I think she's correct to compare our situation now to a primitive band of people. Marshall McLuhan famously called this the global village. Close communication is paradoxically causing the fragmentation and balkanisation of the internet. A process which nations like China (with its own internet) and companies like Google (by getting into politics) are accelerating.

The goal of political correctness, adopting Daniel Dennett's intentional stance, is to control thinking. Individuals who are able to resist are in some ways more isolated now than the old communist dissidents. They at least got moral support from each other in prison.

http://www.beyondeasy.net/2015/09/mcluhan-new-tribalism-equi... https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/intentional-stance