ICTs?

("Information and Communication Technology" does not make sense here)

I definitely buy into the “monoculture” argument a bit. When hundreds of millions of people are all voraciously consuming the same very limited cultural messaging - three TV stations, a handful of movie studios, a handful of major book publishers - there is bound to be a leveling of interpersonal expectations that will be absent in a more fragmented culture.

That’s not some kind of crypto denunciation against cosmopolitan diversity, but it is what it is and I do think there’s a there, there.

That idea sounds like it is a Freudian slip of sorts of an authoritarian mind. Basically, involuntary ideological tells from patterns of their thinking that slip through into their speech. The sorts of things which would give a spy away.

The idea you mentioned is the mark of an authoritarian who considers expressed dissent a sign of weakness instead of a crucible for the strength of ideas. That they literally cannot conceive of a purpose of it other than propaganda or division because they see democracy as inherently a weakness and they think that a 'strong man' is needed to create unity.

It is a similar tell to bigots who cite 'homogeneous society means' as being inherently socially cohesive or responsible for low crime because they cannot comprehend a cohesion based on something other than ethnic unity.

Or reflexive deceivers promising to 'restore a sense of trust' because the thought of being trustworthy even never comes to mind as something to promise as a lie. I have seen that one in officials in response to corruption or abuse scandals far too many times. A cousin to that is expressing fear of 'turning into a low trust society' where they promise parades of horribles to try to poison the well against people rightfully distrusting them.

You can see this playing out right now, with X spreading holocaust denial and all sorts of corrosive messages in Europe, with it's owner being actively hostile to European institutions and the US government actively guarding it from consequences.