The rapid development and expansion of digital technology is unprecedented, and its full impact on peoples all across the globe has yet to be fully understood. That’s in part, of course, because the expansion is ongoing, and its limits are unknown. The barest facts confronting the historian are astonishing.

Facebook, for example, launched in 2004, now has more than 800 million active users in more than 70 languages. You Tube, started in early 2005, grew from 14 million viewers in May, 2010, to more than 3 billion viewers one year later. The first Tweet was sent in 2006; in a little over three years, a billion Tweets had been sent. By early 2011, Twitter was issuing 460,000 new accounts daily! Wikipedia, launched in 2001, has become one of the world’s most widely used sources of information, counting some 400 million visitors a month by early 2011. Articles appear in 270 languages, nearly 4 million in English alone.

In a broader sense, we are all aware of the rapid pace of change in almost every familiar institution. E-commerce, buying on the internet, is radically restructuring the world of business. Online news has doomed much of the newspaper and magazine industries, and bookstores are fading. Library traffic is slowing as information of all sorts have never been so easy to acquire. Schools at all levels are changing traditional ways of learning. Censorship of any kind has never been more difficult to enforce. The United States Post Office has become redundant. And on and on. It’s exciting and fun for millions, but what of the almost inevitable pitfalls of rapid change, both to society and to the individual? They have not been ignored.

Mark Bauerlein, a professor of English at Emory University, is a distinguished scholar of this technological and cultural revolution. In 2009 he published a best-seller called The Dumbest Generation, arguing in thoughtful detail what the constant use of the Internet was doing to the mind and character of people glued to their computers, cell phones, tablets, and a huge variety of additional electronic gadgets. The book was disturbing at best, pointing to the growth of narcissism, anti-intellectualism, and the loss of general literacy and good manners. Bauerlein has now collected a series of excerpts taken from books, magazines, and journals by 23 authors that “present a range of judgments about the Digital Age, and digital tools and behaviors that have enveloped our waking hours.” Variety abounds in The Digital Divide: Arguments for and Against Facebook, Google, texting, and the Age of Social Networking (2011), but the quality level is inconsistent. Here is a review of some of the best of the selections.

Bauerlein uses three themes around which to organize the articles, the first being “The Brain, the Senses.” Marc Presky, an inventor and computer game designer, is persuaded that young people who have grown up with all the tech toys (he calls them “Digital Natives”) literally speak another language, one that emphasizes instant gratification, fun, loads of graphics, and frequent rewards. Student brains are “almost certainly physiologically different,” rendering traditional educational methods, such as lectures, book reading, step-by-step logic, and essay examinations, hopelessly ineffective. Digital Natives in the classroom are miserable, Presky concludes; it generally isn’t that they “can’t pay attention, it’s that they choose not to.” The author urges educators to start using computer programs that can reach the millions of young people who are now, after two minutes in the classroom, dying to turn on their smart phones.

Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, assures us that “we still await the long-term neurological and psychological experiments that will provide a definitive picture of how Internet use affects cognition.” Still, he admits that even in his own case “What the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation.” He laments, “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.”

Gary Small and his wife Gigi Vorgan, both highly qualified researchers in this field, write of “techno-zombies” and the “beginning of a deeply divided brain gap between younger and older minds — in just one generation.” On the whole, the authors are optimistic. “Although the digital evolution of our brains increases social isolation and diminishes the spontaneity of interpersonal relationships, it may well be increasing our intelligence in the way we currently measure and define IQ.”

The most provocative piece in section two, titled “Social Life, Personal Life, School,” is by Don Tapscott, a business professor at the University of Toronto who has conducted small-scale research on the general topic at hand. He is almost entirely positive about the results, believing that digitally-raised youngsters have learned to think for themselves and to be tolerant and kind. Tapscott also notes that they have attempted to create for themselves flexible working hours, often at home, and have called for the restructuring of schools to cater to their likes and dislikes. “They’ve grown up getting what they want, when they want it, and where, and they make it fit their personal needs and desires.”

Christine Rosen’s “Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism” presents a short history of social networking and a fine analysis of the potential problems facing those who practice self-exposure to millions of strangers. We have all seen media stories about the sexual predators and crooks working the Internet for their own purposes. Scholars John Palfrey and Urs Gasser, in a piece called “Activists” describe how politicians and group leaders of all persuasions use the Internet to enlist and rally supporters.

Section Three, “The Fate of Culture,” features a revealing biographical piece on Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales by Katherine Mangu-Ward, senior editor of Reason magazine. And writer William Deresiewicz describes the fear young people have of solitude. “Technology,” he writes,”is taking away our privacy and our concentration, but it is also taking away our ability to be alone. Though I shouldn’t say taking away. We are doing this to ourselves; we are discarding these riches as fast as we can. I was told by one of her older relatives that a teenager I know had sent three thousand text messages one recent month. That’s one hundred a day….” And as for literacy, “Reading now means skipping and skimming; five minutes on the same Web page is considered an eternity.” The author thinks this tragic, as “no real excellence, personal or social, artistic, philosophical, scientific or moral, can arise without solitude.”

