Mechanization and Monoculture, by me:
Indeed, it seems to me that the one indisputable thing we can say about our current illiberalisms, of the left and the right (and this is the first of several theses I seek to promulgate here): All illiberalisms are intrinsically mechanistic. It is always their goal for mechanization to take command—as long as mechanization serves their ends. It does not seem to occur to them to ask, with Giedion, whether mechanization ever actually does serve human ends. Which leads us, I think, to a corollary thesis: Insofar as illiberalism is mechanistic, it is inhuman.
I have to admit that I like this essay — I think it’s a step forward in my attempts to think through the virtues of the plural world and the dangers of monism, to which so many are tempted. This essay is a step forward because it properly describes the end product of monism, which is a monoculture — I’m framing my analysis in ecological terms, which are, I believe, the right terms.
Natural ecology, media ecology, social ecology — that’s what I need to be thinking about, especially since all of these ecologies overlap to create a single planetary ecology in which Homo sapiens is the apex predator, but one that often preys on itself.