24/7 - Le capitalisme à l'assaut du sommeil

by Jonathan Crary, Grégoire Chamayou (Translator)

24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep  explores some of the ruinous consequences of the expanding non-stop processes of twenty-first-century capitalism. The marketplace now operates through every hour of the clock, pushing us into constant activity and eroding forms of community and political expression, damaging the fabric of everyday life.

Jonathan Crary examines how this interminable non-time blurs any separation between an intensified, ubiquitous consumerism and emerging strategies of control and surveillance. He describes the ongoing management of individual attentiveness and the impairment of perception within the compulsory routines of contemporary technological culture. At the same time, he shows that human sleep, as a restorative withdrawal that is intrinsically incompatible with 24/7 capitalism, points to other more formidable and collective refusals of world-destroying patterns of growth and accumulation.

Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy, Politics, Economics, Theory, Sociology, Essays

144 pages, Pocket Book

First published June 4, 2013

About the author

Jonathan Crary is an art critic and essayist and is Meyer Schapiro Professor of Modern Art and Theory at Columbia University in New York. His first notable works were Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the 19th Century(1990), and Suspensions of Perception: Attention, Spectacle and Modern Culture (2000). He has published critical essays for over 30 Exhibition catalogues, mostly on contemporary art. His style is often classified as observational mixed with scientific, and a dominant theme in his work is the role of the human eye. (via wiki)

Reviews

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

After Trump won the US election on November 8th, I stopped reading non-fiction books as reality seemed so appalling that I sought escapism. While reintroducing myself to them with ‘24/7’, I realised this was a terrible mistake on my part. Avoiding non-fiction books obviously did not equate to avoiding reality, nor did it prevent my perpetually analysing the present state of disaster. I found myself dissecting allegedly dystopian novels (of which I seem to have read 10 in the last two months!) for insight into the current moment, as well as obsessively reading depressing news articles online. Neither pursuit promoted a healthy state of mind. More likely, they lengthened and deepened the initial state of shock and horror. Reading ‘24/7’, a short critique of neoliberal capitalism’s relations with time and sleep, I was reminded that there is no genuine escapist reading in the 21st century. At least not for me. By confining myself to reading non-fiction in brief, online, current affairs formats, I ended up feeling disorientation, helplessness, and despair.

As Crary points out in this book, that’s the whole point. A 24/7 world never gives you time to step back, to contemplate and slowly analyse events, to consider multiple points of view and different sources before formulating an opinion. The constant barrage of unsubstantiated, ever-changing, emotive information on social media inevitably breeds panic and fear rather than understanding. I find books something of an antidote to this. I should have seen that more non-fiction, not less, would help me to move beyond fatalism and believe that things aren’t automatically, irretrievably, completely fucked. Books that critically analyse capitalism, that place the current moment in a historical context, that explore deeper ethical and philosophical questions beyond superficial consumerism - these are balm to the soul when the world seems to have gone mad. They widen your gaze, while the news always seem to narrow it (in my experience, anyway). They do not have the crushing immediacy of live-blogged, constantly updated, real time disasters. They induce contemplation, rather than a reflexive, anxious emotional response. And they're generally not trying to sell you something.

In short, I feel better for reading this astute analysis of capitalism and time. Although it overlaps in some respects with Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now and Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming, Crary distils a great deal of additional insight in succinct and quite readable style. There are bits of critical theory jargon here and there, however they do not obscure the points being made. Such terms are generally introduced in order to explain the work of other thinkers. I found this a neat summary of the book’s thesis statement on sleep:

The huge proportion of our lives that we spend asleep, freed from a morass of simulated needs, subsists as one of the great human affronts to the voraciousness of contemporary capitalism. Sleep is an uncompromising interruption of the theft of time from us by capitalism. Most of the seemingly irreducible necessities of human life - hunger, thirst, sexual desire, and recently the need for friendship - have been remade into commodified or financialised forms. Sleep poses the idea of a human need and interval of time that cannot be colonised and harnessed to the massive engine of profitability. [...] The stunning, inconceivable reality is that nothing of value can be extracted from it.

The surreal humorist Steve Aylett also briefly makes this point in his non-fiction foray Heart of the Original: Originality, Creativity, Individuality: ‘During sleep we do not work or consume, are not outward-looking, hysterical or entertaining, and are becoming healthier. Many would wish it abolished, in others.’

Crary articulates elements of my aforementioned discomfort with social media and the news (increasingly synonymous terms) in these comments on images and the impossibility of ‘catching up’:

We are swamped with images and information about the past and its recent catastrophes - but there is also a growing incapacity to engage these traces in ways that could move beyond them, in the interest of a common future. Amid the mass amnesia sustained by the culture of global capitalism, images have become one of the many depleted and disposable elements that, in their intrinsic archiveability, end up never being discarded, contributing to an ever more congealed and futureless present.

[...]

The very different actuality of our time is the calculated maintenance of an ongoing state of transition. There will never be a “catching-up” on either a social or individual basis in relation to continually changing technological requirements. For the vast majority of people, our perceptual and cognitive relationship to communication and information technology will continue to be estranged and disempowered because of the velocity at which new products emerge and at which arbitrary reconfigurations of entire systems take place. This intensified rhythm precludes the possibility of becoming familiar with any given arrangement.

