Disrupting subjectivity — How tech, true art, and politics challenge social norms

The rise of social norms

Social norms are created to limit or promote certain behaviors and arise because of historical needs and circumstances. These norms define what is acceptable through prohibitions and encouragement, and by defining our individual role in enforcing these rules. For example, the prohibition to eat a product in a specific date, to discuss sensitive subjects, to use or alter our bodies in particular ways, or to change our states of consciousness with certain substances are all forms of social norms in the form of interdiction. Norms can also take a more action-oriented form and promote socially ‘desirable’ behaviors, like encouraging people to be polite, give money to charity, or serve their communities. Social norms also define our role in keeping the status quo. This means that they determine when we have the right and duty to call out others on their words and actions and when we’re supposed to remain quite and act indifferent.

Justified or not, norms have a genealogy, a reason for coming into being. With time the original reasons dilute in memory and the norms become established in tradition. They might be passed down generations as religion, identity, or written as laws that are enforced by institutions.

Here I’ll refer to social transformation as the process by which social norms appear or vanish from the public sphere. In particular I’ll focus on the process of disappearance of outdated social norms and how tech, art and politics interact and get feedback from each other to make this happen.

Disruption of subjectivity

There are many ways in which tech, art and politics can interact. For example, a technological breakthrough may introduce new techniques and tools for the arts. On the other hand the arts may introduce new concepts or ideas for tech to explore. Artists and new technologies also influence the political system, by re-defining what is socially acceptable. From all theses possibilities, I’d like to talk about one way in which the three social systems interact and contribute to the process of social change. Let’s call it the disruption of subjectivity model.

It happens in three steps that can be simultaneous, but I’ll describe them sequentially here for the sake of simplicity. Briefly explained, this model works as follows. At first, when new technologies are introduced, they create new forms of communication and production that challenge established social norms. These challenges don’t displace the norms, but the new social practices emerged from the disruption create a cognitive dissonance that induces social tension. In a second stage, the arts become aware of these outdated social norms and, through critique, slowly push for a change of personal subjectivity in members of society. The third stage begins once a major change in subjectivity has occurred and the irrelevance of the outdated social practice becomes conscious to the general public. Here we enter the political realm, where interest groups take stances on the issue.

Stage 1: Tech disruption

The appearance of new technology modifies communication, exchange, production, consumption, relationships and other form of social activity. Think for example in the invention of major technology like the wheel, telephone, internet, or social media, and how these technologies changed their worlds. Technological breakthroughs open up spaces of unknown territory that may take the form of new economic opportunities, power balance shift, new possibilities to exercise power or dissent, methods of providing, fabricating, or exchanging products, or alternatives means of coordinating large groups of people. These open spaces change the dynamics of human interaction, which at the same time challenge established norms, making them less relevant and justified.

The original reason norms appeared in the first place is challenged by the social effects of technological advance, leaving them as arbitrary rules without reason of being. This doesn’t mean that norms cease to exist immediately. On the contrary, they have a powerful inertia and an institutional system that backs them up. They continue to exist and may try to reinforce their prevalence through inquisitive backlashes aimed towards stopping the ideas that question what is socially acceptable. Nevertheless, this backlash doesn’t change the fact that the social norm has been contested and will eventually need to be either updated or eliminated.

Stage 2: True art and the change of subjectivity

The role art plays at this point is to shed light on these outdated social practices. With art I mean the broad spectrum of human creative expression, not any particular form of it. Social practices and norms are customs, and for this reason they don’t vanish immediately. Some artist will see the contradiction of these norms with their contemporary reality and criticize their practice and the hypocrisy of the institutions and officials who enforce them. At first these artists will be condemned as outcasts, decadent, obscene, and traitors in relation to the social institution they criticize. Nevertheless, this is only temporary, as they are merely the vanguard of a shift in social consciousness that’s unstoppable.

Art is more effective than abstract ideas or theories in generating shifts in subjectivity. Art appeals to empathy and emotion, jumping over the monolithic wall of the rational mind that always finds a way to keep its original point of view. Art creates the identity in which the rational ideas are processed, through a slower but more profound process. In that sense, art has the power to frame the rational mind.

Because of this power, the role that true art plays in social transformation, whatever its medium or style, is to challenge outdated norms and open the mind to new possibilities. At this point, due to their different motivations and effects, it’s important to make a distinction between true art and entertainment/institutional art. This last one doesn’t challenge outdated practices, but serves the contrary purpose — to perpetuate the established narratives, paradigms and ideologies. In that sense it’s Anti-Art. It doesn’t challenge the individuals to re-evaluate their beliefs, but helps them cope with alienation, forget the world and comply.

As an example, entertainment is the movie we watch to relax on the weekend, the video game we play after a long day of work, the background music we listen while doing a boring task, the elitist concert we attend to show off on our social media, or anything that distracts us from our current condition. Institutionalized art, whether it’s commercial entertainment or academic elitism, has the ultimate intention of preserving things as they are.

On the contrary, true art is the one that challenges your points of view. It is rebellious in nature and, even when pleasant on the surface, creates discomfort. True art sticks a finger up your ass, challenging your convictions beyond what you find pretty or ugly, and opening you up to new human possibilities. For these reasons true art doesn’t refer to a particular style, technique, group of artists, or aesthetic trend, but to the potential it carries to transform subjectivity and identity. It can exist in any form or style and it’s made true by its power and intention to transform us at our core.

When the slow process of changing individual subjectivity has taken place, and the outcast artists have become more mainstream figures, then the process becomes political.

Stage 3: The political struggle

In the political realm, intellectuals, ideologists, and demagogues articulate collective subjectivity into public discourse and narratives. These ideas are adopted by established or new political organizations that transform them into political demands.

These groups push their agenda to reform or erase the laws and institutions associated with the original outdated norm. Of course there will be groups that will rely on this norms to preserve their social position. This will create new backlashes that will appear to re-enforce the norms. These backlashes make the process non-linear and might at times give the impression that things move backwards. Nevertheless, in the big picture, once an outdated social norm is contested it is only a matter of time until it’s replaced.

Just before being totally replaced, the defenders of the outdated social norm will do a last effort of survival. In its last breath of life, and without any legitimacy or moral authority left in it, they will turn into violence and repression as a last resource. Violence can be effective, but only temporarily. When violence ultimately fails to preserve control, as it always does, the old social norm dies and is replaced by an new one.