Network Insurgency
How Network States May Double Down on the Age of Narcissism
Previously published on August 18th in Brussels Morning Newspaper.
Brussels Morning is a daily online newspaper based in Belgium. BM publishes unique and independent coverage on international and European affairs. With a Europe-wide perspective, BM covers policies and politics of the EU, significant Member State developments, and looks at the international agenda with a European perspective.
Insurgency, like war, has an enduring nature and a changing character. It remains a strategy entailing violence used by the weak and desperate against a power system. Often (but not always), this pits a nonstate or proto-state organization against a state…The enduring nature of insurgency includes three core functions: an insurgency must survive, it must strengthen itself, and it must weaken the power structure or state.
—The Internet, New Media, and the Evolution of Insurgency by Steven Metz
In terms of how to structure society, there is a war between hierarchies and networks. Both hierarchies and networks are at odds with each other's approach and find each other threatening.
Broadly speaking, Kamala Harris' campaign for U.S. president represents old-school hierarchy, whereas Donald Trump's campaign represents networks. Time is on the side of established hierarchies, what with Kamala already being vice president and a theoretical shoo-in for president, whereas space is on the side of Trump's broad, diffuse, and lingering network approach of MAGA, which has enjoyed mass appeal with approximately half of the United States still supporting him despite Kamala's assent.
The United States checks all the boxes for lending itself to a network orientation as it encourages initiative, risk-taking, and entrepreneurship. As the Republican party has been co-opted by Trumpism, i.e., the fascistic MAGA movement spearheaded by Trump, it can no longer claim the mantle of being old-school hierarchical and conservative. Trump has voiced disdain for the Constitution that binds the United States body politic and culture.
The Trump campaign's linking up with Silicon Valley's Peter Thiel through the nomination of Thiel’s ally, J.D. Vance, as Trump's VP pick represents a sea change in the perceived legitimacy of MAGA as anything other than a regressive, (Christo)fascistic, bigoted, racist, sexist, xenophobic bottom-feeders movement. It's back to the future with the merger of retrograde, reptilian-brain-soothing, 20th-century familiar tropes uneasily paired up with paradigm-busting futurists.
Last week, The San Francisco Standard published How billionaires Ben and Felicia Horowitz made a MAGA U-turn: They once hosted Kamala Harris and handed out food at Glide. Now they donate to MAGA candidates and live inside a four-gated mansion in Nevada. The “Come on in, the water's warm” ethos, as championed by venture capitalist David Sacks, a sort of pseudo-ambassador of the tech elite class to encourage reluctant converts to Trumpism, is now loud and proud with J.D. Vance as Trump's VP pick. It appears that the tech vanguard regards Trump as a useful idiot for overthrowing democracy and installing a technocracy.
A network approach to structuring society suits narcissist Trump well, even given his personal propensity for authoritarianism or traditional top-down hierarchy. The same could be said for tech bros advocating for a paradigmatic upset of structuring society into startup cities or network states—essentially fiefdoms of techno-feudalism, which will presumably be run by thought leaders mini-dictators who have merged with the machine.
Network Theory
Network theory is the study of relationships between people, computers, and almost anything else in life. It depicts these relationships by connecting nodes with links.
Social network theory, also known as social network analysis, is a sociological theory that studies social relationships, connections, and interaction patterns among social groups. It views social networks as made up of nodes, which represent individuals, and ties, which represent the relationships between them.
All networks, including Trump's MAGA movement, are comprised of nodes (circles), i.e., people who are influencers/opinion leaders connected by ties or bridges (short lines) of varying lengths to network members and those people who are “weak ties,” with one foot in the network and one foot out into the greater milieu.
Zooming in, narcissism fits squarely into network theory, as it functions as a religious network in which each narcissist cult leader is the center of his own network, comprised of clusters. Clusters encompass the small circles called nodes—opinion leaders, members, and weak ties—all connected by short lines called ties or links, which can function as bridges to others. The length of the short line, no matter its term, indicates the degree of closeness between nodes.
Hierarchies relate to power in a top-down vertical structure, whereas networks are decentralized, distributed, and horizontal. Networks are fractals, where every part of the network is identical to the total network. If you take a network and cut it in half ad infinitum, each half will be identical to each other. Networks are isomorphic—‘iso’ is Greek for “same,” as in the same shape and form, ‘morphic.’ Isomorphism means every part of the network looks like every other part of the network with the same structure and the same function.
Similar to networks, narcissism as a system of power and control also encourages and facilitates uniformity of thought, action, and deed. Narcissists create networks by drawing the victim into their sphere of influence — business, friend, or family group—as a method of tightening up the vise grip of control should a victim become a wayward lamb and dare think about exiting the cult. The more the victim is ensnared in the narcissist’s social web, the harder it is to extricate oneself from the narcissist's stranglehold. At stake for the victim is losing all newfound contacts vis-à-vis the narcissist as punishment for non-compliance. A reputational smear campaign is a ready-made tool in the narcissist toolkit to keep the abused on the straight and narrow.
