The digital world is an abstract world far removed from the analogue. There is a museum in Utrecht themed around on self-playing instruments and clocks. These incredible devices, complicated and masterpieces all, feel within the realm of comprehension. I can see the parts moving, this lever pushes that lever, the spring has tension and when this tension is released things move, pipes play sounds and instruments, and nature is imitated in various ingenious ways. The imitation of sound might bring us back to a childhood where we would bang things together and find sounds that match the sounds heard somewhere else. To discover that we can make a trumpet sound, or a violin, or piano sound—to discover the fundament of these instruments. How different this analogue, approachable logic is (a kind of logic of visible causation by which we see one thing move another with a predictable or at least repeatable result) is to the digital. The digital is abstract. The smartphone, the computer hide its mechanisms from the viewer. Opening digital devices I see only abstract plates and surfaces linked together by threads that do not move or appear to harness any connection to each other. Power hitherto visible in the movement of the devices, for example the water that pushes the wheel which turns the rod that holds the grindstone, is now out of reach for human experience. Not only has power in the form of electricity become abstract so too has the data generated by our devices. When I press a button to produce a letter on my keyboard it appears but the connection between the keyboard and the letter appearing on the screen is implicit. I may know, in a technical manner, how it got there but I cannot experience it. I cannot see and feel (or hear, or smell) the mechanism that enables the pressing of the key to the coming into existence of the letter. The digital is abstract, it is information without experience.
The digital is instant causation without experience (see also McLuhan’s remarks about electricity).
What consequence does this reading of the digital have for the lived experience in contemporary society? The products of labour have, for most, become abstractions. Where before administration still dealt with paper now it appears on a moving screen that can represent anything. Just as goods have disappeared into bureaucracy, becoming fictional entities represented in stocks and figures, so has the advent of digital transformed our relation to most communication. One trend for example (for those that can afford it) is to partake in digital detoxes, meaning that one does away with digital devices for a period to return to some analogue state of being. The word detox here is pertinent, do we consider the digital to be a necessary poison? Does using the digital take away from the experienced realm as we live in continuous and growing abstraction? But a return to analogue technology is unthinkable. The digital is here, and we are stuck with. Perhaps one positive outlook is the merging of the digital with the tactile. Virtual reality is one avenue towards this, which paradoxically might be a more analogue experience that much of our current devices offer. Touch screens and haptic feedback too are some ways in which the analogue is captured yet we cannot escape from the abstraction of the screen which began with the television (or perhaps with the written word.
Abstraction occurs in many areas of our lives of course and is not a novel insight. The infrastructure operating at home does well to hide the work required for it to operate. Wiring is obscured behind walls showing only as the magical sockets that grant live to devices. Toilets flush away waste to somewhere else and so is the water in the sinks or the garbage made invisible. Central heating warms the house with a button, heated up by a mechanism unknown to most. Many live in ignorance of the ‘out there’ where most of their waste goes, and most of their utilities (heat, electricity, internet) come from. Cloud storage infrastructure is a more recent example of the abstraction of infrastructures. Things that float in the cloud according to the metaphor are in fact huge warehouses full of servers that consume enormous amounts of electricity tucked away in some unseen corner of the land.
The cost of abstraction is that it appears to have no cost. How could the cloud consume enormous resources? in our everyday experience it is an invisible aether that conjures itself onto our, largely unmoving, computer parts. the only part of our computers that moves visibly is the fan that cools down other parts which generate heat through some arcane process. How can our waste become a huge problem as it is whisked away and made invisible?
The change from abstraction to realisation would impact our relationship with the idea of nature out there. many would realise that nature is not outside of us but that, in fact, live in and are part of nature and that the abstractions we encounter in our daily live have real, material consequences. Of course, most know this, but they do not feel it, they do not realise it. There is a wall between rational knowledge and affective knowledge. Many know, for example that the clothes they wear and products they use are made by what amounts of slave labour, yet still they are purchased. This is rational knowledge. Yet if we saw the slaves that made our clothes, we would not pay them a pittance and see them be subject to horrid circumstances. In this instance our affective or emotional understanding of the situation trumps our rational understanding.
Unfortunately, the modern age is an age where rational understanding has triumphed. Many believe science to be the solution to everything and that measurement leads to data which leads to improvement. I have no interest to tout binary oppositions as we need both rational and emotional understanding. Emotional understanding however has been driven into a corner since the start of the Enlightenment. We need emotional or affective knowledge as this is what leads us to act. Affect impulses us to do things, not cold consideration of matters. Affect pushes me to take care of the person falling on the street, not my rational understanding that it is a human who needs assistance. (Although the two are never separated but exist in parallel) This requires empathy and it is no mistake that say that those who are good listeners and emotionally mature have emotional intelligence. our vocabulary then already includes a set of words that recognises different kinds of intelligence but narrows it done, not to become too dangerous and world changing.
The difference between affective and rational understanding can be explained through the notions of theory and praxis. Theory takes the side of the rational and affect of course is praxis for we can understand something but not act on it quite easily, and we do so many times every day, but to feel something and to ignore it is a different matter altogether. The folk wisdom of rationalising things away is a daily example of this as we do not feel things away but are stuck with them and must work very hard to let them dissipate, often replacing with another feeling. As Spinoza tells us, one affect must always be replaced with another.
