Prof. Dr. Ursula Nelles, Rektorin der Uni Münster

Leserbrief zum Artikel der Münsterschen Zeitung “Weitere Besetzungen” vom 11.11.09

Die Aussagen, die der Pressesprecher der Universität Münster über die Schlossbesetzung 2006 getroffen hat sind an einigen Stellen korrekturbedürftig. Die Besetzung des Rektorates war stets geduldet. Die AktivistInnen haben die Besetzung friedlich abgebrochen und das Schloss besenrein übergeben – von einer Eskalation kann in keinster Weise gesprochen werden. Damals hat auch die designierte Rektorin Nelles für diese Aktion öffentlich Verständnis gezeigt. Zu Beginn ihrer Laufbahn gab sie sich ganz im Stil ihres Vorgängers gesprächsbereit. Heute zeigt sich die Rektorin politikunfähig – sie ist nicht in der Lage mit den Studierenden zu kommunizieren. Die Folge ist, dass anstelle von Verhandlungen Polizei eingesetzt wird und um dies zu legitimieren harmlose BesetzerInnen kriminalisiert werden. Auch versucht Frau Nelles auf diese Weise kritische Stimmen einzuschüchtern.
Aber nicht nur Studierenden ergeht es so, die Rektorin ist universitätsweit für ihre unverhältnismäßigen Reaktionen gegenüber Mitgliedern der Hochschule bekannt. Sie versucht nicht, andere zu überzeugen und zeigt keinen Respekt für abweichende Meinungen, sondern agiert ausschließlich über Machtdemonstrationen. Anstelle von Entgegnkommen werden Mitarbeiter angeschrieen, Instituten droht sie mit dem Entzug von Mitteln und Studierenden mit Anzeigen. An einer wissenschaftlichen Institution, an der man sich an dem Ideal des gemeinsamen Argumentierens und des Interessensausgleichs orientiert, hat ein solches Verhalten keine Tradition. Kurz vor der Rektorenwahl zeigt Frau Nelles einmal mehr, dass sie nicht zur Universität passt. Nur, weil es keinen anderen Kandidaten gibt, wird sie ihr Amt dennoch behalten.

Torniamo ad una delle domande iniziali: viviamo in una società del desiderio, oppure la nostra è piuttosto la società del desiderio dimidiato e tradito?
Difficile indurre desideri: persino la fantasia e l’arte di Philip K. Dick facevano sì che si potessero impiantare ricordi, ma non desideri, neppure in esseri umani artificiali, come i replicanti di Dick e Ridley Scott. In Blade Runner, la protagonista femminile, l’ottimo skin job, il “lavoro in pelle” Rachael (Sean Young), scopre il peso dei ricordi, e li fa propri, al punto di piangere, ma deve subire l’ordine perentorio di Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), “Say kiss me”, “Dì baciami!”, per sentire scoccare la forza del desiderio [1].
Nel vocabolario di Ars Industrialis (www.arsindustrialis.org/désir), il desiderio viene descritto come ciò va oltre la pulsione, ciò che la sublima. La sublimazione è il processo, necessario per il soggetto umano ed attuato grazie alla coscienza, attraverso il quale le pulsioni si trasformano in desideri. Stiegler sostiene che la sublimazione è in pericolo, cioè che il desiderio e la motivazione sono portati a regredire allo stadio di pulsione.
Nell’analisi politico-sociologica del movimento francese, il capitalismo finanziario gioca un ruolo rilevante in questo processo. Come tutti i media di massa, il capitalismo finanziario nuoce all’investimento produttivo, non iscrivendosi più nel desiderio e nel lungo termine, ma nella pulsione e nel breve. La questione centrale dell’economia politica non è dunque quella relativa al consumo, ma quella del recupero-rilancio del desiderio, manifestamente in panne.
A detta di Stiegler & Co., il desiderio come lo intende il sistema industriale attuale porta alla distruzione del desiderio stesso, il che induce una demotivazione nel lavoratore e nel consumatore, pericolosa per lo stesso mercato. Esistono tecniche di fabbricazione artificiale della motivazione, ma queste tecniche hanno finito col distruggere la motivazione stessa. L’economia capitalistica ha utilizzato la potenza dell’artefatto come captazione del fantasma, così da fissare la libido sui suoi propri oggetti. Creando così un nuovo feticismo delle merci, oltre Marx.

Secondo questo schema, se l’energia del XIX secolo è stata quella del lavoro, nel XX secolo è stata quella del consumatore. Non è il petrolio il motore del capitalismo, ma la libido: l’energia libidinale dev’essere dunque canalizzata sugli oggetti di consumo così da assorbire le eccedenze della produzione industriale. Fin qui, mi sembra che il ragionamento tenga. Stiegler & Co. Aggiungono: si tratta allora di captare la libido, vale a dire di confezionare i desideri secondo le necessità degli investimenti. E su questo ho dei dubbi: in particolare, sulla capacità di confezionare (façonner) i desideri attraverso le protesi mnemotecniche. Si tratta forse di una sfumatura, ma continuo a ritenere che le mnemotecnologie (in testa la televisione) condizionino fin dalla radice le forme di consumo, semmai schermando la coscienza dai propri desideri, separandola dai propri desideri.
Lo sfruttamento manageriale ed illimitato della libido distrugge il desiderio e ciò che di propriamente umano è in noi. Nella prospettiva di Stiegler, il capitalismo è riuscito nell’impresa di cattivizzare la libido, desingolarizzandola. Ma una libido desingolarizzata non è più libido, bensì pulsione. D’altra parte, il capitalismo non sa che farsene neppure della pulsione e questa finisce con l’esplodergli in mano – un tratto forte della nostra epoca.
La distruzione del desiderio significa aprire le porte alle pulsioni. Ma il desiderio oscurato fa star male. Se le persone soffrono per i loro desideri repressi, si dà nevrosi, ma quando sofrrono per non provare più desideri, allora si tratta di psicosi. Un fenomeno mondiale e di massa, che dovrebbe esser compensato dall’iperconsumo. Ma più questo consumo compulsivo compensa la perdita di desiderio, più preserva quella perdita stessa.



Bernard Stiegler: What Will We Become

Bernard Stiegler has reframed the question concerning technology around the concept of human becoming. Stiegler sees an intrinsic relationship between the evolution of human beings (anthropogenesis) and technology (technogenesis). Stiegler makes two central claims: (1) that human beings are inherently technological and (2) that they develop through the evolution of technology. For Stiegler, the question concerning technology is not “How shall we act?” or even “How shall we live?” but rather “What shall we become?”

Stielger claims that human beings are intrinsically technological. His claim rests on the connection between technics and time as he explains:

There is today a conjunction between the question of technics and the question of time, one made evident by the speed of technical evolution, by the ruptures in temporalization (event-ization) that this evolution provokes, and by the processes of deterritorialization accompanying it. It is a conjunction that calls for a new consideration of technicity. The following work aims to establish that organized inorganic beings are originarily and as marks of the de-fault of origin out of which there is [es gibt] time—constitutive (in the strict phenomenological sense) of temporality as well as spatiality, in quest of a speed “older” than time and space, which are the derivative decompositions of speed. Life is the conquest of mobility. As a “process of exteriorization,” technics is the pursuit of life by means other than life (Stiegler, Bernard, Technics and Time, I: The Fault of Epimetheus, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998, Originally published as La Technique et le temps, 1: La faute d’Epiméthée, Galilée: Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie, 1994, 17.)

While Stiegler agrees with Heidegger’s claim that Dasein is a temporal being, who is thrown into existence and stretched along between birth and death which constitutes the historical temporality of Dasein (Being and Time. Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1962. Originally published as Sein und Zeit. Tubingen: Neomarius Verlag, 1926. Ibid., 174, 425, 427.) he questions whether this temporality is a intratemporality and criticizes Heidegger for overlooking the fact that human temporality is externalized in technics. As such, Dasein is essentially “prosthetic,” that is, Dasein is always seeking to temporalize itself externally through artefacts (Gaston, Sean, “Technics of Decision: An Interview,” Journal of Theoretical Humanities, Vol. 8, no. 2 (August 2003): 156.) Stiegler explains:

Mortals are prosthetic, that is to say they are endowed with artefacts and are capable of altering the artefacts which they adopt. In this sense, they are not doomed to a predestination, they “have to be” what they are, they are destined to decision, that is, to time understood in this sense, which is not that of life (Ibid., 156.)

Additionally, Dasein temporlizes itself technically as Stiegler points out.

Dasein is outside itself, in ec-stasis, temporal: its past lies outside it, yet it is nothing but this past, in the form of not yet. By being actually its past, it can do nothing but put itself outside itself, “ek-sist.” But how does Dasein eksist in this  way? Prosthetically, through pro-posing and pro-jecting itself outside itself, in front of itself. And this means that it can only test its improbability programmatically (Stiegler, Technics and Time, 234.)

The temporality of Dasein is constituted prosthetically which also means that time is constituted through technology or what Stiegler prefers to call “technics”. Time is therefore inscribed in technics which leads Stiegler to conclude that human becoming, that is its temporality, is through technology. He calls the mode of human becoming “epiphylogenesis” which involves “the evolution of the living by other means than life (Ibid., 135.)” Whereas, Heidegger saw being and time as constitutive of Dasein’s facticity, Stiegler argues that it is constituted in an “epigenetic layer of life” which is an “epigenetic sedimentation, a memorization of what has come to pass, is what is called the past, what we shall name the epiphylogenesis of man, meaning the conservation, accumulation, and sedimentation of successive epigeneses, mutually articulated (Ibid., 140.)” At a very primitive and basic level, language can be seen as an epigenetic layer and therefore a technic through which human beings temporalize themselves. If we now return to Heidegger’s notion of technology as a mode of disclosure we can see the implications of Stiegler’s claim.  If Dasein is temporal, and time is constituted through technics as Stiegler claims, then technology becomes the mode of human becoming.

The contrast between Heidegger and Stiegler could not be more stark. Whereas Heidegger sees an ontological distinction between Dasein and the tools it takes up, Stiegler sees both as intertwined. This intertwining is a process of externalization which he refers to as instrumental maieutics. Instrumental maieutics is the process whereby human temporality is externalized through the use of instruments and simultaneously given back to the human being. Stiegler puts it this way, “the cortex is determined by the tool just as much as that of the tool by the cortex: a mirror effect whereby one, looking at itself in the other, is both deformed and formed in the process (Ibid., 158.)” This claim is similar to Marx’s claim that “man’s consciousness, changes with every change in the conditions of his material existence, in his social relations and his social life (Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto, trans. Stanley Moore (New York: Penguin Books, 2002), 241.)” Human becoming is intrinsically linked with technological development.

