Michael Shermer, who is very much the skeptic in most regards (though mostly in a conventional, establishmentarian manner), has gone all utopian on us regarding global society of the future. In today's Los Angeles Times, he writes that we are, or should be moving towards what he calls a type 1 society:
"Type 1.0: Globalism that includes worldwide wireless Internet access, with all knowledge digitized and available to everyone. A completely global economy with free markets in which anyone can trade with anyone else without interference from states or governments. A planet where all states are democracies in which everyone has the franchise."
Now, it is my view that not only is it utopian foolishness to say that we are moving towards such a global society, but that it is also utopian foolishness to say that having reached such a society we have in fact progressed. And, Shermer the skeptic should be, well, a little more skeptical about his utopia.
It's not that such a society, as described, is all that bad. But it is very illusionary in any event. A mass, global society where "all knowledge is...available to everyone" and "anyone can trade with anyone else without interference" comprised of "democracies in which everyone has the franchise" would entail globalizing all of the illusions and powerlessness that now plague the American people. It is also notable that Shermer the skeptic evinces no skepticism of corporate power and its distortions of democracy. He just wants to spread the mess!
Mass societies, whether they are city-wide, company-wide or global, require elites. And since power corrupts (and absolute power corrupts absolutely) a global society of the sort he suggests would likely end up just like ours, i.e., where the pretense of popular power remains intact while real power resides with unaccountable elites.
Shermer's is the sort of elite-trusting naivete that a real skeptic would choke on.
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