The algorithm of ignorance

And the algorithm, with the mechanical obedience of a perfect servant, has given us more and more of what we have asked for. So in short, idiocy, conflict, humiliation, ignorance. We reward the ignorant with attention, the knowledgeable with indifference, the vulgar with an audience, and then wonder why we ended up here, in the economy of ignorance.

In the limitless menu of beauty in art and music, in sports and recreation, in the selection of materials that serve the soul and health; in the vast corpus and almost limitless range of aesthetics and well-being, in the spectrum with millions of nuances of aesthetic culmination and personal and social cultivation – this society has decided that the staple food should be this most disgusting garbage that is served endlessly on social networks.

Our society has decided to use its expensive monitors, in the warmth of leather armchairs, to convey with pleasure social thoughtlessness, aesthetic regression, deductive stuttering, conceptual misery, political scum, the bloody chronicle that was once called the pink column, unparalleled gangsterism, the boasting of arrogant frogs, the emptiness of rusty epistemes, the contradictions of leaders who pull the masses to opposite poles, from where they then vomit bile on each other, spitting on television, the threat from the chamber's post office, the outdated canons that continue to behave like shadows in the "unconstitutional" chambers, spiritual nudity, rotten botox, the diary of insults, the backs of elbows.

We have it all there, just a click away. And…

In this mess, in this disorientation, it seems that intellectuals, academics, artists, hipsters, rockers, and writers have hid, without ideas, without goals, without commitment, and in a turtle-like manner.

The Academy of Sciences and Arts, filled with poets, seems to feel almost no responsibility for this society that has used ignorance as a kayak to navigate the sea of ​​cultural ignorance.

An institution funded with public money, filled with people that society (demek) supposedly has placed at the top of its thinking, seems to have everything in its priorities except analyzing this social upheaval.

Poets silence their poetic spears in the face of social decomposition, which they view with frightening indifference.

Academics who completely academically reject their intellectual, scientific, and perhaps even moral responsibility.

It's not that an academic should go on TV every morning and comment on everything. That's not his job. But when a society slips into stupidity, when public debate is reduced to swearing, when argument is replaced by unbearable shouting, when the culture of discussion turns into a war of regions, families, parties and portals, then the silence of those who claim to represent opinion is no longer neutrality.

The academy and academics (the super overrated) are part of the problem.

In the midst of this social upheaval, artists act as if nothing belongs to them. As if what is happening is outside their domain. As if art begins at the door of the theater, cinema or gallery – and ends in the spaces of the festival, presentation or representation.

And they use the arrogance of their cultural self-determination, often completely artificial, above the average of their citizens as an argument to justify total indifference. If this is discussed, they shamelessly spit out the most disgusting bait that politics has thrown at them: Artists should not deal with politics. How is it possible that real artists have taken this kind of bait? How can an artist believe that he should not deal with politics? How can he consciously exclude himself from public life and think that politics does not belong to him? In fact, politics decides everything about them, and if they will not deal with politics, then politics will deal with them.

Let's look at this whole "aesthetic rejection" of artists in the face of the failure of Kosovar society from another dimension.

Most artists in Kosovo try hard to appear apolitical. Of course, this is a failed attempt a priori. Silence is also a position. Even the lack of reaction produces an effect. Even withdrawal is a choice. In fact, at some moments, it is a much more political choice than a Facebook status.

The vast majority of them have the primary goal of realizing their own projects. They can transcend personal, artistic, intellectual, and moral responsibility, just so as not to hinder the goals that are exclusively related to their projects.

While when asked about politics, they try to say that they make their criticism through art.

Which art?

Art that is consumed primarily by those who least need our criticism?

Art that fifty, a hundred, or five hundred people see, while an idiot with a phone reaches hundreds of thousands in an afternoon?

The art that we are sometimes forced to bring to our small audience late, because first we have to preserve the premieres, festivals, applications, "international flight"?

The art that we claim to make for society, while in practice we see society as a problem, as a lack of emancipation, as stagnation?

Why don't artists participate in some kind of social obligation, whether through writings, shows, debates, public reactions or even a Facebook status? I never suggest, nor do I see a problem with direct involvement in a political party, but political engagement can become very powerful even without being alienated (empirically) through a political party. After all, what is their mission? The realization of some petty little dreams? Grant, subsidy, a little red carpet, a little petty glory?

At each premiere we applaud each other and then return to a society that is every day becoming more incapable of distinguishing argument from shouting, a society for which we have a responsibility. Once again, to avoid analytical shallowness in this article, I never wish that art should not become a partisan megaphone. On the contrary, the artist who becomes a blind supporter of a party ceases to be useful precisely where he thinks he is becoming useful.

But between the party militant and the mummy there is an infinite space. It is called citizenship, thought, responsibility. Some artists have understood that reaction, rejection and clashing with politics have indisputable personal costs. I understand these, although I do not understand them well.

Because a true artist should find such calculations ridiculous, and no longer base his behavior on these shallow premises.

But here begins the other problem. We often mistakenly think that what is happening is just a consequence of social networks. As if Facebook has ruined our society. As if TikTok has invented our stupidity. As if an algorithm somewhere in California has sat down and decided what kind of fools we in Kosovo should become. No. The algorithm has not invented anything. It has only learned from us. We have shown it every day what we want. Conflict before argument. Swearing before thought. Scandal before knowledge. Face before idea. Humiliation before debate. Body before soul. Pride before work. Scream before sentence.

And the algorithm, with the mechanical obedience of a perfect servant, has given us more and more of what we have been asking for. So in short, idiocy, conflict, humiliation, ignorance.

We reward the ignorant with attention, the knowledgeable with indifference, the vulgar with an audience, and then wonder why we ended up here, in the economy of ignorance.

But the algorithm could not have been so successful if there were not another algorithm, much older than Facebook.

Our social algorithm. We have a legacy non-digital algorithm that has now only changed medium, but it functions at almost the same depressing level.

If the artist, academic, writer, or intellectual leaves their space completely empty, someone will fill that space. I believe you already have the names of those who will fill it in mind. But of course, more than judgment, these people need help, someone who life has given them the opportunity to do so, but also the responsibility to offer them something that helps them.

By not taking responsibility as they should, we certainly cannot help but be surprised at how the level of discussion drops, how aesthetics are destroyed, how language becomes ugly, how argument dies, how banality becomes the norm, and how stupidity, little by little, transforms from a phenomenon into a system.

I don't know if the artist in this case has to save society. Probably not.

I don't know if the academic can save him. Probably not even he. But I know one thing:

If those who supposedly have the means to articulate reality, to analyze, oppose, artistically deform, explain, ironize, and challenge it, decide to make a fool of themselves, then they cannot be surprised when others articulate reality for them.