Anxiety and Fear Regarding the “Other” and Social Media

In an attempt to normalize civility in government following the Trump administration, President Biden invoked the American ideals of tolerance, equality, and social justice—ego-ideals seriously undermined by public fears of the Other. These fears include Latin American immigrants crossing the border, alternative political views, and social platforms such as TikTok depersonalizing intellectuality and infringing on individual rights to privacy. In this essay, I discuss the inherent contradictions between stated ideals and unstated fears in the American psyche.

When considering American idealism and group attitudes toward immigration, many Americans’ preferences for foreign products (notably TikTok) made by Chinese multinational corporations, Americans’ racial antipathy toward Asians, and Americans’ fear that China may surpass the U.S. economically, can overshadow America’s democratic values. Unconscious fears and biases surrounding group identifications shape beliefs and consumption of online technologies. Paradoxically, the more popular the social media platform, the more conflicted Americans become about it.

A better understanding of the psychological roots of prejudice and the politics of grievance can shed light on some of the challenges posed by social media advances. Vamık Volkan uses the terms “chosen glory” or “chosen trauma” to describe shared mental images of historical events that are transmitted from generation to generation, resulting in or conserving bias and antipathy. What incites violence against a minority group is anxiety turning into a fear that the dominant group could be “erased” and “replaced” by the outsider. The same technology that promises to bring together various nationalities may support democratic ideals as well as subvert them.

One mechanism of this transmission is projective identification (unconscious projection of unwanted characteristics onto another group). This may be among the root causes of racism and group classification. As Karyne Messina (2021) commented in Clio’s Psyche, “finding others in the physical and digital universes willing to engage in curiosity-driven discussions rather than indulge in [group] bullying is rare” (p. 57). Volkan observed that if we can develop working relations with our adversaries during peaceful periods, perhaps we can learn to reactivate understanding

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in times of conflict.

But how does this fear of the Other manifest itself with regard to technology? Psychoanalytically speaking, the two principles that seem to dominate preoccupation with an adversary are sameness and difference. Because the Other is a reservoir of one’s unwanted impulses and representations, reflecting unconscious stigmas or desires, he or she rejects it. By contrast, one can think of the word “like” on Facebook and other platforms not only as a sign of preference but also of intuited camaraderie. Thus, one’s sense of self and membership in a group obliges that person to see likeness while compelling him or her to identify difference.

That which is similar is an extension of me and is therefore safe and good. That which is dissimilar is not an extension of me and is therefore unsafe and bad. Americans’ fear of the immigrant outsider boils down to the fear that those rejected characteristics are within us. The better way to hear other groups is by expanding openness through deepening self-reflection and listening carefully to them. As a graduate student of Global Security, I wrestle with these issues, despite my instructors’ remoteness from the language of psychoanalysis.

From a Freudian perspective, fear of the outsider is derived from early psychic development in which the ego is formed through various identifications with one’s own group, conditioned by acknowledgments of the idealized family, the beloved society, and concomitantly, the Other. Aligning these psychological and social realities can help us discern the blind spots in recognizing unconscious biases. Fear is a primal instinct that can be channeled into aggression and prejudice against the despised Other and exploited by politicians.

Hostility toward immigrants is clear in racial tropes of the kind seen on Trump’s Truth Social platform after he was banned from Twitter. These posts reinforce and exploit a mob mentality celebrating sameness rooted in perceived differences from the Other. The favoring of the indigenous “White culture” against immigrants or outsiders manifests as an effort to demonize the “alien” group, including the LBGTQ+ community. This stymies a willingness to hear the Other, obstructs realistic discussion, and precludes empathy. Companies such as TikTok, used by the masses under the age of 30, reinforce the consumer-self by tracking interaction with self-censoring algorithms and storing data to

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produce a “For You” page. It is programmed to capture your attention, erecting an echo chamber while veiling you from opposing views.

On a larger scale, globalization tends to conflate ideology and market interest—and the covetous mercenaries that reap its payoff are not always “global” or “tolerant.” Rather, they are often infected with nationalism—magnifying exclusionary nationalist sentiments with anti-elite, xenophobic, and protectionist discourses. Trump’s attempts to wall off the Other’s points of entry via tariffs, the Muslim travel ban, and the Wall on the southern border typify the nefarious use of social media. Virtual communities in turn can form a unified consciousness. Right-wing conservatives have used these online islands to shore up their base through (false) narratives about America and the Other. Fears of the border being violated are uncritically internalized, producing external concrete walls and internal psychological barriers to dialogue and understanding. Sealing off the enemy with a fence creates the illusion that we are “safe” in sameness and threatened by difference.