Stiegler’s anthropology gets its metaphysical bearings by returning to the myth of Prometheus retold by Plato in the Protagoras (Plato, “Protagoras,” in Plato: Complete Works, eds. John M. Cooper and D.S. Hutchison (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997), 320d-322d.) In Plato’s retelling of this myth the gods assigned Prometheus (forethought) and his brother Epimetheus (afterthought) the task of assigning powers and abilities to mortals. Epimetheus begged Prometheus to let him have the exclusive responsibility of assigning powers and abilities to the mortals. Prometheus agreed, and Epimetheus began assigning powers and abilities in such a way as to bring harmony and balance to the natural world. But, by the time Epimetheus came to the human being he was out of powers and abilities and Prometheus had to steal the art of fire (empuron technen) (Plato, “Protagoras,” 321e.) from Hephaestus in order for the human being to have a power and ability. Stiegler sees this myth as pointing to a fundamental “lack”  or “de-fault” (défaut ) in the metaphysical origins of the human being which is overcome through technics; that is to say the art of fire compensates for the human beings lack of power and ability. Human beings are metaphysically undetermined and contingent; that is, human beings are finite. This leads Stiegler to claim that “discovery, insight, invention, imagination are all, according to the narrative of the myth, characteristic of a default.” The origins of human technology are therefore bound up with the origins and finitude of humanity. Thus, for Stiegler, the question concerning technology is not “How shall we act?” or “How shall we live?” but rather “What shall we become?” As Sean Gaston, has put it:

For Stiegler, the technical is more than the tool, more than the machine: it involves the invention of the human. Life is already reliant on technics. Technics makes the transmission of the past and the anticipation of the future possible.     Without technics there can be no memory, no heritage, no adoption, no invention.  Technics give us time (Gaston, Sean, “Technics of Decision: An Interview,” Journal of Theoretical Humanities, Vol. 8, no. 2 (August 2003): 151.)”

Stiegler views technics as “the horizon of all possibility to come and of all possibility of a future” which philosophy has “repressed as an object of thought (Stiegler, Technics and Time, ix.)” In response to this repressive approach Stiegler has argued that “the modern age is essentially that of modern technics (Ibid., 7.)”

Conclusion

In this article, I have attempted to present three ways the question concerning technology has been re-framed in order to bring into relief what is really at stake in the question. I began with Hannah Arendt’s reframing of the question around human activity. Arendt’s analysis of the question concerning technology pointed to a Janus-faced problem. On the one hand technology makes us masters of our world through machinery. On the other hand, it also puts the capability of destroying the world in our hands. Next, I presented Martin Heidegger’s reframing of the question around the human being. Heidegger recognized both the danger and the possibilities for human life in its relationship with technology and highlighted art is a way of coming closer to the dangerous power of modern technology so that its saving power may shine forth. Finally, I presented the view of the contemporary French philosopher Bernard Stiegler who reframes the question around human becoming. Stiegler’s insight into the interrelationship between technics and time and his conclusion that human temporality is constituted technologically helped to bring into relief what is really at stake in the question concerning technology, namely, that the future of humanity will be determined through technology.

Technology has been part of human life since the dawn of consciousness and it will not fade from the mortal horizon. Human beings are inherently technological, in fact we are human because we are technological, and therefore our destiny is bound up with a Janus-faced system full of threats and promises. To face Janus we must learn to act and live in a free and reflective relationship with technology, mindful of the dangers and hopeful of the promises so that who we become will remain human and not monstrous.

Martin Heidegger: How Shall We Live?

Martin Heidegger reframed the question concerning technology around the concept of human being. Heidegger’s 1953 essay “The Question Concerning Technology” approaches the question of modern technology as a pervasive and Janus-faced fact of modern human life. Drawing on Rousseau he captures the problem in his opening statement: “everywhere we remain free and chained to technology (Heidegger, Martin, “The Question Concerning Technology,” in Martin Heidegger: Basic Writings, ed. David Ferrell Krell, 1977, repr. New York: Harper Collins Publisher, 1993, 311.)” Technology cannot be approached uncritically, according to Heidegger. Instead, it must be approached freely and reflectively because the essence of technology, as a way of revealing the totality of being, is enframing which both endangers and saves being.

Heidegger argues that “technology is a way of revealing (Ibid., 318.)” To ground this claim he recovers the Greek understanding of technology (techne) as revelatory (aletheia) and suggests the natural triadic process of physis-poesis-aletheia for understanding how technology can be revelatory (Ibid., 317-319.) Heidegger points out that for the Greeks; physis (Nature) was the “arising of something out of itself,” as such it was a disclosure or unconcealment (aletheia) of being (Ibid., 317.) This process of this unconcealment was understood as a “bringing-forth (poesis)” of being. The same was true for crafts or works of art (techne). The craftsman or artist brings forth or reveals what is concealed in nature (Ibid., 318.) Thus, Heidegger concludes, technology is a way of revealing, a way of bringing forth the totality of being. The problem, of course, is that not all revealing is poetic. Heidegger claims that the essence of modern technology is enframing (Gestell) (Ibid., 325.) As such, modern technology is a type of revealing that orders and determines. As Heidegger puts it, “enframing means the gathering together of the setting upon that sets upon man, i.e., challenges him forth, to reveal the actual, in the mode of ordering, as standing reserve (Ibid., 325.)” Heidegger contrasts this type of revealing with the Greek notion of techne as a poesis of aletheia. Although both the Greek understanding of techne and modern technology are both forms of aletheia, they reveal the totality of being in vastly different ways (Ibid., 326.) Techne as poesis allows nature to “come forth in unconcealment,” whereas modern technology as Gestell, challenges nature to come forth as a “standing reserve.” Nature is therefore set upon, ordered and determined in a way that leads to a concealment of its truth instead of a revealing of it. Modern technology in this mode of revealing is therefore dangerous (Gefahr) both to Nature and to humanity (Ibid., 331.)

In order to illustrate the distinction between poesis and Gestell Heidegger offers the example of a hydroelectric power plant that sets upon the Rhine River as a source of power (standing reserve) and an old wooden bridge “joined bank with bank for hundreds of years (Ibid., 321.)” The power plant enframes the river in such a way that it can no longer be a river but must be a power source. The bridge on the other hand, while equally technological, allows the river to be what it is: a river. But Heidegger does not leave the issue separated into categories of “acceptable” and “unacceptable” technology. Instead he turns to face the Janus-faced question concerning technology and reframes it.

Heidegger recognizes that technology is ambiguous (Ibid., 338.) Given that the essence of modern technology is enframing, it “blocks every view into the propriative event of revealing” and therefore endangers the truth of being (Ibid., 338.) But enframing also “lets man endure… that he may be the one who is needed and used for the safekeeping of the essence of truth (Ibid., 338.)” Thus, the essence of modern technology as enframing both conceals and reveals the truth of being and therefore contains both a danger and a saving power (Ibid., 338.) But, as Heidegger points out, while “we can look into the danger and see the growth of the saving power” we are nevertheless “not yet saved (Ibid., 338.)” We must find a way of living in a “free relationship” with technology (Ibid., 311.) The question is not “Do we accept or reject technology?” but rather “How do we live with it?” Heidegger’s answer to the question concerning technology reframed in this way is: art. Art is essentially poetical and therefore contains the potential for “the bringing forth of the true into the beautiful (Ibid., 339.)” Heidegger does not say that art will poetically reveal the truth of being; only that it is possible (Ibid., 340.) But art is a way of coming closer to the dangerous power of modern technology so that its saving power may shine forth.

But have Arendt and Heidegger missed something in their analysis of modern technology? Is it possible that Arendt in her ardent concern for the human condition has missed a vital aspect of it that changes our understanding of the relationship between humanity and technology? Is it possible that in Heidegger’s characterization of technology as separate from nature he has missed a common foundation for both? Bernard Stiegler thinks this is the case.

Introduction

The question concerning technology is a perpetually human question that arises from a Janus-faced technology that holds within it both threats and promises. The technological progress of human history is a testament to this fact with its advances in science and medicine that gave birth to both cures and curses, like polio vaccines and the atom bomb. It is therefore necessary to continually reframe the question concerning technology in order remain in a free and reflective relationship with it. In this article, I will attempt to present three ways the question has been re-framed in order to bring into relief what is really at stake in the question. I will begin with the approach of Hannah Arendt in her book The Human Condition where she reframed the question around human activity.  Next, I will present the approach of Martin Heidegger who reframed the question around the concept of human being in his essay “The Question Concerning Technology.” Although Arendt’s work appeared after Heidegger’s essay it provides an effective historical framework within which to situate Heidegger’s approach . Finally, I will present the view of the contemporary French philosopher Bernard Stiegler who reframes the question around human becoming. Each of these attempts to reframe the question concerning technology will point us in the direction of what is at stake in our relationship to technology and allow us to face Janus in a free and reflective way.

Hannah Arendt: How Shall We Act?

Hannah Arendt has reframed the question concerning technology around human activity. More specifically, she has distinguished between three types of human activity; namely, labor, work and action. For Arendt, labor “corresponds to the biological process of the human body,” work is “the unnaturalness of human activity… that provides an ‘artificial’ world of things,” and action is “the only activity that goes on directly between men without the intermediary of things or matter (Arendt, Hannah, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1958), 7.)” Labor assures the survival of both the individual and the species (Ibid., 8.) Work assures the permanence and durability of our fragile human existence through the manufacture of artifacts (techne)(Ibid., 8.) Action creates history through founding and preserving political bodies (Ibid., 9.) For Arendt the realm of human activity is constitutive of the human condition. What is interesting about Arendt’s account of human activity is the conclusion she draws about the human condition. She writes:

The human condition comprehends more than the conditions under which life has been given to man. Men are conditioned beings because everything they come in contact with turns immediately into a condition of their existence. The world in which the vita activa spends itself consists of things produced by human activities; but the things that owe their existence exclusively to men nevertheless constantly condition their human makers (Ibid., 9.)

The “things produced by human activities” conditions their producers. The made becomes the maker. This is the problem of technology which leads Arendt to ask “How shall we then act?”

For Arendt, the modern advent of automated technology begins with a transition from tools to machinery which ceases to involve an adjustment of the tool to the man and instead requires the adjustment of the man to the machine (Ibid., 147.) She sees it developing in two distinct stages. She marks the first stage with the invention of the steam engine which led to the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century (Ibid., 148.) Arendt characterizes this stage as relatively banal in that it “was still characterized by an imitation of natural processes and the use of natural forces for human purposes (Ibid., 148.)” However, in the next stage Nature was no longer imitated, it was “denaturalized” and separated from the artificial world of human fabrication (Ibid., 148.) This stage arose through the use of electricity and came to condition the use of all future technology(Ibid., 148.) It is during this stage that the Arendt sees the loss of the categories of homo faber (the tool maker) for whom ends were achieved through the use of instruments. The end result is the assembly line of manufacturing (Ibid., 149.) Arendt calls this stage: automation. It involves “channeling natural forces into the human world” so that they become mechanized and artificial(Ibid., 149, n.12.) One obvious example of this type of “channeling of natural forces” is atomic energy which brought with it the threat of global annihilation. As Ann Chapman has pointed out, the stability of the earth is threatened by automation because the new elements, chemicals and organisms that develop as a result of automation are incorporated into the “processes of the earth [and] are in effect the starting of new natural processes. These new processes mean that nature can no longer be relied upon to behave in the same way as it did in the past (Chapman, Ann, “Technology as World Building,” Ethics, Place and Environment, Vol. 7, no. 1-2 (March/June 2004), 68.)” The consequences of this transition raise the question of technology. If our actions, namely automated manufacturing through machines, are changing the earth so that life itself is transformed and even jeopardized, how should we act? Arendt concludes by saying:

….. homo faber, the toolmaker, invented tools and implements in order to erect a world, not—at least, not primarily—to help the human life process. The question therefore is not so much whether we are the masters or the      slaves of our machines, but whether machines still serve the world and its things,  or if, on the contrary, they and the automatic motion of their processes have begun to rule and even destroy world and things (Arendt, The Human Condition 151.)

