The horizon of expectation stays in the future and as such stays in the coming. As Future that is in the coming , it remains unknown and unhoped. It is Jacques Derrida’s differrance. It is a different future and is not same as the present as well as it is delayed and stays in the coming. But this future is not blank and we are not a blank generation. The future that stays in the coming stays at too level. Derrida teaches us that future may stay at possible level where we can anticipate the coming future or it may stay at the impossible level where the coming future remains completely open and cannot be anticipated. Future thus is futural.
But when the horizon of the future is constricted (Future at the possible level (closed future) ), there is no possibility of idealization nor authentic identification. We freely idealize and pursue goals and values and identify with people, states of being as well as places when the future is open . Unfortunately, with the growth of the virtual world enabled by the Big Tech, idealization and identification has shrunk. This means we are almost left with nothing to idealize and identify on our own. Under this conditions, we become subjected to what is dished out as ideal and of great value by Big Tech , Big Business and Big Politics combine. We then often mindlessly idealize and identify values, goals and states of affairs chosen by Big Data to serve Big Business and Big Politics.
Societies blind embrace of the values and ideals of Big Business and Big Politics bring them to the breaking point of barbarism (taught by Horkeimer and Adorno) . Big Tech then is used to synchronize our consciousness to this values and ideals. Perhaps, we might understand how in Modi era, Hindutva synchronized Indian consciousness constricting the horizon of expectation to the possible level of Derrida. This may have made it possible to massify our behavior.
The synchronizing power of Big Tech has to be attentively studied. Repeated subjection to the same synchronizes us to the same. Thus, Hindutva that has repeatedly hammered hate of the minorities while at the same time promoting pride in what it deems as Hindu culture and ways of life has massified Indians and synchronized our consciousness that we have no future outside the one designed by the Hindutva forces. The end result is that majority as well as the minorities in our country are living in Hindutva bubble. The majority mainly is embracing with affection while minorities are rejecting it with dejection the future imagined by the Hindutva forces. Thus this synchronic consciousness translates into behavioral stereotypes that has divided our country and hate has become the driving force of politics.
Data has played its own role in this rupture. Data as the memory of the future has been employed by Big Politics to terrorize the majority and get it to submit by crafting and designing a belief that Hindus are in danger. Alongside this inducement of fear, there was simultaneously presenting Modi and BJP in the role of Messiah . Now it seem to have become clear that it was all crafted by Big Business that installed Big Politics that bloom through media control and the even the control of the Election Commission. Unfortunately, we Indians have mindlessly subjected to a closed future that is projected as ‘ Hindu Rasharastra’ which only seems to have benefited the two ‘A’s named by Rahul Gandhi.
This means we are facing a synchronization of Big Tech, Big Data. Big Business and Big Politics in our Country. It is in this contest that the disruptive power of Data harnessed by Rahul Gandhi (when we made startling revelation of vote chori in his two dramatic press conference) becomes point of rupture for an unknown benevolent future to come. These developments show that data is a pharmakon in Derrida’s sense. It can be used for exploitation as well as emancipation. The interventions of Gandhi in recent days have brought out the emancipative sides of data analytics.
Data can be used in a pro-people manner and not merely to craft note and votes. This use of data can produce new form of pubic power. Most Indians are beginning to see how Gandhi’s vote chori analytics is shaping a new form of public power. Hence, it may be right to say that we are in the middle of new synchronization of consciousness in India whereby we may imagine a new future.
The Automatic Society of Thomas Bern, Antoinette Rouvroy and Bernard Stiegler is pushed on the verge of death. We will still continue to be dividuals ( Deleuze) as we use the internet but we seem to be fast becoming critically conscious about the manner in which the dividuations that we leave on the internet are processed and used to control our behaviors and our collective destiny.
The disruptive power of data analytics is finally trickling down. But we have a long way to go. To wall this path we have the imperative to consciously resist how Big Business and Big Politics work to influence what we remember and what we long for. Our retentions and protentions are triggered constantly by Big Business, Big Politics and Big Tech combine to benefit them .
We can see how we were kept on the boil remembering faults of Nehru, corruption of Congress, violence of Muslims rulers etc., and we got initiated to hope for or long for achhe din that only turned to be a grand fiasco. This means we have to critically think how we synchronize our consciousness to the triggers of Big Tech ( Whatapp university ) and resist it by seeking the truth, facts and figure to what is dished out to us. Thus, instead of being massified and we need to stand on our feet as individuals, sons and daughters of India actively designing an open future for mother India and all her children.
