Impulsivity, cruelty and brutal display: according to Giuliano da Empoli this is the new normal

What awaits us? How bad is it going to be? The re -election of Donald Trump to President of the United States has even realized the allersloomsts among us that something has changed permanently, but an explanation of what the new world of world is leading, mainly happens. The Swiss-French writer and political scientist Giuliano da Empoli, in our country best known for his international bestseller The Kremlin whisperer (2022)there is no wipes about it: it’s going to be very bad. « For the time being, our democracies seem solid. But no one doubts that the worst yet yet to come. The new US president is at the forefront of a fiddling carnival procession of unrestrained autocrats, tech magnates, reactionaries and conspiracy thinkers who pop up to confronts. A era of our eyes.”

And as if that is not serious enough, the people who should stand right in front of our liberties are – according to Da Empoli – « extremely poorly prepared for the assignment that waits for their waiting. » He compares them with the Aztecs who turned out to be completely toothless in the early sixteenth century opposite the brutal conquistadores of Hernán Cortés, because they simply had no idea what they had to do with.

Frightening! And da Empoli can know. Although his CV does not go into details, he has been in the wings of power as a political adviser in Italy and France for years. His newest essay is made up of a number of scenes of political and tech meetings that he attended, usually without precisely mentioning in what capacity. He wants to map the great shifts through varied scenes. He sees himself in the role of « Azteekse Klerk », who tries to catch the downfall of an old order in « images, and not so much in concepts », as well as « the ice -cold grip » of the New Order.

Indefinite nepotism

He does that in catchy, visual prose. The scope of The hour of the wolves Is easy to summarize: the time of belief in a world of international relations according to fixed rules is over. In politics, the descendants of the Florentine autocrat Cesare Borgia now rule, who is said to be a model for Machiavelli’s calculating, amorele The ruler. Impulsivity, cruelty and brutal display of power are the new normal. Where previously autocratic regimes in the periphery of world politics lip service proven to the liberal democracy faithful articles, which was propagated by the West, the roles have now been reversed. Western leaders start to show « exotic » traits, according to Da Empoli – take Donald Trump’s unmistakably nepotism. Smiling autocrats such as the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele (in his own words « The Coolest Dictator in the World« ) No longer suffer from Western dédain, they brutally give the tone.

A recurring chorus The hour of the wolves is how bad the established order was prepared for this change. Almost tangible is the annoyance of Da Empoli about the complacent, unworldly attitude of his own class, which is stiff with progressive good intentions, but is blind to what her wants to destroy.

He describes a meeting in Chicago in 2017, just after the first election of Trump and the British voice for Brexit, where he helps to set up a think tank around Obama. During a meeting they are treated to an argument of the old chef of the White House, which explains how great the symbolic value of Michelle Obama’s organic vegetable garden is. The table conversation after that is under the strict direction of a transpersoner of color, who has purely identity questions on the agenda: « Why is my name as my name? Who are the mines? Who has had the most influence on me? Who would I want to be? To what extent do I feel that I am part of my community? »

What is still on the program in the following days is, among other things, a meditation session at seven o’clock in the morning, an interview with British Prince Harry about young people as drivers of social transformation and a dialogue between Michelle Obama and a popular poet about ‘sources of inspiration’.

You can properly check the annoyance about so much blind complacency, especially because it is certainly not new. Gradually you start to wonder what Da Empoli did at all those meetings, and why he shows his amused aversion, now that this kind of elite criticism is already commonplace. Because he presents himself as a simple ‘clerk’, who only takes minutes, he escapes the criticism that could receive his silent docility as a political civil servant.

Monstrous covenant

You could make the same reproach about the second big point of criticism in his essay. Because the members of the political elite – again Obama – initially made useful use of the technical revolution and the tech bosses during their election campaigns, they have a fatal way to set a pole and perk to the hungry hunger for power of the same bosses. Now that the Borgias of our time have entered into a monstrous covenant, the world lies for grabbing. Contemporary man is at the mercy of the Tech Industry’s optimization; More and more in our lives is determined by it, without being able to get a story if something goes wrong. Da Empoli gets there The Castle Van Kafka Bij, where an all -determining authority is just as elusive.

To give that metaphor hands and feet, Da Empoli says at the end of The hour of the wolves The story of the mayor of the French municipality of Lieusaint, where daily life is seriously disrupted because the Google-traffic juice Waze-who has the sole purpose of having motorists have time to save time-with chaos as a result.

Because the story gets the press, the Waze headquarters sends a group of employees who promises adjustment – and then makes nothing heard.

In this kind of wry anecdotes, Da Empoli is at its best. However, his essay lacks a actual analysis of the phenomena that he describes, so that all those pregnant observations also keep something without obligation. They are, as he says, « images. » Painful, absurd, frightening images. How it all happened, why the new disorder can count on so much enthusiasm among citizens, and especially what we have to do with it, this clerk does not mention that.

To share

Mail the editors