The Hyperpolitics of Our Digital Democracy

Heryunanto

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Political participation has migrated from the sharing of opinions in public forums, newspapers, on the radio, television and in street demonstrations to touch screens.

Demonstrations certainly remain, but this time they are provoked and commanded from smartphones. Politics is no longer scary. Clicks on the screen are seen as without risk. So now everything, regardless of remarks, slips of the tongue or swearwords, can be “cooked” into politics.

In politics, we take sides because we seek to secure our interests. Politics is indeed composed of the perception of interests so that nothing on this Earth is neutral in the eyes of politics, The polarization during the 2019 presidential election, capable of disturbing friendship and even splitting families, could be carried on everywhere.

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When the victorious President embraced his rival camp the polarization should have ceased and been promptly replaced with deliberation. Sadly, that was not the case. The electoral polarization continued in the form of informal opposition on social media. It seems that this is our digital democracy today.

In a democratic constitutional state, polarization need not be endless because it has to arrive at legal resolutions mutually complied with. A constitutional state and democracy are complementary. A constitutional state needs democracy to prevent tyranny and democracy needs a constitutional state to prevent anarchy. The presidential election ends, the new government carries out its programs and all parties once in conflict should support it.

Democracy needs to be safeguarded by law. Post-election politics should display another face: no obsession to overthrow the legitimate power but rather determination to exercise control within the legal corridor. Such politics can still be agonistic, but within the framework of improvement.

Spoiling opponents’ face

Field conditions are of course different. Political voices are often attenuated by a rigid procedure and system. The desire to oppose also finds new spaces of freedom that are almost without walls, which is social media. It is there that disappointments in, and aversions toward political opponents are strongly voiced beyond good and evil. The clamors need not be true, but they have to be controversial, sensational and extreme in order to draw attention amid the flood of information. Their target is to spoil the face of opponents through gadgets. It seems that our digital democracy justifies the view of Nazi legal expert Carl Schmitt. What are the political results from the dichotomous division into friends and enemies? “Every religious, moral, economic, ethnic or other antithesis,” he wrote, “transforms itself into a political one if it is sufficiently strong to group human beings effectively into friends and enemies”. If it happens at the time of presidential election campaigning, this nota bene is a kind of game for peaceful succession, this is still normal. The General Elections Commission (KPU) can blow its whistle.

Friends and opponents in campaigning are in competition instead of enmity. However, in our country, this dichotomy does not end after the election. Conflict between friends and foes spreads everywhere, involving religion, politics, culture and policies.

Why does it happen? May it be due to the high enthusiasm for opposition? Is it because of stifled dissatisfaction? There are many other maybes. But one thing is quite clear: social media content contributes to the protracted polarization. Polarization is something sensational and controversial so it can always attract the eyes to stare at phone screens.

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On the screens we no longer face ordinary politics, but rather hyperpolitics. In democratic politics, the fight between friends and opponents is limited by the frame of the constitutional state system. In hyperpolitics this frame is released. Hyperpolitics expands the dichotomy to cover the fight of Weltanschauung (world view).

Opponents in politics are natural as people are contesting for power. But this opposition becomes undue if the opponents are perceived as enemies of religion. The dichotomy between friends and opponents is already found in scriptures.

The opponents in the scriptures originate in the eras when the texts were written, but the enmity they contain is preserved through sermons. There

are not only the Jews, the infidels, but also Satan. These can be turned into flexible categories, to include whatever is disliked or whoever has differing interests. They may be other religious believers, political opponents, the government or even the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia (NKRI). In the hands of extremists, religion is used as a source of hyperpolitics. What is sacred is degraded into a means for the instinct for power.

The problem is that people normally find it hard to keep a distance from their religion. Religion becomes their identity. The dichotomy between friends and opponents not only operates in their minds but also in their hearts. If the demagogy of extremist ulema enters their minds, their hearts also respond to it. The hatred of enemies and its products constitute the project of hyperpolitics.

Yet we should be cautious. If we begin to see a demon in a concrete object or person as a result of the extremists’ demagogy, the demon actually has already lodged in our eyes, not in the object or person we see.

As is the case with other hypers, there is a feeling of addiction or attachment. The obsession impoverishes perception. If one is affected by hypersex, one is craving sex, one with hyperpolitics is craving politics, so that there is no ability to perceive nonpolitical matters. Whatever, a person or object, is to be seen either in the category of friends or foes. More than a mere difference of opinions, it involves misleading thoughts and even psychological disorders.

The danger of hyperpoliticization is real. What was originally a message, video or picture can later appeared before us as a civil servant, college student, school pupil or even our partner. They are not avatars. The internet has long been a media of radicalism. But the danger is not only religious radicalism that ruins national tolerance and solidarity. Hyperpoliticization can also disturb government policies intended to promote public welfare.

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Policy controversy is normal and even necessary in democracy. But if future policies are less publicly deliberated, there will be a chance for hyperpoliticization by the informal opposition in social media.

The previous controversy over the Job Creation Law ended in unruly demonstrations. Recently there was the case of Wadas and the Bener Dam project. The facts were obscured by the many interests and reports circulating on social media, positioning the government as a tyrannical regime. Hyperpolitcization means the eyes fail to observe the problem clearly. Everything is to be dragged into politics as far as the 2024 presidential election, while many things are yet to be settled technically, legally and socioeconomically today.

Turn eyes to reality

It is better to turn our eyes to the screen of reality. One of the causes of hyperpoliticization is the lack of corporeal interaction. Outside the screen are many nonpolitical and nonreligious matters. We should have a quiet break that makes us realize how far we have misperceived others. Colleagues, neighbors, partners, rival party members are not politics.

They are not—in the term of Rorty—“the wrong sort of humans” who are stigmatized in the digital content as “infidels”, “communists”, “tadpoles” or “desert lizards”. As we are, they are concrete individuals with many aspects, but that can also be hurt.

To reduce hyperpoliticization, increase corporeal interaction (now with health protocols). A restorative dialogue forum may be needed to strengthen the commitment of our nation. Public deliberation and the opening of communication channels between the government and civil society should be intensified. For the reduction of wild opposition, the possibility of institutionalization of the opposition should be considered so that the checks-and-balance mechanism works with public civility. Finally, digital communication ethics should be instructed from elementary school, even included in our curriculum if necessary.

So, let’s speedily return to reality, before hyperpolitics divides our concrete republic.

F Budi Hardiman, Professor of Philosophy at Pelita Harapan University

This article was translated by Aris Prawira.