Towards techno-fascism

Italian Futurism was an art movement led by the charismatic poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. It was known for futurists’ love for disruption. It rejected the past and celebrated speed. The movement called for the destruction of museums, libraries and feminism. It became associated with fascism. Marinetti’s Futurist Political Party was actually absorbed into Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Party. The big tech industry and the Silicon Valley moguls are ushering in techno-fascism which stands for conformity in thought and values and loss of historical memory.

They also harbour a patriarchal outlook which is reminiscent of the early celebrants of Eurofascism from the 1930s. What is worrying is how technology, today, is being treated with messianic reverence. And big-tech czars have become natural allies of authoritarian leaders. The Silicon Valley moguls, traditionally perceived as liberal strongholds, have surged into MAGA’s orbit. American journalist Michael Malone invented the term “techno-fascism”.

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He warned in the 1990s, “forget digital utopia. We could be headed for technofascism.” Variously described as “Silicon Valley techno-libertarians”, “post-liberal right” and “neo-monarchists’, the neoreactionary movement is shaping President Donald Trump’s agenda. What the world is witnessing today is what George Orwell had written in his celebrated book 1984: “if you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever.” The worldview of technofascists is outright decadent. A few years ago, Peter Thiel, a close associate of Vice President J D Vance, supported the idea of pre-drugs version of the Olympics, called ‘Enhanced Games’. In 2009, he lamented women being given voting rights which dealt a blow to libertarianism.

To the techno-fascists, techno-utopianism is a tool for self-aggrandisement and to play god. Techno-fascists are protagonists of dark enlightenment which is all the rage in the white supremacist circles. The selfstyled internet philosophers trace modern-day problems to the end of Middle Ages. They believe that Enlightenment’s humanism, democracy and quest for equality are responsible for decay of Western civilisation. In his pivotal 2009 essay for the Cato Institute, Thiel asserted, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”

He argued that the increase in welfare beneficiaries and the expansion of the franchise to women have undermined the libertarian cause. He went on to propose solution: create a world devoid of historical nation-states, em – phasizing a corporate rather than democratic structure of governance. To the ideologues of techno-fascism, technology is a space for colonial reproduction.

It is hardly surprising that large technology companies should become allies of authoritarian governments. In the history of humanity, dominant technologies have served to control nature and to foster an idea of what society, work, and relationships should be like. The way big tech bros have gravitated towards Trump mar – ks a dangerous new phase in the concentration of their power. Today’s fascism is internationalist by design and overtly structured around a theory of victory. Elon Musk and other high-tech bros are often good at selling dystopian dreams.

And they are in the right company of Trump who is equally good at selling lies, abuses and misogyny. In 2016, Musk claimed his driverless car was only two years away. It continues to remain a sci-fi movie magic. His car is still a road to nowhere. Earlier, the governments depended on domain experts and think tanks for advice on foreign policy. Today, Trump depends on MAGA oligarchs intellectuals. Trump believes they read the tea leaves of technological determinism with perfect clarity.

They don’t prescribe; they merely translate the gospel of inevitability. Some believe, big tech bros have come together be – cause of their fear that the American left has overrea – ched culturally, and that the election of Trump reflects the cultural mood of the country as a whole. They have joined hands to pronounce the death of woke-ness. They also see themselves as Friedrich Nietzsche’s “ubermensch” (the ideal superior man of the future). As disruptors, they resent any barrier in their path. It is not difficult to understand the metapolitics of tech giants.

By buying social media platforms, the super -rich want to become political gatekeepers. We are witnessing what Nietzsche had called “chaos of mod ernity” (weakness of truth, death of god and reversal of values). Elon Musk has moved to the inner circle of American power by channelling his inner Trump. Thiel and his intellectual guru Curtis Yarvin believe universities, media organisations, bureaucracies and non-governmental organisations have failed to sustain popular trust. Yarvin is a follower of the 19th century British polemicist Thomas Carlyle who argued that monarchy was inherently better than democracy. Both blame progressive political correctness for ruining tech, education and governance culture.

They believe Trump is an agent who will reverse American decline. After 100 days of Trump’s second stint in power, Americans have begun to realise that they are in the belly of the beast. A world in which eccentric billionaires control their public spheres is a very dangerous world to live in. The left criticizes the big tech bros as ‘alt-right’ who are bent on undoing the efforts of egalitarian liberal humanism. Some see then as a version of what Karl Polanyi called the “double movement.” Quinn Slobodian, author of Hayek’s Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ and the Capitalism of the Far Right, describes the conservative movement as “new fusionism”.

It refers to how libertarians and neoliberals have made race and intelligence an intellectual hobbyhorse, laying the foundation for today’s nativist right. It is rooted in three aspects ~ “hard wired human nature, hard borders and hard money.” They have forged sordid allia – nces with biologists, evolutionary psychologists, and ethno nationalists, spouting pseudoscience about the link between race and IQ. Trump doesn’t forget, nor does he forgive. The broligarchs have bent over backward to praise the king. But Trump’s tariffs haven’t spared them.

Only Elon Musk seems to have extracted his pound of flesh. That prompted Le Monde’s Anne Deysine to assume that tech magnets could turn against the president. The same big tech monarchs who lined up in the first row during Trump’s inauguration this January had been harsh on him in his first term. Musk clashed with Trump for withdrawing from the Paris Accords. Jeff Bezos sued him for his alleged personal vendetta and Mark Zuckerberg found him to be too dangerous for Facebook. The broligarchs’ romance with MAGA may not be over but their love has whizzed past its sell by date.

(The writer comments on global affair)