The most important task of humanity’s functioning is reproducing itself for the sake of development and evolution. But what if the development of people has come into collision with their reproduction, creating the risk of humanity losing the key elements of control over the world’s affairs? The question is pondered by Andrey Bystritskiy, Chairman of the Board of the Foundation for Development and Support of the Valdai Discussion Club.
Perhaps we have no idea how much the world has changed—and so we may not even have time to be frightened by what is about to happen. Or rather, by what is already happening. It seems that the forms of societal self-reproduction we are used to will disappear, quite possibly for good. And the key role will be played by the digital transformation under way right now. The world’s political forces are fighting for control over it.
And, possibly, something else is under way as well: a transformation of the human personality so profound that modern societies cannot survive it. The point is that societies as such—their culture and the civilisational traits peculiar to them—arise as a consequence of human socialisation.
Roughly speaking, a person is brought up by the family, the school, various social institutions, and the media—in short, by the whole social space in which they grow up, live, and, in the end, die.
The feeling is that the old mechanisms of socialisation are fast ceasing to work, and that we should expect their collapse to turn into an avalanche. That, in turn, will have irreversible consequences for societies. It may be, of course, that the transformation of the ways in which humanity exists will prove not so destructive after all, that people will adapt and find a way to go on living. But that is far from certain.
Until quite recently, the reproduction of society followed a perfectly comprehensible pattern. Most families traditionally had children and brought them up, with more or less success, in the spirit of the values, habits, and traditions—indeed, of everything—that they held dear. As a rule, there was a church and a school nearby, and these usually did not contradict what was being drummed into the child at home. The army stood guard close by, along with various organisations and, finally, even the local hooligans and their gangs, with their rather rough-and-ready methods of initiating young men into order, however that order happened to be understood.
Of course, things were done one way in ancient Rome and another in the nineteenth century, but the general model of socialisation worked well enough. The family, a complex hierarchy of social institutions, systems of persuasion and coercion, and many other mechanisms ensured, more or less reliably, that society reproduced itself. Sometimes, of course, all of this broke down, and entire civilisations vanished, leaving behind only more or less distinct traces. What is more, as historical knowledge grew, it became quite clear that social organisms have a lifespan, that a society can grow weary, and that the mechanism of reproduction can break. But even when it did, life and the socialisation of the individual did not stop altogether. Ancient Rome fell, of course, yet life did not come to a halt even in Rome itself; after a certain metamorphosis, it simply carried on.
At the same time, alongside the reproduction of a society’s familiar state, there was also a process of development, of change in humankind. One can argue at length about how this happened and happens, but it is obvious that one of its components was the rejection of the past, the urge to overcome it, to make people better in one respect or another. Humans gradually emancipated themselves, and their personalities became both more complex and more reflective. Take the aforementioned Roman Empire: a revolution of sorts took place there, one that may have influenced the fate of the state as a whole. Christianity appeared in the empire and struck directly at the old mechanisms of socialisation, offering the individual a new model of behaviour. In time, of course, certain compromises with the traditional way of life were found, but in the development of the individual and of the human worldview a genuine upheaval had taken place. Christianity in one part of the world, Buddhism in another, Confucianism in a third, and other teachings besides—all of them (and not only they) contributed to human emancipation. People, of course, went on living in society, but ever more separately and independently, relying more and more on themselves.
Systems of self-identity developed at the same time and grew more complex: people came to see themselves not only as, say, members of a tribe or a family, but also as participants in a religious community or a social association.
In short, life grew more complicated and the number of dimensions along which the individual identified themselves kept growing, but the balance between individual self-perception and a sense of belonging to something greater was preserved. “Me before thee” rang true for most people, yet they also agreed that one could, and should, stand up for their own. It worked out differently in different cases, of course, but it worked out somehow.
The fact that humans are mortal played no small part here. Practically everybody understood this. What is more, those who got carried away with personal freedom and unrestrained arbitrariness were dealt with fairly quickly—in a drunken brawl or during an uprising, it made no difference.
Finally, all of this socialisation took place amid a fairly meagre exchange of information—ancient Rome knew about China, of course, but not very much.
In short, the mechanisms by which society reproduced itself, though subjected on the one hand to the effects of individual emancipation and on the other to uncontrolled communication, still held up. All the more so since individual emancipation and the development of communication are deeply interconnected—including, incidentally, the sheer physical ability to move through space. Naturally, our ancestors did travel, but it was difficult and slow. Nowadays it is child’s play—although there are still problems, and not only with interstellar flight.
But over the past thirty years or so, the situation has changed radically. Communication has grown so vast that it has effectively moved people into new electromagnetic spaces, in which there are practically no borders, and personal freedom has grown into something close to complete anonymity and fundamental irresponsibility.