Another point that had strong personal resonance for me was this, on the loss of daydreaming time:

One of the forms of disempowerment within 24/7 environments is the incapacitation of daydream or of any mode of absent-minded introspection that would otherwise occur in intervals of slow or vacant time. Now one of the attractions of current systems is their operating speed: it has become intolerable for there to be waiting time when something loads or connects. When there are delays or breaks of empty time, they are rarely openings for the drift of consciousness in which one becomes unmoored from the constraints and demands of the immediate present. There is a profound incompatibility of anything resembling reverie with the priorities of efficiency, functionality, and speed.

This paragraph reminded me that as a teenager I considered daydreaming a cherished hobby. I would sit or lie still with my eyes shut, blocking out the world with trance music on a walkman, and explore vividly detailed daydream worlds. This was a time before I had internet access at home, or a family computer that could do more than word-processing. These days, my daydreaming skills are weaker, although they survive and get frequent use on public transport and other interstitial moments. I can’t slip into a daydream as deeply as I used to, though, unless I’m in a sensory deprivation environment. For this reason, I used to volunteer for MRI experiments when I was a postgraduate. If you want to be left totally alone, zero distractions, just you and your mind, then I recommend lying perfectly still in a loud white tube for three hours. I really enjoyed it and found I could daydream very vividly in a delightful semi-conscious state, probably best described as reverie. The pull of electronic devices and the demands of to-do lists are absolutely antithetical to such states of mind.

Crary even manages to cover the preponderance of apocalyptic and dystopian visions in popular culture, a particular interest of mine (cf Combined and Uneven Apocalypse: Luciferian Marxism & The End of the World: Apocalypse and Its Aftermath in Western Culture). Like me, he links them to anxiety about climate change and other slow-motion environmental catastrophes:

There is a pervasive illusion that, as more of the earth’s biosphere is annihilated or irreparably damaged, human beings can magically disassociate themselves from it and transfer their interdependencies to the mecanosphere of global capitalism. The more one identifies with insubstantial electronic surrogates for the physical self, the more one seems to conjure an exemption from the biocide underway everywhere on the planet. [...] The belief that one can subsist independently from environmental catastrophe is paralleled by fantasies of individual survival or prosperity amid the destruction of civil society or institutions that retain any semblance of social protection or mutual support.

Another highlight is an excellent comparison of the messages in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and ‘Blade Runner’, reflecting ideological shifts between the 1960s and 1980s. I won’t include a quote for reasons of space, but found it astute and thought-provoking.

‘24/7’ concludes with a message that I found surprisingly encouraging: that sleep at least offers the potential to dream a world beyond capitalism. My own dreams often feature apocalyptic disasters, likely reflecting and reinforcing my waking preoccupations. (On the last day of 2016 I dreamed about a house AI that responded to tampering with a nuclear bomb, having observed that its owner has murdered two people and buried another alive. The dream ended with all involved being crushed to death. I hope this isn’t some kind of portent.) I don’t experience them as nightmares, though, and treasure the fact that I only very rarely dream of anything related to my actual life or, heavens forfend, my job. Truly, sleep offers a unique escape from capitalism and should be defended from encroachment. The concluding message of ‘24/7’ is as follows:

Now there is actually only one dream, superseding all others: it is of a shared world whose fate is not terminal, a world without billionaires, which has a future other than barbarism or the post-human, and in which history can take on other forms reified nightmares of catastrophe.

Reading analysis of the flaws of the world (well, capitalism) and attempting to more clearly understand them definitely helps to push back against despairing helplessness. How can anything change unless we first understand why change is needed? I am also reminded of the fact that writing reviews of non-fiction is much more satisfying than reviewing novels, as I have no disciplinary background in the latter. I hereby vow to read more critical theory in 2017, rather than wholly sublimating my urge to analyse the world's flaws into critique of dystopian novels.

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is as sharp a work of critical theory as I've read in some time. Crary doesn't really have a thesis he wants to prove, just a central concept he orbits around; namely that capitalism is re-orienting and demolishing our most basic conception of biological time cycles and that that re-ordering is not merely incidental but gets to the heart of so much of our cultural and technological exhaustion.

For a work of theory this is highly accessible, and while he quotes the usual grab bag of philosophical and cultural theory eminences (Marx, Foucault, Deleuze, Debord, etc.) he uses them to strengthen his arguments in very concrete, specific ways instead of just showing off that he's read their work.

And like the best works of this hybrid genre, 24/7 has sections and paragraphs that make you literally shudder to think about how fundamentally morbid and sinister our sleepless, hyper-mediated late capitalist existence can be, and how deeply into our seemingly organic lives it has crept. This is a strong, often haunting book that is all the more powerful because it can be read in one or two sittings. Highly Recommended.

[Mehdi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I first encountered Jonathan Crary in graduate school - his "Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century", an astonishingly read. The premise of 24/7 is compelling: sleep is the last barrier that capitalism faces in its quest to control all of human life. And today, sleep itself is in great danger. Crary, however, disappoints somewhat - the book lacks a clear structure, and the author seems to mistake interdisciplinarity for "let me quote every major French and German theorist of the twentieth century". Sure, it makes the reader feel smart, but the relevance/connection to the subject matter is often tenuous. Intelligent, but overly pompous, Crary's book will appeal to academics more than to the highly-educated general public. And this is unfortunate.

[Dr. Lloyd E. Campbell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Simplistic application of a Marxist paradigm applied to a complex topic. No analysis of physiology or purposes of sleep. Asserts that capitalists want to end sleep because they can't sell it. He could have written this idea on the back of a postage stamp and saved himself some time, perhaps gotten some sleep.

[بثينة العيسى · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exposing neoliberalism is like music to my ears.

