Stiegler What Makes Life Worth Living

On Pharmacology
1. Auflage 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7456-8194-8
Verlag: John Wiley & Sons
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 200 Seiten, E-Book

In the aftermath of the First World War, the poet Paul Valérywrote of a 'crisis of spirit', brought about by theinstrumentalization of knowledge and the destructive subordinationof culture to profit. Recent events demonstrate all too clearlythat that the stock of mind, or spirit, continues to fall. Theeconomy is toxically organized around the pursuit of short-termgain, supported by an infantilizing, dumbed-down media. Advertisingtechnologies make relentless demands on our attention, reducing usto idiotic beasts, no longer capable of living. Spiralling rates ofmental illness show that the fragile life of the mind is atbreaking point.
Underlying these multiple symptoms is consumer capitalism, whichsystematically immiserates those whom it purports to liberate.Returning to Marx's theory, Stiegler argues that consumerismmarks a new stage in the history of proletarianization. It is nolonger just labour that is exploited, pushed below the limits ofsubsistence, but the desire that is characteristic of human spirit.
The cure to this malaise is to be found in what Stiegler calls a'pharmacology of the spirit'. Here, pharmacology hasnothing to do with the chemical supplements developed by thepharmaceutical industry. The pharmakon, defined as both cure andpoison, refers to the technical objects through which we openourselves to new futures, and thereby create the spirit that makesus human. By reference to a range of figures, from Socrates,Simondon and Derrida to the child psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott,Stiegler shows that technics are both the cause of our sufferingand also what makes life worth living.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Stiegler, Bernard

Weitere Mitwirkende

Ross, Daniel

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements viii
Introduction: A Continent on the Move 1
1 Myriad Challenges and Opportunities 5
2 A Demographic Dividend or Just More People? 21
3 Tropical Dilemmas: Disease, Water, and More 35
4 Educating Future Generations 55
5 To War Rather than to Prosper 69
6 Accountability and the Wages of Corrupt Behavior 91
7 The Infrastructural Imperative 116
8 Harnessing Mobile Telephone Capabilities 134
9 China Drives Growth 151
10 Strengthening Governance 173
11 Creating Responsible Leadership 189
Notes 216
Select Bibliography 244
Index 252

Über Autor(innen)

Bernard Stiegler is Director of Cultural Development at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. His many books in English include Technics and Time, For a New Critique of Political Economy, The Decadence of Industrial Democracies and Uncontrollable Societies of Disaffected Individuals.