In short, this is collection of readings that should, on the whole, be helpful to those trying to make sense of the massive changes underway all over the world via the Internet and the mass media as a whole. We should remember, however, a stern warning from history: Change and progress are not necessarily synonyms.

Thomas C. Reeves writes from Wisconsin. Among his dozen books are Twentieth Century America: A Brief History, and biographies of John F. Kennedy, Joseph R. McCarthy, Fulton Sheen, Walter J. Kohler, Jr and Chester A. Arthur.

Two major developments in 2011 are of fundamental importance for the future of the world. First, the Arab upheavals have demonstrated that people power will have immense importance worldwide in the coming decade. The evident fear of contagion on the part of China’s rulers is undoubtedly justified, since a tide of unrest is already growing in that country. This fear must now be shared in the Kremlin as well, as the period of Vladimir Putin’s uncontested rule is brought to an end by a mass demonstration movement.

Second, the European debt crisis has demonstrated that the financial crisis of 2008 was not an isolated event that would be overcome in two or three years, as complacent governments had pretended. On the contrary, it was the beginning of a profound crisis of the entire world economy. The crisis of the banking system has triggered a systemic crisis of state finances, because of the burden of supporting the banks combined with the contraction of state revenues. This crisis has exposed the underlying weaknesses of the architecture of the Eurozone, but it is not confined to the zone. The question being debated now is how fundamental the effects will be on the whole world economy, and whether there will be a new great depression.

A Fast Fusion

These two trends will come together more in 2012. The Arab revolutions were not directly triggered by economic crisis, but they do reflect a more fundamental dissatisfaction with authoritarian rule across north Africa and the middle east. Indeed, political demands are now everywhere inflected with economic grievances, which are only going to be sharpened as the world economy slows. Political revolt has, after all, economic consequences, undermining tourism and damaging general business confidence. In countries where political change is achieved, social conflict will not be far behind. And, of course, economic crisis brings deepening social conflict even in supposedly mature democracies, as is very evident in Europe.

It is difficult not to see 2012 as a year of even greater upheavals than 2011 — though the results will probably be as mixed as those of the Arab spring itself. The uneven pattern of popular revolt, reform, repression and even armed conflict will probably spread across more countries and regions. In the Arab world, clearly the Syrian uprising is the crucial test of the first half of 2012. In Europe, where 2011 saw the surprising replacement of democratic by technocratic governments in Greece and Italy, 2012 will certainly see more serious polarisation in many countries as governments try to impose deeper austerity.

The biggest question is how fast and how badly the slowdown affects China, and whether social unrest begins to escape the ruling party’s control. If this were to happen the implications for the world would be even more profound than those of the momentous events in the Arab world in 2011.

A Missed Agenda

It is striking how far world politics seem to have slipped from the grip of the sole superpower which, barely a decade ago, was set to make the twenty-first another American century. The United States election seems so far to be almost a sideshow, with the hopes invested in Barack Obama long gone, his presidency firmly constrained by a Republican congress, and his opponents careering through one manifestly weak candidate after another as their primary season begins in earnest. Yet the US clearly has the potential to make the global crisis radically worse if it allows its maverick Israeli allies to attack Iran.

Governments and popular movements alike will be grappling in 2012 with the explosive cocktail of global governance, austerity and democracy. Presidents seeking re-election and prime ministers seeking to distract their publics may increasingly resort to national chauvinism. Popular anger may turn against minorities as well as rulers. This could be a year of ugly as well as hopeful developments. And so far there is little sign of the kind of internationalist, social-democratic politics that might offer some deeper solutions to the political and economic crises.

The 2008 election was, to many Catholics and other social conservatives, a defeat of significance. Barak Obama’s election, as well as the Democratic takeover of the congressional houses, represented to many a stunning success of secular humanism and a defeat of the pro-life values that form the core of much Catholic support for the Republican Party. The fact that so few people seemed to care that Obama’s election promised the continuation of Supreme Court support for Roe v. Wad e for the next twenty to thirty years only added salt to the wound. High emotions, then, dominate as Catholics look to articulate or listen for a political philosophy relevant to our particular situation: a philosophy that can offer a robust alternative to secular humanism and its “progressive” agenda.

