Ulrike Guérot — European political scientist — Why “left vs. right” is the wrong map for today’s conflict: the real split is up vs. down, analogue vs. digital—and it’s pushing the West toward civil-war dynamics.

In this uncut conversation we discuss:
• Why polarization in the West isn’t ideological anymore—it’s urban vs. rural, young vs. old, migrants vs. natives
• How identity politics can erode humanism (equal dignity & rights) by turning difference into special rights
• The “bourgeois block”: how upper-left and upper-right merged while the lower strata get abandoned
• How the digital world rewires society—loss of real-life (analogue) skills, judgment, and dialogue
• Republic, commonwealth, and a practical middle path between capitalism and socialism (without nostalgia)

00:00 - “Civil war criteria” in Western countries?
01:01 - Why left vs. right no longer explains polarization
04:47 - The real fractures: urban/rural, young/old, migrants/natives
06:49 - The “bourgeois block” and the shift from left/right to up/down
10:28 - When the left dropped class politics for identity politics
14:02 - Humanism vs. identity: equal dignity & rights vs. special rights
21:13 - Cancel culture, legislation, and the collapse of free speech norms
27:01 - Digital vs. analogue worlds: how the internet breaks human interaction
33:06 - Haptics, handwriting, and why the internet weakens memory & learning
36:25 - Should we “shut down” the internet—or radically regulate how we use it?
54:45 - Digital money, control, and what happens when power can “switch you off”
1:15:23 - Religion, community, and why societies don’t function without belief systems
1:24:11 - Republic & commonwealth: a system where capital can’t buy legislation

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