Chaos and Digital Technology... Turning Outsiders into Powerholders [Is This Book Worth Reading]

Smartphones Changed Human Life... People Abusing Excessive Information
Trump's 2016 Victory and Possibility of Re-election, Current System in Chaos
'Darkest Before Dawn' Hope for Progress After This Period

The advent of smartphones in 2007 and the global financial crisis of 2008 significantly changed human life.

Michiko Kakutani, a Japanese-American cultural critic, discusses the immense chaos the world faces today in her new book The Great Wave (original title: The Great Wave), focusing on the global financial crisis and smartphones. The global financial crisis marked the beginning of massive distrust in experts and institutions, essentially the starting point of chaos. Smartphones fueled this chaos. Amid the overwhelming flood of information, distinguishing fact from falsehood became difficult, and the emergence of peripheral figures, or outsiders, who exploited this confusion intensified the chaos. Kakutani points to former U.S. President Donald Trump as a figure who embodies all this chaos.

No one expected Trump to win when he first ran for president. He was a political outsider. However, American society, having experienced the 2008 financial crisis, was already in such turmoil that Trump could seize power. Kakutani explains this by quoting a November 2017 Washington Post column.

"If a system weakens and opposition forces are divided, if the ruling order is corrupt and people are angry, unexpected extremists can suddenly come to the center."

Historically, this is proven by examples such as Nazi Germany seizing power under Hitler and Lenin, who had long lived in exile, coming to power through the Bolshevik Revolution. Kakutani interprets Trump’s victory in the 2016 U.S. presidential election in a similar context.

Kakutani is a cultural critic who worked as a journalist for the Washington Post and The New York Times. She was especially known for her book reviews at The New York Times, where she worked from 1983 until her retirement in 2017, a span of 34 years. She was famous for her sharp criticism. In 1998, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Shortly after retiring, in 2018, she published The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump, strongly criticizing Trump.

In this new book, she views the current situation, in which Trump could return to power, itself as chaos. She expresses concern that this chaos is spreading globally. She points out that Putin and Xi Jinping are strengthening their alliance, that far-right Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in power in Israel, and that leaders in Hungary and T?rkiye are becoming increasingly authoritarian. She also notes that far-right parties opposing immigration are gaining ground in Europe.

In the chaos following the global financial crisis, digital technology developed at a dizzying pace. Kakutani diagnoses that digital technology has changed the world in ways as important and immeasurable as Gutenberg’s printing press, the light bulb, and the automobile?perhaps even combining the impact of all three?in just a few decades.

However, the advancement of digital technology has become a double-edged sword. Until 1900, human knowledge doubled every century. Now, it doubles every 12 hours. Due to the explosion of information, the public has become vulnerable to propaganda and agitation, exploited by figures like Putin and Trump. Digital technology connected people in new ways but also divided them, becoming a medium for hatred between political factions. Politically, it increased opportunities for civic participation but also became a breeding ground for fake news and misinformation. Kakutani interprets that digital technology empowered outsiders, which coincided with the massive wave of distrust in experts and institutions that arose after the 2008 financial crisis.

Kakutani does not lose hope despite the severe chaos. Like the saying "It is darkest before the dawn," she believes that progress will come through overcoming the current extreme turmoil.

At the end of her book, she mentions that the Black Death, which devastated 14th-century Europe, became a catalyst that ended the medieval Dark Ages. The plague weakened long-held faith in religion and the church, sowing the seeds of the Reformation. Interest shifted from theology to the humanities, leading to the Renaissance. The severe labor shortage caused by the death of one-third of Europe’s population led to technological innovations such as improved watermills, windmills, and more efficient plows, which in turn boosted agricultural productivity.

Having worked as a book review journalist for 34 years, Kakutani supports her arguments by citing countless books, papers, newspaper articles, and columns. She also critiques dramas, films, and art, interpreting the messages these works convey to today’s society.

She also mentions Korean Netflix drama Squid Game and the film Train to Busan. Regarding Squid Game, she notes the depiction of people killed for the entertainment of ruling elites, calling it a grim allegory of the harms of neoliberalism. About Train to Busan, she highlights that the real villain is the greedy corporation that succeeds at any cost.

The title The Great Wave used by Kakutani signifies chaos. It is inspired by the famous painting The Great Wave off Kanagawa by the late Edo period Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai, part of his series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. The painting depicts a huge wave seemingly about to engulf Mount Fuji. Kakutani explains that the painting reflected the anxiety Japan felt when it opened its doors to the world and that it can also be applied to the anxiety and confusion felt by today’s interconnected world.

The Great Wave | Written by Michiko Kakutani | Translated by Kim Young-sun | Dolbegae | 332 pages | 19,000 KRW

Katsushika Hokusai's 'The Great Wave off Kanagawa'