Angry crowds protesting furiously against a system they consider unjust. Viral expressions of citizen disenchantment that multiply on social networks.
According to the criteria of
An outraged public that feels that a growing distance separates it more and more from the ruling classes and that, at the same time, has access to an enormous wealth of information through its mobile devices.
For Martin Gurri, former CIA analyst and expert on the relationship between media and politicsall this forms a cocktail from which social and political turbulence arises throughout the globe, while it spreads to the populist leaderships that channel the growing anti-system sentiment of societies.
That is the idea that Gurri raises in The public rebelliona book that has just been published in Spanish by Adriana Hidalgo Editora’s Interferences label, and whose title is a tribute to The rebellion of the massesby José Ortega y Gasset.
For Gurri, a researcher in the field of geopolitics and social change at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, the Arab Spring of 2011, the indignant movement in Spain, Brexit, the yellow vests in France, the protests against Chavismo in Venezuela and the coming to power of outsider leaders such as Donald Trump in the United States, Boris Johnson in Great Britain and Javier Milei in Argentina are part of the same phenomenon: lto severe crisis of authority suffered by traditional elites.
In dialogue with La Nación, Gurri, born in Havana, Cuba, in 1949, warns that the “information tsunami” caused by the rise of media digitalization collides with the old vertical hierarchies of the elites built during the 20th century. “The elites are very reactionary,” says Gurri, and that is whyThe public seeks to destroy an outdated, anachronistic system, without the will to adapt to the horizontality that characterizes this time.
In this scenario where the old does not finish dying and the new does not finish being born, all institutions are threatened. Talso democracy, says Gurri, focused on deciphering the impact of new technologies and social networks (Facebook, X, TikTok) on politics, the State and authority.
“The public moves on the networks at the speed of light, while the elites maintain their laborious hierarchies as if the old analog world had never perished,” says the expert when explaining the tremor.
When Gurri worked at the CIA as a global media analyst, the volume of information was very limited, even in developed countries. “If the president wanted to know something about France, we looked at two newspapers: Le Monde and Le Figaro,” he says. But as the new century began, a digital earthquake created a tsunami of information in volumes never before experienced in the history of our species. According to professors at the University of California at Berkeley, the information produced in 2001 is twice as much as there was before, since the days of cavemen and the dawn of human culture.. Then, behind that came social and political turbulence.”
There the analyst found the focus of his book. “The connection between the two seems very clear now, but it was not obvious at the time. When I left government, the book was my way of explaining what was happening and analyzing why digital media was having such a powerful influence on politics and social change.”
What are the effects of social networks, the internet and increasing digitalization?
Information is a force that changes the landscape drastically. Newspapers and printed communication were central in the 19th and 20th centuries. They are hierarchical, organized from the top down, with editors and editors-in-chief. The institutions of the 21st century were formed in the 20th century under this vertical model. This can be maintained and is considered legitimate only when institutions have a monopoly, even a partial one, on information in all areas. The tsunami of information devastated that model and its legitimacy, and today we are still trying to figure out what to do with this new information structure of the “Fifth Wave”.
Why is the public rebelling? Why is there so much citizen discontent against the authority of the ruling elites? Why do people feel that their leaders do not represent them?
That is the big question of our moment. If I knew the answer, I could be dictator of the world. I don’t have it, but I have an idea. Structurally, the public moves on the networks at the speed of light, while the elites maintain their laborious hierarchies as if the old analog world had never perished. They are two tectonic plates moving in opposite directions. Clashes are inevitable. If you see the protests in the streets, there are two reasons that explain the anger of the people: the first is the distance. For many, once elected their representatives behave like movie stars and become inaccessible. The public does not want social distancing to be a reward for political success. It doesn’t sound democratic and, the truth is, it isn’t. The second is failure. The public is convinced that the elites have failed at their job, which is to run the country. And that is usually interpreted as corruption. And that’s where the economy comes into the picture. Many people have become convinced that the system exists to defraud the public and enrich those at the top. The public is seeing elites in a very different way than before the digital tsunami. He has concluded that, first, the elites are very distant, and that is not democratic; second, they are a failure.
How did the ruling classes fail? How was the gap created that today separates politics from society?
The elites are doing everything wrong. All the elites that I know, starting with those of my country, and those of Argentina, those of Latin America, those of Europe. They are a disaster. They are not up to their time. The 20th century was a very comfortable time to be elite. Today the elites are very reactionary, they want to return to the 20th century. We have a people, a public, that is almost nihilistic, and elites that are reactionary. The true elite, what Ortega y Gasset called the “select minority,” should be reconfiguring institutions so that they can function in the digital world. The institutions were reformed at the beginning of the 20th century and are crumbling today. The public needs to have a more updated system. An equivalent in politics to Amazon, which is an efficient platform that provides magnificent service. In the services offered by governments, people experience bureaucracy, condescension, arrogance. But the elites simply do not want to make this change. They don’t want the story to move forward. Left and right elites are reactionary alike. They go to the same universities, they have similar ideas. They simply refuse to accept that the world has changed.
One of the central concepts of the book is that of nihilism, this idea of destroying the system without having a replacement. What risks does this entail?
The public cannot unite or mobilize around any ideological point because it is so divided, so fractured. It only mobilizes against something. It is very easy to say “I am against” and tear down a building. What is difficult is erecting a new one. Following Sarmiento, what is happening is a bit barbaric. The easy thing, which is that nihilism and destruction, tempts many people. Democracy cannot survive with nihilism, it cannot exist on nothing. Programs must be developed to reconfigure institutions to adapt them to the digital world. I wrote the book because all institutions are in danger, including democracy. We have to try to keep democracy present in some form. The interesting thing is that if one applies digital methods, democracy could be even more democratic. Today representative democracy is not very democratic, and that explains part of the public’s fury. You choose someone for a few years, and that someone distances themselves from society. On the networks you can vote, you can give your opinion, everything is much more immediate, horizontal and egalitarian. And all of that can be applied to politics.
How can we rebuild authority? Is it possible to introduce a certain verticality and hierarchy, typical values of the 20th century, in the 21st century when horizontality and digitalization are the norm? What should elites do to adapt?
It will not be the same hierarchy as the 20th century. For Ortega y Gasset, as he wrote in Spain invertebrateelites are people one admires. They are a role model, you want to be like them. Instead of today’s hierarchies, based on “I went to Harvard and I have this degree of importance,” they should become an example for others. The digital world is so horizontal that it will be natural for it to work that way spontaneously. Certain structures will continue to be necessary. But it will be an authority as Ortega y Gasset understood it, defined by admiration. The new authority will be more difficult to build. It will be much flatter. with many referendum. It will be more chaotic, but, if it works well, it will be more free and equal. The people who are elected will not become distant movie stars, but will be citizens like us. Human societies cannot exist without authority, so authority has to be reconstructed in some way.. I am very egalitarian and democratic, but hierarchies are necessary.
What can we expect from the future? Are you a pessimist or an optimist?
I always say that I am a short-term pessimist and a long-term optimist. We are going through an area of turbulence, but after it we will be able to get out of here and everything will be much better. I believe that all the reconfigurations and reforms that are needed to exit can be done. It would be great if I could see these transformations, but my children and grandchildren will surely see them. They will live in a very competitive world, but also very individualistic, very flat, open and free.
MARÍA PAULA ETCHEBERRY
LA NACIÓN (ARGENTINA) – GDA
@LANACION
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