How can culture and technics be reconciled in the digital milieu and automatic societies? Political implications of the philosophies of technology of Simondon and Stiegler

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article analyses the relevance of Gilbert Simondon’s proposals with respect to the challenges of contemporary technical transformations, and to weigh his influence and legacy in contemporary French thought. For Simondon, two major political challenges appear with the industrial revolution: firstly, the alienation of producers and consumers by technical machines and technical objects, and secondly, the increasing gap between the (rapid) evolution of technical realities and the (slow) evolution of cultural contents. These two challenges seem to take on new dimensions today, through generalised automation, algorithmic governmentality and digital disruption. Bernard Stiegler describes these features of contemporary society as a dis-adjustment between technical and social systems, leading to a process of generalised proletarianisation. He suggests that they may be overcome through experimenting with what he calls a contributory economy and contributory technologies. I will try to point out the theoretical gesture that makes it possible to shift from Simondon’s analysis of technical objects to Stiegler’s analysis of automatic societies. I will suggest that in spite of their theoretical divergence, Stiegler’s analysis can be seen as a way to continue Simondon’s political project, i.e. to ‘reconcile culture and technics’ in a completely transformed – and still transforming – technical epoch.