The New Holy Grail: Technology and Freedom

Víctor Lapuente (Chalamera, 1976) holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Oxford, is a professor at the University of Gothenburg, and a lecturer at Esade. His research focuses on the differences between governments and public policies, a field he also explores as a columnist for El País and a contributor to the Ser radio station.

With Immanence (AdN), he deploys the resources of fiction to narrate what he has so often dissected in theory. The novel revolves around an uncomfortable question: what price are we willing to pay for a better world? This question runs through the story and links old religious utopias with the most recent technological promises. Here, the author doesn't simply observe; he delves into the plot and turns the narrative into a laboratory in which to test his academic intuitions.

The book is structured in three time frames that intertwine like a triptych. In 1996, near the Monegros Desert, three teenagers find what they believe to be the Holy Grail among the ruins of a Templar castle. In 2025, one of them awakens from a coma in Gothenburg and, now an expert in cyberdemocracy, finds himself drawn into an international race to design a digital policy capable of changing the course of humanity. In 2086, the Western Republic lives under the tutelage of an artificial intelligence that guarantees absolute freedom in a paradoxically dystopian world.

This interplay of time allows Lapuente to move between genres: the coming-of-age novel, the political thriller, and the philosophical dystopia. Suspense sustains the narrative pulse, but the underlying purpose is to encourage us to think critically about the present and to reflect, without shortcuts, on the collective direction of our future.

⁄ Frida, the AI ​​that rules the Western Republic in the book, embodies a kind of secular deity

The title offers a clue. "Immanence," understood as that which remains within the world without the need for transcendence, contrasts with the religious drive to find ultimate meaning in life: the Holy Grail, the salvation of souls, the search for perfect order. Lapuente suggests that today this longing could be transferred to technology; blind trust in digital systems capable of guaranteeing the common good. What was once enshrined in relics or community rituals is now projected onto algorithms and promises of individual salvation.

The figure of Frida, the AI ​​that governs the Western Republic in Lapuente's book, embodies this tension. Transformed into a kind of secular deity, this artificial intelligence offers efficiency and security in exchange for the autonomy of an entire population.

The metaphor is disturbing: are we building a freer world or a more sophisticated cage? This dilemma connects with current debates about the limits of technology and the delegation of responsibilities to systems we barely understand, trusting that a higher authority—be it God, the state, or a machine—will protect us.

In the friction between faith, politics, and technology lies the power of a book that reminds us that fiction, even in its most hybrid forms, can also be an exercise in critical citizenship and an experiment in stretching extremes and confronting what we prefer not to look at.

⁄ The novel revolves around an uncomfortable question: what price are we willing to pay for a better world?

It's no coincidence that Lapuente—the same man who warned on the SER network that "democracy is passing the SAT exams all over the world"—now dares to examine democracy itself, bringing his academic diagnosis to the narrative arena. The result is a book that transcends its plot: a mirror of our contradictions, capable of combining entertainment and civic reflection with an intensity that demands slow digestion.

Victor Lapuente Immanence AdN 464 pages 22.95 euros