A prominent influencer from Pune, recently posted a reel during Ganeshotsav promoting harmony between two religions, only to face severe trolling and ultimately withdraw the content. Shortly afterward, that same reel ironically made him a darling of progressive circles. This rush to canonize someone without any deep examination of their past work, intellectual consistency, or the nuances of their message is alarming—especially when it comes from those who claim to be ideologically grounded.
We are living in an age dominated by AI, algorithms, and social media—an ecosystem where not only the right wing but also those who see themselves as heirs to a critical intellectual tradition are increasingly drawn to rapid image-making or breaking based on momentary issues. This pattern repeats across socio-political debates: rather than seeking meaningful resolution, public discourse now favours spectacle and swift forgetting. In this environment, qualities like deep discussion, historical awareness, patience, principled thinking, and a critical temperament are fading. The digital public sphere has been overrun by reactive crowds, while thoughtful voices are sidelined.
The right works on operating procedure of following authority without questioning, while questioning existing order and demanding accountability is a methodology of progressives or lefts. But today, both sides are succumbing to intellectual superficiality—a trend powerfully enabled by AI-driven platforms.
A critical mindset questions everything around it. This tradition has deep roots in Indian thought, from the dialogic inquiries of the Milindapanha to the philosophical challenges of the Upanishads. Yet, throughout history, established powers have often suppressed critical thinking by promoting unquestioning faith, miracle narratives, and ritualistic compliance. It was the Enlightenment in Europe that recentred human reason and revived the critical spirit. But today, that spirit is under threat again—not by outright suppression, but by the new digital environment.
How the Right Wing Operates
The modern right-wing playbook is no secret: label any question about nation, society, caste, or government as anti-national, and vilify those who ask. They have mastered the art of cultivating a devotee-like base, deploying armies of WhatsApp-educated supporters, and using micro-targeting to achieve political goals. On platforms like X (formerly Twitter), AI-powered bots are strategically used to heat up divisive topics or steer conversation ahead of a minister’s speech or visit.
The methodology is clear: use algorithms to tap into latent public resentment and amplify it. Whether it’s fear of immigration during Brexit, economic nationalism in the U.S., or majoritarian anxiety in India, AI-driven tech sharpens the “us vs. them” divide, leaving little room for nuance or compromise. The result is not just polarisation, but the transformation of citizens into smartphone-wielding culture warriors—convinced of their own righteousness.
The Decline of the Progressives
Yet the influence of AI is so pervasive that even progressives—who pride themselves on rationalism and ridicule the right’s blind devotion—have not remained immune. If the right uses AI to spread fear and enforce group loyalty, the left uses it in the pursuit of moral validation and social capital. Hence the rise of “woke culture”: a race to hold the most morally pure, intellectually advanced stance on any issue, often leading to performative outrage and intellectual intolerance.
Unfortunately, since issues on social media are not bound by time or place, this ‘woke’ bickering has become pervasive, and woke culture is being described as ‘a community that is a victim of all issues but responsible for nothing.’. As a result, even meaningful movements like Black Lives Matter or Dalit Lives Matter—though full of substantive issues—often get trapped in viral theatrics without material outcomes.
Algorithms that favour extreme views easily stoke anger among progressives. Lured by likes and shares, users are caught in an “outrage algorithm” that rewards emotional reactivity over reason. What should require hours of discussion gets reduced to a shareable meme or slogan, creating more confusion than clarity. On platforms like X, we see rapid-fire cancel campaigns emerge whenever a controversial clip surfaces. Those who react fastest and most extremely are amplified—whether they understand the context or not. Speed trumps depth; virality matters more than truth.
Cancel Culture and Intellectual Decay
Cancel culture or the appeal for boycott is becoming the institutionalized form of this algorithm-based distortion. The fact that there can be various paths for a common goal, or that for a larger objective there might be differences of opinion requiring a reconciliatory role, is becoming something unacceptable and indigestible for today’s online progressives. People who don’t fit into a specific mould are deemed inferior, and these tribe warriors beat their own moral drums. This leads to casting aspersions on the motives of not just opponents, but even people of their own ideology who don’t fully agree with them, making them targets of cancel culture. This allows people unrelated to the movement, without ideological grounding, to ride the social media algorithm and weaken the movement. While the right uses AI to create fear and surveillance among opponents, the progressives have started using it to keep an eye on people within their own group.
Overall, whether right-wing or progressive, both have staked their territories in the algorithm age, but their working methods are the same. The right has found its joy in things like nationality, religion, and national security, while the progressives have found theirs in caste, gender, socialism, and vulnerable sections. However, due to qualitative decline, decades of movements, ideological heritage, and an analytical perspective are lacking, reducing social issues to mere bickering. Trapped in digital echo chambers, both sides have developed a narrow, identity-driven worldview. Similarly, on both sides, identity is given more importance than ideology. When a person identifies as a Hindu nationalist or a progressive liberal, policies or class-related issues become secondary. Both groups are increasingly uniting based on religion, race, caste, or any other identity rather than logic. And both sides are falling prey to emotions over evidence.
The real conflict in the age of AI is not between left and right, but between critical thinking and irrationality. Vinay Hardikar accurately pointed out the ideological decline in society 20 years ago in his article सुमारांची सद्दी(The Century of the Mediocre). Today, we are witnessing its digital upgrade—where critical thinking is packed away and mediocrity is amplified like never before.