[Morgan · Rating 1 out of 5]

A handful of interesting ideas overwhelmed by relentless, simplistic, and superficial name-dropping. It reads a lot like the author ran out of things to say before reaching book-length, so instead of presenting a more thorough case based on reliable research he decided to show off how many philosophers' names he knew - from Hobbes to Debord. These references are often uncritical, ignorant of recent scholarship, and weaken the central thesis by framing the argument in terms of questionable, problematic and tenuously-linked philosophical schools and concepts.

[Alfredo · Rating 5 out of 5]

FODA!!!! Achei que esse livro fosse falar "só" do objetivo capitalista de acabar com o sono de uma vez por todas, acontece que esse "só" é muito mais profundo e complexo.

Jonathan Crary explica, com linguagem acessível, como nossa sociedade caminha para um modelo de desumanização das nossas vidas. O fim dos momentos de contemplação, do tempo de espera, dos lugares não rastreáveis, das relações livre de algoritmos, do trabalho por período determinado... Agora, qualquer tempo seria adequado para qualquer coisa. E isso traz muitos riscos para nossa vida.

É surpreendente e reajusta o jeito que enxergamos novas tecnologias e a promessa de progresso. Também funciona como uma espécie de manifesto pela volta do nosso controle pelo nosso tempo, que é cada vez mais difícil.

Uma leitura curta, mas muito reveladora e impactante. Recomendo demais!

[Matthew Funke · Rating 4 out of 5]

god we're so fucked

[Stewart Home · Rating 1 out of 5]

“The phenomenon of blogging is one example – of many – of the triumph of a one-way model of auto-chattering in which the possibility of ever having to wait and listen to someone else has been eliminated. Blogging no matter what its intentions, is thus one of the many announcements of the end of politics” 24/7� page 124.

This is so wrong it has to be right! Or rather it would have been wrong in 2007 but might be right in 2013 – now that spam comments have become such a problem that many bloggers turn off the comment function on their posts. And this quote could be applied with even more accuracy to books than blogs, and in particular the tomes written by academics. It might also be turned into a really astute comment about the hierarchical university teaching model that ensures academics are rarely contradicted and that their students learn nothing worthwhile but are instead condemned to parrot half-truths handed down from on ‘high’ – the wrong kind of high that is, since most students would learn far more if they attended lectures and seminars after ingesting psychedelics.

Like a lot of academics Jonathan Crary has followed the wrong career, he should have been a comedian who took straight man roles! If 24/7 were stuffed to the gills with the overblown rhetoric of which Crary is capable (like the lines quoted above) it would have been a laugh-a-minute groove sensation, but unfortunately our ‘learned’ hack falls back on a hackneyed academic canon. Like does anyone giving a flying fuck about Maurice Blanchot, Emmanuel Levinas, Hannah Arendt, Frederich Nietzsche, Roland Barthes, Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Giorgio Agamben, Fredric Jameson, Guy Debord, Raymond Williams, Laura Mulvey, Ernst Bloch and company? I certainly don’t! I was already bored with most of this stuff half-a-lifetime ago and now it just sends me to sleep. ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Crary’s ‘arguments’ are illustrated with discussions of ‘highbrow’ films by the likes of Jean-Luc Godard and Chris Marker – movies we’ve all seen at least one time too many (just as we’ve probably all read virtually every author Crary cites). Yawn! But maybe this is a clever move on Crary’s part since he believes the land-of-nod is about the last site of resistance to capitalism and his text certainly sent me to sleep. Wow! Sexy subversion on a stick Buttman!. Is Crary right to think sleep hasn’t been commoditised or monetised? Actually one reason toffs pay to stay in expensive hotels and buy detached housing is for ‘a good night’s sleep’. This is also a slogan used to sell ‘memory foam mattresses’. A more dialectical approach might have made Crary’s silly academic rant about shut-eye slightly more convincing.

So to move from the particular (Crary) to the general (Marxist academics AKA bourgeois ideologists as a whole) – ultimately these bozos are still churning out the same old conservative-dressed-up-as-progressive ‘resistance’ that Adorno and Horkheimer indulged themselves with when they wrote Dialectics of Enlightenment (yawn) and lived in Hollywood – although they might as well have been living in cloud-cuckoo land. Adorno hated jazz, Crary hates the internet. He probably hates all the movies I love too – if he’s ever actually seen them – from Master of the Flying Guillotine and Scorpion Thunderbolt on down. Communudism is too ludic for Crary and before the eighties someone of his ilk would have been as unlikely to quote Debord (because Debord hadn’t been canonised) as s/he is now to cite the likes of Amadeo Bordiga or Juan R. Posadas. Academics really are a sad bunch of skunks!

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

yo dude , our reality is a non-social model of machinic performance and a suspension of living that does not disclose the human cost required to sustain its effectiveness. we're invited to consume at any time of day or night. gotta hit that ig feed refresh at 3:30 am.

sleep is our RELEASE from capitalism!!! let's get that 7.5 or 9 hrs of sleep comrades.

take back our day dreams, give our smooth brains a scratch

[Aleksandra Pasek · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Zadaniem każdego człowieka jest kształtowanie samego siebie, toteż wszyscy posłusznie wciąż wynajdujemy siebie na nowo i zarządzamy własnymi złożonymi tożsamościami. Jak zauważył Zygmunt Bauman, być może nie zdajemy sobie sprawy, że zarzucenie tej niekończącej się pracy w ogóle nie wchodzi w grę"