To break the arbitrary divide between rational and emotional intelligence requires us to do undo centuries of work done by ideologues of dualism. it requires us to dare to be vulnerable, to be selective in the images we view and select. To be able to be outraged and cry when we see things that should make us cry, to let go of cynicism under the pretence of knowing the pattern of the world. It is the fool that thinks they are smart for saying things are going bad. The wise recognises when things are going well. When war breaks out between frequent adversaries, we should not give the detached, rational, or worse so called realpolitik (what is meant by real here—cynicism!) answer but reach out and evoke (invoke) empathy and consider each conflict to be a new instance but also a new change towards reconciliation. This is difficult and one reading this might consider me daft, of course this is the cynics approach towards this proposal. Altering habits is hard work as formal schooling is almost entirely concerned with fostering rational understanding (although reason is a type of affect, as Spinoza argues). Even the rise of self-care is often cloaked in rational benefits and methods.
One word of warning is necessary as I do not wish to make the classic Cartesian distinction between mind and body, where the affective understanding is associated more with the body, and the rational more with the mind. I deny this as we think through or with the body. Rather, to draw on Spinoza the affective and rational understanding, ideally, function like the parallelism of body and mind where they think with and influence each other. These twin tracks however are misaligned as one understanding has outpaced the other due to outside influence, which the affective understanding is less susceptible too. While there are of course surprises and chance encounters that might shift our affective understanding of a situation, a bad breakup or the passing of a loved one, these are usually temporary as far as they occur, after which we return to the previous affective state before this event (meant to cheer us up) occurred. Time plays a more important role in affective understanding as it is something that is hard to rush, occurring as experience in the body. Quality time devoted to contemplation is further something many have little of in the hyper-attention reality of most modern societies.
Knowing and understanding are different (once again nothing new see also the often-discussed terms of verstehen, connaitre and savoir, kennen en weten and so on). In romantic relationship there is often a gap between knowing and the relevant feeling that should be associated with the knowing. Breaking up a romance, it might be easy to rationalise things in today’s world. the internet is abounded with advice from (pop)psychology and other things, guides or prescripts on how to feel and what to think in any niche situation. Going through hardship, I might read these things and come to some understanding which means my reason outpaces my affective understanding as I did not, through my own process (which requires time and difficulty), come to my own understanding of the event. This, somewhat paradoxically, leads to more frustrations as I have already reached a rational understanding of the situation but still feel discontent on the affective level. One then is stuck in a strange position of waiting for feelings to catch up with understanding. Better then to remain ignorant and confused perhaps and work out things over time, where the affective and rational understandings become aligned through time and contemplation following our nature.
Affective understanding does at times outpace rational understanding. This is often dressed in terms such as our ‘gut feeling’ or that we sense something is odd. These are casually negative but can be positive as well when someone implores us to follow our feelings when making a decision. Making decisions based on affective understanding is at odds with the supposed rational organisation of society and is often left as a last resort, or when we believe we do not have enough time to ‘rationally’ consider something. But remember that reason is another type of affect.
The concept of satori (悟り) might be of use here which is used in the context of Zen Buddhism and refers to that momentary and instant idea of clarity. Satori is when understanding and knowing align. In the context of this essay, it will be no surprise that I link satori to that moment of alignment between affective and rational understanding, where we, for example might know that meat eating is wrong (animal suffering, pollution and so on) yet we still eat meat. Satori here would mean that we realise on both the rational and the affective level that it is wrong and that we feel it is wrong, in essence prohibiting us from doing so, perhaps we would be disgusted when seeing meat, confronted with meat rather as the spectacle of flesh now triggers the parallelism of both kinds of knowledge. This twin understanding moves us to action.
Another idea from (zen) Buddhism is the idea that we can throw away our books and theories if we already reach some understanding of how things are. Practice above theory. In the realm of affective understanding what does practice look like? Rational understanding might be reached by reading books, studying, thinking and discussing with others. Affective understanding can be helped by these things but as put forward it occurs in the self, all emotions emanate from within ourselves. In fact, throwing away our books and theories is exactly the right course for coming to terms with affect (of course affective understanding can come from books as well, for what is literature if not a vehicle of affect but please allow me my diatribe). Affective understanding can be gained by taking a walk. Preferably a walk in the forest or some other place we have designated as nature and natural. we come to affective understanding in silence and quietness of the heart, not when bombarded with other affects instilled by the pervasive mediated environment. Let it be and take a walk. Sit in quiet in a room and if this is so distracting sit on a bench next to a tree and if it rains sit under some cover and look forward. Do not be afraid to be confronted with thoughts when walking. Keep walking. To walk properly means to be unburdened. Leave your phone and things and take only the minimum. Be warm but not too comfortable. Let the elements influence you and take in the beauty of being. Do not walk with the purpose of filtering out things or reaching some kind of goal, only walk. to walk without purpose is purpose enough. In time things will come and if they do not, it does not matter. Only walk and that is all. This is not new advice but has been repeated untold times amongst uncountable years.
Walking and sitting, preferably in nature, are the two most pure forms of spirituality. Nothing more is needed to reach affective understanding, and, in time, rational and affective understanding will align. It is in this way that we can reach harmony with ourselves and in time harmony with others.
Is it as simple as that—does this whole essay boil down to a plea for people to walk and enjoy nature more? to enjoy an unmediated encounter with the forest. Well, perhaps things are as simple as they are and we as humans tend to over complicate things.
[These essays were written the past years as writing and thinking practice. I have revised them to be somewhat presentable. This one perhaps more diatribe than proper essay but perhaps all the more fun for that.]
Not Just About Culture 
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