Social Network, Performative Language, and Platonic Problems. About Creativity in the Virtual World
Social Network, Performative Language, and Platonic Problems. About Creativity in the Virtual World

Summary/Abstract: The article tackles the relationship between the way we represent ourselves in the social network and the old Platonic problem of representation, as it was highlighted in Mihnea Măruță’s book, Virtual Identity. Why and How are We Transformed by the Social Media, 2023. Drawing on the idea that the seduction of the social network comes from the illusion of centrality and power, the book equally reiterates the threat of freedom it involves. Pondering on arguments highlighted by Horea Poenar and Érik Bordeleau in a dialogue published in the volume Inflexiuni, 2022, as well as on the symbolic fault lines explored by writers such as Nancy Huston, Ingeborg Bachmann, and Elena Ferrante, the article proves that the creative multilayers of natural languages, involving “untranslatable” resources for truth, care, and justice, should not be leveled down to the translational achievements of a powerful engine. Moreover, the “perforating language” invoked by Achille Mbembe, which is meant to create a “terrestrial community,” should be able to express the scale of infinite probabilities on which information is performed nowadays, in a more creative way.

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