just spilling their guts for the world to see. They’re asking questions, inviting comments, and interacting, in general, with others. And so, their Tweets become at once a way of appearing before others but also encouraging others to appear before them. It’s a delightfully reciprocal action. I ask you, you answer me. You ask me, I answer you.
By doing this, these folks have created awesome feeds worth following. It’s not just them that I get to hear from but their networks. And then it finally hit me: I don’t have to come up with novel ideas to be active on Twitter. I could just join in on the efforts of others. I could, in a sense, build community with people I admire (or respect, or just find interesting) by engaging with their tweets.
Solidarity care
The idea of connecting first as human beings, before we connect as actors in solidarity, reminds me of a recent article by Myisha Cherry. She argues that solidarity work can be tiring and emotionally draining, so she suggests that solidarity work requires solidarity care – where we care about others as people and not just political comrades. I think Cherry is onto something. Solidarity shouldn’t just be about political objectives or social justice issues; it should, at its core, be about caring for each other as people. And what better way than to just ask others how they’re doing (via social media)?
#Runner
A good example of a ‘salon’ that I’ve become a part of and which has opened my eyes to new parts of the world is the running community. I’ve run here and there my whole life but never with as much dedication as I do now. And perhaps because of that, I’ve joined a couple of running communities (via social media) in the past year that have opened my eyes to some interesting political issues. Like, for example, my newfound interest in food ethics and sport ethics. I don’t think I would have become a vegetarian this past year without first learning about sport nutrition or the ethics of athletic supplements. Or be as interested in Nike’s new running shoe, which was inspired by a disabled person’s wish to see a shoe made for them. It was the running community and our interest in running for sport that got me here. It was our social nature.
Tune in next month when I talk about running!
Photo by NordWood Themes on Unsplash