released 11/3/2026
In this 2025 article, Antón Barba-Kay identifies three aspects of digital technology that degrade democracies and democratic norms. Rather than continuing to act as if the lie were true that digital technology is ultimately neutral, he says, we must reckon with its harms if we are to prevent our democracy from collapse. We must understand how “the implicit principles of our current digital regime” are changing our sense of personhood and weakening our capacity for speech, reason, and discernment. Our current path is leading, says Barba-Kay, toward “TikTokcracy,” a novel form of authoritarianism. Almost everything about our use of digital technology strips from us the very things democracies require: habits of disciplined, competent, and high-quality thinking, speaking, and acting. Barba-Kay proposes a way forward that could potentially reverse the degradation of democracy by envisioning and sowing the seeds for a holistic post-digital literacy.
This article was published in the Summer 2025 issue of The Hedgehog Review, the theme of which is “Lessons from Babel.” The article is read by Ken Myers. To view the article, on The Hedgehog Review website, click here.
46 minutes
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