Arendt’s analysis of the question concerning technology points to a Janus-faced problem. On the one hand technology makes us masters of our world through machinery. On the other hand, it puts the capability of destroying the world in our hands also. No philosopher has reframed this aspect of the question more cogently than Arendt’s former teacher Martin Heidegger.

Le Moulin à paroles (m@p) se présente comme un outil d’appropriation des œuvres classiques. Le texte n’est pas plein et fermé sur lui-même, opposé à vous, mais ouvert comme un fruit mûr ou comme une vieille demeure, si bien que vous trouvez moyen d’y pénétrer, et que lui-même va pouvoir habiter votre cerceau, occuper votre mémoire et ainsi vous accompagner peut-être tout au long de votre vie.

Le Moulin à paroles (m@p) est un “support de mémoire”, et dans cette mesure il fait échapper l’œuvre littéraire classique à la culture de la consommation (fût-elle admirative) pour la faire rentrer (ou la ramener) à une culture de la participation.

À l’époque classique, l’écrit n’est pas coupé de l’oral mais utilisé plutôt comme un “support de mémoire”, ce qui fait de chaque amateur d’art non pas seulement un consommateur mais un acteur culturel. À ce propos, je vous invite à aller visionner la petite vidéo de Bernard Stiegler intitulée Consumérisme culturel contre amateur d’art sur le site d’Ars industrialis.

Cela signifie que le m@p utilise les NTCI (Nouvelles Technologies de la Communication et de l’Information) pour renouer avec les traditions les plus classiques.

Je suis heureux que ces nouvelles technologies permettent la gratuité. Mais je suis plus heureux encore qu’elles permettent la communication et la communication à distance.

J’ai aimé que Chantal Ledoux vienne sur notre site nous parler de cette petite ville du Sahara où elle enseigne le français (allez voir, c’est en commentaire de ce billet).

J’ai aimé qu’un visiteur inconnu nous apporte du Phèdre en commentaire d’un billet terrible et beaucoup lu sur Le loup et l’agneau.

J’ai aimé travailler

• avec Yayoi Gunji sur 4 vers d’Apollinaire,
• avec Ariane Delrieu sur La cigale et la fourmi,
• avec Sylvie T. sur un Verlaine très parisien qu’elle transpose à Nice.

J’ai été heureux de découvrir le billet que Nathalie Bordy nous consacre sur son site de La Désirade, et je l’en remercie.

Bonne semaine à vous,

Taking note of the Heidegger conference posted below makes me return to a problem I had putting together my syllabus this semester for a general continental philosophy course. I try to teach a completely different syllabus each year (a rule that I apply for all of my courses). I had to put in my book order before I could do my syllabus, which means I ordered too many books for what I could cover. In the end, it came down to whether I would work through Stiegler’s Time and Technics II or Foucault’s Birth of Bio-Politics. Yeah, those are sometimes the weird choices of syllabus writing. I like Foucault’s book since it allows me to teach him without spending forever on disciplinary power, which while important, is not the most interesting to teach. I also like this course since he talks quite a bit about his method and he’s also working through contemporary problems directly. Of course, the lacuna in the work is that he is describing what we could just call the ideology of a period (using that in the Enlightenment sense given Foucault’s critique of Marxian ideology analysis) and thus what may or may not be productive of given subjectivities in the neo-liberal period. Of course, this leads one easily to take up the entire problem of all of his genealogies, since it’s not always to consider the difference between those works productive of ideas (and thus not indicative of operative techniques of power) and those that are; the seeming test often in Foucault is that its simply a work that’s older. I imagine that if these neo-liberal texts were not modern but more dated, Foucault would be much more likely to identify them with a given technique of power, rather than hesitate as he does, which of course, points out a problem of his choice of any of his sources, however helpful his work often is. 

In any event, sourcing is also a problem in Stiegler’s work. First, I think the second volume of TT is better in the sense that it begins with a nice introduction of the first volume, Stephen Barker has really done a really flowing translation, and he takes up what I think would be issues more “relevant” to students. But I also worry that he relies on really outdated scientific ideas on biology and evolution, though ultimately if one is thinking of a “deconstructive materialism” or somesuch, as I often am, it’s a bit less than helpful than, say, Jean-Luc Nancy’s work, which while less interested in technology as such, offers better general discussions on differance and the real and the excess of sense of each thing. But if you have different ideas on this, let me know since there’s still time to switch things on the syllabus…

festival-philosophia.com, mai 2009

Philosophia – 3ème édition les 30 et 31 mai 2009 à Saint-Émilion sur le thème du “mondial” et de “l’universel”

« Philosophia » est d’abord une “fête de la philosophie”. Pendant un long week-end, on y célèbre le plaisir d’apprendre et de comprendre. Le public peut assister à des conférences philosophiques, participer à des ateliers, à des expériences sensorielles, dans différents lieux emblématiques d’une prestigieuse cité viticole classée au Patrimoine mondial de l’Unesco.
Simultanément, la ville sera animée par des débats, des interventions œnologiques et gastronomiques, des lectures publiques, des expositions, des spectacles…

Saint-Émilion fêtera en 2009 le dixième anniversaire de son inscription au patrimoine mondial de l’Unesco au titre de l’architecture mais aussi du paysage. Cet anniversaire a éveillé en nous des nombreuses questions spontanées et intuitives. Un paysage mondial, quel paysage, quel monde ? Sommes-nous les acteurs malhabiles d’un monde qui nivelle et gomme inexorablement les identités et les différences ? Nos vins – et nos pensées – doivent-elles se ranger dans des flacons identiques, les yeux de nos enfants s’émouvoir aux mêmes spectacles ? A l’heure d’Internet et des échanges planétaires, comment la pensée philosophique appréhende-t-elle cette mondialisation galopante ? Pouvons-nous encore résister ? Après les deux premiers festivals consacrés respectivement aux thèmes des ” sens ” et du ” bonheur “, les notions de ” mondial ” et ” d’universel ” seront les points de départ de notre manifestation cette année.

SAMEDI 30 MAI

14h00 – 15h00

CARMEN ANóN FÉLIU, Paysagiste, professeur à l’Université Polytechnique de Madrid, membre et expert évaluateur du Comité du Patrimoine Mondial (UNESCO)

• Patrimoine mondial, valeur universelle ?

L’UNESCO encourage l’identification, la protection et la préservation du patrimoine culturel et naturel à travers le monde. Le patrimoine est l’héritage du passé que nous transmettons aux générations à venir. Ce qui rend exceptionnel le concept de patrimoine mondial est son application universelle : les sites du patrimoine mondial appartiennent à tous les peuples du monde, quel que soit le territoire sur lequel ils sont situés.

Conférence parrainée par la Ville de Saint-Émilion – Spécial 10ème anniversaire classement UNESCO.
Cloître de la Collégiale

PIERRE-HENRI TAVOILLOT – Maître de conférences en philosophie à l’Université de Paris IV et chargé de cours à l’IEP, Président du Collège de Philosophie et membre du Conseil d’Analyse de la Société.

• Une leçon particulière sur l’universel : les lumières Impérialisme ou communautarisme ?

Universalisme ou différentialisme ? Entre deux maux lequel choisir ? Face à ce dilemme, l’héritage du siècle des Lumières, plus divers et complexe qu’il n’y paraît, demeure une boussole indispensable. C’est pourquoi, plus que jamais, il convient d’écouter cette « leçon particulière sur l’universel ».

Douves du Manoir Galhaud

SOPHIE GEOFFRION, professeur de philosophie, fondatrice de Philoland

LAURENCE NIEDZWIECKI, comédienne

• Philo’Théatre : Atelier jeune public – à partir de 7 ans, sans les parents (nombre de places limitées)
A partir d’une petite représentation théâtrale, les enfants sont guidés dans une réflexion et un échange sur la relation de l’homme à la nature et sa place dans le monde.
Restaurant “La Cour des Arts”

15h30 – 16h30

OLIVIER MONGIN, Editeur, directeur de la revue « Esprit », professeur à l’Université Nationale du Paysage de Versailles.

• Mondialisation et reconfiguration des territoires.

La mondialisation contemporaine est un phénomène historique dont les facettes sont multiples. Si les aspects technologiques, économiques, politiques et identitaires jouent un rôle décisif, il ne faut pas sous-estimer l’aspect territorial. En effet, la mondialisation est à l’origine d’une “reconfiguration des territoires” à l’échelle planétaire. Il nous faut repenser un autre urbanisme… mais lequel ?

Salle des Dominicains

JULIE ALLARD, Docteur en philosophie, chercheur qualifié du Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique (FNRS) en Belgique.

• La mondialisation du droit fonde-t-elle une justice universelle ?

Le droit contemporain se mondialise sans que nous ayons vraiment eu le temps de penser la forme que pourrait prendre un droit global à l’échelle de la planète. La philosophie, de son côté, ambitionne une justice universelle au-delà des frontières de l’Etat. Mais la réalité peut-elle rencontrer l’idée ? Ne faut-il pas renoncer à un universalisme abstrait qui engagerait les individus à rompre avec leurs loyautés particulières et leur citoyenneté nationale, et repenser les modalités de la justice universelle ?

Douves du Manoir Galhaud

OSCAR BRENIFIER, Docteur en Philosophie, formateur, consultant, fondateur et directeur de la Revue internationale de didactique de la philosophie L’AGORA

• Philosopher avec les enfants ?

« Les enfants sont philosophes » entend-on souvent. Il est vrai que de manière assez naturelle, ils se posent un certain nombre de questions que les adultes ont perdu l’habitude de poser. Néanmoins, cette ouverture d’esprit se perd assez rapidement si elle n’est pas nourrie et structurée. Prendre le temps d’examiner de grandes questions, apprendre à penser ensemble, voilà en quoi consiste l’art de philosopher.

Jardin de la Grande Fontaine (ou salle Gothique –jardin de l’Hôtel de ville – en cas de mauvais temps)

HERVÉ PARPAILLON, Professeur de philosophie

• Qu’avons nous en commun ?

Est-il encore possible de déterminer en quoi consiste notre commune humanité ?

Librairie des Colporteurs

17h00 – 18h00

BERNARD STIEGLER, Philosophe, directeur du développement culturel du Centre Pompidou.
• Du marché au commerce

L’universel, disait Gilles Deleuze, philosophe du singulier, c’est le marché. Cent ans après l’invention par Henry Ford du modèle consumériste, le marché, par où s’est concrétisé le projet universalisant de l’Occident, a tout à coup tourné, en 2008, au “marché de dupes”. Si le commerce suppose toujours un échange entre des singularités, le marché sans commerce – qui résulte du consumérisme – annule les singularités tout en généralisant l’irresponsabilité. La notion « d’économie de la contribution » ouvre-elle une perspective de renaissance du commerce ?

Cloître de la Collégiale

SERGE BRIFFAUD, Historien, directeur du Centre de recherche sur l’histoire et la culture du paysage (CEPAGE), professeur à l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture et de Paysage de Bordeaux

• Saint-Émilion, regards croisés sur un paysage. (spécial 10e anniversaire du classement de Saint-Émilion)
Espace de notre rencontre intime avec le monde, le paysage est lisière, lieu hybride et incertain. Comment une rationalité scientifique peut-elle s’immiscer dans cet entre-deux mouvant du paysage ? L’exercice de lecture de paysage explorera cette question, en s’attachant, à partir du décryptage d’un paysage saint-émilionnais, à présenter les différentes facettes de ce qu’est et pourrait être une recherche “paysagère”

Conférence parrainée par la Communauté de Communes de la Juridiction de Saint-Emilion – Spécial 10ème anniversaire classement UNESCO.

