58 research outputs found
Getting nowhere fast: a teleological conception of socio-technical acceleration
It has been frequently recognized that the perceived acceleration of life that has been experienced from the Industrial Revolution onward is engendered, at least in part, by an understanding of speed as an end in itself. There is no equilibrium to be reached ā no perfect speed ā and as such, social processes are increasingly driven not by rational ends, but by an indeterminate demand for acceleration that both defines and restricts the decisional possibilities of actors. In Aristotelian terms, this is a final cause ā i.e. a teleology ā of speed: it is not a defined end-point, but rather, a purposive aim that predicates the emergence of possibilities. By tracing this notion of telos from its beginnings in ancient Greece, through the ur-empiricism of Francis Bacon, and then to our present epoch, this paper seeks to tentatively examine the way in which such a teleology can be theoretically divorced from the idea of historical progress, arguing that the former is premised upon an untenable ontological privileging of becoming
New Technologiesā Promise to the Self and the Becoming of the Sacred: Insights from Georges Batailleās Concept of Transgression
This article draws on Georges Batailleās concept of transgression, a key element in Batailleās theory of the sacred, to highlight structural implications of the way the self-empowerment ethos of new technologies suffuses the digital tracking culture. Pointing to the original conceptual stance of transgression, worked out against prohibition, I first argue that, beyond a critique of new technologiesā promise of self-empowerment as coming at the expense of an acknowledgement of the ultimate tabooādeathāis the problem of the sanitizing of the tension between the crossing of the line of the symbolic taboo and prohibition; this undermines a ālibidinal investmentā towards the sacred, which is central in Batailleās theory. Second, focussing on āeroticismā, since this embodies the emancipative potential of the Bataillean sacred, I argue that while a fear of eroticism marks out the digital technological realm, this is covered up by the blurring of boundaries between pleasure, fun and sex(iness) that currently governs our experience with technological devices
Like a thief in the night : Agamben, Hobbes and the messianic transvaluation of security
The article addresses the reinterpretation of the problematic of security in the messianic turn in contemporary continental political thought. I focus on Giorgio Agamben's reinterpretation of Hobbes's Leviathan in Stasis, which restores an eschatological dimension to this foundational text of modern security politics. Hobbes's commonwealth has been traditionally read as a secularized version of the katechon, a force that restrains the state of nature while drawing on its resources. Instead, Agamben argues that for Hobbes, the state is neither the analogue of God's kingdom on earth nor the katechon that delays its arrival, but the profane power that will disappear when the kingdom of God is established on earth. It is thus in principle incapable of attaining the peace and security that it claims to provide, perpetually producing insecurity and violence in the guise of protection. In Agamben's reading, it is precisely this failure of the state's security apparatuses that assists the advent of the messianic event in an oblique fashion. The exposure of this failure does not aspire to the improvement of the apparatuses of security or resign us to inescapable insecurity but only affirms the need to render the present apparatuses inoperative, bringing forth a future without them.Peer reviewe
Strike, occupy, transform! Students, subjectivity and struggle
This article uses student activism to explore the way in which activists are challenging the student as consumer model through a series of experiments that blend pedagogy and protest. Specifically, I suggest that Higher Education is increasingly becoming an arena of the postpolitical, and I argue that one of the ways this student-consumer subjectivity is being (re)produced is through a series of ādepoliticisation machinesā operating within the university. This article goes on to claim that in order to counter this, some of those resisting the neoliberalisation of higher education have been creating political-pedagogical experiments that act as ārepoliticisation machinesā, and that these experiments countered student-consumer subjectification through the creation of new radical forms of subjectivity. This paper provides an example of this activity through the work of a group called the Really Open University and its experiments at blending, protest, pedagogy and propaganda
Intensive mobilities: figurations of the nomad in contemporary theory
The figure of the nomad, representing the virtues of freedom, mobility, and exploration, is a frequently occurring trope within contemporary continental philosophy and social theory, derived chiefly from the work of Gilles Deleuze and FĆ©lix Guattari. This paper will interrogate the concept of nomadism, firstly in the philosophy of these two foundational thinkers, and then subsequently in the feminist and posthumanist theorizations of Rosi Braidotti. Whilst accepting that Braidotti's challenges to sedentarist, essentialist metaphysical accounts of the transcendental subject are still politically relevant, it will be argued that the deployment of the nomadic figureāand more generally, the positing of an ontology of creative desire, or ābecomingāārisks not only absolutizing the historical contingencies of the digitized, postindustrial society that it seeks to criticize, but actually reinforcing the unsustainable ideology of perpetual production upon which such a society is premised
Anachronism of hope: the āto-comeā in post-horizonal times. In: Hirst, A., Houseman, T., Duque-Estrada, P.C., Edkins, J., and Mendes, C., Disobeying Marx, Disobeying DerridaāHopes & Risks: A Forum on Jacques Derridaās Specters of Marx after 25 Years, Part II
Jacques Derrida delivered the basis of The Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, & the New International as a plenary address at the conference āWhither Marxism?ā hosted by the University of California, Riverside, in 1993. The longer book version was published in French the same year and appeared in English and Portuguese the following year. In the decade after the publication of Specters, Derridaās analyses provoked a large critical literature and invited both consternation and celebration by figures such as Antonio Negri, Wendy Brown and Frederic Jameson. This forum seeks to stimulate new reflections on Derrida, deconstruction and Specters of Marx by considering how the futures past announced by the book have fared after an eventful quarter century. In this group of contributions, Aggie Hirst and Tom Houseman, Paulo Cesar Duque-Estrada, Jenny Edkins and Cristiano Mendes reflect on the legacies of Marx and Derrida: on whether Derrida emphasized the wrong Marxian heritage, on the promise and risks of hauntology, on the ghostly potential for justice amidst devastation, and on the paradox of deconstructionās legacy itself
Will we work in twenty-first century capitalism? A critique of the fourth industrial revolution literature
The fourth industrial revolution has become a prominent concept and imminent technological change a major issue. Facets are everyoneās concern but currently no oneās ultimate responsibility (perhaps a little like financial stability before the global financial crisis). In this paper, we argue that the future is being shaped now by the way the fourth industrial revolution is being positioned. Whilst no one has set out to argue for or defend technological determinism, anxiety combined with passivity and complacency are being produced, and this is in the context of a quasi-determinism. The contingent quantification of the future with regard to the potential for job displacement provides an influential source of authority for this. A background of āthe future is coming, so you better get used to itā is being disseminated. This favours a capitalism that may ādeny work to the manyā perspective rather than a more fundamental rethink that encompasses change that may liberate the many from work. This, in turn, positions workers and responsibility for future employment (reducing the urgency of calls for wider societal preparation). Public understanding and policy are thus affected and along with them the future of work
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