The Age of Techno-Troika
Dr. Seyed Mehdi Hosseini, PhD in Political Science
More than half a century ago, Brzezinski, observing the accelerating pace of electronic transformation and the impact of cybernetic knowledge on global interactions, labeled the 1970s as the Technotronic Age. He optimistically declared that this era:
“Under the guidance of a new class of organizational and application-minded intellectuals, would inaugurate a super-culture.”
(Arendt, On Violence, p.147)
Yet by the final days of 2025, the barren and overcrowded plain produced by cyber-knowledge has turned into a space of distraction—one that lulls children and adolescents like a soothing lullaby—thus nullifying that earlier optimism. If matters continue in this direction, drawing a clear outlook for the future of history will be exceedingly difficult.
It is entirely clear that:
“Every person is born into a society whose laws already exist, and the primary reason for obeying those laws is that there is no other way for him to enter the great game of the world.”
However, the web-machinery of intrigue, the offspring and product of the technical and technological revolution, passes over the pre-existing laws in such a way that afterward:
“The political community becomes fragmented; political institutions possess little real power, lacking both authority and resilience, and in many cases governments are simply unable to govern.”
(Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies, p.7)
The immeasurable damage caused by this incapacity—especially in the realms of education, learning, moral cultivation, and upbringing—requires urgent remedy.
Digitalism, by teaching methods to bypass pre-existing laws—“a labyrinthine and secret path to cybernetic knowledge”—is turning parenting and child-rearing into a disaster. Frankly, the threat of generational discontinuity is one of the most critical dimensions of this catastrophe.
In Arendt’s words: “The principled denial of rules” means refraining from entering human society.
To prevent such denial, a great nation resolved to live according to its own virtues, and by changing its nature, it transformed the society’s destiny from mere fate into will! By overthrowing an unjust tyrannical government, it succeeded in imposing its will upon history.
However, it seems that the internal logic of this profound transformation—both in essence and destiny—has not been fully understood. In particular, the role of jurisprudential political Islam for the new generation is not properly comprehended. This moral guide has always been at the forefront in the struggle against “corrupt politicians, ruthless financial brokers, and servile media.”
The social consequence of misinterpreting this ideological system, its orientation, and its inviolable laws is undoubtedly the emergence of financial corruption and exploitation, disruption in livelihoods, and the mixing of halal and haram concepts with the interpretation of sacred law.
As is evident:
After the twelve-day war by the child-killing Zionist regime against the ever-proud Iranian nation, a new wave of grief and hardship struck many vulnerable groups.
According to the verdict of history:
The collusion and alliance of corrupt politicians and financial brokers make “everyday life unbearable for most people.”
As a result, the combination of reduced resilience and deteriorating material living conditions pushes society and culture (the social world) toward deep mistrust of political institutions and executive managers.
Indeed, the experience of declining living conditions and mistrust in the West during the first half of the twentieth century, and the method of overcoming it, forms the theoretical basis for Brzezinski’s efforts.
He emphasized the need to seek guidance from “organizational and practical thinkers” and to view problems from a different perspective, analyzing technological power in the triad:
-
America
-
Europe
-
East Asia, primarily Japan
He believed that these three were the draft horses of economic and technological power in the 1970s, determining the course of global politics.
But today, in the final days of 2025, the overcrowded cultural wasteland resulting from cyber knowledge has become a distracting, lullaby-like, sleep-inducing space for children and adolescents.
Although the role of new intellectuals in this deviation requires thoughtful exploration and appropriate space, Raymond Aron’s reference in The Opium of the Intellectuals to the function of this formidable concept is brief and clear:
“One of the main features of intellectuals is their emphasis on ideals of progress, freedom, and equality instead of religion, power, and family.”
Fortunately, Brzezinski recently observed how the excessive sourness of the lemon and the dryness of almond oil shattered his optimism.
By the dominance of post-political engineers over organizational and practical thinking in Silicon Valley, electronic tools have become a secret path to new knowledge in electronics and a disastrous method.
Now, the satellite and mobile lifestyle captures the hearts of every child and adolescent, throwing “purposeful learning” for bright young minds into a desert of misguidance and neglect.
This is significant because, according to Adler’s findings:
“Lifestyle is formed at ages four or five. Neglected children in dealing with life necessities feel inferior, distrust others, and are hostile toward them.
Consequently, their lifestyle may become vengeful and they may resent others’ success.”
In this context, a careful look at the 1370s (Iranian calendar) reveals the warnings of wise and discerning leadership, who correctly recognized the nature and power of the Internet. Yet, despite their cries, some government merchant-agents did not listen and even bypassed “that real power.”
To this day, concerned parents sometimes witness their children’s emotional storms and pay the costly consequences of the “grave mistake of burying one’s head in the sand by some middle managers.”
The failure to anticipate the social consequences of the Web Conspiracy Machine bypassing pre-existing laws has not only disrupted parental duties and child-rearing based on a “religion-centered approach,” but this ostrich-like behavior opened a window for some toxic and deceitful actors to attack the beliefs and practices of prayerful individuals using a shared digital language, spreading dreams, hope, and imagination in that wayward space.
The two main objectives of this attack are:
-
Disruption of parenting and child-rearing
-
Significant impact on religiously committed life determination
This disruption has fostered disorder and “standard deviation” in the purification-oriented educational approach and method.
One solution is to recognize the achievements of the ongoing revolution in technology and to timely identify its effects on the thoughts and motivations of the emerging generation.
This understanding can guide policymakers to make decisions aligned with the demands of this era. The lack of such insight in the post-war period, in addition to adding fresh hardships to some unresolved problems, has given a golden opportunity to the networked world for anyone to open their “box of dreams,” unload their bundle of frustrations, and speak words sharper than a sword against religious governance.
Despite the pressure arising from the reality of the destructive consequences of uncontrolled prices and the nature of digital media charlatanism, a large and reasoning body among the prayerful and rosary-using people, defending pre-existing laws, remains steadfast and strong.
Of course, strong criticism of a ruthless economic system, which, as Arendt puts it, “the computerized machinery of monopolistic financial markets feeds daily harm to the human body,” is commendable.
However, the sensationalism in every corner of social networks, where an invisible hand cunningly induces a sense of despair, is far from the principles of justice and fairness—especially when it wears a mask of benevolence and says:
“Most political actors within their mindset are sincere and righteous, so the problem must be the system.”
The nature of this unknown phenomenon remains obscure, but its influence on the behavior of the new class in the streets, schools, and universities has become evident.
Interestingly, the analysis of the effects of monitoring the acceleration of electronic transformation and cybernetic knowledge on global interactions, within Brzezinski’s framework and the subject of the Technotronic Age and the beginning of the “superculture,” was expected from the political science faculty, yet apparently this expectation is misplaced. Unfortunately, the faculty merely observes the system’s victimhood.
In this regard, a trembling understanding is worth noting:
“In many cases, technology directly heads toward disaster, and the sciences taught to this generation cannot neutralize the catastrophic consequences of the very technology they have created. Has the university, by relying on government research projects, committed a betrayal of trust toward the public?”
And all the fine points in this inertia, silence, and isolation add a single thread to the fabric that has rightly been called the “model of catastrophe.”
Meanwhile, as Castells wrote:
“When a nation resolves to live, fate is compelled to fulfill its will.”
(Networks of Anger and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age, p. 30)
