The disruptive digital transformation

Dr. Seyed Mehdi Hosseini, PhD in Political Science

As Anthony Giddens said in The Third Way:
“Tradition contains the accumulated wisdom of the past, and therefore provides guidance for the future.”

Indeed, the lives of men and women without whom every historical event would have been merely ordinary, are far more vivid and spirited than those who live mechanical and robotic lives.

Now, those who dwell on the glitter of words believe that the digital transformation not only sometimes fails to bear sweet fruit, but may even become a source of constant torment for humanity itself.

As is evident: in the grand ongoing process, some merchants of thought in social networks seem to have seated themselves “in place of God” at the central core of information and the reservoir of knowledge, seeking to replace religions that believe in human virtue, spirituality, and the hereafter with a kind of magical technocracy.

Meanwhile, as Helsey Hall stated in History and Philosophy of Science:
“The scientific method is not limited to reliance on observation, and due to a lack of sufficient awareness of the past, its effects are deficient.”

Since:
“Every nation has its own traditions, historical, social, and cultural experiences, and behavioral patterns. The social philosophy of each society also bears the local color of that society, and even if there is an intention to modify or even change it, attention to its indigenous and local aspects and finding native methods is an essential necessity.”

In the era of the storming and disruptive digitalism, the responsibility lies above all with the university. Neglecting its duty toward the proud Iranian society and its mission to make known the political, economic, cultural, and social capacities of this rich land to the web generation will have perilous, costly, and irreparable consequences—an assertion that needs no proof or reasoning.

Indeed, today—especially after the twelve-day war of the Zionist regime against the great Iranian nation—magical technocracy and the acceleration of digital innovation have captured everyone’s attention. In this newly opened arena for the battle of fevered minds, religious faith, unfortunately, is being marginalized in the thought and motivation of the emerging generation.

Earlier, with the appearance of the consequences of various stages of the industrial revolution, many thinkers — including Nietzsche, Freud, Arendt, Heidegger, and others — correctly observed the intellectual and social transformations resulting from the “deficiencies of the ever-experimental science.”

Here, the discussion concerns the vitality and dynamism of the system of thought. By the decree of reason, anything that can awaken human memory in life and stir the spirit of humanity toward progress must be embraced and its fruits preserved.

Although the echo of those renowned thinkers who proclaimed that “incomplete science may distance mankind from religion and God” still resonates through history and their ancient affection has not cooled even after decades, today the fierce assault of digital knowledge, coupled with arbitrary prejudice and the denial of cultural, literary, and moral values, leads to false judgments and the spread of erroneous beliefs.
And no one asks why the times have become this way, nor wonders by what approach or method humanity may save itself from the folly of this condition.

It seems that the inevitable destiny of the “new human” has become this — that amid the clamor of digitalism, they perceive their mental weavings and imaginations as natural realities.

Of course, denying the cultural characteristics of others is nothing new. As Neil Postman pointed out in his book Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology:
“Modern man is as naive and gullible as the people of the Middle Ages; in the Middle Ages, humans had unshakable beliefs in the power and authority of religion [and the Church], and today we have equally unshakable beliefs in the power and authority of science.”

According to the findings of Raymond Aron in his book Main Stages in the Development of Sociological Thought:
“Man can only understand the human mind on the condition that he observes its activity and effects throughout history and within society.”

The great men and women, their lasting works, and historical monuments, besides their heritage and antiquity, also possess a significant contemporary dimension. Especially in the ancient Iranian and Islamic civilization, the treasury of Persian sweetness is filled with guiding advice and counsel:

Whoever learns not from the turns of time,
Learns nothing from any teacher.

and:

The sky will one day teach you
The subtleties that we have learned.

Also:

I see it wise that friends should leave all tasks,
And take hold of the curl of the beloved’s hair.

In this context, the intelligent, perceptive, and wise Iranian youth — who, after the world’s leap into the digital age, and especially with the arrival of the Internet in Iran in 1993, were thrust into the critical experience of living in the vast informational world, hearing, seeing, and knowing “everything about everything” — certainly, with awareness of their own noble traits, preserve the pride, honor, and superiority of the great Iranian and Islamic culture from the harms of digital transformation.

The traits of selfhood, according to Friedrich Nietzsche in The Will to Power, are even more thought-provoking:
“These states of superiority and strength are interpreted as the influence of our ancestors; we grow greater when we act according to norms that are familiar to us.”

Despite this reality, now the revolutionary digital transformation — or the marvel of the information civilization — drives the “machine of web intrigue” over the ancient norms deeply rooted in the proud character of Iranians. And while some officials are still absorbed in “Heydari–Ne’mati” or political–factional disputes, the digital-minded intellect, through the teaching of Westernized lifestyles, is creating within the newly converted class an abnormal kind of political forgetfulness, the result of which is the endangerment of political and social control.

The aim is the conquest of the field of thought and motivation of the new generation, the emergence of ideological conflict, and the endangerment of control and political compromise of every kind.

In the not-so-distant past, the political, social, and ideological unity in this society and culture (the social world) was renowned among all, but shortly after the twelve-day war, the tradition-breaking digitalism, with the goal of denying cultural characteristics, increasingly resorted to political and moral pressure upon the Iranian and Islamic system of thought.

What is remarkable is that, as Hannah Arendt wrote in The Human Condition:
“Thoughtlessness is one of the outstanding characteristics of our time.”

Awareness of this very feature led that philosopher of intellect, action, and pen to write:
“The future is like a buried time bomb, yet the sound of its ticking can already be heard.”

The crucial message of this ticking — which generally indicates the condition of the “new human” in 2025, on the threshold of entering the cybernetic civilization — for the ever-proud Iranians is that:
“Covenants without the sword are but words, and [still] no substitute has been found for ‘war as the final arbiter’ in international affairs.”

It is unlikely that the university does not hear the sound of this ticking, but what is strange is that despite refraining from denying it,
the matter of knowledge is, in essence, important because the university is the most significant arena for demonstrating the capacity and structure of human behavior, through which it is proven that “man possesses a divine nature.”

It is evident that explaining that ticking and this nature is expected above all from the university; yet, despite respecting the rank and dignity of learned professors, it must be said that it seems:
“In this age of transformation, our knowledge neither provides us with a diagnosis of the situation we are in, nor enables us to reach a shared understanding of what is happening, nor allows us to foresee future developments.”

Final Word:
“The denial of the cultural characteristics of any nation is tantamount to denying its dignity and honor.”
(Rajai; The Phenomenon of Globalization, the State of the Thing, and the Information Civilization, p.171)