Bardzo interesująca refleksja nad tym, jak kapitalizm zagarnia cały nasz czas, niszczy więzi (a raczej ich smętne resztki), a pod iluzją nieograniczonego wyboru nie zostawia nam wyboru wcale.
Według autora funkcjonujemy sobie jak jednostki odbite na ksero, skazane przez system na samotność, egoizm i skupienie wyłącznie na swoim interesie i swoim posiadaniu. W świecie, który stara się wszystko zoptymalizować, przyspieszyć, ograniczyć do minimum, żeby wycisnąć jeszcze więcej z naszego czasu, czasu codziennego, którego właściwie już nie mamy dla siebie, ponieważ dobrowolnie oddaliśmy go na sprzedaż. Zrezygnowaliśmy z odpowiedzialności za samych siebie i biernie konsumujemy. W tym świecie jeszcze tylko sen, te "zmarnowane" godziny, w trakcie których nikt na nas nie zarabia, jawią się jako ostatni bastion wolności. Sen i marzenia senne.
Coś pomiędzy esejem a książką akademicką, szło mi miejscami bardzo opornie, grzęzłam na karkołomnie skonstruowanych zdaniach, a momentami czułam się do niej zwyczajnie za głupia, ALE nie mniej jednak, jest to świetna pozycja, przez którą warto się przebić.
Trud zostaje wynagrodzony tym, że autor ma wiele bardzo ciekawych myśli do przekazania, niektórych dla mnie naprawdę nowych, zmuszających do własnej analizy otoczenia i siebie.
Ogólnie rzecz ujmując - jesteśmy w dupie i jest to przerażające. Chciałabym powiedzieć, że tezy autora są przesadzone, ale obawiam się, że tak nie jest.

Mam zaznaczonych masę cytatów.

"Poświęcanie czasu na aktywności, których nie można korzystnie upublicznić przez jakiś interfejs i jego łącza, jest czymś, czego się obecnie unika. (...) Rytmów technologicznej konsumpcji nie da się oddzielić od wymogu nieustannego zarządzania samym sobą. Każdy nowy produkt lub usługa prezentują się jako niezbędne w biurokratycznej organizacji życia człowieka, a liczba procedur i potrzeb składających się na owo życie, którego nikt sobie nie wybiera, jest coraz większa."

"Nawet mimo braku jakichkolwiek bezpośrednich nakazów decydujemy się na postępowanie zgodnie z tym, czego się od nas oczekuje. Pozwalamy na zarządzanie naszym ciałem, naszymi ideami, formami naszej rozrywki, a wszystkie nasze wyobrażone potrzeby są nam narzucone z zewnątrz. Nabywamy towary zarekomendowane nam wskutek monitorowania naszego elektronicznego życia, po czym z własnej woli piszemy recenzje tych produktów na użytek innych. Jesteśmy uległymi poddanymi zgadzającymi się na monitoring biometryczny i natrętny nadzór, łykającymi toksyczne jedzenie i napoje, zamieszkującymi bez słowa skargi w cieniu reaktorów atomowych. Całkowita abdykacja odpowiedzialności za życie ujawnia się w fatalistycznych tytułach bestsellerowych przewodników, które wyliczają tysiąc filmów, sto atrakcji turystycznych czy pięćset książek, które należy obejrzeć, odwiedzić lub przeczytać, zanim się umrze."

"Iluzja wolnego wyboru i autonomii jest jednym z fundamentów tego globalnego systemu samoregulacji. W wielu miejscach wciąż można usłyszeć zapewnienia, że współczesne systemy techniczne są co do zasady neutralnymi zestawami narzędzi, które mogą być wykorzystywane na różne sposoby, również w celu uprawiania polityki emancypacyjnej. Giorgio Agamben odrzuca jednak podobne tezy, twierdząc, że dziś nie da się wskazać ani jednego przykładu, w którym życie człowieka nie byłoby modelowane, skażone albo kontrolowane przez jakiś aparat."

[Cosimo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un cielo vuoto

Teoria e filosofia, Sartre, Deleuze e Jameson, scienza cognitiva e esperimenti militari su supersoldati, Blade Runner e Inception, La Jetée e Psycho, questo libro è un discorso che descrive un ampio percorso dentro un'antropologia critica della contemporaneità. L'ipercapitalismo qui narrato e rappresentato, perverso nell'esposizione di una vita senza pause e di un mondo senza di noi, si attiva in qualsiasi momento del giorno o della notte, in una condizione di veglia globale opposta al sogno alternativo. La nostra immaginazione viene estratta in un non tempo interminabile, dove è indistinto ogni confine tra consumo e controllo.

L'individualismo del capitale ci impone la libertà dagli altri; non c'è comunità reale dove possano convivere cooperazione e espressione. La rivoluzione è impensabile. L'ossessione del mercato travolge il quotidiano con la serialità di desideri, ansie, aspettative e paure, tutte riversate e elaborate in un sonno messo sotto scacco. Il capitalismo produce per fondarsi solitudine e isolamento sociale; siamo ibridi, soggetti e oggetti, consumiamo la nostra presenza online, esposti 24/7 per evitare fallimento e irrilevanza. Siamo costretti a comprendere noi stessi, impersonando un inanimato virtuale, potenzialmente inerte ma sempre accessibile, per agevolare la partecipazione ai processi digitali. Possiamo ancora, sulla scorta di paradigmi onirici e utopici posti in essere negli anni Sessanta, immaginare o sognare un altro tempo? La socialità non oltrepassa gli interessi individuali e noi, isole o fantasmi, perdiamo significato in una intersoggettiva derealizzazione.

