‘Torturing things until they confess’: Günther Anders' critique of technology

Schraube, Ernst

doi:10.1080/09505430500041983

Cited by 23 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…He was a “public intellectual” who championed reflexive social-theoretical observation. Engagement and analysis were integrated in his oeuvre (1956, 1988, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2017, 2018; Bischof et al , 2014; Bunzel and Parker, 2009; Muller, 2016; Schraube, 2005). As a phenomenologist turning to “the things themselves,” he focused on the technologies of production, consumption and identity, defending throughout fairness, justice and responsibility.…”

Section: Günther Anders: the Promethean Destroys The “Place” Of Meaningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Discussing: “The very idea of organizing becomes literally meaningless”

Letiche¹

2021

JOCM

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PurposeGunther Anders in the 20th century and Hartmut Rosa in the 21st have argued that the technics of organization – that is, its physical and social technologies, have from acceleration become so uncontrollable and unpredictable that circumstances actually outstrip awareness to the degree that intentional “organizing” is more a fable than a reality, as stated in the quote from Rosa that forms the title of this article.Design/methodology/approachIn this article, two critical theorists are examined who have fundamentally rejected the “control” thesis that dominates organization theory. It is a thesis that assumes that organizational change ought to be goal-directed, leadership driven and make use of soft and hard technologies to achieve defined objectives.FindingsThe prevailing “idea” of organizing has become illusionary. The technics of accelerationism have overpowered it. Not “organizing” but “ethic-sizing” is what remains as the: “What is to be done.”Originality/valueThe tradition of Gunther Anders and Hartmut Rosa (second and third generation Frankfurter School) and the implications of their work for our assumptions about the relations between technology, control and organization is for a first time evidenced in this article.

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Section: Günther Anders: the Promethean Destroys The “Place” Of Meaningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Discussing: “The very idea of organizing becomes literally meaningless”

Letiche¹

2021

JOCM

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“…has the chance of truth" (Anders 2014b). This imagination involves a phenomenology of things that inquires into the effective reality of what our things "do", as nothingness calls us to something greater as a symbol for freedom (Schraube 2005). Since nothingness is the final, resting horizon of negativity, its idea of non-being calls for one to not be bound by the categories and laminates that have come to define oneself.…”

Section: Transcendence Of the Negativementioning

confidence: 99%

Transcendence of the Negative: Günther Anders’ Apocalyptic Phenomenology

Alvis

2017

Religions

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When the apocalyptic is marginalized, not only is theology under threat of malpractice, but phenomenology is also, for at the core of apocalyptic thinking is the attempt to restrain the totalities that are at work implicitly in our social imaginaries. Most totalities are subtle, appearing even in efforts of unification through global peace. One might extract such insight from Günther Anders, who depicts an immanent, apocalyptic reality beyond the pale of bourgeois optimism and the theological imaginaries that enervate it. We have fallen out of imaginative touch with our everyday activities, and this has resulted in an apocalyptic blindness (Apokalypse-Blindheit) and optimism rooted in abstraction. Such blindness has degraded our "conscience" into "conscientiousness" to the point that even the Hiroshima bomber can abstract from his actions and be exempted easily from responsibility. Although a kind of phenomenologist, Anders criticized colleagues who, in the name of "presuppositionlessness" and observation, could abstract their thoughts far from the reality in which they lived and acted. This paper provides a general introduction to Anders' work and interprets his "Transcendence of the Negative" in order to demonstrate the values of "apocalyptic phenomenology" today. Anders extends a Levinasian eschatology of anticipation (which is precisely of that which one cannot "expect") and demonstrates how transcendence, which typically is understood only in its positive element, also holds the capacity for turning a blind eye to the negative sociality of action. This transcendence often fuels a false optimism for an order of global peace and oneness, which inherently brings about an apocalyptic age, for it ends at "one" and eliminates any "outside". Apocalyptic phenomenology can be one way to disrupt this tendency of blind abstraction by attending to "unveiling" (apokalypsis) itself, attuning our "conscience" to the level of concern proportionate to the threats that stand before it, and becoming "restrainers" of what Anders calls "annihilism.

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“…Marcia's identity statuses, Marcia, 1993b; cf. the critique of Côté, 1996), its critics assert that there is an indeterminate relationship between the self and the meanings or artefacts surrounding a particular person (Bruner, 1995; Schraube, 1998). These critics widely assume that meanings and artefacts are the devices or cultural tools used in creating relations to the self and to others (Scarry, 1985).…”

Section: Ls Vygotsky and The Move From The Essentialist To The Consmentioning

confidence: 99%

In the ruins of representation: Identity, individuality, subjectification

Papadopoulos

2008

British J Social Psychol

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This paper explores a threefold shift in our understanding of identity formation and self-relationality: from an essentialist understanding of identity, to discursive and constructivist approaches, to, finally, the notion of embodied subjectification. The main target of this paper is to historicize these ideas and to localize them in the current social and political conditions of North-Atlantic societies. The core argument is that these three steps in reformulating the concept of identity correspond to an emerging form of subjectivity, affirmative subjectivity, which is bound to the proliferation of the post-Fordist reorganization of the social and political realm. The three theoretical shifts and their social situatedness will be illustrated through a rereading of some ideas from Lev S. Vygotsky's late theory, Michel Foucault's account of government and Jacques Rancière's political philosophy.

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‘Torturing things until they confess’: Günther Anders' critique of technology

Cited by 23 publications

References 5 publications

Discussing: “The very idea of organizing becomes literally meaningless”

Discussing: “The very idea of organizing becomes literally meaningless”

Transcendence of the Negative: Günther Anders’ Apocalyptic Phenomenology

In the ruins of representation: Identity, individuality, subjectification

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