Twitter: The Tragedy of the Digital Commons
As we watch Twitter rapidly implode under the ethnocidal guidance of the world’s richest man, I keep on thinking about an awful essay written in 1968 that has tragically remained for me a recurring topic of discussion over the last three years, and especially the last handful of months.
This essay is “The Tragedy of the Commons” written by Garrett Hardin—who was a white supremacist—and despite the dangers of his ideas, his essay is still being taught in schools today. When students learn about “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Hardin’s white supremacy is ignored and never taught, and now American students are being fed ideas for how to live in the world that unbeknownst to them are based upon white supremacy.
The premise of Hardin’s essay is that the commons, or shared common space, will inevitably end in tragedy because at some point an individual’s pursuit of their own self-interest will go against the common good and destroy the commons. The inevitable expression of selfishness was unavoidable to Hardin, so he advised his fellow Americans to exist without a commons.
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Hardin’s idea is both absurd and dangerous, but it has resonated with Americans for half a century because America’s ethnocidal culture professes that American individualism makes us exceptional. Americans are told to do things on their own and to view help as a sign of weakness. The collective help that a commons can provide has now become stigmatized and demonized. Becoming a “self-made” billionaire has become arguably the pinnacle of American life, and Americans are being taught that a meaningful existence consists of the individualistic pursuit of wealth.
Hardin’s essay proclaims that humanity’s basic instinct is the individualistic pursuit of one’s self-interest, which is often the pursuit of wealth, at the expense of other people. Hardin’s essay, albeit without this intention, explains why American individualism prevents the United States from creating something for the common good because even if we do, our exceptional individualism will find a way to destroy it.
His essay explains how and why our society is prone to turning an American triumph into an American tragedy, and this brings us back to the debacle that Twitter has become.
Neither Digital Nor Physical Commons
Thankfully, I was never taught about Hardin’s bad ideas while in school, and I only learned about it after creating SCL. I learned about “The Tragedy of the Commons” when I would talk to people about an example of Eǔtopia—a sustainable, nurturing good place—and Hardin’s ideas would often be used as an example for explaining how an Eǔtopian place would fail.
Most conversations would start with me explaining ethnocide and how the destruction of a people’s culture while keeping the people would create a society contingent upon division and devoid of common spaces.
A society only keeps a people after destroying their culture if they desire to exploit and oppress them. The oppressors need to maintain a divided society so that they can easily identify the people they intend to oppress. The ethnocidal transatlantic slave trade cultivated racial distinctions between the oppressors and the oppressed, and sustaining this division became a foundational status quo in America.
Within ethnocidal division, common spaces become a threat to white existence for two main reasons. First, if non-white people are allowed to collectively gather and have a common space, they then could potentially organize themselves and rebel against their white oppressors. Secondly, if white and non-white people shared common space then the likelihood of interracial coupling would increase and America’s whiteness would slowly fade away since “one drop” of non-whiteness will erase one’s white identity.
For a white supremacist like Hardin, the commons was destined to fail because his existence as a white ethnocider under the “one-drop rule” of white essence, or identity, depended on its failure. The tragedy resides with Hardin and not the commons.
To sustain American whiteness our society has prioritized privatization, and “common space” has become something that you need to pay for or was exclusive to white Americans. Various types of private clubs became the new “common space.” During Jim Crow, public spaces such as swimming pools, parks and beaches were off limits to Black Americans, and now the commons had become the exclusive domain of white Americans.
The commons had now become exclusive to white Americans or rich Americans, and therefore it was no longer the commons. It had become an expensive subpar replica that in fact was the opposite of the commons, and instead a tool for oppression and division.
After explaining to people how the normalized division of ethnocide created a bad place, they would then want to know if I had a vision for a good place. I would then talk to them about Eǔtopia and how common spaces were a vital part of an Eǔtopian environment. This is often the moment that someone would mention Hardin, and this rebuttal always fascinated me because these people wanted to know what a good place could look like, had practically no concept of a lived-in good place, and yet were confident that common spaces were unsustainable because they believed in the ideas espoused by a white supremacist in the 1960s.
For years, I have heard people question the viability of cultivating a physical commons in America, yet at the same time they also embrace social media, which is merely an attempt at creating a digital commons to fill the void caused by American ethnocide’s destruction of the commons. These people need a commons, but due to America’s ethnocidal culture they only know how to destroy it. Therefore, their goal is not to become a less destructive person, but to create or find a commons that cannot be destroyed by their self-interest. Allegedly, this commons can be found online.
