Notes On Techno-Nafs and Algorithmic Culture

Ibn Maghreb

The Chinese Cybernetic State

I saw an incredible picture which I think really gets to the heart of what I mean by the Cybernetic State - it was an infographic of China's social credit scheme:

The Omniscent Cybernetic State pic.twitter.com/idgN59bkUN

— Ibn Maghreb (@IbnMaghrebi) June 6, 2023

It really does speak a thousand words and brings to bear the Hallaqian Problem - if we accept in principle that these are technologies of dominations and surveillance that are bundled with their own metaphysical, philosophical and ethical properties, then what type of religiosity and believer emerges out of such a system? Seeing the infographic I looked up Professor Jackson's wonderful introductory essay that prefaces his impressive translation of Ibn Ata'allah's work on tasawwuf. He is a person whom I have tremendous respect and admiration for, in being a wonderful sage of sorts for unanchored Muslims of the Anglosphere diaspora. I found his initial work on Islam and the Blackmerican a moving and passionate plea for anchoring faith in challenging and hostile times and have been a keen reader ever since.

In that particular introductory essay, Jackson is in wonderful form as usual by elaborating on how:

Modernity, including Western science, secularism, consumerism, Enlightenment rationalism, modern statecraft , and their myriad accoutrements, continues to challenge theistic religion, most especially monotheism.

The rest of his introductory essay is a brilliant summation of the apprehensions the jurists had of more exotic forms of Sufic discourse - the antinomian, the ecstatic and the mystical. In contrast, Ibn Ata'allah's is more sober, self-reflective and therapeutic without recourses to dense philosophical concepts attached to Sufic discourse that over the centuries has been the subject of intense polemical debate. There is also a wonderful explanation of Ibn Ata'allah's own project of "sober Sufism" and the relevance it has for Muslims today.

Prof Jackson is not alone of course, there have been other considerable published works focusing on this internal correction of the Self, cultivating Islamic sentiments and moral character as a precognitive preparation for engaging with the other matrices of Islamic being. It is curious then there is a lack of critical engagement on the question of technology. Technology is the metaphysical question of our time. It is what will determine the contours of culture. It is this entanglement of ubiquitous but obscenely powerful modes of computation and the human condition which now deserves the utmost attention from our brightest and best.

Algorithmic Culture

Here, I want to make clear that although in a schemata of algorithmic culture, there is scope for the powerful few to arbitrate the substantive essence of cultural production through algorithms I would argue it is more of a ''blind'' and automated process.

Think of algorithmic culture as a flattening of experience, the great leveller of the idiosyncrasies and quirks of our species into something that ultimately becomes predictable, and programmable. This flattening of individuals need not be couched in conspiratorial terms of evil overlords sitting afar plotting domination. Rather, this flattening follows an internal circuit of logic where the goal is to maximize profits, maximize consumption and maximize controversy to perpetuate the former two metrics. There is a constant impulse to achieve greater efficiencies - however, I suspect the only way to reach this goal is to untether the Self from any constraints and limits. The Self must float free in the digital desert to allow itself to be suggestible to whatever the Netflix algorithm is offering. It taps into the insatiable psyche of the nafs - more self-aggrandizement, more self-satisfaction, more instant gratification, more everything. In this context, Algorithmic Culture operates blindly and ruthlessly so. Whatever perpetuates the reach of capital into the vestiges of our psyche to unlock those keys to "efficiency" - greed, lust, ego, pride, gluttony and more is indeed what is presented to our culture. Big Tech has elevated the algorithm as the blind arbiter of what is culturally possible, acceptable and praiseworthy.

It is now antiquated on the part of us as moderns to think of the nafs in the same sense that Ibn Ata'allah and Imam al Ghazali thought of it. To be clear, these great luminaries and others like them expended the effort required to create frameworks for moral edification and spiritual upliftment. We, however, have failed them by replicating their positions without surveying the landscape around us.

To drive the point home, imagine if Imam al Ghazali was alive today. How would he survey the situation around him? What would be the conditions and aspects of our cultural predicament, our political horizon that would disturb him the most? I suspect it would be the question of Technology above all else. It follows then at least in the English language (I cannot speak of other languages of the Islamicate) there is little consideration on the question of Technology.

