For Bernard Stiegler, “technics” is “tertiary retention,” following the “primary retention” (“memory”) of the genetic code (any way in which physical, chemical, or biological reality “preserves” in its functioning the results of past interactions would be included, I suppose), and “secondary retention,” language, is the specifically human preservation of the results of past events—so, “technics” is the inscription of memory in material reality.
>language can be instrumentalized—but this is because language is always produced on a scene, and it is the scene that is the location of technics
Could you expand on this statement? I don't have the benefit of fully reading Stiegler like you must have, but I did follow most of what you said about him in this article.
>the iterative center predicates the primacy of engineering and “industry” but without providing a place for the engineer qua engineer as the occupant of the center ... why an autonomous system of engineering can’t gradually and imperceptibly replace the existing system of liberal capitalism, the simplest answer is that engineering does not produce practices that defend the engineer against exploitation and sabotage, and there will always be agents who consider the latter to be in their interests
We love our nerds, but yes they will never rule, so long as they are nerds. Some do transfigure and graduate, but most don't. Distributist did a good analysis of the fraudulence and self-indulgence of "Revenge of the Nerds" but I can't find it right now, maybe removed. He said what you could imagine.
Modern low culture looks for cheap solutions that have no authenticity. People are made heroes whom all of us know really aren't. It's a good bargain to accept a lowly position if things can get to mean something.
I try to tell people it's not the end of the world to be an observer and a participant under a leader (and we can be forthright about just how dynamic leadership is: leaders momentarily leading other leaders; followers momentarily being at the center).
You can live a great, meaningful life; there's no need to throw yourself into something you likely cannot do, trying to be someone you aren't and don't even want to be. Being a leader is like being perhaps the worst slave there is. Every day is work; every day you have to invent the new. You pay all of the psychological price and get a fraction of the material benefit. You have to have something like a religious conviction to sustain it. 'The masses hate me but the Divine shows me'.
I don't know if you've seen this scene before or the whole film:
Not waiting to ask the periphery whether he stands at the center. Comprehensive mastery (dynamic analysis and recruitment into a line of succession) is raw and there are no second places in a game of singularity. That's the definition of magnanimity: neutralization of much resentment and conversion into the tribe, all so convincing that one stands in awe of a new reality inaugurated.
I wanted to make a distinction between "technics," as inscription more generally, and tools and technology, as means to specific ends--in the end all has to be scenic, and therefore technics, so even these distinctions can be set aside. A scene is "furnished," and there is another scene upon which the furnishings are designed and built. And those scenes need to be seen as sites of learning and teaching, which means that even the most practical, means-ends thinking is also part of governance. Language that is pedagogical can't be merely means-ends thinking--there's some kind of reciprocity and governance involved. It may be that engineers may one day be able to govern--we can't go by the engineers we see today, who have had it drummed into them that technology is neutral and separate from power. At any rate, rulers will have to be conversant with technics. Maybe governance would best result from engineers stepping into supervisory roles, which would mean they lose direct contact with the work of the discipline and become generalists who can understand the work being done by engineers without being able to contribute to it, The film "Oppenheimer" suggests something like that--one of the scientists he's supervising tells him that he's no longer a physicist, but rather a politician. True, but only someone close enough to physics could practice that kind of politics. But similar principles might apply to well trained humanists.
>language can be instrumentalized—but this is because language is always produced on a scene, and it is the scene that is the location of technics
Could you expand on this statement? I don't have the benefit of fully reading Stiegler like you must have, but I did follow most of what you said about him in this article.
>the iterative center predicates the primacy of engineering and “industry” but without providing a place for the engineer qua engineer as the occupant of the center ... why an autonomous system of engineering can’t gradually and imperceptibly replace the existing system of liberal capitalism, the simplest answer is that engineering does not produce practices that defend the engineer against exploitation and sabotage, and there will always be agents who consider the latter to be in their interests
We love our nerds, but yes they will never rule, so long as they are nerds. Some do transfigure and graduate, but most don't. Distributist did a good analysis of the fraudulence and self-indulgence of "Revenge of the Nerds" but I can't find it right now, maybe removed. He said what you could imagine.
Modern low culture looks for cheap solutions that have no authenticity. People are made heroes whom all of us know really aren't. It's a good bargain to accept a lowly position if things can get to mean something.
I try to tell people it's not the end of the world to be an observer and a participant under a leader (and we can be forthright about just how dynamic leadership is: leaders momentarily leading other leaders; followers momentarily being at the center).
You can live a great, meaningful life; there's no need to throw yourself into something you likely cannot do, trying to be someone you aren't and don't even want to be. Being a leader is like being perhaps the worst slave there is. Every day is work; every day you have to invent the new. You pay all of the psychological price and get a fraction of the material benefit. You have to have something like a religious conviction to sustain it. 'The masses hate me but the Divine shows me'.
I don't know if you've seen this scene before or the whole film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFa4UNmdEhg
Not waiting to ask the periphery whether he stands at the center. Comprehensive mastery (dynamic analysis and recruitment into a line of succession) is raw and there are no second places in a game of singularity. That's the definition of magnanimity: neutralization of much resentment and conversion into the tribe, all so convincing that one stands in awe of a new reality inaugurated.
I wanted to make a distinction between "technics," as inscription more generally, and tools and technology, as means to specific ends--in the end all has to be scenic, and therefore technics, so even these distinctions can be set aside. A scene is "furnished," and there is another scene upon which the furnishings are designed and built. And those scenes need to be seen as sites of learning and teaching, which means that even the most practical, means-ends thinking is also part of governance. Language that is pedagogical can't be merely means-ends thinking--there's some kind of reciprocity and governance involved. It may be that engineers may one day be able to govern--we can't go by the engineers we see today, who have had it drummed into them that technology is neutral and separate from power. At any rate, rulers will have to be conversant with technics. Maybe governance would best result from engineers stepping into supervisory roles, which would mean they lose direct contact with the work of the discipline and become generalists who can understand the work being done by engineers without being able to contribute to it, The film "Oppenheimer" suggests something like that--one of the scientists he's supervising tells him that he's no longer a physicist, but rather a politician. True, but only someone close enough to physics could practice that kind of politics. But similar principles might apply to well trained humanists.
With your clarification, I understand the quote now. I must have been a little tired as the day wound down.
Well, thanks for putting the time into my comments and questions. I'll try to keep them short and efficient as I go through each article.
The questions help me think things through further.