Sufism, Attention and Digital Colonization
Abstract
The contemporary world is being transformed by digitization. Social life, politics and economics are all in a process of flux. In this article we examine three key concepts, attention, the commons and digital colonialism. Attention economics argues that we have far too much information, but not enough attention which is scarce and rare, and has become a commodity. Attention is in short supply compared to the huge quantity of information available. The digital commons allows us to imagine attention as a shared resource such as water or air that must be distributed. Digital colonialism allows us to imagine how data and attention are resources which large companies are extracting from human consciousness just as oil and coal were previously extracted from the earth. Now attention is harvested, and data is extracted for the profits of the giant tech companies such as Meta and Google. Sufi theory and practice can provide creative solutions and a different perspective on these problems. Sufi practices of managing attention provide a different perspective. The practice of tawajjuh allows us to consider the art of spiritually orientating attention corresponding to what Foucault called technologies of the self. Sufi practices are active in knowledge production and have a theory of knowledge, marifa. They are not only an object of knowledge for the social sciences such as anthropology but active in the production of knowledge. A dialogue between Sufism and the social sciences may allow us to imagine not a scarcity of attention but an abundance.
Keywords
Sufism, Attention and Digital Colonization
Öz
The contemporary world is being transformed by digitization. Social life, politics and economics are all in a process of flux. In this article we examine three key concepts, attention, the commons and digital colonialism. Attention economics argues that we have far too much information, but not enough attention which is scarce and rare, and has become a commodity. Attention is in short supply compared to the huge quantity of information available. The digital commons allows us to imagine attention as a shared resource such as water or air that must be distributed. Digital colonialism allows us to imagine how data and attention are resources which large companies are extracting from human consciousness just as oil and coal were previously extracted from the earth. Now attention is harvested, and data is extracted for the profits of the giant tech companies such as Meta and Google. Sufi theory and practice can provide creative solutions and a different perspective on these problems. Sufi practices of managing attention provide a different perspective. The practice of tawajjuh allows us to consider the art of spiritually orientating attention corresponding to what Foucault called technologies of the self. Sufi practices are active in knowledge production and have a theory of knowledge, marifa. They are not only an object of knowledge for the social sciences such as anthropology but active in the production of knowledge. A dialogue between Sufism and the social sciences may allow us to imagine not a scarcity of attention but an abundance.
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