Western society is characterised by the reign of hedonism and nihilism, as opposed to the critical spirit and culture of effort of the 20th century, because it is made up of individuals who are dependent on material goods and who form a homogeneous, uncritical mass that is easy to manipulate by the ruling classes.
To produce these consumer goods, the world’s leaders have opted for the uncontrolled consumption of raw materials and fossil fuels to feed the production machinery, ignoring deforestation, uncontrolled pollution and the waste generated, which would already plunge us into a dangerous vortex of CO2 increase that will have catastrophic effects in the next decade.
In the same way, the society of one-dimensional individuals that we are forging is displacing affectivity and intergenerational transmission, replacing them with social networks. This is how these seemingly aseptic platforms have come about, to do away with civic solidarity by creating virtual realities, a kind of magical realism that allows us to fulfil our dreamlike desires and protects and isolates us from harsh reality.
Such a society would be united by using English as a universal language and the Internet to ensure instant communication between the world’s inhabitants. Likewise, through cybernetic manipulation, the various governments monitor their citizens’ communications in real time through their metadata, and through the indiscriminate dissemination of fake news, they ensure that we live in disorientation and existential doubt.
This, together with the introduction of millions of facial recognition cameras, would have brought about the de facto advent of the global Big Brother (the all-seeing eye), with the avowed aim of preventing the awakening of the critical spirit of the masses for the foreseeable future.
On the other hand, a possible recession in the world’s main tractor economies and the collapse of the tower of universal globalisation will provoke a traumatic shock in today’s consumer society, forcing it to undergo a profound catharsis and metanoia and to revise the foundations that have sustained it until now. Thus, the combination of centripetal and centrifugal forces would configure the disjointed puzzle of the ordered chaos brewing and could lead to a critical mass sufficient to induce a qualitative change in today’s society.
Consequently, the collective vision will have to adopt a new way of thinking and a proactive attitude in the face of the onset of the new teleonomic scenario, which will be characterised by high volatility and the concatenation of crises. Finally, after the emergence of a new individual who will rise from the ashes of globalisation, society will move towards the search for a new utopia, based on a solid critical consciousness and underpinned by values such as degrowth, solidarity, circular economy, sustainable development and respect for the environment.