Ironically, for a party that has lambasted controlling elite overlords, socialism, and communism amongst many outsider groups, it is the imperative of the Republican Party to induce, compel, and mandate conformity at every turn. Traditional Republicans do not celebrate heterogeneity in a populous; just the opposite, they frown upon any lifestyle that deviates from the imprimatur of 1950s, Leave it to Beaver.
Communist Mao's China promised a Utopia that never arrived, predicated on cultish groupthink, that if everyone were just good little foot soldiers in lockstep solidarity, all the societal pieces would fall right into place. No amount of being browbeaten into submission by Mao's Little Red Book, the only handbook for education under Mao that he, of course, authored as the omniscient Dear Leader, ever helped to realize this Utopian dream.
There is a glitch here in this overall assessment thus far that qualitatively hierarchies are superior to a network as deduced from an initial rough framing of Kamala (hierarchy) v. Trump (network) would suggest. To be locked into this framing would implicate dichotomous thinking or splitting, endemic to narcissism. To step back from binary black-and-white thinking, it's necessary to objectively look at the pluses and minuses of both systems, also recognizing that there is fluidity between each system. It's possible for a hierarchy to (d)evolve into a network and a network into a hierarchy.
In his seminar Future is Networking, Hierarchies Dead, Prof. Sam Vaknin states, “Hierarchies start formally, though if not careful, end up as a collection of networks. Networks, if not careful, become hierarchies. When a network becomes a hierarchy, it becomes fossilized, and it's dead.”
Hierarchies have failed societies since time immemorial. It may be that we are currently undergoing the last gasp of hierarchy in the expression of the nation-state, an experiment that started in the last few centuries.
Nation-states are sovereign states whose citizens or subjects are relatively homogeneous in factors such as language or common descent and in which the cultural borders of a nation match the borders of the state.
France after the French Revolution (1787–99) is often cited as the first nation-state, though some scholars consider the establishment of the English Commonwealth in 1649 as the earliest instance of nation-state creation. Prior to nation-states, geographical areas were governed by dynastic monarchies, theocratic states, and colonial empires.
It may be that the tech bros' proposed network states, which would further blend online and offline domains, are, indeed, the future, even if Kamala Harris wins the United States presidency and preserves the societal structuring of hierarchy for the time being. During a time of great uncertainty and transition such as now, this is the left’s reptilian brain—a craving for consistency and leadership that hierarchy suggests and imparts.
The right is largely regressive, save the tech influence, in a narcissistic cult with Trump, but the status quo left is hovering in a place of stasis in the face of great technological headwinds.
President Joe Biden's dead-weight, zero presence Vice President Kamala Harris has metamorphosed overnight with Joe Biden passing the torch into a Michelle Obama meets Oprah figure. Her metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterfly is only in stark relief to the prior bleak political scene of a former near comatose presidential candidate for the Democrats in Biden meets a virulent fascist dictator in Trump. She's bringing the joy, a refreshing change of pace to be sure, but the exuberance that animates her campaign can be overdone. Any country that turns its president into a demigod is setting itself up for political narcissistic abuse by outsourcing its agency to a savior figure.
Network States
Tech elites are offering an alternative way to structure society. Instead of aiming for an American melting pot, which is contingent on lowering narcissistic defenses—a high bar in today's climate—author Balaji Srinivasan suggests an alternative model in his book The Network State: How to Start a New Country, published in 2022.
Balaji Srinivasan argues that our societies are evolving from concentrating power in God to the state to the network. He writes that Nietzsche declared, “God is dead” in the late 19th century, the 20th century was dominated by faith in the state, and we are entering the domain of the network in the 21st century. He calls this transition “God, State, Network.”
In his book, Srinivasan boldly advocates that people physically move to geographic areas, i.e., network states that hold their values, so that they don't have the “burden of having to vote every four years.” The nascent network states would be initially formed online with like-minded people and then grow to inhabit the physical world; the idea is to go from online to aligned (pronounced ah-lined).
A Critique of Network States
A knee-jerk critique of the concept of a network state would be to slam the concept as idyllic kumbaya tech-utopian gibberish. This critique could continue by asking, at what point would members be sufficiently harmoniously aligned with their neighbors? In an age of narcissism (and borderline personality disorder), where would the endpoint of self-satisfaction be? Would it be to live in a colony of clones, as narcissistic thinking does not brook differences?
Public sentiment used to hold that our collective diversity, pluralism, and even differences were an asset that paradoxically united us along the lines of an aphorism that used to be truer before the advent of sweeping narcissism, the idea that “opposites attract” like magnetic polarities.
The concept of America's melting pot is now being reconceived with the idea that everyone should live in a network state monoculture, ironically, suggestive of the left's identity politics’ woke monoliths. Without vital biological diversity, including diversity of thought, monocultures would dangerously presage extinction. Diversity bolsters immunity for networks; otherwise, networks are vulnerable to external shocks.
The silo effect of stultifying cult-like network states would make modern political polarization look like child's play. Network states could present a veritable smorgasbord of overwhelming and, therefore, dysregulating choices.
