Over the last few years, a number of forces and phenomena were sensed rather than seen. There was the dispersal of jihadis from battlegrounds in the Middle East and Africa; and, almost in parallel, the quiet rise of the hard right in Europe and the US.
There were the transformations in what we might have thought of as civilised society, triggered both by economic change and by social media: rage and bile were loosed upon the earth. There were droughts and famines caused by global climate change; and epidemics, including influenza and Ebola.
But now, all of these forces seem to have merged into a bleak, ignorant, violent and pestilential miasma. For all the utopianism of recent decades, what we’ve got right now looks increasingly like a modern-day Dystopia.
True, we’ve always had wars, bigotry, violence, rape, crimes, diseases, famines. But this is different. What distinguishes the present scenario from the past, and what is common to all of these competing phenomena, is the speed with which they can, and do, achieve critical mass, go viral, and circle the globe, more or less without restraint.
BIRTH DEFECT
Curiously, the vectors for their dispersal and growth are largely benign in themselves. For example, reduced air travel costs increase international mobility, allowing us to go farther and more frequently – and we do. Developing countries gain from this too, with significant tourist spending boosting their living standards.
But there’s the rub. Humans don’t travel alone. As often as not, they also carry diseases, to and from. Droplets from one passenger’s cough reach everyone, through the plane or train’s air conditioning system. Hence the fears about an impending new flu epidemic, or Ebola. If they get out, they won’t take long to travel.
Hence, too, the current panic about the Zika virus. Who saw that one coming? Nobody. Yet here it is, an epidemic in the making: the World Health Organisation is predicting that it will be found throughout the Americas in short order. It is spread by mosquitoes – and they’re both everywhere and utterly undiscriminating in who they bite. Our cold shores may protect us here in Ireland. But what if it comes in the blood of a tourist and is spread by midges?
Given that Brazil is a Zika hotspot, enthusiasm for the Olympics, which take place in Rio this year, may be significantly dimmed; not to mention backpacking in South and Central America... and perhaps further north as well. What about trips to Texas? To Florida? It is a very serious matter. The medical word is that the virus causes microcephaly, a birth defect wherein babies are born with abnormally small heads, underdeveloped brains and compromised sight. As of last week Brazil had reported almost 4,000 suspected cases.
NEW PURITANISM
Clever bastards, these viruses. They know how to circulate. And the smartest don’t kill their hosts, they just exploit them, generating rashes and headaches and fevers, before moving on to the next victim.
In parallel, and seen like that, it’s not for nothing that we use the word viral to describe sudden explosive circulation of thoughts and images through social media. Their spread is indeed analogous to an infection. And likewise they can induce rashes, headaches and fevers.
As with global travel, many excellent things come from social media. Good causes are unearthed and supported; likewise music and other art forms, sport, food, travel. The use of social media has been instrumental in powering positive political movements, for example support for the marriage equality referendum in Ireland.
But we can’t ignore the way social media also facilitate the expression of grotesque views; utterly anti-social forms of abuse; personal and group intimidation; and, of course, the promotion of terrorist organisations. The effects of all of this are felt at both the personal level and that of society in general.
It seems that the ability to comment immediately, sometimes anonymously and very largely without sanction, has rolled away the stone and freed all the worst in humans, as well as the best; the meanest as well as the most generous; the vicious as well as the kind; the barbarian as well as the civilised.
One of the most startling developments of this decade, indeed, has been the rise of a new puritanism and fundamentalism. In many people’s minds this is about extreme Islam – but in fact it is much wider than that. In the Americas, there is a lurch back towards a militant Christianity that is genuinely scary.
SEXUAL VIOLENCE
But puritanical zeal isn’t confined to matters of religion and faith. It is also a characteristic of the far right movements that have grown across Europe. And it colours many other discourses too. There is an increased stridency to comments, and campaigns, by the more censorious types that have come to the fore among environmentalists and feminists, for example.
For the former, it is justified by a fearful urgency at the gathering pace of climate change. And for the latter, by the fact that they must contend with not just glass ceilings but a resurgent misogyny among militant Islamists, fundamentalist Christians and the far right across Europe and the USA – not to mention what seems like millions of trolls given free rein by social media.
Add to that the recent organised mass sexual assaults on women in a number of European cities and you can understand why women might be strident about misogyny and a weird cultural convergence between rodents and trolls – who hate each other but are at one in their fear/hatred/objectification of women.
And yet, and yet, one can’t but be discouraged by the lapse from reason to rage, by the coarsening of debate, the decline of discourse into diatribe and the rise of an illiberal, censoriousness both to the left and the right. The Enlightenment, it seems, is history.
Well, if that is true, we’re up shit creek and no mistake. And you know what? There may be no way back. I don’t like saying this, but from this particular vantage point, the future looks increasingly dark. Yes, it’s only one threat among many, but the Zika virus is likely to change travel arrangements even more than the prospect of terrorism. In turn, the uncontrollable vitriol of social media, and their use or abuse to facilitate political and sexual violence, are likely to lead to increasing restrictions on freedom of speech.
Meanwhile, we await the robots.