We often hear that humanity moves in cycles. However, not even this idea seems to calm the unease we feel when we look at the world, and at our country, as it is today. In my view, we are living through a fraction of a context, on that may be declining, if not collapsing.
There are four traits that I believe that characterize the scenery in which we live: the inability of those in power and of intellectuals to respond and organize; the assault on human rights and, paradoxically, their use as a shield; the incoherence as a social stage; and the profound transformation of the communicational paradigm.
Starting with the first trait, we observe a policy that suffers from the liquidity of the world. In the past, the political class was made of intellectuals, or at least surrounded by them. There was time, analysis, listening, and a society’s critical reading. Today, it seems there is no time, which is not only due to the immediacy of technology, but also to a modern individual who no longer accepts waiting, used to a world where everything is achieved within seconds. This creates a performative policy where imagery comes before thought, and speech is formatted for consumption, not for reflection.
Traditional parties, incapable of adapting to the new digital grammar, keep speaking to a world that no longer exists, communicating as they have always have, ignoring that society has fragmented. The far-right, on the other hand, has understood this change. It rejects institutions in form, but not in desire. It longs to be part of the system it criticizes. It is a resentful rebellion, a refusal that hides a desire to belong to the center of power.
Along the way, it undermines human rights – the second trait that characterizes the present. We observe, for example, the growing refusal or inability to feel empathy. Elon Musk recently said that empathy is a weakness of Western civilization. And these influential figures legitimize a form of communication that has become violent, not only in its content, but also in its form.
Aggressiveness is accepted, even within institutions that once carried an almost sacred aura of good manners. Freedom of speech is used as a shield, even when it covers hate speech. And there is a growing confusion between freedom of speech and opinion. The right to speak, conquered through suffering, is now seen as the right to expressive impunity.
In the light of liquid modernity, as defended by Zygmunt Bauman, freedom becomes a flow: it is malleable, fast, and superficial. And in this liquid, fast and confusing swamp, a contradictory desire for order, security and control arises. A need that threatens the very freedom that created it.
We can say that social peace is now rotten. For many, peace only exists if there is conflict. The adrenaline of confrontation replaces dialogue, and the hero who wins is not an ethical justice bringer, but a false avenger – effective in communication, skilled in manipulation, idolized by the masses who see in him an echo of their resentment.
These personalities take the social stage, filling it with incoherence – the third trait I observe. Arguments have stopped being valued for themselves and are only valued if they serve the conviction of the person who speaks them. There is a general instrumentalization of discourse, and the communicational space has become a battlefield and trench. The “us versus them” is the dominant grammar. The fragmented masses group together by affinities of disillusion, disbelief, loneliness, and by a basic need to belong. Any contradiction is seen as an attack and dialogue is replaced by noise.
Politics follows the same path and becomes a reality show. Fan groups replace voters, and informal militants march through social media like soldiers in a permanent cultural war.
And so, we arrive at the fourth trait: the transformation of communication. The philosopher Byung-Chul Han tells us that rituals are disappearing. These are, basically, symbolic and repetitive practices that give meaning to life, structure time and social relations, mark transitions, and create order, belonging and community. I do not see it as a disappearance, but as a transformation, since new rituals are emerging – digital, fast. They are ephemeral niche actions, and they tend to isolate rather than unite – a story, a like, a live. The immediate click of content in a society that has been TikTok-ified.
This social network, TikTok, is widely used by young people who grow up in their bedrooms, submerged in the digital, without learning to moderate their speech by facing another’s eyes, without confronting discomfort, or the pain that words can cause. Even the supposedly responsible adults in the room no longer face each other – we witness, for instance, almost live and through social media posts, the argument and end of a supposed friendship between Trump and Musk.
The digital is a space of simulation, but it does not simulate real life. It is a gamified, alternative space, where one symbolically kills and destroys, and where everything can be said without real echo. And that way of being and communicating migrates to reality and contaminates public space. The street becomes an extension of the bedroom. The real world, due to lack of response and adaptation to the virtual, and the absence of mediation, allows itself to be colonized through its codes, which become increasingly aggressive and increasingly less human.
And how can we evolve from here? I believe that only a collective and creative effort, committed to culture, truth and the common good, can build a new horizon. We need a group of prepared human beings, who take on leadership not by force, but by example.
The current crisis is solved with more awareness. Not with more noise and confrontation, but with more listening. We need to build rituals, bonds and language. Only in this way can we restore trust in a fair, plural, inclusive and truly free society.
Duarte Silva, Development Manager for Executive Education