Chapter Five: Simplex Communication Society

Disregard of frames in a statement, or mixing up its frame and sphere, have become a daily affair. Cases discussed here comprise, among others, idyllic alpine communities voting extremely, an internal conflict in a university, stock exchange crazes, international boycotts, cultural essentialism normalizing structural inequality, the shootings by incels and a documentary about Britney Spears. Frames distend or spheres contract. The recent anthropological theories of ontology and intersectionality cannot account for the dynamic characterizing the epoch. The chapter sketches the impasse of the Anthropocene in terms of the macro-context of global information networks. Is a massive shift of lifeway conceivable today? The chapter illustrates and applies the six obstructions proper to simplex communication: unidimensional, unmediated, disconnected, frameless, fragmented, viral. Together these prevent the shifting of frames, cause spheres to fragment into bubbles, and counter an important intuitive energy, that of belonging to the human species. The process has a history gradually involving wider scales of society. Lifeways determine how the affects of trust, sense of impact and connection are transformed.