Theoretically, each person would choose what network to join, analogous to determining which Subtacks to follow. The cult-like quality of network states and a more general question of free will suggest otherwise. Almost all networks have cult-like elements, whereas hierarchies don't. Picking up and leaving a network state may be easier said than done, no different than in the current physical world.
A note on Substack’s rollout of enhancements last week—Substack users can now publish posts without first setting up a publication. While opening up a network sounds positive and egalitarian, it can be the kiss of death for a network to not be self-contained in a walled garden. There is a reason why Mark Zuckerberg did not open up Facebook to be crawled by Google and kept it as a self-contained network. Networks get diluted and risk death by an influx of relative outsiders. When a network gets its meaning from outside, it usually dies.
With network states, these tech elites are, in effect, advocating for non-adulting, never growing up, and puer aeternus. Adulting is the practice of behaving in a way characteristic of a responsible adult, especially the accomplishment of mundane but necessary tasks.
Adulting would involve tolerating and accepting differences. Instead, this network state schema encourages the populace to become atomized David Goodhart’s “anywhere” persons rather than “somewhere” persons, which for the vast majority, i.e., the masses, would never work. These techno-narcissists have a pie-in-the-sky notion that you can, with a snap of your fingers, easily move everyone around the globe to values-aligned network states that they probably delusionally believe that AI will somehow engineer the transport. From the perspective of a cult leader, it would be so much easier to control lost lambs without the moorings of family, friends, and culture (somewhere) in a network state cult (anywhere).
While nation-states may offer dubious cartography—think German-speaking Italians or Russian-speaking Ukrainians—with their fuzzily and somewhat arbitrarily drawn borders corralling majority social groups into one geographic area, it's unconvincing that network states hold the answers to vast problems such as climate change-induced mass migrations and refugee crises, a phenomenon that pushes the concept of the nation-state to the breaking point. We only have to look to Russia invading Ukraine to understand that the very processes of nation-state formation increase the likelihood of wars.
The (Network) State of Play
Trump has built up, over nine years, a normalized underdog counterculture movement eschewing the elites. This movement or network functions like bees in a beehive— ready to sting.
Ironically, Trump is beginning to be seen as “establishment” or worse by his heretofore base by the likes of conspiratorial-minded conservative political commentator Candice Owens in her August 16th interview with misogynist influencer Andrew Tate. Owens believes that Trump has now been compromised by the so-called “deep state.” Tate agreed, saying, “There seems to be some kind of deal somewhere…I don’t know exactly what the deal is. I’m not even gonna say that I blame the guy for taking it. But some kind of agreement’s been made.”
Similarly, conservative personality Megyn Kelly is beginning to turn on Trump. She stated that in his recent interview on X with Elon Musk, Trump was rambling, she was getting bored and losing interest. She also shared that Trump doesn't like it when she calls out his senior moments.
To carry on with the same paradigm of a constitutional Democratic Republic in the United States is now a neo-conservative stance relative to Trump's techno-Christo-fascism. As I've written before, the Democrats are now the conservatives, and Trump is woke.
As narcissism ascends in societies, democracies are on the decline. Democracies are reliant on good-faith mutuality, forbearance, and norms —all in short supply in narcissistic and anomic times such as these.
It may just be that we have grown to be too technologically empowered and god-like as a people to respond favorably to top-down mandates and decrees from on high as is proposed in hierarchical models. Even “freedom”-wielding democracies are not scratching the itch for the desired autonomy that complements our atomized and solipsistic (self-referential) narcissistic age.
So we are faced with a network insurgency against our priors—hierarchy and democracy. As it is, Libertarians and many on the right no longer want to drive toward the vote-driven consensus or majority rule that democracy hinges on; they want it their way all the time. And they seem to be asking, don't you?
Resources:
The Network State - Balaji Srinivasan (Free Audiobook)
Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism (ISMA)
Leaving MAGA support
Social Network Theory — a literature review for understanding innovation programs by Tobias Stone @ Newsquare
What is Prospera?
Prospera is building the fastest-growing private city project in the world, elevating human potential through a radically decentralized, private-governance framework. Our platform is currently powering the next-generation Próspera city on the island of Roatan in Honduras, as well as an emerging prosperity hub on the Honduran mainland, with more locations planned worldwide.
How a Start-Up Utopia Became a Nightmare for Honduras: U.S. investors are suing Honduras over special economic zones, and the dispute could bankrupt the country by Guillaume Long and Alexander Main
The For-Profit City That Might Come Crashing Down: The dream of Próspera, founded by a U.S. corporation off the coast of Honduras, was to escape government control. The Honduran government wants it gone. by Rachel Corbett
Welcome to Sealand, the world’s smallest state | 60 Minutes
Sealand, an offshore platform off England's coast, is the world’s smallest state. It has just one permanent resident and its own royal family.
Future is Networking, Hierarchies Dead (Seminar in Skopje, North Macedonia) by Prof. Sam Vaknin
“Will the rise of narcissism undermine hierarchies and replace them with networks? Networks are mirror images of hierarchies: their properties and life cycles directly contravene each other.” Prof. Sam Vaknin