Joris Vlieghe Laboratory for Education & Society University of Leuven ( Belgium )

1. Towards a Philosophical Framework for Thinking about Education in a Digital Age.Agamben and Stiegler on Desubjectification and Profanation Joris Vlieghe LaboratoryforEducation & Society University of Leuven (Belgium)

2. Main concern: meaning of ‘education’ in a digital era, i.e. anage in which digital technologies have come to replace traditional ways of teaching and learning (basedonwriting and reading texts; direct and face-to- face classroom-instruction) • Philosophicalframework: post-foucaultianauthorswhotakeveryseriously the ideathat the way in which we are constituted as subjects is supported/shapedby the use of (digital and non-digital) technologies – Stiegler & Agamben • I willfirstmake a detour via twootherphilosophers: Heidegger, whonotoriouslyexecrated (modern) technologies, and Flusser, who has made someveryinteresting analyses concerning the technology of writing

3. Heidegger’scommentsontype-writing The typewriter tears writing from the essential realm of the hand, i.e. the realm of the word. The word itself turns into something “typed”. […] Mechanical writing deprives the hand of its rank in the realm of the written word and degrades the word to a means of communication. In addition, mechanical writing provides “this advantage”, that it conceals the handwriting and thereby the character. The typewriter makes everyone look the same - mechanization of writing = writing by default, no real (proper) writing - such an improper use → cultural crisis (standardization of humanexistence

4. VilémFlusser • Technocentricperspective (similar to Stiegler): analysis of technology-mediatedpractices in theirmaterialconcreteness: what does it mean ‘to put very material letters upon the surface of a very material sheet of paper?’ • Interestingconsiderationson the use of the typewriter that go in the oppositedirection • ‘The typewriter is a machine for writing lines from left to right and for jumping back to the left side. Thus, the typewriter is, to some extent, a materialization of a cultural program of ours. If we look at the typewriter, we can see materially, to some extent, how one aspect of our mind works.’

6. Flusseronwriting-basedthought • Mechanicalwriting, more than ‘proper’ writing, discloses (ironically) what thinking is.Longwriting is typewritingbydefault • ‘Repression of the “natural” tendency to think aloud’, ‘forcing thinking intospecificstructures’ (destructive, ratherthanconstructiveactivity) • ‘Writingviolatesthinking in a wayspeaking does not’ • Thinking of literatebeings = linear, diachronic, one-dimensional, one-directional • Otherwisestated: the practice of writingpreconditions the verypossibility of thinking. • Thisalsoimpliesthatwriting-based thinking is a contingentpossibility. It has a beginning and probablyalsoan end.

7. Flusseronwriting-basedthought • Thinking basedonalphabeticwriting vs. Thinking basedonideographicwriting/numbers • Alphabeticwritingis different fromspeaking, but is neverthelesslinked to anacousticlogic (‘ a musical notation of spoken language’): one-dimensional and uni-directional (linear) • Ideographic/numericalwriting(‘a notation of ideas’)is linked to the ‘logic’ of the eye[to beprecise: the structurebehindseeing is not ‘logical’ in itsetymologicalllyappropriatesense of ‘word’]: two-dimensional and multi-directional (circular)

8. Flusseronwriting-basedthought • Up till ‘now’, literalthought has supersedednumericalthought (which is also the case in a worldthatsincemanycenturies has been dominatedby a scientificrationality): in academiccourses, the graphs and formulae are stillsituatedwithinalphabetictexts • It is onlywith the advent and proliferation of digital media that a two-dimensonal, visuallogicmightbecomeculturally dominant. • The verypossibility of digital ‘literacy’ thereforedisclosessomethingcompletelyunimaginablebeforehand

9. Posthistorical (wo)man • Alphabeticwriting is the basis of the veryideathat we are historicalbeings • In pre-alphabetictimesthere was only ‘history’ in the sensethatpeople made monuments (inscriptions, meant to beremembered and considered) • Alpahbet-basedthoughtproducesdocuments(notations): the writer/reader is forced to jump from one word to the other, and so a sense of historical progress originates for the first time • Analogously, when alphabetic writing becomes obsolete, we might perhaps for the first time forgo the idea that it is our place in history which should guide us in how we live our lives

10. Flusser & Stiegler • LikeFlusserStieglerendorses a (perhaps even more radical) techno-centric point of view i.e. a non-heideggerianperspectiveontechnology: we cannotdecideon the basis of our proper humancapabilitieshow (and if) we shouldusetechnologies, it is rather the use of particulartechnologiesthatdecideswhat we, as humanbeings, are • Contrary to FlusserStieglerarguesthattoday we shouldopposeanydisconnectionbetweentechnology and historyand thatthis is the truecalling of education.

11. Stiegler: externalmemory • In ourownconstitution as subjects we are dependentupon the use of historically contingent technologies • Technologies = concrete objects (pen, mug, shovel) and practicesrelated to them (writing, drinkingwine, shoveling coal) are in and of themselvesmemories: individualpeople are born and die, butacquiredskill and knowledge are stored IN technologicalobjects/practices (‘hypomnemata’) themselves • Therefore, technologiesdon’tconstituteaninternal, phylogeneticmemory (DNA of the ‘phylos’ homo sapiens), butanexternal, epiphylogeneticmemory.

