Ce qui fait que la vie vaut la peine d'être vécue: De la pharmacologie

by Bernard Stiegler

In the aftermath of the First World War, the poet Paul Valery wrote of a 'crisis of spirit', brought about by the instrumentalization of knowledge and the destructive subordination of culture to profit. Recent events demonstrate all too clearly that that the stock of mind, or spirit, continues to fall. The economy is toxically organized around the pursuit of short-term gain, supported by an infantilizing, dumbed-down media. Advertising technologies make relentless demands on our attention, reducing us to idiotic beasts, no longer capable of living. Spiralling rates of mental illness show that the fragile life of the mind is at breaking point. Underlying these multiple symptoms is consumer capitalism, which systematically immiserates those whom it purports to liberate. Returning to Marx's theory, Stiegler argues that consumerism marks a new stage in the history of proletarianization. It is no longer just labour that is exploited, pushed below the limits of subsistence, but the desire that is characteristic of human spirit. The cure to this malaise is to be found in what Stiegler calls a 'pharmacology of the spirit'. Here, pharmacology has nothing to do with the chemical supplements developed by the pharmaceutical industry. The pharmakon, defined as both cure and poison, refers to the technical objects through which we open ourselves to new futures, and thereby create the spirit that makes us human. By reference to a range of figures, from Socrates, Simondon and Derrida to the child psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott, Stiegler shows that technics are both the cause of our suffering and also what makes life worth living.

Genres: Philosophy

272 pages, Paperback

First published October 6, 2010

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

[Fergus, Weaver of Autistic Webs · Rating 3 out of 5]

Double, double, toil and trouble!
When shall we three meet again -
In lightning, thunder or in rain?
Shakespeare, Macbeth.

After the relentless siege upon my health that has been waged by my daemonic bipolar condition since 1963, I must agree! Pharmacology has finally made my life worth LIVING.

Thank God and All His Angels for my meds.

We all know our enemy, the devil: he is just Double, double, loopy doublethink. And if you're seeing double, maybe it's time to Straighten Out and Fly Right.

Don't go there, friends. Think straight.

But our civilization DOESN'T think straight: We are a people worshipping two gods: Techne and Pharmacon.

We are conditioned to be Doers - not Dwellers, like the folks in old times. So we always need our escapes. Our Pharmacon. We are too antsy. Don't abuse your meds!

Having said that in his favour, I really wanted to like Stiegler, but he kept pulling me into John Bunyan's most unfavourite destination - the Slough of Desperate Despond - whence few foolhardy souls return.

He is a Doer - a Mover And a Shaker.

And yet he interested me. My GR friend Tokoro recommended his books.

But his books are expensive, being perfectly au fait. This one, though, was in the twenty dollar range. I splurged one payday. And at first I was impressed.

But Stiegler seems to wanna take us "down to a sunless sea." And as you know, that depressive tilt is a no-no for me. So is that why can't I abide him, in the end?

It's because he does not Believe in Hope. He rejects transcendence and embraces tinsel. I think his thought is godless. Yet he has a formidable intellect.

Stiegler speculates, while the Christian Frederick Buechner gives us facts about our nothingness, which lead to facts of faith. Buechner’s deep family trauma has been a fact of life for him since youth, as for me.

And it is also for him a deep reservoir of Being - a Hidden Source of Eternal Life.

Stiegler’s speculative suggestions are countercultural. He wants to change us on the Outside - not Inside, where it lasts.

And radically unpleasant speculation makes my mind go into Dive Mode! I feel like Herman Melville diving for undersea, unconscious terrors. All I can feel is his pain. Without a panacea.

Without hope.

And, dear Bernard, with the deep love, reconciliation and forgiveness I've seen in my own life, your postmodernist peregrinations are mere expostulating.

So, my wonderful friend Tokoro, after reading this I declared a local mental health day.

And now, please let me go back to Freddy Buechner...

And the Cross that bears Real Fruit for us all.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

"In Bernard Stiegler’s view one of the most important (and ultimately negative) aspects of the so called ‘third industrial revolution’ is the ability of the techno-capitalist system to control the ‘libidinal energy’ of the consumer in order to facilitate the unrestrained growth of the culture and program industries. These industries essentially use the attention or the desire of the consumer as libidinal energy that fuels their respective industries, which in turn causes a loss of knowledge on a large scale; it assigns to the consumer the role which Marx designated the producer i.e. the proletariat. However, this loss of knowledge also constitutes a loss of attention, as is opined by Stiegler in What Makes Life Worth Living: On Pharmacology, ‘the loss of attention is a loss of the capacity to project into the long term (that is, to invest in objects of desire)’. In other words the degradation of attention at the hands of the culture industries leads to a degradation of the ability to form ‘long circuits’ of individuation; it becomes impossible for us to individuate ourselves (individually or collectively) as our attention is being wasted through the short-termist, profit driven nature of a contemporary capitalist society."

Click here for the full essay on the themes discussed in this book.

[Yvana Samandova · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stiegler is one of my heroes.

[Muath Aziz · Rating 2 out of 5]

The title was misleading to me. I thought it will be a poetic / spiritual book. It’s far from that. Very technically philosophical book. One of these books where the author is over quoting from notable philosophers and thinkers. Funny thing is they always commonly mention Plato and Freud! The book will be jumping from a place to another, throwing a new term every new line. I always feel that these books were written by the author for the author. Not a general read at all. Only person that might be interested in reading such a book, is someone how is already familiar with all these names and ideas. But even then, what innovative ideas will he learn and enjoy here?

The name of the other book, where you’ll find too much quotations and too much self-knowledge-indulging, is “This Incredible Need To Believe”. At least I managed to read that book from start to finish. What is it with french “modern” philosophers and incomprehensible books?

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

While it had some interesting things to say about how demoralizing consumer culture can be (among other similar things), it was largely encased within a nearly impenetrable wall of postmodern techno-babble.

[Rachel Holloway · Rating 2 out of 5]

interesting ideas but not well written, although it is in translation.

[Mischa Daanen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well reading this doesn’t.

[宗儒 李 · Rating 4 out of 5]

我本來以為會看不太下去，但實際上比想像中容易讀

我覺得他如果現在還活著應該會蠻恨crypto bros / ai bros的