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Frankfurt School - the Musical!: _Shock Treatment_ and the Eros of Online Civilisation
No full textThis paper explores philosophical themes present in the film Shock Treatment (1981), a musical comedy written by Jim Sharman and Richard O’Brien. The film, which serves as a partial sequel to the better known Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), was a critical and commercial failure at the time and has been largely overlooked subsequently. This paper offers a philosophical reconsideration of Shock Treatment. It argues that there are a number of themes developed within the film’s narrative that correspond closely to the central concerns of the Frankfurt School, particularly those developed by Herbert Marcuse. It further argues that the film provides a way to explicate and critically reflect upon those themes in relation to contemporary online civilisation, with particular regard to the commodification and subversion of Eros within the capitalist system. As a result the film holds considerable potential as a teaching resource for courses on Frankfurt School critical theory
Homo Touristicus, or the Jargon of Authenticity 2.0
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This paper argues that the concept of authenticity has evolved since the time of Adorno’s critique in The Jargon of Authenticity, and that an analysis of tourism offers a way of grasping the altered status of the concept of authenticity and its current ideological function in the contemporary capitalist system. It is suggested that authenticity no longer refers to an existential state, but instead to a purchased experiential moment. This paper traces the alterations in the understanding of existential authenticity from its origins in existential phenomenology to its current status as a key concept in tourism research. It suggests that, while Adorno’s critique of authenticity has become somewhat outdated due to changes in the social relations of modern capitalism, its central argument still holds true, in that contemporary notions of authenticity still play an ideological role in securing the socio-economic status quo by both expressing and concealing the sense of alienation caused by social relations under capitalism
Frankfurt School - the Musical!: _Shock Treatment_ and the Eros of Online Civilisation
Get PDFThis paper explores philosophical themes present in the film Shock Treatment (1981), a musical comedy written by Jim Sharman and Richard O’Brien. The film, which serves as a partial sequel to the better known Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), was a critical and commercial failure at the time and has been largely overlooked subsequently. This paper offers a philosophical reconsideration of Shock Treatment. It argues that there are a number of themes developed within the film’s narrative that correspond closely to the central concerns of the Frankfurt School, particularly those developed by Herbert Marcuse. It further argues that the film provides a way to explicate and critically reflect upon those themes in relation to contemporary online civilisation, with particular regard to the commodification and subversion of Eros within the capitalist system. As a result the film holds considerable potential as a teaching resource for courses on Frankfurt School critical theory
Stumbling over _The Decline of the West_
Get PDFThe introduction to the first of a two-part special issue on Oswald Spengler. This section explores his international influence both in his own time and in the present day
Spengler Among the Philosophers
Get PDFThe introduction to the second of a two-part special issue on Oswald Spengler. This section explores his philosophical reception by his Weimar contemporaries and presents new analyses of the philosophical features of his thought
‘Blessed are the breadmakers...’: Sociophobia, digital society and the enduring relevance of technological determinism
No full textTechnological determinism, as a position on the nature and effects of technology/technologies can be divided into optimistic and critical forms. The optimistic variety, of which contemporary cyber-utopianism is an instance, holds that the development of technology shapes or at least facilitates ameliorative alterations in society. The critical variety, on the other hand, tends to problematise or condemn the positive narrative of technological impact on human existence. Whilst the optimistic form still retains some academic credibility, especially concerning digital technologies, the critical variety tends to be viewed as reductionist, essentialist and pessimistic. Furthermore, the fact that many of its leading proponents base their critiques on the analysis of industrial technology, reinforces the impression that critical technological determinism is outdated. I argue that focussing on the specific forms of technology analysed by classic technological determinists is to miss the key point of their arguments. Critical determinism warns that with the increasing integration of technology into everyday life, we run the risk of idealising technological organisation and making sociotechnical relations a model for all social relations. Drawing upon Rendueles’s (2017) analysis of the sociophobic tendencies of the online public sphere, I argue for the continuing relevance of so-called ‘Classic’ technological determinism. The danger posed by the ubiquity of the internet on this account is not that it possesses some innate quality that imposes a particular social pattern on humanity, but that the way in which we interact in cyberspace becomes the norm for social relations outside the cybersphere
How Technology drives the History of the Green Revolution
Get PDFThis paper argues that histories of the Green Revolution are often underpinned by commitments to theoretical models of technology and science which shape the parameters of such narratives in politically normative ways. This paper explores the accounts of the Green Revolution in India given by Vandana Shiva and Govindan Parayil and demonstrates the ways in which these accounts are influenced by their models of technology and science. It is argued that Shiva and Parayil represent key theoretical positions in technological theory, determinist and instrumentalist, respectively, and that examination of their Green Revolution narratives clearly indicates the ways in which such theoretical commitments can determine the scope and content of analyses of technology-driven development, and thereby exclude political content necessary for the evaluation of the efficacy of such development and the validity of the theoretical model
Longing, Dread and Care: Spengler’s Account of the Existential Structure of Human Experience
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