At the same time, a largely leaderless Republican Party has itself experienced a period of soul-searching. Perhaps as a credit to the novel Constitutional Puritanism of Ron Paul, a new wave of political rhetoric that hearkens back to just before the American Revolutionary War has gained a following. At first, this movement looked to be no more than a scattering of “Tea Party” protests across the country. However, as news breaks of massive federal deficits and a Democratic government seemingly content to ram through new spending, including an unpopular “reform” of healthcare, many people feel as though something about our current administration has to change. Something has gone wrong, enough is enough, and perhaps if we retrace our steps back to the original documents on which our political structure is based, we may find a solution. If this is the direction popular sentiment is headed, books like political pundit Glenn Beck’s Common Sense (which, as the subtitle acknowledges, is “Inspired by Thomas Paine”) and Ron Paul’s own The Revolution: A Manifesto may represent a political movement with potential for growth. In addition to merely calling for a sort of Constitutional Originalism, it seems to me that there is something a little ominous in this pre-Revolutionary rhetoric. In particular, it seems to suggest the possibility (or even the merit) of a violent overthrow of the United States government if no more peaceful means for substantial change can be employed. If so, what should Catholics think about this?

Pope Pius IX looks to have quashed revolutionary sentiments entirely in rejecting the thought that “It is lawful to withhold obedience to legitimate rulers, indeed even to rebel.” This was listed as one of many modern errors in his famous Syllabus . In Etsi multa luctuosa , Pope Pius IX further explained that the Church teaches that the faithful should “inviolably keep [obedience] to the supreme princes and their laws insofar as they are secular” however the Church “has restricted this fear of princes to evil works, plainly excluding the same [fear of punishment] from the observance of the divine law”. That is to say, rendering to Caesar what is Caesar’s involves obedience to the secular laws of the land insofar as they do not violate our more fundamental obligation to give to God what is God’s. If the State calls us to sin, we may not obey. In all other respects, we are to submit to those who rule over us.

In response, one who would seek to defend the legitimacy of rebellion might draw upon the qualifier “legitimate” –- arguing that it is wrong to disobey or even to rebel against legitimate authority, but it is an open question whether our current government is indeed legitimate (or will continue to be so in the future). The Revolutionary War that gave birth to this nation was justified along similar lines. The founders argued in the Declaration of Independence that people posses a ‘right to revolution’ in certain circumstances. Thus,

“[T]o secure these rights [of Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness], Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government […].”

As the power to legitimately rule a people derives from the consent of the people, so the thinking goes, then it is perfectly legitimate for these same people to deny consent when the government deprives people of their rights. If the ruler continues to hold office after the consent of the governed has been denied and even defends his position with force, the argument continues, then he is no better than a usurper of power and can be justly taken out of a position of authority by the people, in whom all power ultimately resides.

This pattern of argument must be rejected by the faithful Catholic. In his encyclical Diuturnum , Pope Leo XIII writes plainly:

“Indeed, very many men of more recent times, walking in the footsteps of those who in a former age assumed to themselves the name of philosophers, say that all power comes from the people; so that those who exercise it in the State do so not as their own, but as delegated to them by the people, and that, by this rule, it can be revoked by the will of the very people by whom it was delegated. But from these, Catholics dissent, who affirm that the right to rule is from God, as from a natural and necessary principle.”

Pope Leo XIII continues that democracy is a legitimate means to select such a ruler, provided certain conditions are satisfied, but once a leader is justly selected power is not derived from below, so to speak, but is granted to him by God. Consequently, Pope Leo argues, the ruler

“will by that very reason immediately acquire a dignity greater than human […] Whence it will behoove citizens to submit themselves and to be obedient to rulers, as to God, not so much through fear of punishment as through respect for their majesty; nor for the sake of pleasing, but through conscience, as doing their duty. And by this means authority will remain far more firmly seated in its place. For the citizens, perceiving the force of this duty, would necessarily avoid dishonesty and contumacy, because they must be persuaded that they who resist State authority resist the divine will; that they who refuse honor to rulers refuse it to God Himself.”

The entire encyclical is worth reading in full, but these selections should put to a definitive end any idea among Catholics that a repeat of our revolutionary war may be justified. This becomes even clearer when we take seriously the fact that our initial Revolutionary War was illegitimate and cooperation with it immoral; although patriotic feelings often cloud this plain fact, the “social contract” justification for revolutionary war espoused in the Declaration of Independence was seriously flawed. The bloodshed that followed from it was blood shed in a deplorably immoral way. Any thought of repeating this war must be vehemently rejected among Catholics as engaging in serious sin.

It is admittedly very difficult to acknowledge, but Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress (as well as the justices on the Supreme Court) have power because God has granted power to them. Not only should they not be challenged insofar as they have power, but (as Pope Leo explained) they should in fact be esteemed and honored: possessing a dignity and majesty that is not merely human, but comes from God. I pray all Catholics are reminded of these facts as anger over the deficit and healthcare “reform” bill mounts, and the revolutionary rhetoric continues to heat up. We are called to respect and honor those who rule over us, and to submit to them unless they command us to sin.