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2019-08-27Zeitschriftenartikel DOI: 10.18452/24639
The obsolescence of politics: Rereading Günther Anders’s critique of cybernetic governance and integral power in the digital age
dc.contributor.authorNosthoff, Anna-Verena
dc.contributor.authorMaschewski, Felix
dc.date.accessioned2022-05-05T12:17:09Z
dc.date.available2022-05-05T12:17:09Z
dc.date.issued2019-08-27none
dc.date.updated2020-06-08T04:25:00Z
dc.identifier.issn0725-5136
dc.identifier.urihttp://edoc.hu-berlin.de/18452/25309
dc.description.abstractFollowing media-theoretical studies that have characterized digitization as a process of all-encompassing cybernetization, this paper will examine the timely and critical potential of Günther Anders’s oeuvre vis-à-vis the ever-increasing power of cybernetic devices and networks. Anders has witnessed and negotiated the process of cybernetization from its very beginning, having criticized its tendency to automate and expand, as well as its circular logic and ‘integral power’, including disruptive consequences for the constitution of the political and the social. In this vein, Anders’s works, particularly his magnum opus Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen [The Obsolescence of Man], sheds new light on the technologically organized milieus of the contemporary digital regime and also highlights a new form of cybernetic ‘conformism’. The goal of the essay is therefore, not only to emphasize the contemporary nature of Anders’s thought but also to use it to frame a critique of current neo-technocratic and, ultimately, post-political concepts, such as ‘algorithmic regulation’, ‘smart states’, ‘direct technocracy’, and ‘government as platform’. This essay argues that cybernetic capitalism is causing what Anders terms ‘Unfestgelegtheit’ to disappear; that is, we are losing the originary possibility of technologically (re-)structuring our world in alternative ways, particularly given the determinist character of current technologies.eng
dc.language.isoengnone
dc.publisherHumboldt-Universität zu Berlin
dc.rights(CC BY 4.0) Attribution 4.0 Internationalger
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.subjectalgorithmic governanceeng
dc.subjectGünther Anderseng
dc.subjectcritical theoryeng
dc.subjectcybernetic capitalismeng
dc.subjectdigitizationeng
dc.subjectphilosophy of technologyeng
dc.subjectpost-politicseng
dc.subject.ddc320 Politikwissenschaft (Politik und Regierung)none
dc.titleThe obsolescence of politics: Rereading Günther Anders’s critique of cybernetic governance and integral power in the digital agenone
dc.typearticle
dc.identifier.urnurn:nbn:de:kobv:11-110-18452/25309-9
dc.identifier.doihttp://dx.doi.org/10.18452/24639
dc.type.versionpublishedVersionnone
local.edoc.pages19none
local.edoc.type-nameZeitschriftenartikel
local.edoc.container-typeperiodical
local.edoc.container-type-nameZeitschrift
dc.description.versionPeer Reviewednone
dc.identifier.eissn1461-7455
dcterms.bibliographicCitation.doi10.1177/0725513619863853none
dcterms.bibliographicCitation.journaltitleThesis Elevennone
dcterms.bibliographicCitation.volume153none
dcterms.bibliographicCitation.issue1none
dcterms.bibliographicCitation.originalpublishernameSAGE Publicationsnone
dcterms.bibliographicCitation.originalpublisherplaceLondon [u.a.]none
dcterms.bibliographicCitation.pagestart75none
dcterms.bibliographicCitation.pageend93none
bua.departmentSprach- und literaturwissenschaftliche Fakultätnone

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