Since 1977, when he published in France his first book entitled Living in the East, and until 2021, when the publishing house is known fat printed what he himself considered a book of conclusions (Reflections on communism), Thierry Walton called himself one of the most diligent researchers of left-wing totalitarianism. A monumental book in three volumes of 1000 pages each, The World History of Communism (also appeared in a Romanian translation thanks to the efforts of the Bucharest publishing house Humanitas) was preceded by several others, the most important of which seem to me to be those dedicated to the KGB (KGB in France and The KGB is in power) or one in which since 2008 the components of what the author had the intuition to call Putin’s system. In 2019, Walton will be back on all fronts Left objection.

I have known the name of the French journalist and professor since 1989. Immediately after the publication of the book devoted to the actions of the Soviet secret police in France, in his broadcasts from Free Europethe late Virgil Ierunka bent over how the historian tried to distinguish between entanglements and ramifications Karaman network. After 1990, the publishing house named after Humanitas he tried not only to make up for lost time by publishing almost everything that Thierry Walton had published up to that point, but also to keep up with the researcher’s latest works.

Here, in the summer of 2023, the above-mentioned publishing house appeared, translated by Adina Kobuz, New roads of our slavery. The volume is just over 160 pages of modern history, I would say extremely modern history, dealing with cell phones, the Internet, and of course the pandemic as well. About the relationship between three of the best technology products and what some, fortunately, many consider to be the ultimate value. Freedom. Relationships that intensify and diversify in exceptional times.

The book is designed as a story. In which, however, there is nothing romantic. And in which there is not much fiction either. It begins and ends with a mention of a mobile phone, without which no one can imagine their existence. Thierry Walton means an exception here. He does not have such a gadget and has never had one. The main purpose of which would be to facilitate communication. But as the cell phone became more and more sophisticated, more and more technologically sophisticated, it contributed to our isolation. We use it less and less for voice services, preferring to text each other as if to avoid each other. Most often, this is a tool to which we have unlimited access Google and to social networks. The ones that give us the illusion that we have thousands of friends, when in reality there are almost none left.

For example, when we leave work and get on the bus, tram, subway, we do not communicate with those colleagues who joined us on the way home, but immerse our eyes in the mobile phone screen. Who became, perhaps, but only perhaps, the best friend. He knows about us, perhaps more than we know ourselves, and what he knows is by no means a secret. This is facilitated by the wonderful invention that is the Internet. Before which, undoubtedly, even Thierry Walton capitulated.

And so that this capitulation was not powerless, perhaps not even final, Walton wrote a book in which he showed how the Internet and related social networks contribute to limiting our freedom. Only this time the surrender of freedom takes place with our full consent. Of course, we are sure that our personal data is completely protected. There are laws that guarantee this to us. However, it is impossible not to notice that thanks to the Internet, our working hours, habits, preferences, and vulnerabilities are known. Thus, we are dealing with a kind of slavery, voluntary slavery, to use a phrase that has become popular since the 16th century, after the publication of a famous essay by Etienne de La Boettier.

Communism has fallen in Europe. But it still exists on other continents. Therefore, the Internet and new technologies also take into account the specific difference between free and totalitarian regimes. Hence the essential idea of ​​Thierry Walton’s book. The paradox that technology opens the way to freedom for countries where freedom is limited (Walton explores the case of China in lavish detail, insisting on the particularities of using the Internet, which there is a kind of intranet, and concluding that the harsh attitude during the pandemic, when new technology has been used for absolute surveillance of people), while “in countries enjoying freedom, technology is becoming an unprecedented tool of control”.

Naturally, Walton could not help but think of such famous books as 1984 year or brave new world, to the prophecies of Orwell and Huxley, so see what has come true. As I read what Thierry Woolton wrote, I also thought about what Mario Vargas Llosa announced would happen in 2036. I mean it when I talk about its exceptional history the winds. In 2036 alienation, monotony, subjugation that Walton’s diagnoses will become (unequivocally?) part of our new world. –

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