IS THERE LIFE AFTER FACEBOOK? – ADDENDUM THE CYBER GULAG REVISITED & DEBATE RELOADED
IS THERE LIFE AFTER FACEBOOK? – ADDENDUM THE CYBER GULAG REVISITED & DEBATE RELOADED

Summary/Abstract: Misled by a quick triumphalism of the social-media, the international news agencies have confused the two: revolt and revolution. The past unrests started as a social, not political public revolt. Through the pain of sobriety, the protesters are learning that neither globalization nor the McFB way of life is a shortcut to development; that free trade is not a virtue, but an instrument; that liberalism is not a state of mind but a well-doctrinated ideology, and finally that the social media networks are only a communication tool, not a replacement for independent critical thinking or for the collapsed cross-generational contract. Londoners, Greeks and New Yorkers are experiencing about the same. How does the Arab “Spring” correlate with the European Euro-frost, and American OWS unrest? For almost ten years now, the youth in Europe is repeatedly sending us a powerful message on the perceived collapse of the social contract. The cross-generational contract should be neither neglected, nor built on the over-consumerist, disheartened and egotistic McFB way of life. Equally alienating and dangerously inflammatory is the collision of the entering youth generation (if/when deprived of the opportunity and handed over to a lame hope) – through a religious or political radicalization. In this word spanned between the Kantian hopes and Hobbesian fears, thus the final question: Is there life after FB? If so, how can we register our future claims?

• Details
• Contents