Tutto è ammesso, eccetto mettere in dubbio la fiducia nella tecnologia per risolvere problemi sociali; le forme di comunicazione condivisa oggi esistenti consistono nella garanzia che all'orizzonte non vi siano alternative al modello di vita esistente. Così nel 24/7 gli esseri umani sono neutralizzati e depotenziati in essenza e spirito, in memoria e sensibilità. Eliminiamo le ombre e il buio: non avremo più alcuna temporalità alternativa.

[Friend to God · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book that made me critical of late capitalism and inspired me to learn more about anti-capitalism and socialism. Capitalism is a ravenous machine and as Immanuel Wallerstein posited, it is separate from previous forms of economics because it continues to accumulate wealth and seek greater and greater profits. There is no endgame in capitalism.

This book shows that that insatiable drive has inspired bizarre and dystopian advances, including methods by which to eliminate sleep or even commodify dreaming.

Read this book.

[Gabriel Avocado · Rating 3 out of 5]

it took me so long to finish this. maybe over a year? and it really isnt a long read. i expected this book to be about, well, capitalism and sleep. but then it ended up being about like...philosophy and shit. i mean, its alright. its not awful or anything. its just way too verbose for its own good. like, jonathan crary has some interesting ideas but ultimately this comes off as more of a philosophical exercise. and thats unfair to the whole premise behind this book.

crarys writing is way too 'academic philosopher' for casual reading but i desperately wish he were more interested in writing to a broader audience. this is such a fascinating topic that deserves a more materialist analysis.

[julian pat · Rating 2 out of 5]

Chcialam zeby mi sie ta ksiazka podobala ale chlop pierdolil o szopenie + bronil jakichs badan z dupy ktore tylko stygmatyzuja autyzm, tak ze potem juz z trudem konczylam czytanie bo mnie zdenerwowano

[Bertrand · Rating 3 out of 5]

Crary's fascinating work on visual culture and my interest in the time-consciousness of modernity led me to great expectations for this volume and I am a little underwhelmed. i was specifically after a contemporary account of late-modernity as a permanentized state of transition (a modernist truism taken-up by anyone from Benjamin to Voegelin) and Crary's focus on the neoliberal deregulation of time seemed a perfect fit. The book is excellently written and contains a number of valuable insights (i.e. the passage on Freudianism) and some striking art interpretations (the parallel between La Jetée and Psycho), but it suffers from several short-comings, some of them attributable to the limitations of its format.
It's very short (90 pages) with no foot-notes, little overt structure, and a relatively conversational style. It makes huge leaps between subjects (some of them quite elegant) and was evidently conceived as a pamphlet for a general audience, rather than a systematic treatment. In retrospect I realise I was after the later - but also as a pamphlet I found the book not hugely convincing, in part because of the disjointed nature of its vignettes, and of the breadth and breakneck speed of the treatment, which allows many omissions and paint late-capitalism as an omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient monolith, from which sleep alone still escapes. I'd have found it more productive to emphasize the system's contradictions, which could point to concrete strategies, rather than celebrate irrational and individualised resistance. Whether sleep is truly the last frontier, I am actually unsure. As Benjamin suggest, dreams have become the logic of consumer capitalism, and perhaps they were always the privileged locus of that fetishism from which commodity culture (partly) descends.
In other words, there is a 'surreal' and 'spontaneist' tactical naivety which, while evocative, is likely to lead back to that impotent carnivalesque which has dominated Left activism for decades.
To pick only one example, the sixties and their counter-culture, from a failure to convert a cultural current into a political one, are recast as a successful life-style revolution, a time when ‘”dropping out” was more fundamentally disturbing on a systemic level than many are prepared to admit’ (76). In spiriting away the self-sabotage of of romantic leftism, Crary also obscures the evident convergence between this counter-culture and the very Silicon Valley techno-utopianism & ‘new spirit’ consumerism which he has spent much of his book perceptively taking apart: sex, drugs and rock-n-roll are all potentially (and perhaps inescapably) forms of consumption, which long converged with neoliberalism.

[J TC · Rating 4 out of 5]

Um ensaio sobre um conceito interessante, 24/7. Uma descrição performativa de como o capitalismo invade a nossa esfera privada e nos inculca numa ideia neoliberal de globalização em que os opostos se diluem, Jonathan Cray transporta-nos neste ensaio para um mundo onde a identidade se dilui e o caos se instala como um prenúncio apocalíptico. Um mundo que sem futuro antevemos no nosso presente.

[sean · Rating 5 out of 5]

there's probably a really deep irony in reviewing this book on famed amazon aggregate goodreads.com but uhmm i really don't care. placing this next to sontag's on photography on the shelf of books that really made me want to delete google photos. most of the stuff in this book is intuitive these days but it still feels good to hear it written.

[Anna Wilczyńska · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished this book and I liked it but I was not fascinated with it. Then I realized that it’s 2 a.m. and I am still reading. I and was awfully tired but I couldn’t sleep. So you won, book.

