A friend of mine sent me an article that I found unfortunate. The subject matter is interesting, but it has issues that are emblematic of a larger writing culture. I think there is enough value in having the reader identify these issues that I'll take some time to dissect them. I have limited time these days (do not ask me about the book publishing date), so we'll do what we can in the time we have. I would note, I have no animosity towards the writer of the original article, and I think it is good that he is writing on these topics at all. This article is purely to highlight common "tricks" of sophisticated writing that are often used more maliciously, and to highlight how changing media ecosystems transform the writing we consume.
The article is from Exogenous, titled Francis: Is the Church Ready for Digital?
https://substack.com/home/post/p-162994951
Let's take a look at the introduction.
"We admired Francis. Not because of anything now being said about him. In fact, if others had gotten this right, there would be no need for this post. But they didn’t.
We admired Francis because he was ready for Digital – the fundamental Paradigm-shift now taking us away from the Electric Paradigm (c. 1850-2000, in the West). The Paradigm that severely undermined the Church. Giving us the mess we have today. Alas, his Church isn’t ready and that lies at the heart of its crisis.
Electric retrieved Orality. Orality before writing. Orality that is Pagan. Mythological. All those things that fascinate the Anthropologists &al. Modernity – originally cast in the Print Paradigm (c. 1550-1850, in the West) – has lost its “Enlightenment.” It had become Jazz (yes, originally a term for ejaculate in the New Orleans demimonde). Sigmund Freud’s deeply Pagan sexuality. The same “gnostic” occult that fascinated Carl Jung (and his protégé Jordan Peterson). Psychology. All very modern. But this is quite inadequate for our Digital world."
That's a fast start. Did you go along with it, or start to ask questions? Note that the author is a McLuhanite, hence the interest in media anthropology. McLuhan wrote extensively on the changes of media, most famous for the quote "the medium is the message" and you can poorly condense his writings around the idea that the way we communicate shapes us more than what we communicate. This leads to the concept of "paradigm shifts" and eras. Let's think critically about these eras the author is proposing for a minute. Electric, 1850-2000. Digital, 2000-ongoing. "Electric retrieved Orality." Did it? Did the set of technologies produced from 1850-2000 increase oral communication?
The author notes orality as a return to the pagan tradition of just talking to each other in person, pre-printing. Let's give a cursory review to the communication technologies on the timeline here. Presumably 1850 is to note the telegraph. My dates here are arbitrary, but loosely intended towards the start of commercial adoption.
1840 - Telegraph - Text - 1 to 1 communication - Similar in nature to a letter, but much faster. The notion of charging by the letter led to a stripped down minimized form of communication. It never fully replaced traditional post in culture.
1881 - Radio - Audio - 1 to many (one way) - In the same sense of the printing press, this is a type of "push" communication. You listen to the radio, but the radio does not listen back. Loosely analogous to an audible printing press, with the operation of central presses and peripheral samizdat.
1924 - Telephone - Audio - 1 to 1 - A return to more "natural" communication. Of all of these, this is the only one that is arguably a "return" to pagan orality, but even then you have to factor in the competing media.
1935 - Television - Audio-Visual - 1 to many (one way) - Again a push communication but now with a much more extreme intensity. It is like there is a real person in the room talking to you, but now you cannot talk back. It's an intense sensory experience, but entirely passive. This has significant implications and was the cause of much of McLuhan's fixation.
1990 - World Wide Web - Text - many to many (note that the early internet was too slow to be particularly effective for audio, or even much visual.) - Another novel shift. The early internet was almost an anti-television. Active communication between networked users over a primarily text based medium. Although a small user base, the novel technical shift set a radical cultural tone for the early space, creating something not before seen in history.
This is "Electric". Does this seem like a grouping you can make easy sense of for ecological purposes? Keep in mind these are all peaking in usage at different times. If you want to think coherently in the sense of media shaping cognition and social structures, the technologies of 1850-2000 are not easily consolidated. This is one of those tricks that we talked about. The author offers rough consolidations in service of a larger point even when the consolidation doesn't work. The nature of writing, especially short form, means that oversimplifications are a fact of life, but there is a difference between that and arbitrary basket placement. The latter only serves to create a synthetic ground for the author to continue to build, divorced from any actual truth.