Porte Brunet

SOPHIE GEOFFRION, diplômée de philosophie, fondatrice de Philoland
LAURENCE NIEDZWIECKI, comédienne

• Philo’Théatre : Atelier jeune public – à partir de 7 ans, sans les parents (nombre de places limitées)
A partir d’une petite représentation théâtrale, les enfants sont guidés dans une réflexion et un échange sur la relation de l’homme à la nature et sa place dans le monde.

Restaurant “La Cour des Arts”

18h30 – 19h30

PASCAL BRUCKNER, romancier, philosophe, collabore au « Nouvel Observateur » et au journal « Le Monde ».

• Crise de l’idée de nation dans un monde sans frontières
Face à la mondialisation économique et au multiculturalisme, les spécificités nationales ont-elle encore un sens ? L’idée d’un concert des nations – où le monde est découpé à l’échelle des états – peut-elle résister à l’émergence contemporaine de blocs continentaux (Asie, Amériques, Europe) ?

Conférence parrainée par BNP-Paribas

Salle des Dominicains

PHILIPPE PETIT, Journaliste et essayiste, collabore à l’hebdomadaire “Marianne” et anime, sur “France Culture”, l’émission “Sciences et conscience”

• Les maladies de la mondialisation

Santé physique, santé mentale ; la mondialisation engendre t-elle de nouvelles maladies ? Comment les maladies se répartissent-elles sur les territoires, comment interagissent-elles ? Quels sont les risques de transformer en maladies mentales nos émotions et nos comportements, dès lorsqu’ils s’écartent de la « norme prescrite et du « bien être », valeur quasi universelle et idéal à atteindre.

Cloître de l’Église collégiale

DIMANCHE 31 MAI

10h30 -11h30

RAPHAËL ENTHOVEN, Philosophe, Producteur des nouveaux chemins de la connaissance sur France-Culture

FABRICE GERSCHEL, Directeur de la publication de Philosophie Magazine

MARTIN LEGROS, Rédacteur en chef adjoint de Philosophie Magazine

• Rencontre avec l’équipe de “Philosophie-Magazine”

Naissance et vie d’un magazine indépendant consacré à la philosophie. Journalisme et philosophie au XXème siècle : nous nous sommes tant aimés.

Salle Gothique (jardin de l’Hôtel de Ville)

JEAN-ROBERT PITTE,Professeur de géographie et d’aménagement à l’Université Paris-Sorbonne, membre de l’Institut (Académie des Sciences morales et politiques)
DENIS SAVEROT,Directeur de la rédaction de La Revue du Vin de France
ALAIN MOUEIX, Viticulteur, président de l’Association des Grands Crus Classés de Saint-Émilion
• Le vin de terroir est-il l’avenir de la viticulture mondiale ?

Face aux nouveaux amateurs, les vins de cépages seraient-ils les seuls à avoir un avenir ? Ce choix fait aux Etats-Unis mais aussi Chili, Argentine, Afrique du Sud, Australie… peut-il être considéré comme raisonnable dans un pays comme la France où la diversité est une donnée de base ? Il en va du vin comme de toutes les productions relevant d’une culture, d’un territoire et d’une tradition ; si la diversification représente la véritable réponse aux attentes des consommateurs, cela implique en tous cas un sérieux effort de pédagogie et d’information !

Conférence parrainée par le Conseil des Vins de Saint-Emilion – Spécial 10ème anniversaire classement UNESCO.

Salle des Dominicains

14h00 – 15h00

CHARLES PEPIN, Philosophe et romancier, professeur au Lycée de la Légion d’Honneur et à l’IEP de Paris

• L’ambition universelle de l’émotion esthétique

Des goûts et des couleurs, les hommes discuteront toujours ; ils continueront à se disputer de par le monde tant qu’il y aura du beau à contempler. Mais envisager la possibilité d’un accord universel qui viendrait constituer la qualité de mon émotion esthétique, c’est convier les autres – tous les autres – au coeur de ma subjectivité, être généreux là même où je pourrais sembler autoritaire.

Cloître de l’Église Collégiale

AUGUSTIN BERQUE, Géographe et orientaliste, directeur d’études à l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales

• Le rêve de la nature-jardin. (spécial 10e anniversaire du classement de Saint-Émilion)

La confusion entre nature et jardin se manifeste à la fois dans les comportements et l’organisation de l’espace géographique. Phénomène récent et écologiquement insoutenable, « l’urbain diffus », est le dernier héritier de cette confusion : des populations culturellement et fonctionnellement urbaines s’imaginent vivre “dans la nature”…

Douves du Manoir Galhaud

SOPHIE GEOFFRION, diplômée de philosophie, fondatrice de Philoland

LAURENCE NIEDZWIECKI, comédienne

• Philo’Théatre : Atelier jeune public – à partir de 7 ans, sans les parents (nombre de places limitées)
A partir d’une petite représentation théâtrale, les enfants sont guidés dans une réflexion et un échange sur la relation de l’homme à la nature et sa place dans le monde.
Restaurant “La Cour des Arts”

15h30 – 16h30

JEAN-MARIE PELT, Pharmacien, botaniste-écologiste, président de l’Institut Européen d’Ecologie et fondateur de l’Institut Européen d’Ecologie de Metz

• La raison du plus faible

Tout au long de l’histoire de la vie sur Terre, là où les plus gros et les plus forts n’ont pas su résister aux cataclysmes et changements climatiques, ce sont souvent les créatures les plus humbles qui ont survécu. Notre société humaine, en lutte pour le “toujours plus”, a-t-elle un avenir, si elle reste sourde à cet enseignement de la nature ?

Conférence animée par Isabelle Francq, responsable du service culturel du Magazine « La Vie »

Salle des Dominicains

CHRISTOPHE BOUTON, Professeur de philosophie à l’Université Bordeaux 3

• Vers un monde plus libre ? La possibilité d’une philosophie de l’histoire mondiale.
À la fin des Lumières, apparaît la philosophie de l’histoire, un genre philosophique nouveau qui vise à retracer dans ses grandes lignes l’histoire de l’humanité, et à se demander si celle-ci a un sens (dans les deux sens du terme : une rationalité et une orientation vers un but). Que reste-t-il aujourd’hui de l’esprit de cette philosophie et de l’idée d’un progrès de la liberté ? Devons-nous renoncer à l’idée même d’histoire mondiale ?

Douves du Manoir Galhaud

OSCAR BRENIFIER, Docteur en Philosophie, formateur, consultant, fondateur et directeur de la Revue internationale de didactique de la philosophie L’AGORA

• Philosopher avec les enfants ?

« Les enfants sont philosophes » entend-on souvent. Il est vrai que de manière assez naturelle, ils se posent un certain nombre de questions que les adultes ont perdu l’habitude de poser. Néanmoins, cette ouverture d’esprit se perd assez rapidement si elle n’est pas nourrie et structurée. Prendre le temps d’examiner de grandes questions, apprendre à penser ensemble, voilà en quoi consiste l’art de philosopher.

Jardin de la Grande Fontaine (ou salle Gothique –jardin de l’Hôtel de ville – en cas de mauvais temps)

ERIC & SYLVIE MT HELLO, Professeurs de philosophie

LAURENT NEVEU, Professeur de philosophie

• Un monde entre les cultures

La diversité des cultures est-elle un obstacle à l’idée d’un monde commun ?

Librairie des Colporteurs

17h00-18h00

BARBARA CASSIN, Philologue et philosophe, directrice de recherche au CNRS
HEINZ WISMANN, Philosophe et philologue – École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris.

• Faut-il avoir peur de la langue universelle ?

A l’heure d’une nouvelle mondialisation, l’utopie d’une culture et d’une langue universelle revoit le jour. Mais comment penser la différence des langues à l’heure du nouvel esperanto que constitue le « global english » ? Qu’est-ce qui distingue l’anglais mondialisé, langue technique de service, des grandes langues historiques de culture ? Les langues, universelles et plurielles, permettent en tout cas de poser concrètement la différence entre le mondial, le commun et l’universel.

Cloître de l’Église Collégiale

BENEDICT DONNELY, Vice-président de la Corderie Royale de Rochefort, président de l’Association Hermione-La Fayette depuis 1994

EMMANUEL DE FONTAINIEU, Directeur du Centre International de la Mer à la Corderie Royale de Rochefort

• L’Hermine, un double symbole d’ouverture au monde

En quoi la reconstruction du navire de Lafayette, engagée à Rochefort en 1993 est-elle porteuse de sens ? Comment est-elle aussi génératrice de sentiment collectif et finalement dépositaire de quelque chose d’irrésistible et peut-être d’universel ?

Jardin de la Grande Fontaine (ou salle Gothique –jardin de l’Hôtel de ville – en cas de mauvais temps)

SOPHIE GEOFFRION, diplômée de philosophie, fondatrice de Philoland

LAURENCE NIEDZWIECKI, comédienne

• Philo’Théatre : Atelier jeune public – à partir de 7 ans, sans les parents (nombre de places limitées)
A partir d’une petite représentation théâtrale, les enfants sont guidés dans une réflexion et un échange sur la relation de l’homme à la nature et sa place dans le monde.

Restaurant “La Cour des Arts”

18h30 – 19h30

EDGAR MORIN, Philosophe, sociologue, directeur de recherches au CNRS
DJENANE KARECH-TAGER, Journaliste, rédactrice en chef du « Monde des religions ».

• Crise et mondialisation, abîme ou salut ?

Au cœur de la mondialisation, une multiplicité de crises constitue aujourd’hui une crise généralisée. En quoi ces crises sont-elles diverses, en quoi composent-elles une unité à l’échelle planétaire ? Nous entraînent-elles inexorablement vers l’abîme ou existe-t-il une voie de salut ?

Salle des Dominicains

Jeux : CHAQUE JOUR : UN TRESOR !

Deux trésors ont été cachés dans Saint-Émilion et quelques énigmes vous en séparent. Seul, en famille ou entre amis, à vous de les découvrir en parcourant la ville… Participez à l’une des deux chasses au trésor du festival Philosophia. Livrets d’énigmes disponibles chaque jour à partir de 11h au point d’accueil « chasse au trésor » (place du clocher).

Remise des prix à 18h.

Exposition
Exposition d’aphorismes sur les thèmes du mondial et de l’universel.

Concerts
Chaque jour, de 18h30 à 19h30 et de 21h30 à 22h30, des animations musicales et concerts sont proposées sur les places de la cité.

Librairie
La librairie Formatlivre (dans le Cloître de l’église collégiale) propose les ouvrages des intervenants et organise des séances de signatures sur les lieux de conférence.

Sempre sbirciando in rete, scopro(dal sito delle librerie Feltrinelli) che in data 8 aprile molte librerie italiane hanno il mio testo: Torino, Milano, Roma, Udine, Padova, Palermo, ma soprattutto Napoli. In tutte le sue Feltrinelli il prodotto viene segnalato come “disponibile in numerose copie”. Wow! E’ la prima volta che un mio testo affolla così tanto le librerie. Ricordo che “Il senso del nudo” ne conquistò tre o quattro e furono vendute un discreto numero di copie. Sono contentissimo per questa promozione. “L’estensione dell’anima” ha per me un significato speciale. Non solo teorico. E poi per la prima volta un mio testo ha una bella appendice iconografica. 

