As I've said often enough, exclusivity is everywhere in human congress. In certain key respects it is at the heart of the culture. It lurks in all its partnerships and relationships, in marriage, family and friendships, in business and in all the social structures.

This is what bothers me about the social networks of the internet age. There is something false there in their apparent inclusiveness. They seem to suggest that everyone can come join the party. I think they are pretentious in this regard given that it is exclusivity that defines how most people are in their actual lives. It is maybe not how they think they are, or how they would like to be, but it is far more often than not how they behave.

This “I have 2785 friends” as found on social websites is risible although it is probably worth pointing out that these virtual relationships have the same non-entity status that many actual relationships have. They appear to be there and a connection can be inferred but it is usually false. They exist in a kind of autism where relationships are disconnected and instrumental, there to perform a function rather than to cross a divide. They feed the selfish temperament and service the base animal nature before they act in service to genuine spirituality.

Good relationships are rare if they exist at all. Social network sites are further examples of non-relationships made worse by their pretentious attempt at being associative. That there might be something altruistic or sophisticated about them is fallacious. People still go out to go in. They define themselves as much by what they are not than by what they are. This is not about the joy of connecting and the challenge of exploration. It is about something far less enriching than that.