Yet the very concept of democracy is based on difference: e pluribus unum (“one out of many”). Walt Whitman suggested that U.S. diversity could become a source of unity. If all citizens believe in American exceptionalism, their differences are nullified. Conceivably, Whitman sought a unity of immigrants (amidst conflicts like Bleeding Kansas) as he understood the threats posed to democracy. Whitman (n.d.) declared “I contain multitudes.” So must democracies. Differences mustn’t be nullified; American democracy depends on a heterogeneous population open to compromise.

As connections intensify due to the rapidity of high-tech advancements, the American ego ideals of radical individualism, personal freedom, and privacy may be threatened. America’s market economy gravitates toward bringing Chinese technology into the States as well as a massive amount of goods. This importation, alongside America’s double standard concerning open markets and security threats (e.g., intellectual property theft), has fueled fears and speculations of (cyber)espionage. The border wall is not solely a result of Trump’s apocalyptic nationalism but is also a totem to the armed Second Amendment militia and others rejecting association with the Other. As Volkan and others have observed, no group defines itself as bounded without a counter-group from which to seal itself off. Groups define themselves by

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other groups, who can be seen as enemies. Binary group identification is never autonomous; individual freedom is linked to social circumstances. Furthermore, the group that defines itself by not being the Other intensifies intergroup contention. Some clan identities are steeped in history, collective trauma, and internalized group representations.

As the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the “Yellow Peril” make clear, the East-West cultural divide predates 20^th and 21^st Century incidents, like the World War II internment of Asian-Americans (a majority of whom were U.S. citizens), the Korean War, and Trump’s invidious references to Kung Flu and Chinese Flu (for COVID-19). All of these incite fear of the enemy, further widening the West-East schism. But this is juxtaposed by Asian acceptance of massive parts of Westernization, influenced by South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, all democracies that embrace Western values and technology. Today, technology (interconnecting world citizens) is the continuum, an ocean of information that can impel dialogue despite differing national tides.

TikTok is attacked by U.S. policymakers as being a risk to American security. But the same technology opens doors, joins persons of different nations and classes, and provides new opportunities for discourse. We must not blame one singular app for undermining the noble gains of intellectual commerce. However, we are all exposed and vulnerable to one another—duality and ambiguity are ubiquitous on this modern stage. We are all actors. But this theater has seen enough bad plays; a congressional ban on TikTok would limit Americans’ political discourse, artistic expression, freedom to exchange ideas, and connection to others. Such a restriction would also set the precedent for reclusive, ethnocentric social media networks. Globalization invites human convergence, while isolationism is gaining momentum, as evidenced by Right-wing populist anti-immigrant sentiment sweeping America and much of Europe.

We crave belonging: to family, nation, religion, and community. But communities are bounded and defined as much by what they are not as what they are. The hidden algorithms of social media and AI—in catering to consumerism—threaten to concretize these “walls.” Security is defined as freedom from danger or threat. But such freedom is illusory, whether on the net or along the southern border. Threats permeate everyday life and no group, and by extension, no technology, is invincible. Media platforms offer

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countless open windows into other perspectives. But instead of breathing fresh air through these, people appear afraid, people are choosing to suffocate in orchestrated echo chambers. I can think of numerous allegories befitting the age, like Plato’s cave. But perhaps most apt is Rudyard Kipling’s statement: “of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are our own fears.” Fear impedes exploration. Tribalism is considered by many to be instinct, going back to the origins of humanity; but today’s technologically interconnected world subverts it. TikTok and other social media platforms cut both ways and can be a bridge or a barrier to the Other.

That is the age’s dialectic. Tribalism is the thesis, connectivity is the antithesis, and the synthesis is for us to determine. We are responsible to both ourselves and others to expand the scope of freedom, collectively breaking down social barriers and identifying the ingrained defenses that stigmatize others—defenses that derive from intrapsychic conflicts fueled by social forces. The American experiment is rooted in the immigrant—the Other. In this age, to think of oneself as free demands that we embrace mutuality, reflect on self, and synthesize our psychological and social dualities in hopes that unity-in-diversity, at both levels, will prevail.

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