12. Stiegler: (trans)individuation • There are nosubjectsorindividuals, onlyprocesses of individuation(Simondon) or of becoming-subject • We constituteourselvesbyusing a (particular) technologythatnecesarrily has a history: when we learn to master a concrete technology we always continue a linethat is alreadythere, thatprecedesus: individuation = co-individuation (withothers) = trans-individuation (withhistory) • Conservatism, notfor the sake of conservation, butfor the sake of the coming intobeing of the new (Arendt) (trans)individuation = transformation

13. Stiegler: short- and longcircuiting • There are fundamentallytwoways to relate to one and the sametechnologythat is constitutiveforoursubject-constitution. • LONG-CIRCUITING: to appropriate the wholehistorythat lies at the basis of the technology we use, bybeingco-producers and co-constructors • SHORT-CIRCUITING: to use the sametechnology in such a waythat the proces of (trans-) individuation comes to a halt (= ‘proletarization’)

14. Stiegler: short- and longcircuiting The need to materially draw squares is not a redundant step in acquiringgeomtericalinsight . Neither is the retaking of a whole set of axioms and definitionson the basis of whichthisinsight is constructed.

15. Stiegler: short- and longcircuiting • Analogously, in order to beable to writeonenecesarillyhas to go through a long, demanding and tediousphase of learning to mastercalligraphy. • Whatthenabouttypewriting (keyboard)? - is not in itself a short-circuitedactivity, as long as we firstlearn to write and thenlearn to type (whichdemandsalsoquitesomeeffort) - itonlybecomesshort-circuitedwhen we usethistechnology without anyproductivecontribution (and without anyknowledge of the hardware thatmakesitpossible)

16. Stiegler: short- and longcircuiting • Similarly, we canonlyreallyreadwhen we alsocanwrite: reading is onlypossibleon the conditionthat we potentiallycould have written the text we read ↔ watching a film: we delegate the reading/decoding to the DVD-player • Reading can be either long-circuited or short-circuited: ‘when you are reading a book, you individuate yourself by reading this book because reading a book is to be transformed by the book. If you are not transformed by the book, you are not reading the book – you believe that you are reading’

17. Stiegler: technology as pharmakon • All technologies are pharmaka: one and the same object (and the practicesrelated to it) canbeused as a cureor as a poison, i.e. itmight as wellcontributeto (trans)individuation (throughlong-circuiting) as to proletarization (throughshort-circuiting) • THUS: technocentrism, butnotechnodeterminism. It is not the technology as suchthatunivocallypromotesordistortsoursubject-constitution Cf. CARR, The Shallows: internet technologies as such transform and distort our critical-intellectual capacities and make impossible any attentive reading

18. Stiegler: technology as pharmakon • Becauseeverytechnology has a pharmakon-character, itcanbeabused and exploited, particularlybycultural industries • Thereforeevery society needs a schooling system,thatembodies the responsibility/care the oldergenerationtakesfor the youngerand that is willing to fighta constant battle against the possible misuse of the technology of writing (in AncientGreece, the craddle of ‘skholè’), or digital technologies (today) • The question is not to useornot to use digital technologies, but to prevent the young to becomeproletarized consumers. Here we should put our faith in the school of the future.

19. Stiegler vs. Agamben It is againstthis background thatStiegler criticizes Agambenwhenhewrites: ‘It would probably not be wrong to define the extreme phase of capitalist development in which we live as a massive accumulation and proliferation of apparatuses. […] we could say that today there is not even a single instant in which the life of individuals is not modeled, contaminated, or controlled by some apparatus. In what way, then, can we confront this situation, what strategy must we follow in our everyday hand-to-hand struggle with apparatuses?’

20. Stiegler vs. Agamben • Just likeHeideggerAgambenappears to be a technophobic, whodoesn’tunderstandthattechnologies are pharmaka : ‘then it is impossible for the subject of an apparatus to use it "in the right way”. Those who continue to promote similar arguments are, for their part, the product of the media apparatus in which they are captured’. • Moreover, when Agamben tries to formulate an alternative, he only deals with it negatively: we shouldn’t use technology differently, nor destroy technological devices, but appeal to that which finally escapes its control, i.e. the ‘un-governable’. The strategy to achieve this consists in ‘profanation’, i.e. ‘to bring it back to a possible common use’ (like the Romans did with the remainders of the flesh of sacrificial animals - captured in a sacralized sphere - after the rite was conducted.)

21. Agamben vs. Stiegler • I believethatStiegler’s reading of Agamben is incorrect and thathedoesn’tmake the best of anAgambenianphilosophy of technology • Moreover, itmightbedoubtedwhether the trueHeideggerian is notsomuchAgamben (because of hissocalledtechnophobia), butStieglerhimself: After all, a constant throughhis argument is that we should deal withtechnology in a properway and that we (orbetter: the school) should prevent improperuses This proper use is defined as keeping a connectionwithhistory(continuing the line). In the end, Stieglerabandonshisradicaltechnocentrism in favor of a very traditionalist viewoneducationwhichdecideswhat are good and bad (uses of) technologies

22. Agamben vs. Stiegler “There is no correct use” • Stieglerinterpretsthis as : for a technophobiclikeAgamben “therecanonlybe incorrect use” • Butperhapssomethingelse is at stake: the wholeideathat we canoppose correct and incorrect (proper and improper) usespresupposessomethingthatnolonger has meaningunder the present conditions • In thatwayitmightbesaidthat the proliferation of digital technologies (1) more adequately shows whatitmeansthat we, as subjects, are constitutedbytechnologies (Cf. Flusser: typewriting shows more adequatelythanwritingwhat (text-based) thinking is) (2) And thatthisconditionpreciselymakessomethingnewpossible (Cf. Flusser: the posthistorical)

23. Agamben vs. Stiegler • What is thisnewpossibility? Is thisonlysomethingvague, negative and obscure as Stiegler claims? • Stiegler’scriticism is basedon a verycareless reading of Agamben: heneversaysthat we should profante technology. He saysthat we have to profanate ‘thatwhathas been captured and separated in’ the use of technology. • XXXX profanation/desubjectification