Sufism, Attention and Digital Colonization

Abstract

The contemporary world is being transformed by digitization with social life, politics and economics all in a process of flux. In this article we examine three key concepts, namely attention, the commons and digital colonialism. Attention economics argues that we have far too much information, but not enough attention. The received wisdom goes that attention has become a commodity in extremely short supply compared to the huge quantity of information available. However, the notion of digital commons allows us to imagine attention as a shared resource to be available to all, just as water or air that must be. The notion of digital colonialism allows us to imagine data and attention as resources which huge companies are extracting from human consciousness just as oil and coal are extracted from the earth. Attention is harvested and data extracted from humankind’s activities on digital media to generate profits for giant tech companies such as Meta and Google. However, the deeply rooted ‘mind and body cultivation’ practices of traditional cultures provide another perspective on attention which may not be in such short supply. Indeed, these suggest a different model of attention based on abundance and not scarcity. Foucault refers to such practices as ‘technologies of the self’. This article suggests that Sufi theory and practice can provide creative solutions to the over-solicitation of our minds by the global digital media platforms. The Sufi practice of tawajjuh (turning towards the eternal often through the intermediary form of a guide) allows us to consider the art of orientating attention spiritually as a technology beneficial to the self and others. Furthermore, Sufi practices, while active in knowledge production, are also underpinned by a theory of knowledge, ma‘rifa. An object of knowledge for the social sciences, they are very much active in the production of knowledge. From a normative point of view, the development of a dialogue between Sufism and the social sciences may allow us to imagine the generative abundance rather than an inevitable scarcity of attention. Keywords: Sufism, attention, data colonialism, commons, epistemology, technologies of the self.