The weight of the past no longer matters in a cultural milieu in which the primary imperative is not so much liberty but the constant pursuit of novelty.
~ Baptiste Detombe via American Affairs

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Europeans are gradually realizing that they have been duped, that there can be no technological power without protecting start-ups from foreign direct investment and subsidizing a homegrown digital ecosystem. Disruptive innovations present too many risks to come from the private sector alone. European leaders have therefore had to accept, for better or worse, this symbiotic proximity between Silicon Valley and American state power, through such items as Elon Musk’s participation in the U.S. administration, or Mark Zuckerberg’s changes in Meta’s moderation policy to make it more compatible with Donald Trump’s line. None of this is to mention the president’s constant threats of retaliation against the European Union and other jurisdictions for their digital regulation policies.
~ Baptiste Detombe via American Affairs

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Passivity and excitability are the two traits of a new humanity, bound hand and foot to Uncle Sam, indifferent to its enslavement as the enjoyment of consumption and immediate desire became its only horizon. In this respect, the libertarian movements of 1968 merely paved the way for a process of erasing the past and the historicity of peoples, which was to take full root in the migration from a physical and cultural world to a digital and ahistorical world.
~ Baptiste Detombe via American Affairs

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American rhetoric in defense of its technology industry comes at a time when Europe’s dependence is already well advanced. No sooner have these overtures been called into question than once new arguments arise to sustain European passivity. Recently, freedom of expression has been exploited by the American political establishment to undermine any plans by a foreign state for digital regulation; in this view, regulating the tech sector is construed as an assault on liberty and democracy itself, whose terms are, of course, to be determined and judged by Washington alone. At this juncture, Europe is unable to escape the rhetorical clutches of a United States determined to preserve its technological as well as geopolitical stranglehold.
~ Baptiste Detombe via American Affairs

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Loneliness has reached such a point that a town in France has built a bench dedicated solely to social interaction; a sign specifies that it is a place designed for people to meet, implying that the rest of the public space is no longer such a place. 62 percent of young French people today say they feel lonely on a regular or chronic basis: such a rate can only be that of a sick society.
~ Baptiste Detombe via American Affairs

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Just as God shaped man in his own image from clay, Europe was to be shaped by the United States according to its will. Immersion in consumer society was not enough; the same logic demanded the penetration not only of households and groceries with American wares but of people’s minds with American ideas and norms.
~ Baptiste Detombe via American Affairs

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