Investigate

This is another lesson that feels like an elite, intellectual snob is looking down his nose at the Twitter-reading slobs. Of course Snyder is a lover of the printed word—he is a prolific writer of books. But every day or so, I get a brief note from him commenting on the dreadful news of the day on Substack. No matter what, we can’t escape the internet.

But it is worth thinking about how the internet seems to have enabled our current fascist moment. I was watching a video by science educator Hank Green that was closer to someone riffing on some ideas than a rigorous testable theory about the internet right now.

What he pointed out is that in the time right after a new communication medium arises, if getting the information is cheap, the medium will be appealing for populist messages. He gives two historic examples. Johannes Gutenberg invented the first European printing press around 1440. But while it drastically reduced the time and effort to produce a book, they were still luxury items that were primarily consumed by the elite. But after a while printers realized they could print cheaper items like broadsides and pamphlets. Which came in handy when a disgruntled priest named Martin Luther wanted to spread his populist anti-catholic message in 1517.

The second example he gives is radio. Even the technology of radio had existed for several decades, it wasn’t until the 1930s that radios became common consumer items and radio personalities realized that they could exercise a lot of influence. In the USA, a Catholic priest named Charles Coughlin used radio to promote his fascist, antisemitic views to millions of Americans, who were suffering during the depression and seemed primed to hear some populist demagoguery.

His conclusion is that we’re at a similar juncture in human history. We all use the internet, and that somehow this tool has successfully been used to influence a rising tide of fascism in the USA.

This seems plausible, but like all random YouTube videos—we should be cautious about believing his theory.

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