The full title of this book is New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future. It addresses all the current shibboleths and more. Fake News. Surveillance. Chem-trails. Viral Youtube videos, etc. These issues are not short of coverage. In fact, one of Bridle’s key tenets is that we are drowning in an excess of data, information, opinion. We can no longer see the wood from the trees. What makes this book feel so relevant is the approach that the author adopts towards this tsunami. Firstly he places it within its historical context, tracing the lineage and origins of the idea of modern computing with all that this has entailed. Secondly, he places it within a cultural context. Joseph Heller, Walter Benjamin, Piketty, Debord and Ruskin are just some of the names that crop up. Thirdly, the book is filled with a wealth of anecdotal detail which constantly grounds what might be an abstract discussion. From Rwanda to Icelandic Volcanoes to the Teletubbies, the writer strides through the ploughed data fields of the digital age. Each and every chapter is thought-provoking, seeking to posit the issues of modern technology and the paradox of progress in the here and now.
The ten chapters are titled with a single word that begins with the letter C (Chasm, Computation etc.) The naming of parts. This seems typical of the elegance of the mind behind the analysis, a spirit guide to help us plot a course through the revolution that has been unleashed in the course of a middle-aged lifetime. A revolution whose effects and consequences are only just beginning to be grappled with. The New Dark Age (which embraces the good and the bad in that term) feels like the best starting point I’ve stumbled across to help the ordinary soul take stock. If I had any influence, which I don’t, I’d make it part of the school curriculum. Humpty Dumpty has has a big fall. The young are the ones who will have to start to put the pieces back together again. They’re going to need all the help and guidance they can get.
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