[Mack · Rating 4 out of 5]

pretty crucial reading, lots of good ideas in here. i haven’t had a day off or slept properly or enough in over a week now and i’m currently at work pushing through a cold so this hit pretty hard

[hayatem · Rating 5 out of 5]

“عالم 7/24 عالم منزوع السحر، وذلك بمحوه: الظلال، والعتمة، والمواقيت (الزمنيات) البديلة. إنه عالم مطابق لنفسه، عالم بلا ماضٍ، ولهذا بلا أطياف أو أشباح. لكن تجانس الحاضر وتماثله ليس سوى أثر للضياء المخادع الذي يدّعي أنه يسطع على كل مكان، ويبدد أي غموض أو جهالة. يخلق عالم 7/24 مساواة ظاهرة بين ما هو موجود وما هو متاح، أو ما هو في متناول اليد، أو قابل للاستعمال. من وجهٍ آخر، الشبحي هو اقتحام الحاضر وبلبلته من قِبل شيء في غير وقته، من قِبل أشباح ما لم تمحه الحداثة، أشباح الضحايا الذين لن يطويهم النسيان، أشباح التحرر الذي لم يتحقق. وبمقدور عادات وضع 7/24 الروتينية أن تُبطل أو تبتلع الكثير من تجارب العودة المبلبلة هذه، التي من شأنها أن تقوض متانة الحاضر وتماثله واكتفاءه الذاتي، فيما يظهر.” (ص 36–37)

كتاب يتناول فيه كرايري أثر الرأسمالية على الواقع الاجتماعي، وتغيرها لديموغرافية النوم، وإعادة تشكيلها للإدراك الحسي والعيش البشري.
أصبح العديد من البشر اليوم كالآلة بسبب طبيعة العمل المرهقة وساعاته الطويلة، حيث لا يجد أغلبهم ساعات كافية للنوم، أو حصل تغيير في مواعيد النوم الطبيعي، حيث ينام البعض في النهار ويعمل ليلًا. فأصبح الإنسان لا يعمل ليعيش، بل يعيش ليعمل.

«ليست المشكلة أننا نعيش في عالم بلا نوم، بل أننا نعيش في عالم لم يعد يعرف متى يتوقف.»

الرأسمالية لم تبدأ كشرٍّ أخلاقي، بل كنظام لتحرير الإنتاج من قيود الإقطاع: ملكية خاصة، سوق، عمل مأجور، وتراكم رأس المال. المشكلة لم تكن في الآلة، بل في المنطق الذي حكمها لاحقًا: منطق التوسع اللانهائي. مع الزمن، تحولت الرأسمالية من اقتصاد إلى بنية شاملة تعيد تشكيل: الوقت، العلاقات، الهوية، وحتى الإحساس بالذات.

«أخطر ما فعلته الرأسمالية أنها أقنعت الفرد أن استنزافه لذاته هو شكل من أشكال الحرية.»

أثر الرأسمالية على الفرد يمكن أن نقيسه في الفردانية القاسية التي عزلته عن وعيه المجتمعي والآخر؛ أي كل شخص مشروع قائم بذاته. وهو ما خلق معضلة أخرى: “الاحتراق النفسي، الاكتئاب الوجودي”، وتسيّد القلق لأمراض العصر. ففي عالم تسوده الرأسمالية عليك أن تعمل أكثر حتى لا تسقط.

تم نقل المخاطر من النظام إلى الفرد؛ الرأسمالية المتأخرة قلبت المعادلة. لم تعد تقول لك: كن حرًا، بل تقول: كن مشروعًا. أي: أدِر نفسك، طوّر نفسك، سوّق نفسك، تحمّل فشلك وحدك. الفرد لم يعد إنسانًا داخل شبكة اجتماعية، بل شركة صغيرة متنقلة. وهنا نطرح سؤالًا: كيف خدمت هذه الفردانية الرأسمالية؟ تفكك أي وعي جمعي، تمنع التنظيم، تجعل كل شخص مشغولًا بإصلاح نفسه، وتُبقي النظام بلا مساءلة. أفضل عامل اليوم ليس المطيع، بل المبادر الذي يجلد نفسه بنفسه.

«في عالم يعمل بلا توقف، يصبح التوقّف فعلًا مقاومًا.»

رائع !

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

A terrifying philosophical exploration of capitalist temporality in its late stages, in which the cyclical rhythms which characterize many of the relationships between human and extra-human natures, the differentiated tempos of contingency and history-making, and even the restorative and arguably creative temporalities of sleep and reverie are increasingly subordinated to the 24/7 time of capital accumulation. Crary's describes nothing less than the obliteration of daily life by the structural compulsion to ceaselessly participate in globalized circuits of capital accumulation, marked by the collapsing of both objective and subjective distinctions between work and leisure, production and consumption, wakefulness and slumber. Through an examination of recent historical developments which seem as if they've been conjured up by some dystopian imagination - the "sleepless soldier," satellites redirecting sunlight in order to create permanent illumination, or electronic interfaces which render our subjectivities ever less capable of action as subjects - Crary paints a picture of an emerging world in which sleep itself becomes an act of resistance, a space which cannot, in the end, be subsumed within a capitalist temporality. While mostly focused on the core of the world-system, and even here prone to hyperbole, 24/7 is still a powerful account of the ways in which capitalist temporality is rapidly unraveling the fabric of daily life, and thereby destroying the few remaining spaces for the cultivation of counter-hegemonic consciousness. Peep that shit.

[J. Moufawad-Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wish I'd read this a year ago since so much of it eclipsed with one section of my book Austerity Apparatus. I would have loved to reference it, since some of its insights of subject formation would have provided depth to my concept of the anxious subject.

In any case, highly recommended for people who think that current social media technologies are neutral or, even worse, essentially progressive. This book will challenge that thinking.

