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Grand Digital Abyss: Technology, Critical Theory, and Subjectivity in twenty-first centuryCyber-Capitalism

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Abstract

Currently, the binary logic of digital informationalism is increasingly embedded in the constitution of social relations, objectual systems, and political mediations that sustain the dynamics of capitalist domination. The so-called passage from Subject to Project appears as the emergent form of objective reason in its mystified technological form at the beginning of the twenty-first century, generating unprecedented configurations of praxis and subjectivity before which Marxism should open new paths of critical reflection. However, the task requires a dialogue with philosophical perspectives usually denied within the Marxist debate. From the interweaving of Martin Heidegger’s existentialist philosophy and the Frankfurt School’s critical perspective (Theodor Adorno and Max Horheimer), in this paper, I propose a critique of constituent subjectivity in today’s technological age. Drawing on these authors, I argue that understanding code as the contemporary actualization and materialization of concept onto the world enable us to grasp the fundamental features of what I call Cyber-Capitalism.

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Notes

  1. In order to distinguish Being as the essence of the existent from being as tense, the first will always go with cap.

  2. In order to be as clear as possible regarding the use of hHeideggerian terminology and avoiding innecessary repetitions, I will use Man as synonymous with human being without any gender connotation. Also, in Heidegger, Man refers to every specific, singular human being (Peter, Sarah, John…); contrary to the idea of the subject, which constitutes the abstract generic substance of all praxis (see Nancy 2017).

  3. For the purposes of this work the Frankfurt School refers to what has been called its first generation: Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, Otto Kirchheimer, Leo Löwenthal, and Franz Neumann, adding to this group the figure by Walter Benjamin. However, in this paper, I will focus on Adorno and Horkheimer, and a little bit on Benjamin.

  4. I make the distinction between Marxist and Marxian. The first is that who not only appropriates all or parts of Marx´’s theoretical framework, but also supports his class struggle historical political theory. On the other hand, Marxian analyses may use some of Marx´’s concepts of categories, but do not necessarily agree on his historical, political framework.

  5. Heidegger’s ontology presents several problems whose approach far exceeds the limits of this paper, and there are countless works addressing the diverse and complex dimensions of his thought. Heideggerian ontology suffers from metaphysical and idealistic weaknesses pointed out by several authors, including Adorno himself. Even some authors have branded the whole of his philosophy not only as mere “jargon” (Adorno 2003), but they reduce it to a pseudo-philosophical anti-Semitic and protofascist thought (Di Cesare, 2017) which, according to Emmanuell Faye (2009), should not even be taught considering its reactionary core.

  6. On impossible translations: In German, Gestell literally means "‘the placed"”, or in the Heideggerian style: "“that-put-there"”. For Heidegger, this term indicates the already preformed experience of the real by the categories of Western metaphysics, what is preconstituted by concepts that comes to Man as a world of life and experience, or unprocessed natural attitude (here we find strong traces of his teacher Edmund Husserl). Here, I use the translation proposed by William Lovitt: Enframing. I consider that this translation enables the use of the term as a useful concept for the critical theoretical analysis of constituent subjectivity. For a discussion on this, see Heidegger (1977: XXIX, 19). Others have translated Gestell as ‘“the structuring of thought’” (see Petzet 2007).

  7. Hence Heidegger´’s use of “"concrete"” neologisms that seek to replace Western metaphysics terminology. Making a correspondence between Adorno and Heidegger, we could point out the following correspondences: Subject: Being-There (Dasein); Concept: Enframing; Subsumption: Destination; Fetishism: Concealment of Being; Immanent criticism: De-concealment of being, etc.

  8. For Heidegger, the decision was ontologically realized in the Führerprinzip, a principle in which the essence of being as blood and soil –—as belonging to a Volk- —became real in the word of the Führer (leader-the one who goes to the front) as the ground of all authority, the essence of sovereignty as radical decision (see Fayée, 2009; Schmitt 1985).

  9. This example is even clearer with digital photography, in which the device´’s program drives attention to faces as predefined focus of human perception. In this Enframing, we can distinguish, for example, a narcissistic ideology of self-image that moves transmedially with the practice of the selfie and its proliferation on digital platforms such as Facebook or Snapchat (see Mirzoeff 2016).

  10. Although it exceeds the aims of this work, I would like to point out that the possible realization of this tendency has its best expressions in popular culture. A strand of contemporary science fiction has explored the realization of totalitarian subjectivity. Some classic examples are the novels: Total Recall and Hammer of Vulcan´’s Hammer, by Philip K. Dick; in cinema, Odyssey 2001 (1968) by Stanley Kubrick; Eagle Eye (2008), by D.J. Caruso, as well as James Cameron´’s Terminator I-II cycle (1984, 1991), especially the third installment: Rise of the Machines (2003), directed by Jonathan Mostow. Another interesting example inspired by the futurological work of scientist Ray Kurzweil is the film Transcendence (2014), directed by Wally Pfister.

  11. The quotation from Lukacs says: ‘“A considerable part of the leading German intelligentsia, among its members Adorno, has already been installed in the Grand Abyss Hotel, an institution that, as I had occasion to expose when criticizing Schopenhauer, “‘is a splendid building endowed with all comfort and picturesquely located on the edge of nothingness and nonsense. The daily view of the abyss, between serenely enjoyed food or between two artistic productions, can only exalt the satisfaction produced by that refined comfort’”’” (1985: 292).

  12. Algorithmic pedagogy refers to the process extended over time by means of which technology teaches the user to organize and configure their practices and experiences depending on the possibilities offered to the subject by the code as software.

  13. In the documentary film: The pervert´’s guide to cinema directed by Sophie Fiennes (2006), Slavoj Zizek already proposes this same idea but with respect to films (See also Zizek 1994).

  14. The Superego, or the Freudian Father.

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    Rafael Alarcón-Medina

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Alarcón-Medina, R. Grand Digital Abyss: Technology, Critical Theory, and Subjectivity in twenty-first centuryCyber-Capitalism. Dialect Anthropol 44, 19–39 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10624-019-09577-y

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