Anglo-Futurism: Techno-Nationalism
Digital technologies are intrinsically weaved into our Modern World. Where ever the Internet reaches, it is touched by digital technology. Here, there is no escape from this technological society.
World leaders see technological progress as the key solution to many of today’s problems. The most pressing problems they identify are usually where reality is not agreeing with their utilitarian utopia. If they adopted a different framework, they’d recognise different, and equally pressing, problems. So what worldview we hold defines the priority ladder of problems. For example, Marxists will prioritise different problems in a culture compared to a Libertarians.
Utilitarianism is a philosophy which believes that the most happiness is the ultimate goal and suffering should be reduced as much as possible. The less suffering, the more happy we will all be. We see these ideas expressed in some modern popular therapies, where people are encouraged to seek happiness over making tough and difficult choices. The ones which will likely cause suffering, but in the long term create better outcomes for the person and wider society.
Seeking happiness as the ultimate goal may seem a worthy aim. But what if someone can’t lead a full happy human life due to illness, mental capacity or poverty. Should the state intervene to reduce their ‘suffering’? For example, should a terminal cancer patient, with months left to live, be euthanised by the state? What about people with disabilities or the poor?
As suffering is seen as the ultimate evil in the utilitarian framework, then the Modern state is expected by the citizenry to reduce the impact of suffering in all its forms. It is quite clear, that the Modern state believes the best way to achieve this is through using technology, especially digital technology.
Techno-Nationalism is where the state using technology to solve problems in society or bringing in controls to keep the populace safe. People get caught up with arguing about which political party or politician should get into power, but it doesn’t really matter at this point, as the move towards a bureaucratic technological state is currently inevitable. It is baked into the global framework. Techno-Nationalism is already taking hold in the World, with some countries further down the path than others.
Anglo-Futurism is a cultural and technological ideology. It is not nationalist or political and therefore is outside the restrictions of the nation state. Whereas the state wants to use technology to control the societal outcomes, in order to reach the goal of utilitarianism, Anglo-Futurism wants to use technology to build resilient local communities which work together to help humanity to reach for the stars.
Anglo-Futurism is not a utilitarian philosophy, but a futurist one. It wants to drive society forward using technology to make a great civilisational leap
forward, and as any high achieving person will tell us, suffering is an ingredient to do great deeds.
Handling suffering is an important part of maturing. If the state and World’s leadership is focussed simply on reducing suffering, then the populace will struggle to mature, becoming caught in a prison of arrested development.
We live in a global techo-nationalist utilitarian framework. It will not bring about a new golden age for humanity, but instead will slowly euthanise societies, cultures and indigenous communities. Until, we have one global homogeneous culture, where pleasure is the ultimate Good and will be ‘amused to death’.
The only escapes are either to drop out of society and live in the non-digital space or adopt a new philosophical framework. Anglo-Futurism is such an idea. One which will use technology as a tool to help our societies develop towards greatness, rather than a tool to rule over us and our future.