[Zack · Rating 4 out of 5]

sleep, it's revolutionary

[Sara Ponte · Rating 4 out of 5]

“A morte, nas suas muito aparências, é um dos derivados do neoliberalismo: quando nada mais se pode tirar às pessoas, em recursos ou em forças de trabalho, as pessoas são pura e simplesmente descartáveis”

[Justine Kaufmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5-3.75*

Some great thoughts in here, but the execution is a bit unfocused and meandering.

[Kuba]

Dużo ciężkich słówek np. reifikacja

[Klaudia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do zapamiętania i pielęgnowania: sen jako działanie rewolucyjne i polityczne; sen jako niezgoda na wieczną tera��niejszość; sen jako oddanie się w opiekę Innego, który jest mną. Dla wszystkich cierpiących na bezsenność - zarówno tę rzeczywistą jak i symboliczną.

[Miguel Duarte · Rating 5 out of 5]

https://www.comunidadeculturaearte.co...

Antes da revolução industrial, o ser humano suspendia o seu trabalho ao cair da noite, a ausência de luz solar impedia o trabalho no campo, a principal fonte de subsistência da gigantesca maioria da população. No entanto, com a introdução da luz eléctrica (e da respectiva iluminação pública) e das linhas de produção em fábricas que se mantinham em funcionamento durante a noite, ocorreu “uma reconceptualização radical da relação entre trabalho e tempo: a ideia de operações produtivas que não param, de trabalho que gera lucro e que pode funcionar 24/7.”

Apesar destas alterações se virem a alastrar desde o século XIX, “só recentemente a construção, a modelação da identidade pessoal e social do indivíduo se reorganizou para se adequar ao funcionamento ininterrupto de mercados, de redes de informação e de outros sistemas.” Quem o afirma é Jonathan Crary, crítico cultural americano, no seu mais recente "24/7: O Capitalismo Tardio e os Fins do Sono", acabado de editar em português pela Antígona. Para ele, este mundo 24/7, iluminado, sem sombras, “é a derradeira miragem capitalista da pós-história, de um exorcismo do Outro que é motor da mudança histórica.”

Ora, num planeta “reimaginado como lugar de trabalho ininterrupto ou centro comercial sempre aberto”, o sono afirma-se como a única barreira que resta, a única condição natural que o capitalismo é incapaz de eliminar. Mas há planos para o fazer. Há vários anos que o Departamento de Defesa dos EUA se dedica a diversos estudos com vista à eliminação desta nossa necessidade natural que faz ao mercado desperdiçar diversas horas de produtividade individual. Para o Departamento de Defesa, acabar com o sono seria dotar os seus soldados e operacionais de funcionalidade em missões a decorrer em dias consecutivos, mas, se a liberação das amarras do sono nos poderia parecer algo bom com vista a dotar-nos de mais tempo para nós próprios, nas mãos do capitalismo, todo o tempo livre tem rédea curta. Dentro do capitalismo, onde vigoram os valores da produtividade, eficiência, funcionalidade e velocidade, libertar-nos do nosso sono seria, portanto, mais um passo na aproximação do ser humano às máquinas.

Numa sociedade 24/7 onde tudo é cada vez mais financeirizado, onde “a docilidade e a separação não são derivados indirectos, mas (…) objectivos primeiros”, onde é cada vez mais evidente, como vaticinou Marx, “a incompatibilidade intrínseca do capitalismo com formas sociais estáveis ou duradouras”, dormir, sonhar ou devanear são tudo actividades mal-vistas, marginalizadas pela sua ausência de valor intrínseco. Do sono, nada se pode extrair.

No entanto, dado não existir hoje nenhum momento, lugar ou situação nos quais não possamos fazer compras, consumir ou explorar os recursos em rede, “há uma incursão imparável do não-tempo do 24/7 em toda e qualquer vertente da vida social ou pessoal.” A maior parte das relações sociais transfere-se para formas monetizadas e quantificáveis, e a financeirização e mercantilização expandem-se a um número cada vez maior de áreas da vida social e individual, e com a quantidade quase infinita de conteúdo por comercializar, não é de estranhar a intensidade da competição pelo acesso às horas de vigília, numa “gigantesca desproporção entre os limites humanos e temporais.”

Num capitalismo que assume a produção de novidade enquanto projecto central através do empreendedorismo, e onde a inovação assume a forma “de uma contínua simulação do novo” mesmo quando “as relações existentes de poder e controlo continuam as mesmas”, o eu é, então, “reagrupado num novo híbrido de consumidor e objecto de consumo” porque, segundo Crary, contrariando o que afirmou Guy Debord na sua teoria da sociedade do espetáculo:

“A ideia de longos blocos de tempo passados exclusivamente enquanto espectador está ultrapassada. Este tempo é demasiado precioso para não ser potenciado com fontes plurais de solicitação e escolhas que maximizam as possibilidades de monetização e que permitem o acumular contínuo de informação do utilizador.”
Da mesma maneira, a tal “mesmidade generalizada” que é resultado inevitável da escala global dos mercados e da sua dependência das acções consistentes ou previsíveis de grandes populações, dá-se não através da constituição de indivíduos similares, como afirmavam as teorias da sociedade de massas, “mas pela redução ou eliminação das diferenças, pelo restringir da amplitude de comportamentos que podem funcionar de forma eficaz ou conseguida na maioria dos contextos institucionais contemporâneos”, fruto da cada vez maior globalização de comportamentos através dos media sociais e de toda a panóplia de interfaces digitais.