Disponibile ora anche su Ibs!

Mehrfachantworten und eigene Ergänzungen sind möglich,
ebenso die mehrfache Stimmabgabe:

Vor oder nach der Stimmabgabe einfach auf “View Results” klicken.

Leider werden die anderslautenden Antworten nicht aufgeführt, weshalb ich dazu einlade, sie zusätzlich als Kommentar zu posten.
Transhumanistische Antworten (“Ist die Wiege einer neuen Zivilisation”)
und fatalistische Entgegnungen (“Ist sowieso beim nächsten Sonnensturm vorbei”)
sowie ästhetisierende Betrachtungsweisen (“Öffnet/Schließt Wahrnehmungsräume”),
ja, vor allem unerwartete Reaktionen sind hier, wie bei allen Umfragen,
das Salz in der Suppe.

Einige Links:

Clifford Stoll und die Medienkritik

Marshall McLuhan und das globale Dorf

Jeremy Rifkin und die proteische Persönlichkeit

Bernard Stieglers Wertekritik

Privatsphäre im Internet

Zur Theorie der sozialen Netzwerke

Nietzsche und Baumann sind bereits in der Seitenleiste verlinkt.

Nicolas Zurstrassen, ancien étudiant en philosophie de l’ULB, qui est venu une première fois vendredi passé, souhaite faire une deuxième rencontre avec les étudiants de l’ULB. Ces deux rencontres servent/serviront à présenter en chair et en os une association d’intellectuel qui travaille pour l’instant en France mais qui lancera en juin une serie de conférence en Belgique. C’est donc une introduction didactique à la pensée de Bernard Stiegler et ses émules à laquelle nous sommes invité.

Il viendra mardi 24 mars de 12h00 à 14h00 au CPhi.

Étant lui même là, il peut répondre à toutes questions sur l’association  que vous vous poseriez.

Il est toujours bon de citer quelques pistes d’informations:

Le site de l’association

Le blog de Nicolas Zurstrassen

Article : Ars Industrialis à la belge…

La serata al Trip filosofico è stata davvero bella. Interventi stimolanti, riflessioni sul nostro presente e un senso della pratica filosofica che va sempre più emergendo: quello della pubblica esposizione. Un senso che la filosofia può prendere in prestito dall’arte, e in special modo dalla pittura. Ma questa, come si sa, è la mia tesi preferita, su cui ruotano le mie ricerche più  recenti e che vedranno la luce in libreria solo tra pochi giorni nel mio nuovo volumetto “L’estensione dell’anima. Origine e senso della pittura“. QUI la scheda del libro (è possibile già acquistarlo presso l’editore)

Ps: Un grazie speciale a tutti quelli che hanno già preso ieri una copia! Have a nice TRIP!

It was interesting to listen to Bernard Stiegler’s talk, he has been inspiring to some parts of my works, acting as bridges through which I can jump in between different concepts. Technics for Stiegler constitutes the tertiary memory, which he takes from Husserl. This third memory, which is different from the notion of german [memory of species] and soma[memory of individual] by Weissman, it is what Stiegler calls epiphylogenetic memory which is constituted by techne.

Technics also constitute the “already there”, a term used by Heidegger in Sein und Zeit, but I think the “already there” for Heidegger is broader, since the already there is not only technical, it is the setting of Dasein’s falleness. But there is side of technics, plays a major part in the “already there”.

Stiegler also explores from Plato, the myth of the titans, Prometheus and Epimetheus, the forgetting of Epimetheus (his fault in forgetting distributing skills to the mortals) which set the default of origin of human. In this sense, the default of human beings, is their necessity to produce technics.

The Platonic idea of hypomnesis plays an important part in Stiegler’s theory, the necessity to remember the truth which ever lost in the reincarnations, as Plato shows in Socrates’s dialogue with Meno, is also the necessity of production of differance, as a process of deferral, of temporality, as well as death in Heidegger’s thoughts.

Then we may witness the necessity of forgetting in our age, the over population of the mnenotechnology, which not able leaves traces of our being, but also narrow down the possibility of deferral, which is to say make differences.

I remember last month, when I was in a W3C workshop on the future of social networking, Julien Pye from Vodafone, compares hyperthymesia with social networking, and points out the necessity of forgetting. If we follow the logic of Stiegler, especially his take on Plato’s pharmakon nature of technicity, it is easy to claim that hypomnesis is itself a pharmakon, which is both able to cure and poison. But I think we need to further differentiate the idea of pharmakon in this case. Firstly technics as the tertiary memory, refers to the trace of a past which belongs to me but I never live; secondly the content/products of technics, which constitute a past which belong to me and I still have to live with. So technics, in this sense, is not about remembering, but there is a necessity of forgetting, in the sense, is that I demand such a forgetting.

This necessity of forgetting, is at the same time, ethical, also therapeutic. Ethical in the sense that forgetting is an important part of social, to be social you have to forget things. It is also therapeutic, since firstly it is also a necessity of remembering, secondly, active forgetting as Nietzsche says can be something positive. I am taking this therapeutic idea from Foucault’s technology of the self.

I think, technics, as the third memory has to be rethought in this context, in which, we also demand forgetting.

Da aldeia de Hammern, na Boêmia, imigraram para Sâo Bento do Sul as famílias Aschenbrenner, Augustin, Dorner, Dums, Eckl,  Ehrl, Fürst, Grossl, Jungback, Kollross, Liebl, alguns Linzmeyer, Oberhofer, Pscheidt, Puschinger, Rank, Rohrbacher, Rückl,  Schreiner, Stiegler, Stoeberl, Stueber, Tauscher, alguns Treml, e provavelmente outras.

Existe um site específico sobre o sul e a floresta da Boêmia. Nele, constam algumas informações sobre a história das vilas daquela região. Entre elas, a vila de Hamry, nome atual de Hammern. De lá, traduzo as seguintes informações sobre a vila:

HAMRY

A pequena vila Hamry é um centro bem conhecido de lazer na parte ocidental das montanhas Sumava (Bôhmerwald) no Rio Uhlava, cerca de 8 km a sudeste da cidade de Nyrsko.

A vila surgiu como um assentamento de ferreiros, próximo das minas de ferro. A primeira menção é de 1429. As fábricas de vidro foram fundadas ali na primeira metade do século XVIII. Hamry foi também uma sede do gabinete magistrado, na Idade Média.

O nome Hamry quer dizer “moinhos de ferro” e se origina do tempo da fundação do original assentamento de ferreiros.

A Igreja de Nossa Senhora das Dores (está “Sorrow”) surgiu da capela original em 1773. A única fonte talhada de um bloco de granito pode ser vista próxima da Igreja. Ela data de 1856 e tem cerca de 4m de comprimento e 1m de largura.

O compositor P. Stuiber nasceu e morreu em Hamry.

Da aldeia de Hammern, na Boêmia, imigraram para Sâo Bento do Sul as famílias Aschenbrenner, Augustin, Dorner, Dums, Eckl,  Ehrl, Fürst, Grossl, Jungback, Kollross, Liebl, alguns Linzmeyer, Oberhofer, Pscheidt, Puschinger, Rank, Rohrbacher, Rückl,  Schreiner, Stiegler, Stoeberl, Stueber, Tauscher, alguns Treml, e provavelmente outras.

Existe um site específico sobre o sul e a floresta da Boêmia. Nele, constam algumas informações sobre a história das vilas daquela região. Entre elas, a vila de Hamry, nome atual de Hammern. De lá, traduzo as seguintes informações sobre a vila:

HAMRY

A pequena vila Hamry é um centro bem conhecido de lazer na parte ocidental das montanhas Sumava (Bôhmerwald) no Rio Uhlava, cerca de 8 km a sudeste da cidade de Nyrsko.

A vila surgiu como um assentamento de ferreiros, próximo das minas de ferro. A primeira menção é de 1429. As fábricas de vidro foram fundadas ali na primeira metade do século XVIII. Hamry foi também uma sede do gabinete magistrado, na Idade Média.

O nome Hamry quer dizer “moinhos de ferro” e se origina do tempo da fundação do original assentamento de ferreiros.

A Igreja de Nossa Senhora das Dores (está “Sorrow”) surgiu da capela original em 1773. A única fonte talhada de um bloco de granito pode ser vista próxima da Igreja. Ela data de 1856 e tem cerca de 4m de comprimento e 1m de largura.

O compositor P. Stuiber nasceu e morreu em Hamry.

[geritsel van muizenissen op zolder - ruis van een tv zonder ontvangst, een druppende kraan - het waait binnen  in de verlaten woning]

[plotse lichtflits als van een gigantische flitslamp - solfergeur in de olfactorisch uitgeruste projectiezaal]

[...]

Bon, lieve muisbevingeraars, het is nu goed & wel winter, de bladerkens van de bomen rotten onder de bomen, de kindjes – uw kindjes, mijn kindjes, onze kindertjes -  staan op hunne  speelplaatsen  te bibberen & van Pieterbaas te  zingen, de beurzen crashen alsof het ongeduldige  ijsschotsen zijn, de eerste opstanden der horden gedesillusioneerde Chinese werknemers staan voor de deur, de olie is efkens wat goedkoper om straks des te desastruezer onbetaalbaar te worden (da’s wel een heel ouwe toneeltruk),  in Afrika gaat het naar oude gewoonte gezellig van kwaad naar erger, &  wij, ocharme ons, wij moeten weer hoogdringend onze honderden euro’s  over de balk gaan gooien omdat we elkaar allemaal toch zo graag zien & we kunnen dat alleen maar tonen door hopen plastic rommel te kopen voor elkaar, een berg duurzaam afval waar we ons twee tot drie weken mee kunnen amuseren, maar  waar hoegenaamd niemand beter van wordt.

Het is misschien tijd dat we een beetje to the point komen. Hier bijvoorbeeld. Of nu, wat,  in deze context, krak hetzelfde is, of toch bijna.

Trouw aan onze dynamische, proces-geörienteerde manier van werken gaan we hier  in cirkeltjes to the point komen. De cirkeltjes nemen alras, over de tijd heen, de vorm aan van spiralen. U zal die spiraal misschien nu niet waarnemen, maar ze is er wel degelijk. Het punt, dat zal u wel voelen, maakt u zich daarover maar geen zorgen.

De spiraal van deze écriture, dit codeverloop, loopt af naar het punt waar ik daarnet in het Engels al over had. Dit is het punt in het netgebeuren Anke Veld, waarop de auteur,  in de grote Realistische traditie, zélf het woord neemt, & als een soort Deus ex Machina over de rug van zijn personages heen – ach de zielige freudeske afsplitsingen- de Waarheid als een lillend Lijk van mr Bean op de lezersschermen kwakt.

Ja,  lieve schermklevertjes, ik ben het, de Auteur Zelve!