The timeline of digital is more subjective. Starting in 2000. Presumably the author is including the introduction of the Web as part of digital, which we can see above. My categorization here is more arbitrary, but hopefully serves the point that the internet's shifting is not particularly more easily consolidated than it's predecessor technologies.
2000 - the end of the Dot-com era - Text-Visual - many to many - A drawback on initial internet exuberance. It still kept many of the same hallmarks of the earlier internet but was becoming increasingly commercialized.
2004 - Web 2.0, social media - Text-Audio-Visual - many to many, for now - outgrowth of social media as a "sharing" platform. Improvements of the network enabling audio-visual content to be fully embraced. Critically, these spaces began to be algorithmically driven. Previously the internet was human curated, so an attempt to appeal to curation was an appeal to a human. With the advent of algorithmic rule, the appeal now became an appeal to mathematical structures. These structures are still (or at least were) sourced from humans, and it was human decisions that pushed the rankings in different directions. This made control of the algorithm political. Reviewing the history of the time shows a tension between the earlier free culture of the internet, and a push for control over the users through government influence of the algorithm. This perhaps peaked in the Arab Spring, where social media organization displayed the power to topple governments.
2015 - "pivot to video" - Audio-Visual - 1* to many - If we had room I'd insert a paranoid screed here about this as an attempt to censor and neutralize the internet post Arab Spring, but this isn't the space for that. Essentially this was the transition of the internet away from peer text communications towards the passive consumption of AV content. Notably this would be immediately relatable to anyone who had observed late television. "It's the same thing, but now there are massive numbers of channels, all vying for your attention in split second windows. As you'd expect this turns in to heavy appeals to the baser instincts." This is the modal internet user currently. Just consuming like television, offering the same ratings and views during passive consumption like the original television user.
2022 - ChatGPT 3.5, the AI era, the implications of which we are only just grappling with.
All of this makes up "digital". Entire books can and have been written on even smaller breakdowns of these developments. You can see the issue here. If you want to be a McLuhanite, and analyze people through the lens of their primary communication mediums, it helps to have an accurate placement of these technologies. The idea of a grouped development in communication going from 1850 to 2000, or from there to present, you may as well try and analyze Scorpios.
To the next point in the claim. Was Francis "ready for digital?" Let's keep going. (Focusing on excerpts for the sake of brevity.)
"Francis wasn’t buying any of that. His interrupted effort to write a PhD dissertation in the Frankfurt archives was based on Romano Guardini’s (1885-1968) Der Gegensatz (1925, “The Contrasts,” or “The Oppositions”) – still not published in English – his masterful refutation of “Hegelian Dialectics.” No, Romano insisted, history is not “progressive” – with “synthesis” resolving the “contradictions” that arise from “thesis” and “antithesis.” Instead, it was an ongoing effort to bring such “conflicts” into an enduring and beneficial relationship – while remaining separate. Synchronized but not synthesized"
(later)"Guardini understood this. So did his “protégé,” Francis. So, with a new Pope, will the Church finally catch up?"
This is another writing trick favored by those who have spent too much time in modern academia. Francis wrote briefly on Guardini in 1986, not even completing a dissertation. Despite that now he is a “protégé” and part of the same intellectual lineage. What do we have to show for this lineage? The author notes citations in Laudato Si. Amusingly, we can see these same patterns of writing in Laudato Si itself.
"Since the market tends to promote extreme consumerism in an effort to sell its products, people can easily get caught up in a whirlwind of needless buying and spending. Compulsive consumerism is one example of how the techno-economic paradigm affects individuals. Romano Guardini had already foreseen this: “The gadgets and technics forced upon him by the patterns of machine production and of abstract planning mass man accepts quite simply; they are the forms of life itself. To either a greater or lesser degree mass man is convinced that his conformity is both reasonable and just”.[144] This paradigm leads people to believe that they are free as long as they have the supposed freedom to consume. But those really free are the minority who wield economic and financial power. Amid this confusion, postmodern humanity has not yet achieved a new self-awareness capable of offering guidance and direction, and this lack of identity is a source of anxiety. We have too many means and only a few insubstantial ends."
- Laudato Si, 203
To look at Guardini's quote alone. "Man accepts the technical circumstances by which he exists as a fact of life." This is what a fact of life is. Really. The industrial circumstances by which the Earth can hold billions of people are facts of life for billions of people. Is man convinced that conformity to it is both reasonable and just? There's certainly enough complaints and protests to suggest otherwise. The advancement of machine production into man's life was frequently met with riots and organized opposition. This doesn't matter to the larger point of Laudato Si. This quote is just in there to appeal to a more sophisticated academic tradition.