Mas se muitos afirmam a esperançosa crença nos desenvolvimentos desta dita nova época tecnológica como forma de ultrapassar muitos dos problemas que assolam a nossa sociedade actual, Crary encontra-se, sem dúvida, entre o conjunto de cépticos. Como diz:

“Se as redes não servem as relações já existentes que nasceram da experiência mútua e da proximidade, vão sempre reproduzir e reforçar as separações, a opacidade, as dissimulações e o interesse próprio que são inerentes à sua utilização. Qualquer turbulência social que tenha como origem o uso dos media sociais será, como é inevitável, historicamente efémera e inconsequente.”
Além disso, a própria crença nestes adventos tecnológicos enquanto nova época é parte do problema:

“Uma das consequências de representar a contemporaneidade global com a forma de uma nova época tecnológica é a sensação de inevitabilidade histórica que se atribui a transformações em desenvolvimentos económicos de grande escala e a microfenómenos do quotidiano. A ideia de transformação tecnológica como quase autónoma (…) faz aceitar muitos aspectos da realidade social contemporânea como circunstâncias necessárias, inalteráveis, como se fossem factos da natureza.”
Nesse sentido, também o “golpe do sono é inseparável do desmantelamento de outras das protecções sociais noutras esferas”, com vista à cada vez maior erosão da comunidade. O sono é “uma libertação periódica da individuação” porque “quem dorme vive num mundo em comum.” Fruto da nossa incapacidade de nos defendermos de possíveis perigos enquanto dormimos, acreditamos que nos será dada não apenas protecção física ou corporal, mas também aos nossos bens e propriedades. Confiamos nos outros para nos assegurar o que temos. Ora, se o sono é um confiar do nosso destino às mãos dos outros, a insónia corresponde a uma “necessidade de vigilância”, sintoma de um desacreditar no que nos rodeia e no Estado que nos protege.

Isto porque a sociedade 24/7 “apresenta a ilusão de um tempo sem espera, de uma instantaneidade a pedido, de estar isolado e de se ter isolado da presença dos outros. A responsabilidade que a proximidade acarreta para outras pessoas pode hoje contornar-se facilmente na gestão electrónica de rotinas e contactos diários.” A paciência e a deferência do indivíduo, características essências da vida em sociedade e da democracia, ficam atrofiadas, perde-se a paciência de ouvir os outros, de esperar pela vez de falar, e o acto de esperar é essencial para a experiência de comunidade. A fila, por exemplo, é uma das instâncias banais onde é mais facilmente verificável o conflito entre indivíduo e organização social, “aos incómodos e frustrações [da espera] alia-se a [sua] tosca e humilde dignidade, de se ser paciente por deferência aos outros, aceitação tácita do tempo partilhado em comum.” Mas, com a desigualdade existente, o que fica é o desejo de emular os ricos, que têm o privilégio particular das elites de nunca ter de esperar.

Nas esperas e nas pausas do nosso quotidiano resta o sono, que nos afirma “a necessidade de adiar e o resgate ou recomeço diferido do que quer que tenha sido adiado, assegurando a presença no mundo “dos padrões faseados e cíclicos essências à vida e incompatíveis com o capitalismo.” Resta a inércia restauradora do sono para contrariar “a mortalidade de toda a acumulação, financeirização e desperdício que arrasou tudo aquilo que se tinha por comum.” Nunca o sono pareceu tão revolucionário e um acto de resistência tão poderoso como ao ler "24/7: O Capitalismo Tardio e os Fins do Sono".

[aron · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book on capitalism, 24/7 patterns, and on sleep feels itself more like a fever dream, always alluding to but for a large part never actually taking any concrete defensible stances beyond simple truisms. It could only be summarized as "isn't it, you know, fucked up how modern capitalist society is bad for people and communities and sleep and shit??" with 120 pages of sleep-related and pessimistic anti-capitalist anecdotes.

This book feels like a 1st year student essay both in its ferver, lack of structured arguments, and simultaneous absolute obviousness and complete lack of a central thesis. It's like pseudo-academic jazz, riffing of a single idea of '24/7 commerce and systems' as a concept, creating not so much an essay as a series of (mostly) unsubstantiated and only tangentially related claims. Just claims upon claims upon opinions, all of which are extremely pessimistic about modernity and the future, and which read more often than not as a sort of 'noble savage'-esque reverence for a past that didn't exist.

It's a weird amalgamation of things capitalism, things 24/7, and things sleep, usually only connected by some visual, structural or metaphoric semblance. Within mere sentences of each other, Crary discusses 24/7 anti-terror surveillance murder systems and 24/7 convenience stores, both being terrible symptoms of the same terrible underlying illness (as if ancient Rome did not have all-night restaurants lol). This all makes the book feel like an adderall-fuelled acid trip of Marxist rage, a fun read with definitely interesting and inspiring bits, but almost a literary type of cyberpunk poetry more than an essay to be taken seriously.

And don't get me wrong, I probably agree with Crary more than this review would make anyone think. I think I would diagnose a lot of the same problems in society, and propose a lot of the same changes and dream of a similar future. All of Crary's explorations of utopian alternatives are not the problem at all, I liked them and found them inspiring. However, as an 'essay' as this book is described, it is severely lacking. Hence the 1-star rating. It just claims a bunch of shit that it mostly never actually tries to explain or back up with evidence. So, it's a rage-filled opinion piece of mostly Marxist anti-modernity Boomer takes, and it shows. This book really does feel like a bitter boomer writing about technology lol. I'm glad I finished it but I'm sad I bought it. Not a recommendation for anyone at all. An actual essay with evidence, explanations, and strong and thorough arguments about the same topic would be preferable over this book ten times out of ten.