The predetermined nature of personal development is vanishing, too. Long ago, a serf’s son became a serf himself, and if the father ploughed, so did the son. Of course, by making heroic efforts a young man could change his fate—by signing on as a pirate, for example. But that was no simple matter and took time. The history of the United States, incidentally, is a rather powerful example. Those who founded the country did, of course, begin by decisively changing their fate, but later they returned to tried-and-tested methods of socialisation and built a fairly solid society.
But in our time the process has changed so much that uncontrolled mass communication of everyone with everyone simply sweeps traditional socialisation away.
Describing medieval culture, Mikhail Bakhtin writes at length about its carnivalesque character. He draws attention to the fact that the harsh, even cruel, Middle Ages knew moments when the established order and social hierarchy were abolished entirely. A temporary inversion took place: people from the lower orders were raised to the top, while the nobility swapped roles with them. But this was temporary; it eased the burden of inequality and let off the steam of accumulated anger at all the injustice in the world.
Today, though, the carnival has the chance to become permanent.
I should like to stress, by the way, that when I speak of anonymity I do not mean the mere possibility of hiding behind a pseudonym or, say, an avatar. One needs to see more here: the new communication environment allows anyone to pass themselves off as anyone at all. Practically anybody can lecture on medicine or history on some platform or other. And the social weight of that person’s words, however much rubbish they mutter, will be quite comparable to—or even greater than—the weight of the words of a genuine luminary in the field.
As a result, ordinary young people today find themselves in a fantastic situation of freedom, with no idea what to do with it. They can imagine themselves to be anyone, learn anything from anyone, and choose whatever self-identification they like. The only thing limiting them, for now, is material resources. One needs food and, in some countries, clothing and warmth, and these cannot simply be downloaded from the digital space. Differences in material circumstances persist, too. Not everyone can afford a private jet, or even just regular flights.
There is one more circumstance, and it lends the situation a certain piquancy. On the one hand, we see the atomisation of all societies, the corrosive effect of boundless communication, and a free-for-all of wretched fantasies churned out with the help of AI; on the other, the mobilisation of the elites, the upper strata of society, who wish to preserve the existing social hierarchy and their control over the main social, economic, and, above all, political processes.
The world’s elites are perfectly aware that we live in a space of digital technologies and global communication run by complex algorithms, known for simplicity’s sake as AI. It follows that precisely these processes must be mastered and put at the service of the interests of the ruling classes.
It is, in fact, because of this that we see the information chaos that now reigns in the world. The natural, largely spontaneous processes of human emancipation collide with various deliberate manipulations. And so the confusion only grows.
A characteristic example is Western Europe. There the elites’ fanatical desire to lord it over the majority has produced contradictory results. Yes, many people have been successfully fed an illusory picture of a struggle against Russia, which is presented to the public as the embodiment of evil, but along with this a deep distrust of the ruling strata has developed. This is a natural, and important, side effect of any crude and intrusive manipulation. Hence the disorder and the sharp strengthening of oppositions of every kind.
But back to the crisis of socialisation. It, too, has a dual nature. On the one hand, it is a consequence of the change in the information and communication situation, as a result of which most of the usual institutions of socialisation have lost their effectiveness. On the other, it is a chaotic manipulation of the state of society in order to preserve the resources of the upper classes. Everything is pressed into service here: religious convictions, basic motives of human behaviour, attempts to consolidate people by moulding the image of an enemy, and much else besides.
A great deal can be gleaned from the remarkable statements of leaders of the digital industry such as Sam Altman or Eric Schmidt. I shall not quote them at length; I shall note only that the anxiety they express is deeply eschatological. What troubles them above all is the very ability of humanity to function in the new digital world. And what is the most important task of humanity’s functioning? Reproducing itself for the sake of development and evolution. What if it turns out that the development of people has come into collision with their reproduction? What if people are losing the key elements of control over the world’s affairs? Not a given, of course. But the risk is there. And yet the rapid progress of digital technologies is plain to see. They are everywhere, together with their controlling function—AI. In war, in culture and education, in administration, all the way to the judiciary and the running of healthcare.
The only question is: how will it all end? Alas, it cannot be ruled out that modern societies will, in effect, fall apart—and be put back together by brute force and a deliberate, drastic deterioration in quality of life.
And one last point. Overcoming the crisis that, it seems to me, has already begun will require global, international efforts. The nature of the new communications is such that they are extremely hard to govern within a single jurisdiction. They are transborder. And what is needed, then, is transborder effort.
The Valdai Discussion Club was established in 2004. It is named after Lake Valdai, which is located close to Veliky Novgorod, where the Club’s first meeting took place.
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