It's another trivially easy writing trick to attack an out of context quote and make it seem wrong, that's not my intention here. it's a remark that the quote is already out of context, cut off from it's original aims and placed into new service. All of this isn't to detract from Guardini, but presenting Francis as some sort of acolyte who was actually governed by his thought just doesn't come across as accurate, even if it may superficially seem that way.
This is a constant problem as it comes to Hegelian Dialectics. I'm of the opinion that people like Hegel far more for the purposes of smuggling their own opinions into somebody who sounds smart, rather than actually engaging with Hegel in any meaningful way. The author of the article appears to think so as well, noting that the Marxist-Hegelian triad is a misinterpretation and raising McLuhan's four quadrant expansion. This is not further developed in the article, but it's good to understand the use of Hegel as a cudgel as you see it elsewhere.
What follows is fairly unobjectionable history. I can't speak to Guardini's claim of a return to the Medieval as a consequence of technological developments. Superficially I'd expect issues with how that all finally played out, but I'm unaware of his specific meanings. I'm not going to go into the Second Vatican Council as the television council, but you could make a funny comment about how "Like television, it seems universalizing, but actually focuses heavily on sensory experiences and centralized control". I'm also amused by the notion of a Straussian reading of Laudato Si, but I may be the only one.
Anyway, we come to what would be a reasonable end to the essay, and now the author pivots to AI. Before we do that, let's finally review the original claim. Was Francis ready for Digital? All signs point to no. Francis enjoyed great success amongst legacy media. Television praised him, as did much of established print. How did he fare in digital spaces? Rupnik, Grassi, Zanchetta. The endless stories of protected abusers reaching high up into the Vatican had only the faintest whispers make it out to the legacy media. In the digital space Francis also developed a reputation as a Peronist. A reference to an Argentine ideology that involves playing both sides against each other. To speak arbitrarily to gain support on either side works well with favorable television reporting, but fails miserably in the face of a digital record, leaving only a reputation for inconsistency and carelessness. Francis' final legacy has yet to be determined, but all indications are that the digital judgment will be harsher than the hagiographic recollections of television. Either way, there will only be one final judgment that counts.
A successful Digital pope, far more than what technologies he uses or promotes, or what authors he cites, has to act with a personal unity that is compatible with permanent observation. To truly be who he claims to be, and speak with one voice, who can avoid complicity in scandal and corruption. This is the call of any Digital Christian, not just the pope. Good luck to all of us.
I will say, I think that the EXO article, and this review should have ended there. However, both will keep going, and both will get worse. Now we pivot to AI. We are treated to isolated quotes from Aquinas and notes on the conflict with the New Theology. The history of that and the loss of Aquinas from contemporary thought being worth separate research. Now the writing breaks down a bit with a somewhat significant shift in style.
"But what is that? A Computer program? With “emergent” properties? An “Intellect”?
No. That would be getting things wrong. Cart before the horse. Aristotle referred to humanity as possessing a Rational Soul. But that is not the same as “intellectual” (or even “logical”). Rationality is derived from “ratio,” which is pointing towards “proportionality” and a complicated range of relationships among the elements being “rationalized.” Not argumentation. There is no reason to limit this to “intellectual” activities – as commonly understood. The “perfection” (i.e. “completion”) of the Thomistic Inner Senses has many names. “Cogitative Reason” and “Particular Intellect” are among them. This is referring to our very material neurology. Brain anatomy. Rationality is more than the Intellect. It comes “before” the Intellect. It involves the perception of “forms” – particular, not yet abstracted, but still forms. In the subconscious/unconscious mind. [see Vol. 1 of Dianoetikon]
Psychology first. Then Philosophy (which still cannot provide its own premises)."
Not that I take particular issue with any of the content here, but you can note the writing gets more frenetic, even as it starts to support its claims less. Instead of a quote or excerpt we get an aside to an entire volume of a journal. Again, this is not to take issue with the author specifically, but to note that this sort of underevidenced staccato often signifies an attempt to speed over the remaining unsteady ground with the reader's credulity intact. We continue this peppering with a series of quotes and references to Guardini that aren't particularly utilized. There is then another aside to the author's (fairly accurate) critique of the AI Futures Project. Finally we get to the tail end of this piece.
