In light of the last thirty years, can we regard what we’re living in now as a new era, a turning point? What are its characteristic features?

That’s for the future researchers to define and decide (if we are living a new era or not).

My generation has lived through an era of unknown disease before – when we look back at the time when people didn’t know much about HIV we can see similarities to covid pandemia: how people reacted to HIV, how sick people were treated at the beginning of the outbreak, how polarisation took place, how isolation played an important role. For instance, Elif Shafak wrote a novel 10 minutes 38 seconds in this strange world. One of the inspirations for the novel was a graveyard outside Istanbul: a graveyard of anonymous people. In the 80s they buried there people who had died of AIDS. And anonymous burials are not unknown for the covid period either.

But it seems people tend to forget the past outbreaks and think that it won’t be possible again.

This year I read diaries of Ester Ståhlberg, the wife of our first president. There were many similarities to our time: pandemia, Spanish flu, quarantines. It seemed like she was writing about the current world.Let alone other current challenges: refugees, problems with Russia/Soviet Union, how to take care of all the displaced people. 

Polarisation as such is not a new phenomenon. But what is new is that it has a soundboard on social media, which amplifies the messages. You see in your social media what algorithms think you want to see and algorithms favor emotional-driven messages - they favor them because they understand we react to them and reaction is what they are looking for, that is the engagement. 

By-ung-Chui Han has said that politics and democracy are broken, because the logic of social media prevents us from thinking with logic and contemplating other points of view with care. That is: the social media giants - the modern-day empires – lead us to the emotional-driven discourse and amplify the tendency to emotions-riven narrations also in media. (>> check my answer for question 5)

How has the role of intellectuals changed in these circumstances? Is there a need for new external and internal strategies?

Probably there’s a need, but I’m not sure, who You mean when you say intellectuals. 

What can the 21st century intellectual depend on, trust and hope for?

Again I’m not sure who You are referring to.

But I guess it’s not social media leaders who are considered intellectuals, nor their CEOs. Without understanding the future of social media, how influential it became on all levels, I guess the intellectuals didn’t pay enough attention to it – and neither did the others. We were all so positive about the possibilities of social media in the beginning and of course, it’s true that social media can do so much good. But we didn’t see the bad effects and therefore they just kept evolving and getting stronger and our legal systems were not prepared for that either.  Social media giants have a monopoly on data and that monopoly is not transparent. 

Our questionable ability to control our reality has become ever more evident and more threatening; the refugee crisis continues to evoke reactions of political outrage, suspicion and segregation, climate change directly endangers the possibility of life on earth. Under these irregular circumstances are artists able to grasp, to affirm in language the nature and size of this crisis?

Of course, that’s what art is for. But the future will decide which ones of the novels or movies or art is going to be the picture of our time. 


In literature, are there any recognisable trends typical of the end of the millennium and the 2000s?

The Nordic Noir of course is still the hot spot of the literary geography. Another typical feature is the rise of true crime and the requirement of “authenticity” also in fiction. Autofiction is not a new genre, but at present, I see the connection between the popularity of autofiction and the true-crime: the requirement of so-called truth - which of course is totally fictive. There’s a connection to the rise of reality-tv as well; all forms of narrations are repeating this requirement of fictional “truth”. 

However the fiction (without the disguise or masque of “truthfulness”) is always the most truthful of all, but understanding this seems lost.

All this emotional-driven trend has probably a connection to social media (check my first answer). 

In many countries, it seems the independently motivated intelligentsia, committed to democracy, has been trapped. In countless cases, it is clear there are no simple, valid solutions for members of this community forced to act by the authorities. Some governments have radically restricted information being brought into the open and centralized the media, but is yet to abolish free speech entirely. Like consistent resistance, responsible engagement also poses serious difficulties. If these dilemmas do exist, what solutions might be possible?

Maybe the big narration of our time is the narration of who gets to control the data and the information. That seems to be essential for both dictators, authoritarian rulers and social media giants. They all want to have access to information about people – and keep that information out of our reach. They all resist transparency. Hence the only way to fight back is to try to get access to what they want most: the data and the information. 

And in a democracy the access to data and information is essential. Transparency is the cornerstone of democracy. Hence the freedom of speech and the freedom of media are crucial. 


To what extent can we regard the pandemic as a crisis symptom or crisis metaphor of the current world?

If used as a literary metaphor in fiction, then it’s a metaphor for whatever the novel is about. A disease in a novel is always a metaphor. 

 

What conceivably realistic outcomes, and what hopeful outcomes do you expect, or which can you be certain of in the years to come, and in this case it’s no exaggeration to say: concerning the future of humanity?

I’m expecting the EU to pay attention to amplification, to the new-born states and empires, that is social media giants and their effect on democratic development. 

Anne Applebaum has written some great pieces about the social media giants and what they do to democracy. She proposes control and transparency as a tool to mend the situation. She also has made comparisons to past new inventions and how their control was first considered not-necessary or impossible. For instance, we didn’t have speed limits for cars in the beginning. But after a while, it was considered important for security. We didn’t have food regulations either and I can easily imagine how impossible the idea was in the beginning for all farmers. Nobody probably thought it would be possible to get them all to follow the regulations. But in the end, it was considered a good idea, the results were good and people get the food they can trust is safe. 

The good thing about all those examples is that we have met similar situations before and we have managed them in the end. 

And we have met problems with disinformation, propaganda, and misinformation before and we have found a way, at least in democratic states. 

At present social media giants have tried to erase the fake information about covid, which is good, but some companies don’t - like Telegram. Telegram was a social media favored by many people living under authoritarian rule or in countries with limited freedom of speech. That was good. But now Telegram is the one spreading fake information about covid without control and anti vacciners have found the platform to connect and spread fake information all over the world. Russia is again a strong player in this. 

Social media giants have already led way to genocides. Those giants have already paid very little attention to disinformation campaigns lead from Russia for instance, the campaigns in which the aim is to weaken democracy. Both these examples are strong enough to show that something needs to be done. In the end democracy is the only system respecting human rights and freedom of expression. And without them art cannot flourish. 

Art and literature help people to feel empathy (according to research as well). Art and literature does not amplify polarization but helps you to see the world through someone else’s eyes. This diminished racism, discrimination and polarization. In that way, art is an important medicine for all those things.

Also: there are countries whose memory politics are memory wars and even the jurisdiction is used on this mission. In these countries art has an important role: it preserves the memory the state wants to destroy. Or at least it should. Unfortunately in these countries also artists can be recruited to the line favoring the state politics – all dictators and authoritarian rulers like to abuse art in this way. In that case, art and literature must go underground. In Finland during the Finlandization literary landscape preserved our memories of Carelia, which was lost during the war to the Soviet Union. Even though we lost the geographical Carelia, it didn't vanish from our national memory nor from our Finnish identity.It continued living in our literature and we'll never lose it from there. During the Finlandization, it was difficult to go public about politically complicated matters connected to the USSR, hence the meaning of our literature was important. It also offered a shelter for recovering from the war traumas, no matter what the official politics was. This is just one example of the role of literature and I'm sure there are many similar cases in the world. Memory is a crucial part of humanity that consists of stories.