States of Shock: Stupidity and Knowledge in the 21st Century

States of Shock: Stupidity and Knowledge in the 21st Century

Language: English

Pages: 200

ISBN: 0745664946

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


In 1944 Horkheimer and Adorno warned that industrial society turns reason into rationalization, and Polanyi warned of the dangers of the self-regulating market, but today, argues Stiegler, this regression of reason has led to societies dominated by unreason, stupidity and madness. However, philosophy in the second half of the twentieth century abandoned the critique of political economy, and poststructuralism left its heirs helpless and disarmed in face of the reign of stupidity and an economic crisis of global proportions.

New theories and concepts are required today to think through these issues. The thinkers of poststructuralism Lyotard, Deleuze, Derrida must be re-read, as must the sources of their thought, Hegel and Marx. But we must also take account of Naomi Klein's critique of Milton Friedman and the Chicago School and her account of the 'shock doctrine'. In fact, argues Stiegler, a permanent 'state of shock' has prevailed since the beginning of the industrial revolution, intensified by the creative destruction brought about by the consumerist model. The result has been a capitalism that destroys desire and reason and in which every institution is undermined, above all those institutions that are the products par excellence of the Enlightenment the education system and universities.

Through a powerful critique of thinkers from Marx to Derrida, Stiegler develops new conceptual weapons to fight this destruction. He argues that schools and universities must themselves be transformed: new educational institutions must be developed both to take account of the dangers of digitization and the internet and to enable us to take advantage of the new opportunities they make available.

Telos 155 (Summer 2011): Adorno

Realist Vision

Giorgio Agamben: A Critical Introduction

The Paul de Man Notebooks (The Frontiers of Theory)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

individuation and unconscious, pharmacology of-->and unconscious, pharmacology of repression-->repression responsibilities-->responsibilities dilution of-->dilution of irresponsibility and baseness-->irresponsibility and baseness systems and-->systems and technologies and-->technologies and see also universities, responsibilities of-->see also universities, responsibilities of Ronell, A.-->Ronell, A. Rouch, J.-->Rouch, J. --> salvation and pharmacology of generations-->salvation and pharmacology

unconscious-->unconscious Aufklärung after discovery of-->Aufklärung after discovery of pharmacology of repetition and-->pharmacology of repetition and universities-->universities autonomy-->autonomy and heteronomy-->and heteronomy contributory research beyond-->contributory research beyond crisis of-->crisis of industrial condition of-->industrial condition of phenomenotechnics of rationalization-->phenomenotechnics of rationalization responsibilities of-->responsibilities of disenchantment and

‘technical form of life’. Neoteny does not just mean that the living requires artefacts in order to live – which is already the case for certain living things that modify their vital milieu by imprinting their form of life upon it. It means that, ‘if the living being could be completely peaceful and satisfied in itself’,86 as ‘the animal does not reason or work’,87 and is in this sense sovereign – in a sense that is not that of the psychosocial kingdom, where sovereignty derives on the contrary

Differend, reason has been wracked by conflict – and this conflict, and its work, that is, its working through,22 is that to which post-Kantian philosophy testifies, in having undergone this work of mourning for a unified and unifying conception of reason. ‘Reason’ – if we must retain this question and this word – is no longer the One, but the horizon that allows passages between the faculties of reason, forming an archipelago.23 After Kant, a new attempt at unification, more totalitarian and

always a pharmacology. It is always implemented through a therapeutic that takes care of the pharmakon that is tertiary retention, and that can short-circuit knowledge or on the contrary intensify it, producing infinitely long circuits of transindividuation – this is the meaning of the infinite we of Husserlian geometry. A long circuit of transindividuation is not just long: it is absolutely long. I must be inclined to return (like a salmon)53 to the originary intuitions and to project myself

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