Tuesday, 08 February 2000
.....
This frightens me very much.
3. The end of the notion of fraternity. To confront the growing world population it will be necessary to take measures like the ones the Chinese have taken: only one child per family. Thus notions such as sister and brother (as well as notions of uncle and of brother- or sister-in-law) for children of the next generations will become something like the fairies and ogres of our own childhood stories. Fraternity will, of course, survive as a metaphor, but it will be difficult to explain to a child what it means to love someone like a sister or a brother.
4. The end of representative democracy. A leader chosen for his communication skills will be elected (probably online) to govern each great global territory. Powerful groups will support candidates who have exactly the same qualities and the same programmes as the opposing candidate. Thus the citizen's vote (which will be motivated not by political choice but by the requirements of show business) will become a formal gesture which will only sanction a choice made elsewhere (I've a tiny suspicion that we've already got there).
5. The end of ethics. Any moral doctrine consists in putting forward a model of behaviour which one must try to imitate. Hence the modelling function of the saint, the sage, the guru, the hero. The virtue of the model must be difficult to emulate, and that's why ethics always was such a difficult art. Now, it so happens that television tends more and more to put forward as models normal people, so that it takes no effort to become like them. We want to become like them because they have received the grace of appearing on screen. In many case persons will become a model not because of their normal behaviour, but rather because of their spectacular sins (provided these sins gave them visibility and success). Thus Monica Lewinsky will be a stronger (and an easier) model than Florence Nightingale or Mother Theresa of Calcutta.
This is Umberto Eco's Chilling Prognostications from Davos <http://monkeyfist.com/articles/201>