RE: Tech, Politics, Terror, and Everything In Between

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Tech, Politics, Terror, and Everything In Between

in writing •  7 years ago 

It's been years since I read Giddens, but I always thought of him as left of center. And given that he was, among other things, an advisor to Blair, I sincerely doubt he would have "voted for Trump."

Giddens is also a supporter of international cooperation on climate change issues, which would put his politics at odds with Trump's. Furthermore, his "third way" is far too conciliatory a strategy for someone like Trump, who is divisiveness incarnate.

You touch on a number of interesting topics here. I assume your main point is not about Giddens being a prescient sociologist (which he is), but about the nexus between politics and technology and the idea that their co-evolution has led (perhaps inexorably) to Donald Trump, the celebrity president.

I'm not a technological determinist, but I'll grant that this is a juicy topic to debate (and far more interesting than debating "the social and cultural ramifications of dick jokes," which no sociologist I know has ever brought up). One point worth noting is that the revolution is not so much being televised as tweeted. TV is an older broadcast-media technology, which is different from the more peer-to-peer, interactive structure of the Internet and social networks like Twitter.

That distinction plays directly into a tactic Trump loves to use: characterizing most broadcast news outlets as purveyors of "fake" news and addressing his supporters directly through Twitter. This tactic both draws from and reinforces the right-wing populist ideology that underpins Trumpism. And it serves, symbolically, to suggest that the "truths" we are getting from Trump are themselves unmediated. Unfortunately, the "revolution" he's proposing is remarkably reactionary. I sincerely hope we'll survive it.

Finally, I'd be careful about not making Giddens sound too postmodern. I'm fairly certain that despite the allure of social media and virtual spaces, he would argue that human beings are still, in fact, very mired (socio-economically) in the physical spaces we occupy. And although I don't know which of Giddens' writings you are referencing in your last section, I doubt he would regard today's terrorists as having "style." Terrorism has always been waged on a symbolic front, too. And symbolism does not equal style.

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I don't know. I think the Giddens from twenty or thirty years ago may have voted for Trump in a similar way that other Americans voted for him - as an act of protest. I also think he would have been disappointed in hindsight.

You're absolutely right about the inherent irony of Trump's use of the media and their use of him. In his use of the media, Trump is basically the equivalent of ISIS. Both of them know how ot use the media for their purposes and the media was happy to have them soar on the back of their wings up to a point.

For each of them, that point was different but for both it was a tipping point. Trump was anecdotal as a Republican primaries candidate and the media loved him. ISIS were a terrible phenomena but something happening halfway around the world.

It wasn't until Trump became a viable presidential candidate and Jihadist John started killing Americans that their media coverage changed, which caused a change in public opinion. This resulted in the stronger institutions of government starting to take notice. For ISIS, it was the military. For Trump, the judiciary.