Italian Futurism was an art movement led by the charismatic poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. It was known for futurists’ love for disruption. It rejected the past and celebrated speed. The movement called for the destruction of museums, libraries and feminism. It became associated with fascism. Marinetti’s Futurist Political Party was actually absorbed into Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Party. The big tech industry and the Silicon Valley moguls are ushering in techno-fascism which stands for conformity in thought and values and loss of historical memory.

They also harbour a patriarchal outlook which is reminiscent of the early celebrants of Eurofascism from the 1930s. What is worrying is how technology, today, is being treated with messianic reverence. And big-tech czars have become natural allies of authoritarian leaders. The Silicon Valley moguls, traditionally perceived as liberal strongholds, have surged into MAGA’s orbit. American journalist Michael Malone invented the term “techno-fascism”.

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He warned in the 1990s, “forget digital utopia. We could be headed for technofascism.” Variously described as “Silicon Valley techno-libertarians”, “post-liberal right” and “neo-monarchists’, the neoreactionary movement is shaping President Donald Trump’s agenda. What the world is witnessing today is what George Orwell had written in his celebrated book 1984: “if you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever.” The worldview of technofascists is outright decadent. A few years ago, Peter Thiel, a close associate of Vice President J D Vance, supported the idea of pre-drugs version of the Olympics, called ‘Enhanced Games’. In 2009, he lamented women being given voting rights which dealt a blow to libertarianism.

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To the techno-fascists,........

© The Statesman