[u hoort het niet maar wat u niet hoort, is het ruisen van een mondiaal wijsvingerig muisgeklik met de lege functietoets]

(Hetgeen volgt is niets minder dan Waarzeggerij. De grote Truuk van Waarzeggerij is altijd geweest dat de Waarzeggerij Waar (b)lijkt omdat de zeggerij vanzelf leidt tot de Waarheid van het Gezegde. Eat your heart out, Nostrodamus. )

*—–*
*

U lacht, maar grappig is het allerminst.
Het punt waar ik u wil naar toevoeren is namelijk een afgrond. Het punt is het punt van de catastrofe.

Een catastrofe is niet goed. Een catastrofe is niet slecht.
Een catastrofe is een catastrofe.

De catastrofe die we zich zien voltrekken is een algemene catastrofe, het raakt onze samenlevingen in alle aspecten.
De catastrofe is onafwendbaar. De catastrofe is onafwendbaar omdat ze ingebakken zit in het humane als gebeuren.
Wat er ook gebeurt, het zat er sowieso al heel de tijd aan te komen. De catastrofe ontsnapt ook volledig aan alles wat wij controlemechanismen noemen, of wat wij aan politiek of economisch of socio-cultureel beleid kunnen verzinnen. De catastrofe ontsnapt daaraan, dat is eigenlijk een verdraaiing van het feitelijke want  alles wat wij controlemechanismen noemen, of beleid, maakt in feite deel uit van de Verglijding naar de catastrofe,  & , in uw geliefde object-gerichte jargon, waar alle fictioneel in het leven geroepen objecten de neiging hebben om het hen omringende op te slorpen zodat enkel zij in het zichtbare, bespreekbare veld staan te schitteren,  eigenlijk feitelijk dus van de Catastrofe zélf.

De catastrofe  is in vele opzichten te duiden als de topologische versie, het model, van een topografische realiteit, een veelheid van Rampen.

Rampen zijn niet goed. Rampen zijn slecht.
Ge ziet dat er een verschil is.

Waar er een verschil is, is er ruimte. Waar er ruimte is, is er tijd. Waar er tijd is, is er leven. Waar er leven is, is er (helaas) ook hoop. Helaas want de hoop leidt op middellange termijn naar (nieuwe) catastrofes.

Maar we kunnen dus wel iets doen? iets dat zin heeft in het licht van de catastrofe (die zich vertaalt naar een veelheid van Rampen)? Inderdaad.

Maar daarnet brabbelde u toch de onheilspellende woorden dat elk beleid ‘mee’ in de catastrofe zat, wat is het dan?

Het is zo dat elk beleid gedoemd is om mee ingesloten te zitten in het Binnen van de Catastrofe (de topologische functie die het Gebeuren bepaalt), dat belet niet dat een goed ingericht beleid, gefundeerd op een objectieve en wetenschappelijk steekhoudende analyse, aan de hand van statistische prognoses perfect kan beletten dat de vertaling van  de topologische Catastrofe noodzakelijkerwijze dient te leiden tot humane rampen. Om het poepsimpel te zeggen: het moet er ergens uit, maar dat hoeft geen mensenlevens te kosten. Overal waar het dat wel doet zullen wij in het perspectief  van het toekomende verleden gefaald hebben.

Observatie. Analyse. Modellering. Prognose. Feedback van de observatie. Bijstelling van de Modellering. Implementatie van het correctiemechanisme.  Kleinschalige hard-gecodeerde implementatie. Observatie. Analyse. Modellering.  Feedback van de observatie. Bijstelling van de Modellering. Implementatie van het correctiemechanisme. Replicatie van het geïmplementeerde (untsoweiter, lees – of beluister- er desgewenst  Bernard Stiegler maar op na, die eigenlijk, in neo-kathedraalse optiek, al jaren zit te hameren op de noodzaak van  iets wat onafwendbaar is – voor ons gaat het dan ook eerder om het hameren op een bewuste en dus meer efficiënte implementatie van wat toch sowieso gebeuren moet & zal, een machinale  doorvoering van het machinale, een loslaten is het, in zekere zin, van onze geliefde – & in sommige gevallen, de ons vervloekende,  creaties ).

Dat soort kak. Maar dit is geen aanbeveling, of zelfs maar een opinie. Dit is een vaststelling.
Immers: dat doen we al, dat programmatische verloop dat ik bruut kenschetste met die woorden, dat gebeurt al as we speak.  & Het genereert oplossingen,  & die oplossingen blijken te werken. Dus die oplossingen verspreiden zich, eerst druppelend, daarna massaal & vervolgens, omdat ze in elkaar haken, op de rug van de problemen, viraal. Reeds genoemde Bernard Stiegler onderzoekt in deze materie momenteel het dubbele van de kuur/gif medaille, de problematiek van het pharmakon, iets waar iemand als Christina McPhee ook al mee bezig bleek.  Zelfde input, zelfde kak.

Op die manier, buiten ons om, zorgt de catastrofe zelf voor een Valruimte.
De Valruimte van een Catastrofe is de plaats voor &  (gelukkig voor ons) ná de COLLAPSE.

De catastrofe is immers naast alles wat ze is ook een teken aan de wand.
De Wand is wat het humane scheidt van het niet-humane, het Buiten, een voor ons onbereikbare exterioriteit. Het grote hors-champ, het horrifieke  off-screen in de film van ons leven. Een teken aan de Wand is eigenlijk een exces op de humane betekenis, een wildgroei die zich voedt aan het humaan waarneembare, maar er niet de wetten van volgt.
Het teken aan de wand is dus een verzameling teken. Ge moet daarmee opletten want ge kunt daar serieus ziek van worden.

Na de catastrofe is de catastrofe weg.
Tijdens de catastrofe resulteert het voltrekken van de catastrofe zich in de vorming van een Scheur.
Voor de catastrofe was er schijnbaar geen vuiltje aan de lucht.

*—–*
*

Welkom in de Scheur van uw bestaan.

De Scheur is niet een iets, de Scheur is een gebeuren.
De Scheur is een onafwendbaar gebeuren.

De Scheur zal ook uw leven een beslissende wending geven, omdat er hoe dan ook een ogenblik zal komen dat u met één voet aan de ene kant komt te staan, en met een andere voet aan de andere kant, en dan zal u moeten kiezen.

Niets is zo verschrikkelijk als verplicht worden tot een keuze waarvan de gevolgen u verborgen blijven. Toch zal u die keuze in die hoedanigheid moeten maken.

Deze slierten slecht afgeschermde CDATA  zijn de vijf jaar durende missie om u dwars door de viscositeit van het rot om u heen botweg daar te brengen waar u altijd al had willen vertoeven, maar het niet goed durfde te vragen: de Vrije Ruimte Voorbij de Scheur!

[begintune met theremin-motief - camara zwenkt naar lichtjes uitzinnige Auteur , behept met Puilogen van de Pillen & zoeft dan wég, het Verre Onbekende in]

SPACE IS THE PLACE

!

[einde klankband]

Bernard Stiegler
Technics and Time, 1: The Fault of Epimetheus
Area: Rhetorical and Critical Theory
Notes from class:
•    Arranging human and machinic
•    Not humanization of nature, but naturalization of the human
•    Humans are more natural through technology
o    Control societies
•    Biopower is operating system of capitalism
o    Spontaneity is not problem for system
•    Beller: not just watching
o    “selling” product
•    Something is provided for all so none will escape
o    Adorno and Horkheimer
•    Nealon: Because everyone must provide something, no one will escape
•    All subjectivity is up for grabs: everyone must be someone
•    Demographic DNA
o    Broad version of the social
o    Giant picture from Heidegger
•    Useful finality
•    Virno: virtuosity—no end product
o    Goodness is not enough
•    Steigler’s response to no future
o    Cybernetics
•    Before with technology: death
o    Now, technology leads to life
•    Blanchot: wiped out
•    What one does with life
o    The impact to cause life
o    Change
•    Leroi-Gourhan/Steigler: Posthuman as a concept
o    Machinic heterogenetic: Guatarri
o    Bodies without organs
•    Desires for the fake
o    John Lovelock: guya theory
•    Benjamin: inorganic
•    Love of articifiality
•    Paradise of the artificial
o    Hatred of natural
•    Episteme v. techne
•    What’s the who, what’s the what
o    Actors of history
•    Anthropology: feet, hands, face
•    Technogenesis: mobility, change
•    Promethesis/Meno: no origin, no future
•    Contra Heidegger: Only a god can save us no
o    Techne or time
o    No going back
•    Q: What takes the place of philosophy now? A: Cybernetics
Critical moments in the text
2: “Lodged between [mechanics and biology], technical beings are nothing but a hybrid, enjoying no more ontological status than they did in ancient philosophy.”
6: “[Dasien]’s death is what it cannot know, and to this extent, death gives to ‘mine-ness’ its excess.  Death is not an event within existence because it is the very possibility of existence, a possibility that is at the same time essentially and interminably deferred.  This originary deferral is also what gives Dasein its difference to another.”
23: “Today, machines are the tool bearers, and the human is no longer a technical individual; the human becomes either the machine’s servant or its assembler.”
50: “The problem arising here is that the evolution of this essentially technical being that the human is exceeds the biological, although this dimension is an essential part of the technical phenomenon itself, something like its enigma.  The evolution of the ‘prosthesis,’ not itself living, by which the human is nonetheless defined as a living being, constitutes the reality of the human’s evolution, as if, with it, the history of life were to continue by means other than life: this is the paradox of a living being characterized in its forms of life by the nonliving—or by the traces that its life leaves in the nonliving.”
66: “To know the essence of the machine, and thereby understanding the sense of technics in general, is also to know the place of the human in technical ensembles.”
70: external memory
95: “If technics can be given its own finality, this means that its thinking in terms of ends and means is no longer sufficiently radical.”
114: “Denaturalization will be self-exteriorization, the becoming self-dependent, self-alienation, the alienation of the originary, the authentic, in the factical, the technical, the artificial death constitutive of the mediacy of a social and differentiated world of objects, and hence of subjects, for, from this points on, it is only though its objects, (the objects it has) that the self can define and thus is no longer itself.”
131: “Love is an interested and particular passion, which risks bringing ‘destruction to the human race,’ making possible the opposite of that for which if seems to exist: ‘a terrible passion that braves danger, surmounts all obstacles, and in its transports seems calculated to bring destruction on the human race which it is really destined to preserve.”
Think: Derrida Gift of Death; Edelman: No Future
148: “With the advent of exteriorization, the body of the living individual is no longer only a body: it can only function with its tools.”
177: “The individual develops three memories: genetic memory; memory of the central nervous system (epigenetic); and techno-logical memory (language and technics are here amalgamated in the process of exteriorization)
202: “Promethia is the anticipation of the future, that is, of danger, foresight, prudence, and an essential disquiet: somebody who is promethes is someone who is worried in advance.”
207: “’In its factial being, any Dasein is as it walready was, and it is ‘what’ is already was.  It is its past, whether explicitly or not.”
(Re-read: Disengagement of the What→memory)

Well, for your reading pleasure (possibly plezure?), I post a second time this week.  Unfortunately, I haven’t quite finished the text.  Despite this impediment, I am quite satisfied with the progress that has been made thus far. 