Social media exists as an unsustainable attempt to create a digital commons, and it is logical that America would seek to both create and ultimately destroy their digital commons. The inability to create a physical commons will incline Americans to make online commons such as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace, yet our American way of life will also destroy the digital commons just like we did with the physical commons.
And as we destroy the digital commons, Americans will then pursue the creation of a commons that is even further removed from reality such as the metaverse. Facebook has rebranded itself as Meta because the toxicity of its digital commons has already shown that self-interest may destroy it, and that they may need to move the commons to the metaverse to survive.
Elon Musk is a self-interested billionaire that was raised in apartheid South Africa. Now he owns one of the largest digital commons in the world. It should be no surprise to anyone that his presence would bring the destruction of the commons, and transform it into a place that embraces Donald Trump and the white supremacist language that comes with him.
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Third Places Should be First Places
Last week during my class at the George Washington University, one of my students brought up the idea of “third places,” and the idea behind this relatively new term speaks to the colossal problem the United States confronts when it attempts to create common spaces.
Considering that America has attempted to exist without common spaces, the idea of third places does represent some form of progress, but more than anything it describes a society whose priorities are out of order.
Third places are simply common spaces where people can commune and gather that are neither their home nor work. Within this theory, your home is the first place and your work is your second place. Every society needs these three types of places, but most importantly we need to know how to prioritize these places.
In the United States, third places are clearly the last priority. We worry about third places after we have created first and second places, and our priorities result in the destruction of third places. America’s unwise prioritization of these three places corrupts third places because second places can easily consume first and third places.
One’s home may be one person’s first place, but it may also be a landlord’s or bank’s second place. Collecting rent or a mortgage is another person’s work, and now people must find a second place so that they can afford to live in their first place. Third places now become a luxury for those who have the time and money to live without working.
Eventually, those who cannot afford the luxury of third places will ask for them and soon thereafter common spaces or third places will become a business venture. The rise and collapse of the co-working platform We Work speaks to the inevitable destruction of the commons. We Work, and co-working spaces more broadly, exist to create a common space where people can freely work next to each other, but these common spaces can only survive if they continue to generate revenue. They are businesses or private clubs that proclaim to be common spaces.
They are second places masquerading as third places, but the charade is not due to bad faith or malicious intent. The charade exists because it is incredibly difficult to create a third place within a society that is philosophically opposed to their existence. To change this dynamic, we must understand that common spaces, or “third places,” can only exist if they are the first place.
To cultivate a more wise society we must build the common spaces first, then we can build the homes, and lastly the businesses.
The town square has long been a common space that exists as the heartbeat of a city, and vibrant town squares can thrive for centuries. Secondly, a home can be the gathering place for a family, and sustain that family for generations. The longevity of a family home is normally less than a town square, but considerably longer than a business.
The place where one works should be far less stable than where one lives or where your community gathers. Businesses collapse everyday, but families do not. Despite common spaces and family bonds being more stable than businesses, America has elected to embark on an unwise way of life where the instability of businesses consume all aspects of life.
Twitter allegedly existed as a digital commons, but it was always a bad business that struggled to make money. It had a high valuation despite being an unprofitable business because it clearly provided a service that millions of people and businesses needed. It existed as a town square or common space, and what I would call a “first place.”
If history can be any indication of future events, Twitter will probably collapse as Musk attempts to transform it into a profitable business. In America, Musk’s absurdity is celebrated because businesses are valued more than common spaces, so the destruction of the commons and replacing it with a business is encouraged. Eventually, Twitter will become less stable, less necessary, and fall apart as most businesses do.
Musk is simply following the ethnocidal playbook for how you destroy the commons.
My book THE CRIME WITHOUT A NAME was released on October 12, 2021 and NPR has picked it as one of the top books of the year!
You can order the book—including the audiobook—and watch recordings of my book tour discussions at Eaton and the New York Public Library at thecrimewithoutaname.com
And yet Musk gives you a censor free platform at the cost of $44 billion that he will probably never recover so you can be free to spew your racism. You should kiss the ground he walks on. Feel free to censor this post. I'll understand why.