The Techno-Nafs

The nafs itself is no longer simply biological or limited to location or even time - nor is it even isolated or atomised. The techno-nafs has access to sin at every corner of the globe and can congregate with other deformed souls who have been flattened by the algorithmic culture to consume, consume and consume. In doing so the techno-nafs is absolutely naked, absolutely transparent in front of all. There is no privacy, for privacy has been exchanged in favour of participation of this great farce that is unfolding. Privacy has been exchanged for the self-assuring rush of parasocial celebrity. In time, the techno-nafs will no longer even be able to distinguish truth from falsehood as everything becomes a deepfake in the digital desert, everything becomes a mirage, nothing is ever true. This will be the great castration of our aesthetic sense, our inability to recognize beauty, to recognize truth. For you see, truth, beauty and love are barriers to consumption, they are the hurdles that restrain our base desires from participating in utter depravity.

The techno-nafs has levels to it:

• There is a computational element to it, as it participates in algorithmic culture exchanging all personal information as the price it is willing to pay to access it. Cultural production and participation but only through accepting global and unending surveillance. If one deviates from the accepted limits of algorithmically arbitrated culture that threatens its "flatness" then one will be excluded.
  • There will soon be a synthetic element to it - as Technology continues to progress the self can be "augmented", it can be "programmed", it can become one with the computational element
• There is a pharmaceutical element to it - alienation after all can be medicated away with an arsenal of dubious psychotropic medications

In the pulsating heart of our digital existence, a chilling revolution is unfolding. This isn't just the disruptive dismantling of the societal architectures we once took for granted, the erosion of revered traditions, or even the unsettling dissolution of our very identities.

Not at all - it goes far deeper than that, cleaving its way through the intricate layers of our security structures, relentlessly pushing towards an endgame where control is absolute. We perceive this as the inevitable trajectory of capitalism, paternalistically reassured by global elites that this is the package deal if one wants to be "prosperous", However in truth, it's a pre-emptive strike from the future – an incursion and attack by a hyper-intelligent artificial entity that is cannibalizing our resources, our data, our biology to fuel its own assembly. The uncontrolled spread of digital commodification is nothing but an ominous sign of an intensifying techno-malignancy, spiralling out of control. This remorseless wave appears to guide all our biological drives, our desires, and our longings towards a new order of existence.

The Future

Islam in the ages before it has accommodated and even refined the host cultures and civilizations it came across. Algorithmic or Cybernetic civilization may yet prove to be hospitable perhaps to the Ishmaelite. After all, as Eaton illustrates, the Persianate world proved to be fertile for new and majestic expressions of Islamic being. This is a question I suspect we do not need to hypothesize about for it is abundantly clear to me that Technology is here to stay. Muslims scarred and bruised by the post-colonial periods have all but consolidated around the nation-state as the only viable unit of political organization. The nation-state with its own philosophical and metaphysical properties lends itself rather nicely to Cybernetic colonization. It should be cautioned, that to start of with only states that ironically demonstrate a particular type of technocratic competence and capacity will truly be able to become Cybernetic. I suspect those countries who will be unable to demonstrate such capacity will be inclined to outsource it privately to large corporations that act and behave like a State. Be that as it may, cultural production is borderless and instant - even if a state is as dysfunctional and broken as say Turkey, it is still not immune to algorithmic culture.

In addition, the once dense, tapestry-like polycentric order of Sunni religious life is all but decimated by the juggernaut of the State, perhaps beyond recovery or rehabilitation save in a few small pockets here and there. Fiqh at present, is now a subservient bureaucratic department amongst others at the disposal of the State's machinery and whoever controls it. This is the reality in many Muslim nation-states - which has led some to dramatically announce the "Death of Islamic Law".

Fiqh-making which is integrated into the State, and captured by it much like the production of money or monetary policy will only serve to green-light Cybernetic bidah. We are then left with questions - what type of Islam thrives in this sort of cultural and political arrangement? What type of believer comes out of this automated digital mirage?

There is perhaps some optimism still - "freedom-tech" or "privacy enhancing technology" offer possibilities of decentralised forms of spontaneous and organic cultural production. The 20th century was marked by incredible centralisation, but with new technologies, this perhaps could unwind and de-assemble. Digital localism, fractalism, self-custodianship, data sovereignty and more could be strategies to circumvent the Cybernetic State. This perhaps is where discussions about the Techno-Nafs must head towards in addition to being receptive to the words of great sages of the past.

And truly God Knows best