Symbolic Misery, Volume 1: The Hyperindustrial Epoch

Symbolic Misery #1

by Bernard Stiegler

In this important new book, the leading cultural theorist and philosopher Bernard Stiegler re-examines the relationship between politics and aesthetics in our contemporary hyperindustrial age.

Stiegler argues that our epoch is characterized by the seizure of the symbolic by industrial technology, where aesthetics has become both theatre and weapon in an economic war. This has resulted in a ‘symbolic misery’ where conditioning substitutes for experience. In today’s control societies, aesthetic weapons play an essential role: audiovisual and digital technologies have become a means of controlling the conscious and unconscious rhythms of bodies and souls, of modulating the rhythms of consciousness and life. The notion of an aesthetic engagement, capable of founding a new communal sensibility and a genuine aesthetic community, has largely collapsed today. This is because the overwhelming majority of the population is now totally subjected to the aesthetic conditioning of marketing and therefore estranged from any experience of aesthetic inquiry. That part of the population that continues to experiment aesthetically has turned its back on those who live in the misery of this conditioning.

Stiegler appeals to the art world to develop a political understanding of its role. In this volume he pays particular attention to cinema which occupies a unique position in the temporal war that is the cause of symbolic misery: at once industrial technology and art, cinema is the aesthetic experience that can combat conditioning on its own territory.

This highly original work - the first in Stiegler’s Symbolic Misery series - will be of particular interest to students in film studies, media and cultural studies, literature and philosophy and will consolidate Stiegler’s reputation as one of the most original cultural theorists of our time.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Technology, Semiotics

128 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2014

About the author

Bernard Stiegler heads the Department of Cultural Development at the Pompidou Center in Paris and is co-founder of the political group Ars Industrialis. Stanford University Press has published the first two volumes of Technics and Time, The Fault of Epimetheus (1998) and Disorientation (2008), as well as his Acting Out (2008) and Taking Care of Youth and the Generations (2010).

Reviews

[Márcia Figueira · Rating 5 out of 5]

"a questão estética é, pois, a do sentir e da sensibilidade em geral

a questão política é, essencialmente, a questão da relação com o outro num sentir conjunto

Nesse dia compreendi, com uma clareza assustadora, que as pessoas que então votaram em Marie Le Penn são pessoas com as quais eu não sinto , como se não partilhássemos nenhuma experiência estética em comum."

[lucas · Rating 5 out of 5]

quando o Stiegler se deixa de merdas -- e ele tem dois tipos de merdas: no primeiro, referências a cultura francesa ou especificamente parisiense; no segundo, referências a si próprio ("Como eu disse no livro x e no livro y") -- ele é perfeitamente capaz de escrever um livro fantástico.

um excerto que ficou comigo da última hora de leitura (p.166): "A indústria cultural audiovisual tende a substituir-se ao artista para produzir os agenciamentos retencionários terciários de modo a provocar retenções secundárias colectivas homogéneas que conduzem à eliminação, pura e simples, das singularidades dos olhares individuais e dos comportamentos corporais das consciências (...) Trata-se assim de padronizar os comportamentos de consumo."

e a canetada que o precede, poucas páginas antes (p.161): "(...) no momento em que as imagens animadas estão por toda a parte, já não há olhar capaz de ficar afectado (...) É contra isto que lutam os últimos cineastas."

imaginem se eu tivesse ido para comunicação estratégica.

[lucaslol · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bom mas nao se sustenta sozinho metade dos paragrados começam com "Como eu ja disse no Livro X nanana" não vou ler os outros mano

[Benjamin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Given my love of Deleuze, I was excited when I ordered this book based upon reviews. I just finished the book, and am fairly disappointed in the content. Stiegler strikes me as much more of a Derridean post-structuralist than a Deleuzian. This book focuses a great deal on language and representation, which I think would disappoint Deleuze. In fact, he only really references Negotiations, which is more of an interview of Deleuze than a work by Deleuze. However, the most disappointing aspect of this book was Stiegler's constant reference to his other works. I almost felt like this book was an advertisement for his other books. Stiegler does seem to be a somewhat interesting thinker, but this book does not feel as innovative as other important works of the past 20 years. I won't give up on Stiegler, but this wasn't a great first impression.

[CL Chu · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mostly regurgitation of Stiegler's other books between 1994 & 2004. Read Technics and Time series instead.

[Ian Turner · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the more interesting engagements with Deleuze’s Control Societies

[Inês Moreira · Rating 3 out of 5]

“… um filme não aparece senão na medida em que desaparece, e segundo a maneira como desaparece”

[Eloise · Rating 4 out of 5]

“...a imensa maioria da sociedade vive nessa miséria simbólica feita de humilhação e ofensa.”

“A imensa maioria da sociedade vive em zonas esteticamente sinistradas, onde não se pode viver e amar porque se está esteticamente alienado.”

“Locke pressentiu que eu sou singular através da singularidade dos objectos com os quais estou em relação. Eu sou a relação com os meus objectos na medida em que esta é singular.”

“Com a expressão ‘miséria simbólica’, entendo a perda de individuação resultante da perda de participação na produção dos símbolos, sendo que estes designam simultaneamente os frutos da vida intelectiva (conceitos, ideias, teoremas, saberes) e os da vida sensível (artes, jeitos, costumes). E suponho que o estado presente de perda de individuação generalizada só pode conduzir a um desabamento simbólico, isto é, um desabamento do desejo - ou seja, a decomposição do social propriamente dito: a guerra total.”

[Xiiz Iikki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes enjoyable, with moments of dullness and boredom, the book as a whole provides an intriguing look at how capital utilizes digital technology such as information systems and the internet to control people's consciousness while also profiting from cultural production.