"But that is where all this goes wrong. In fact, the most obvious effect of all this AI hoopla so far has been the substantial increase in “spiritual civilizations” worldwide. [see this 6-part series of EXO posts] Baptisms in France have substantially increased. India is now a “Hindu Nation.” China is teaching the “Classics” – including many “religious” texts – in its primary schools. Yes, along with teaching how to utilize AI software. We are once again considering the Evil dimensions of all this and reminded that, as McLuhan put it, “The Prince of this World [Satan] is great Electric Engineer.” This isn’t the anticipated behavior. The collapse of “religion” has long been expected to be the over-determined result of economic “progress” but, while it is still early, this does not seem to be the actual trend."
This is some rather extensive handwaving. The baptisms in France the author is referring to refer to adult baptisms. The reason for adult baptisms increasing is the total collapse in family transmission. Despite an increase of 5000 more adult baptisms in 2025 in a country of 66 million, Catholicism remains declining and a shrinking minority. An increase in adult baptisms is good, and we can hope such trends improve further, but calling it a resurgence in "spiritual civilization" is perhaps a stretch.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/263349/france-sees-record-10384-adult-baptisms-in-2025-45-percent-increase-as-young-catholics-lead-revival
https://www.ncregister.com/news/catholicism-in-france-could-soon-become-a-minority-but-a-more-traditional-one-experts-claim
Chinese "Classics" represent an attempt to recover from the wreckage of the Cultural Revolution and has very little genuine spirituality to its core. Effectively it functions as a religious cover for party activities, and any cursory study of modern Chinese religion bears that out. If you are a Catholic familiar with the Chinese government's direct installation of bishops, and the surrounding implications, you can imagine what that looks like for religions without a central authority outside of China. This is a hand wavey claim of my own, but it's one you can decide for yourself.
If you were a more orthodox McLuhanite, you might expect to see an increase in "traditional" religion irrespective of merit or truth by virtue of the ability of modern technology to cultivate dedicated splintered feeds centered around an aesthetic. This would allow for the seeming success of meaningless false religious groups, even as the larger culture hurtles into the void. However, I'm hardly an orthodox, or even particularly heterodox follower of McLuhan.
Hopefully this has all shown the dangers of certain patterns of writing to pull you away from the truth. From the construction of unstable foundations, to the ways that the ground can be traversed quickly, and the association of intellectual lineages that bear no material results. It's writing that fizzles out, and for the observant it fits a larger pattern of contemporary American writing. Again, this is not a specific critique of the author, whose circumstances I do not know. The writing itself either suffers from or is an imitation of the Adderall derived speed writing that has become so prevalent in modern culture. It is the symptoms of this that lead to the rapid runs across shaky ground. The styled bursts in lieu of reflection. If you start to see it, you'll see it everywhere. People who have overconsumed Adderall and alternatives become less reflective and more reflexive. Constantly outputting without regard for internal state. It's a serious problem in our society where Adderall is treated as a wonder drug, without regard for more subtle changes it may produce on its users.
To return to the subject of AI, the latest comment on the style of AI writing is that it is "slop". It is the hammering of symbolic structures in an attempt to get the reader to accept what is on offer. If you are less familiar with AI, it helps to think about this. The evaluation and training on an AI response is not subject to the truth or expertise of the AI, but in the ability of the model to please or impress the user enough that they hit the good button. This leads to an AI style that essentially attempts to bludgeon the reader into satisfaction. Too verbose for the average person to meaningfully engage with, the right superficial quotes to portray expertise, and a flattering of the reader's preconceptions. To the AI, there is no truth. There is only the satisfied user.
While the AI style is distinct from the Adderall induced frenzy of speed writing, both styles share similarities and both stem from the dehumanization of the writer. Truth and reflection fall away in the face of compelling patterns that get produced on demand. If we want to talk about what being "human" means in the age of AI, we have to discuss what that authentic human state consists of, free of chemicals, algorithmic compulsions, and rhetorical sleights of hand. Perhaps we will have to wonder what will be left.
"Much of what is discussed publicly about new technologies and society is being done by people who likely don’t really understand either one of them."
A final quote from Francis: Is the Church Ready for Digital?.