First, it seems necessary to consider the rather insightful comment I received in relationship to my first post this week (Thanks Jeff for the clarification).  I guess, in many ways, I was a little misguided concerning Stiegler’s conception of control and the issue of control as it relates to technocracy and invention.  Perhaps, I still am.  Considering that I initially missed the mark, I post again, in part, to revise certain grievous errors.  If technocracy, or the power of the state in relationship to technical systems, is enforced or bolstered by means of invention, as is diametrically opposed to the model as I original understood it, this raises several concerns.  First, I still question whether technocracy is a force that one must work against.  If invention is to be applauded, as I suppose it is in certain contexts, does this not suggest that the technocracy, as it is fueled by invention or spontaneity, must also be supported?  Second, if the technocracy is problematic, what is the most effective means of combating such a system?  Is there a means of responding to this issue, if it is considered as such?  Though, I must mention in brief, that this becomes even more complicated in light of the third issue I address.  I guess, the problem that I run into is in many ways the same problem that one experiences concerning capitalism.  Quite simply, there seems to be very little means of deviating effectively.  Though, I must admit, this seems quite a different scenario, I still can not help considering it in regard to Jeff’s use of Foucault and Deleuze as an explanatory system.  Perhaps, as Jeff has suggested before, the best way of considering this entire scenario, is similar to the way that one might best consider Capitalism.  If it is ineffective to respond typically, then why not consider using such a system for its inherent benefits.  Again, as we discussed in relationship to the Sophists, we might draw on something similar to a certain selfishness to forward selfless agendas.  I’m not quite sure how this would pan out in relationship to invention and the technocracy.

Second, I turn to a latter portion of the text in order to propose some possible parallels to Leroi-Gourhan.  I think a point of similarity between the two, even though I haven’t yet read Gourhan, is the issue of exteriorization.  From what I understood of the discussion last week, Gourhan proposes that in many ways our evolution has halted, or has slowed down.  In effect, we have exteriorized our very human capacity for development or progress.  We exteriorize it in the form of the technical progress that we have made.  This holds especially true in relationship to human memory (and, as is perhaps suggested later, the memory of the animal as well).  In the section entitled “Skeleton, Equipment, and the Brain,” it seems that both Gourhan and Stiegler’s texts converge on this matter.  Stiegler is quick to reference a similar dependence on the exteriorized body; the technical extension of the body:

With the advent of exteriorization, the body of the living individual is no longer a body: it can only function with its tools.  An understanding of the archaic anthropological system will only become possible with the simultaneous examination of the skeleton, the central nervous system, and equipment (148)

Directly aftertwards, Stiegler suggests that this set of hypotheses retraces the possibility of passage between three stages of archaic humanity.  Both the argument and the framework of the argument are provocative revisions.  Stiegler effectively provides a revision of the very history of the body.  In his consideration of the anthropology of human development, Stiegler inserts the technical system.  He places the human on a type of continuum where the technical becomes extremely relevant, in effect, proposing a revision of human developmental understanding.  As is noted in the following, the technical is intimately connected to the very biology of the human, and thus, is necessary to a newly invisioned anthropology; a techno-logy

As Stiegler’s argument continues, it takes on new significance.  Although earlier I stated that Stiegler references a certain dependence on the exteriorized body, it seems that the term dependence needs to be considered more carefully.  What Stiegler is proposing is an infinite dependence on the technical, specifically “technical consciousness,” as a means of overcoming the very limitations of the biological.  Basically, Stiegler equates “technical consciousness” with anticipation.  It is anticipation which is the deciding factor in human evolution: “Anticipation means the realization of a possibility that is not determined by a biological program” (151).  Yet, despite the technical as a means of development, Stiegler still maintains that the technical must be considered under a zoological framework, for the technical is still determined by, “the neurophysiological chracteristics of the individual.”

Third, this brings us to Stiegler’s argument, as he references Leroi-Gourhan, against the common theoretical disposition to provide a means of differentiating between man and animal.  Perhaps, in a way, this brings us back to the numerous distinctions that we discussed previously this semester, such as the theory that our ability to decide whether we are man or animal is the very means of differentiating humans from animals.  In what appears to be another congruency between the two texts, Stiegler suggests that the dynamism of technical objects is collapsed onto the cortex.  Thus, the distinction between man and animal becomes a little more grey (grey matter that is).  Yet, at the same time, this seems kind of contradictory.  What does it mean to develop outside of the limitations of the biological, if these developments, in the form of the technical, are still intimately tied to certain biological capacities, such as consciousness as defined by the cortext?

All together, the techno-logical, as opposed to the anthropological, is concerned with what unites humans and the technical systems that they are surrounded with.  Though I don’t claim to have a very good understanding of Heidegger, the issue of the “supreme danger” of technology comes to mind.  For Heidegger, the danger that exists in relationship to the technical is not the technical itself, but the means by which the human interacts with the technical.  The greatest danger for Heidegger is that technology becoms determinant of truth, as opposed to humans becoming cognizant of concealed truth.  If I understand this correctly, it seems that Stiegler and Heidegger are divergent on this point.  For Stiegler it seems that the technical frees us from the bounds of the biological, whereas for Heidegger it seems that the technical imprisons the body as a resource; as a form of human stockpile (Matrix what?).

For now, though, I can’t wait until we have the technological capability of inseminating robots.  I can only imagine the sexual positions that will have to be added to the lexicon.  This would be an opportune time to reconsider Stiegler’s text.  Perhaps, though, something similar is already happening with artificial insemination.

I want to start off this post with a couple small comments on my post from last week.  Yes, I’m using some of my space here, not because I felt a bit narcissistic leaving a comment for myself, but for the obvious intersections of the two texts. Stiegler states that, “Leroi-Gourhan shows how all the elements quite anciently come into play for the emergence of a general system of a certain function that remains unique: the human, that is, technology ‘exuded’ by the skeleton” (145).   Is Stiegler saying that humans are the only species to exude the body through technology?  Short answer: yes.  Long answer: Gesture and Speech.  Anyway, I particularly enjoy imagery of the latter part of that sentence, and I wanted to quote it.  “Exuding” is a fascinating term, one that I’ve never actually used in my academic writing, but that I now find rather important to my larger project.

Another point Stiegler makes is that, “With the advent of exteriorization, the body of the living individual is no longer only a body; it can only function with its tools” (148, emphases mine). My personal project on externalized memory relies on this argument exactly, precisely because our personal memory is now a tool.  Recollection, then, only becomes possible by returning to externalized places; a brain is not just a brain, but rather functions only by relying upon these tools.   Here again, we are exuding the skeleton.

Now, onto this week’s post.  I attended the Michael Hardt seminar this afternoon, during which one of the participants mentioned the increased speed at which our economy functions.  We then had a discussion on immaterial labor’s inability to be contained within work time—that creativity cannot be forced, that it just ‘comes’ to someone (as an example, Hardt referred to the Google and Microsoft’s campuses).  However, I am concerned that there is an economical contradiction—if the speed at which one produces immaterial labor (ideas, creativity) is central to the production of capital, how are, say, the Google and Microsoft campuses effective?  Even if one never leaves one of these places, the individual who is constantly ‘at work’ (physically at their place of employment) does not become faster at producing ideas—they are simply more available.

I then began to think how this idea of work time/non-work time and speed/efficiency could be connected to Stiegler.  Hardt quickly recapped some Deleuze and Foucault by stating that they note a shift from a disciplinary society (Foucault) into a control society (Deleuze).  For Foucault, this disciplinary society is more of an archipelago – one is jumping from one sense of discipline to another.  When leaves one island, one is no longer under its disciplinary powers, but is now disciplined by the new island.  That being said, one never escapes any disciplinary powers, since they are simply replaced by another form of discipline.  Therefore, I believe Jeff answered my earlier questioning of the efficaciousness of work campuses by stating the following:

Rather, “control” here names a purely instrumental or “conceptual” (rather than particular or practical) force that forms the conditions of possibility for systematic integration of moments of spontaneity or difference; i.e., the “control” of “technosociety” is not a series of structures that rigidly dictate what may take place, but rather a force field that actively and flexibly responds to these outbreaks in a way that continues the maintenance (and evolution) of the present system. Thus, in a sense then, the system “itself” is premised on spontaneity and invention as its driving force, rather than being “vulnerable” to such instances as acts or forces of resistance.

The campuses work because they are created for spontaneity.  If one doesn’t physically ever leave work – which presumably one never has to on those campuses – then these companies are responding perfectly to the resistance of individuals who wish to separate immaterial labor’s work-time from their non-work time.  Speed, here, is not the issue, but rather the availability for spontaneity becomes the motive.  (And I guess I really didn’t talk about Stiegler all that much, but I couldn’t help but make connections to this afternoon’s seminar.)

I’m troubled by a distinction that Steigler makes between technology and technoscience, and I can’t figure out why.  Steigler offers us the following definition of technology:

Technology is therefore the discourse describing and explaining the evolution of specialized procedures and techniques, arts and trades—either the discourse of certain types of procedures and techniques, or that of the totality of techniques inasmuch as they form a system: technology is in this case the discourse of the evolution of that system. (94)

On one hand, I find this definition compelling, as it broadens the definition of technology quite considerably—at the very least, beyond the lazy definition we often settle for, the one that’s come to mean something like “a thing with wires and cables and buttons and crap—maybe with a screen or display of some kind.”  What Steigler’s expanded understanding technology calls attention to is the way all techniques/technics are part of a historical evolution—I’m careful here not to say “progress,” with its implied teleologies—an evolution of which the current digital phase is but the most visible manifestation in our time.

Thinking technics in this way open up opportunities, then, to make “technology” (in Steigler’s sense) more rhetorically productive: what are the technics available to us, and how do different technics and technologies yield different rhetorical potentials?  As Rice is fond of pointing out, assumptions that books, print, pencils and chalkboards—among all other non-digital or non-electronic writing tools—are not technological are short-sighted  and ahistorical; Steigler offers a way around this by reincorporating past technics into the discourse of technological evolution.

However, on the other hand, Steigler also offers a technoscience “in which technics and science become inseparable, in which rationality is confined to usefulness”.  For Steigler, this represents a conflict of purposes, “an inversion, even a perversion, of the initial epistemological model of philosophy by which theory, the essence of science, is defined by its independence from useful finalities, that is, anthropocentric ones” (my emphasis); thus, in technoscience technics and science collide precisely where they might collude: in furthering human aims.  Rather, Steigler identifies this as an epistemic conflict between two differing ideologies of the purpose of knowledge: technics are about using knowledge, making it materially productive, while science (as Steigler explains) is posited on the notion of knowledge qua knowledge—not applied, concretized, or materialized.

Steigler continues from here to ask whether “technology, which for a long time has been synonymous with progress, is no longer necessarily perceived as such, or rather, if it is no longer obvious that progress is tantamount to benefit for the human race” (95).  If the answer is negative—that technology is no longer associated with human progress, a position Steigler gives some weight to—then “technics would be an end unto itself”.

