Literally, respect means “to look back.” It stands for consideration and caution [Rücksicht]. Respectful interaction with others involves refraining from curious staring. Respect presupposes a distanced look—the pathos of distance. Today, it is yielding to the obtrusive staring of spectacle. The Latin verb spectare, from which spectacle derives, is voyeuristic gazing that lacks deferential consideration—that is, respect (respectare). Distance is what makes respectare different from spectare. A society without respect, without the pathos of distance, paves the way for the society of scandal.
Respect forms the foundation for the public, or civil, sphere. When the former weakens, the latter collapses. The decline of civil society and a mounting lack of respect are mutually conditioning. Among other things, civil society requires respectfully looking away from what is private. Taking distance is what constitutes the public sphere. Today, however, a complete lack of distance and deference prevails: intimate matters are put on display, and the private is made public. Let’s call it a matter of stance: Without distance, it is impossible to be in good standing. Understanding also requires a distanced perspective. Across the board, digital communication is abolishing distance and distances. The corollary of dwindling spatial distance is the erosion of mental distance. Digital mediality works to the detriment of respect. In contrast, isolating and setting apart—as in the adyton of ancient Greek temples—generates admiration and reverence.
When distance proves lacking, the public and the private become confused. Digital communication is fostering this pornographic display of intimacy and the private sphere. Social networks wind up being exhibition rooms for highly personal matters. As such, the digital medium privatizes communication by shifting the site where information is produced. Roland Barthes defined the private sphere as “that zone of space, of time, where I am not an image, an object.”1 But if this the case, we no longer have any private sphere at all: no zone exists where I am not an image, where no camera is in operation. Google Glass even transforms the human eye into a camera. The eye itself generates images. In consequence, the private sphere cannot hold. Compulsive icono-pornography is abolishing it entirely.
Respect is tied to names. Anonymity and respect rule each other out. The anonymous communication promoted by digital media is dismantling respect on a massive scale. It is also responsible for the expanding culture of indiscretion and disrespect. Social media shitstorms are anonymous, too. That is the source of their power. Names and respect are linked. A name provides the basis for recognition, which always occurs by name. Practices that involve responsibility, trustworthiness, and reliability are also tied to being named. Trust may be defined as faith in the name. Giving answers and promising are also acts of the name. The digital medium—which separates messages from messengers, news from its source—is destroying names.
Shitstorms occur for many reasons. They arise in a culture where respect is lacking and indiscretion prevails. The shitstorm represents an authentic phenomenon of digital communication. As such, it differs fundamentally from yesteryear’s angry letters to the editor. Inasmuch as letters are tied to the analog medium of writing, they are named events. Anonymous letters are readily discarded. Moreover, letters possess a different temporality. As the writer laboriously composes a missive by hand or on a typewriter, immediate agitation and excitement pass. In contrast, digital communication enables affective discharge right away. On the basis of its temporality alone, it conveys impulsive reactions more than analog communication does. In this respect, the digital medium is a medium of affect.
Digital networking favors symmetrical communication. Today, participants in communication do not just consume information passively: they generate it actively. No univocal hierarchy separates the sender from the receiver. Everyone is sender and receiver—consumer and producer—in one. However, such symmetry exists to the detriment of power. The communication of power passes in one direction—from top to bottom. Now, communicative reflux is destroying the existing regimes of power. Shitstorms amount to kind of reflux, with all the destructive effects that this entails.
The shitstorm is emblematic of displacements within the economy of power governing political communication. It swells in spaces where power and authority have weakened. In particular, shitstorms flourish where hierarchies have flattened out. As a medium, power ensures that communication flows speedily in one direction. The choices effected by the intendant of power are followed silently, as it were, by the subjects of power. Sound, or noise, provides an acoustic cue that power is faltering. The shitstorm is communicative noise, too. The best shield against shitstorms would be charisma—that is, an auratic expression of power. Charisma prevents shitstorms from brewing up in the first place.
The presence of power increases the likelihood that my decisions will be accepted by others. As a medium of communication, power increases the probability of yes, given the possibility of no. Yes is significantly quieter than no. No is always loud. Powerful communication reduces sound and noise—that is, it reduces communicative entropy. An authoritative pronouncement eliminates burgeoning noise in one fell swoop. It generates silence, which represents room for action.
As a medium of communication, respect operates in a manner that is similar to power. The person granted respect holds views or makes decisions that are commonly accepted and taken on without contradiction or objection. Often, the respected individual provides an example to be followed. Such emulation corresponds to the ready, indeed the anticipatory, obedience of power. Shitstorms, which are noisy, start precisely when and where respect diminishes. A person granted respect does not stand subject to shitstorms. Respect is constituted by ascriptions of personal and moral value. A general decline in values is making the culture of respect crumble. Today’s role models demonstrate no inner values. External qualities distinguish them, above all.
Power is a state of asymmetry. It founds a hierarchical relationship. The communication of power does not occur dialogically. Unlike power, respect does not necessarily imply asymmetrical conditions. Respect is often felt for role models or superiors, yet mutual respect is possible based on symmetrical recognition. Accordingly, a ruler may even have respect for those he rules. Today, the shitstorms that are bubbling up everywhere point to the fact that we are living in a society without mutual respect. Respect commands distance. Both power and respect make space; they are distance-creating communicative media.
Sovereignty needs to be redefined in light of shitstorms. According to Carl Schmitt, sovereignty is a matter of deciding when a state of exception holds. This doctrine may be translated into acoustic terms. Sovereignty means being able to produce absolute quiet—eliminating all noise and making all others fall silent in a single stroke. Schmitt’s life did not coincide with the era of digital networks. It would surely have plunged him into a state of utter crisis. Schmitt’s biography reveals a fear of waves that he experienced throughout his life. Shitstorms are also a kind of wave, which escape all control. In old age, Schmitt is said to have had the radio and television removed from his house. In light of electromagnetic waves, he even found it necessary to reformulate his famous thesis on sovereignty: “After the First World War, I said: ‘Sovereign is he who decides on the exception.’ After the Second World War, in view of my own death, I now say: ‘Sovereign is he who commands the waves of space.’”2 Following the digital revolution, we need to reformulate Schmitt’s words on sovereignty yet again: Sovereign is he who commands the shitstorms of the Net.