I think Steigler leaves this as something of a troubled proposition, and it is one to which I don’t have a reply.  What I would like to do, however, is to point to a couple of questions that Steigler here raises for our work in this study:

• While it hasn’t been a main focal point of our discussion thus far, I think Steigler points to an epistemic crisis in composition work.  On one hand, while we do conduct research—i.e., we generate knowledge—compositionists do so with an eye on “useful finality:” how to use our research to help improve student writing and our own pedagogy.  If we accept this characterization, however, we implicitly set up a contrast between theory (“the essence of science”) and composition work as technics/technoscience (“an inversion, even a perversion . . . of philosophy”).  So, my question here might be this: Is Steigler’s distinction here useful for describing what composition studies does and what its role is in the university?  What are the stakes—disciplinarily or otherwise—of accepting or rejecting either of these descriptions?  Can composition come to terms with itself as being fundamentally a study of technology in Steigler’s strong sense, and how can our pedagogical aims be developed to fit such a sense of the field?
• On a less fraught note, and really just to highlight a minor detail, the opposition between means and ends here is one that we seem to have been skirting all semester, but that is now coming into sharper focus.  This distinction might even be key to explaining the anti-Sophistic positions from way back in January.  Socrates’s and Plato’s big complaint about sophistry might be precisely that it is all about ends—and not philosophy’s end of ethical and moral perfection; rather, sophistry taught how to make language and knowledge useful, to serve (again) Steigler’s “useful finalities” in whatever way possible.  On one hand, this does seem to maintain the distinction Steigler describes: sophistry serves materially useful, if anthropocentric, ends, while Platonic philosophy asserts that the value of knowledge is precisely immaterial—that matter, in fact, stands in the way of true knowledge—and that its only end is its own fulfillment.  But doesn’t knowledge always serve someone’s ends?  That is, even if philosophy is knowledge divested from the civic and material realms, it still serves the end of moral perfection—that is, it is still implicated in the technologic sphere.  To what extent can theories of social constructivism point to ways that philosophy is technological—and thus perhaps destabilize the opposition Steigler establishes between techne and science?

Considering that I failed to post on last week’s assigned reading, and the numerous difficulties posed by Stiegler’s text, it seems entirely necessary that I post at least twice this week.  Hence, as a rather early prequal, I will attempt to work through the various issues that Stiegler’s text addresses in relationship to technocracy, technostructure, and technoscience.

For the purposes of this post, I break Stiegler’s argument, as I have interpreted it, into two digestible categories:

First, it seems that from very early on in the text, Stiegler is attempting to address the means by which the economic and social are tied to the technical system.  Although this seems quite a basic point, it begins to extend to the various ways in which the technostructure or the technocracy (presumably, the state system surrounding technical innovation), intervenes on the part of technical development.  This, though, becomes more complicated in consideration of the second point.

Second, and perhaps of more interest, is Stiegler’s recurring attempts to free the technical from the cultural, the ethnic, or the regional.  Here, it seems that Stiegler is both interested and invested in revising theories which attempt to substantiate a  supreme cultural or individual force.  These theories posit that a culture or individual are responsible for technical development or innovation.  The roots of this argument can be found in the preliminary discussion of the logic of invention.  Stiegler posits that when considering technical systems one should approach developments from the perspective of the “logic of invention” as opposed to the “logic of the inventor” (33).  For Stiegler, it is not as though the logic of the inventor is nonexistant.  Rather, he suggests that the forces that provide impetus are much too diffused for a particular locality or person to be considered.  This, of course, leads him to the premise of a universal technoscience; a technoscience which is inextricably bound to the social and economic. 

Though I think there is room for reading this part of the text otherwise, an issue I will discuss further, I find Stiegler’s argument to be quite a provocative revision of predominant mainstream attitudes concerning technical innovation.  It seems, as I reexamine parts of Stiegler’s text that there exists room for critique, contradiction, and, perhaps, misunderstanding.  First, it should be noted, that I do not think Stiegler is really trying to discredit the contributions of various individuals.  Instead, it seems that while he acknowledges certain individual advances, he is attempting to move beyond the limitations of individual or culture centered theory.  Here, Stiegler is addressing the means by which the economic or the social, an element that might generally be overlooked, advances or inhibits development:

Thus, the practice of preserving outlived techniques for economic reasons is commonplace–and only one example of the problem of adequacy between the evolutional tendencies of Technics and economic-political constraints (32)

Here, not only is Stiegler calling the economic, the political, and the social into consideration, he is positing a universal evolutional tendency; he is both suggesting that all are inextricably bound, and considering each movement as one greater relationship of evolution.  Furthermore, by positing that these are inextricably related, he is calling into question the issue of control.  Here, Stiegler posits a universal instead of a culturally or individually specific in order to question issues of technical control quite differently, for it can be seen that the issue of control differs from individual contexts to contexts of more complicated social, economic, and technical relationship. 

At a rhythm of constant innovation, unknown factors are no longer possible; the mvoement must be controlled at the risk of collapsing the global coherence whereby the systems operate complementarily: at stake is the organization of the future, that is, of time (42 – emphasis mine)

Though I believe I understand the global versus the individual, and the call for control, I am still curious as to the reasons that might necessitate the need for control.  First, who would be responsible?  If the system is as convoluted and complicated as Stiegler defines it, then would it not be almost impossible to exert any means of control on a basic individual or state level.  Though one state or technocracy might intervene, wouldn’t this be a rather insignificant measure in consideration of the global schema?  Second, why is control necessary?  Admittedly, I have much more reading and re-reading to to, but I am stil confused concerning the primary issue of time, and the necessity for control.  Though Stiegler’s argument seems to be predicated against spontaneity, as he asserts the influence of various mechanisms, I can not help feeling that an element of spontaneity, which seems a necessity of invention, might still resist control. 

The following post is the first in a rather unorganized series, an endeavor that will undoubtedly take several attempts and will certainly produce several false starts. Having just finished the recently translated lecture series on The Century by Badiou, I’m excited to put some ideas down, even in very rough fashion, regarding a development Badiou’s text produced in my thinking about such problems as community, (political, artistic, scientific, amorous) movements, and groups and the subjectivities of groups. This is something I’d been thinking about for quite some time, and so this is perhaps something I sought out in Badiou, something that many readers would find uninteresting or peripheral with respect to Badiou’s real thematic foci. Of course these readers are correct. Nevertheless.

What is a group? The aim of a micropolitical inquiry into group-formation is to propose a typology of qualitatively different groups classified by genetic history, and then to study the dynamics between the group types. Groups or we-subjects can be broadly divided into three inconsistent types on the basis of their comportment toward the real of their subjectivities: I. those that maintain a representational relation with the real (parties and states, for instance); II. those that maintain a material or presentational relation with the real (microscopic assemblages, revolutionary/inventive subjectivities); III. those that maintain an ambiguous relation with the real – and this cannot be an intermittent ambiguity, but is instead a necessary ambiguity (e.g., art movements which adhere to the principles of a manifesto or other imaginary identificatory device but at the same time continually effectuate revolutionary changes in what it is possible to do in terms of thought, praxis, etc.).

The real is inconsistent, discontinuous, fragmented multiplicity. Badiou claims that “[t]he real may be encountered, manifested, or constructed, but it is not represented.” The Century, 108. Presentational groups reflect this character of the real: they only exist in particularity, in moments of dissonance (political, artistic, etc.), leaping up from and out of the cold representationalist sea like warm-blooded, iridescent flashes. There is probably no such thing as a “presentational-group manifesto.” There is no possibility of following a pathbreaking leader, no chance of adhering to a doctrine. There is only a spark in search of a powder keg, Breton said. There where the real avails itself of an encounter stands the presentational group. The Idea itself is action, and it has, as Idea, a materiality all its own.

“A demonstration or an insurrection, and more broadly a political sequence, or even an artistic creation seized in the violence of its gesture, are in no way representable. Fraternity is not representable. As I’ve already suggested, the unwarranted appeal to large, inert, macroscopic – and therefore supposedly ‘objective’ – sets (class-in-itself, race, nation…) infects subjectivation by way of its presumed representative legitimacy. But only inertia can be represented.”

Badiou, The Century, ibid.

This is, moreover, one reason why presentational and ambiguous groups are not subject to discussion as such: by the time they’ve become “household names,” by the time it becomes possible to trade opinions about them, they’ve already become inert, qualitatively different. Deleuze, for instance, abhors discussion for this very reason.

Each typological variant has traits unique to it, insofar as some relations resist representation but acquiesce to presentation, or resist presentation but acquiesce to representation, and some cannot be pigeonholed in this way due to a constitutive ambi-valence (ambi = both, multiple; valence = capacity, power).

Badiou gives us a way of thinking about group formation, drawing from Sartre and Lacan:

“Since the being of the subject is the lack-of-being, it is only by dissolving itself into a project that exceeds him that an individual can hope to attain some subjective real. Thenceforth, the ‘we’ constructed in and by this project is the only thing that is truly real…. The individual is thus, in its very essence, the nothing that must be dissolved into a we-subject.”

Badiou, The Century, 100-101.

According to Badiou, a subject is such only insofar as a process of truth authorizes him to say ‘we.’ One can say ‘I’ only so long as one can say ‘we.’ The truth procedure to which the subject attaches and which constitutes the subject presents or represents some real, namely, the real of the we-subjectivity. The party, the state, the faith becomes worth dying for; indeed, it would be an honor. Can we not see in this a valuable insight for thinking about political and religious organizations and the ways in which power is inflected in their operations? Perhaps it is not, as Foucault prophesied, or not only, the law which has taken over the management of decisions over life and death (the quintessential function of biopower); perhaps, instead, the we-subjectivities of representational groups have usurped this responsibility. The legitimacy of saying ‘we’ is guaranteed in the real of the group; after this is secured, after the real has been accessed, the we-subject has a stake in Honor, in upholding the Law of the real, and its very identity is placed in peril in the slightest manifestation of doubt vis-a-vis the veracity of the real of the group; death becomes a way into immortality, a solidification of identity. (It might be possible to move this argument out of the general “ideology critiques” we’re so familiar with. The rudiments of the schema are only taking root.)

This line of inquiry has a history. Micropolitics (Deleuze & Guattari’s word in A Thousand Plateaus) or the politics of collective desire would probably be the correct moniker, though in the framework of the latter thinkers, this name is redundant. We see plenty of precedents in the history of modern thought: Gabriel Tarde’s micro-sociological and -criminological inquiries; Gilbert Simondon’s notion of collective individuation, however underdeveloped; Sartre’s late investigations into the praxis of practical ensembles, in the Critique of Dialectical Reason; Foucault and the microphysics of power; Jacques Donzelot in The Policing of Families, a central micropolitical text; perhaps Bourdieu, Stiegler, and DeLanda today, not to mention Badiou’s lectures here cited and undoubtedly in Logiques des mondes (my French isn’t near strong enough, so I eagerly anticipate the translation). This is a sort of offhand list of resources; I would venture the claim that a micropolitical approach to group-formation and group-activity is not a determinative focus of any of the above figures or works.

I would like to end this rather scattered, allusive, and no doubt disappointing post with a constructive, and revealing, excerpt from Badiou, once again. He writes: “From the end of the seventies onwards, the century has bequeathed to us the following question: What is a ‘we’ that is not subject to the ideal of an ‘I,’ a ‘we’ that does not pretend to be a subject?” (Badiou, The Century, 96.) He concludes this quite central essay, “Anabasis,”:

“[T]oday, everything that is not already mired in corruption raises the question of where a ‘we’ could originate that would not be prey to the ideal of the fusional, quasi-military ‘I’ that dominated the century’s adventure; a ‘we’ that would freely convey its own immanent disparity without thereby dissolving itself. What does ‘we’ mean in times of peace rather than war? How are we to move from the fraternal ‘we’ of the epic [note: where alterity is recognized only as the alterity of the adversary] to the disparate ‘we’ of togetherness [note: in Paul Celan's sense, perhaps closer to an alterity of impossible friendship], of the set, without ever giving up on the demand that there be a ‘we’? I too exist within this question.”

Badiou, The Century, 96-97.