Politics of digital learning—Thinking education with Bernard Stiegler. Issue 4 (20th March 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Lindberg, Susanna
• Is Part Of: Educational philosophy and theory. Volume 52:Issue 4(2020)
• Page Start: 384
• Page End: 396
• Publication Date: 2020-03-20
• Subjects: Bernard Stiegler -- memory -- politics -- control society -- education -- digital learning environments; Education -- Philosophy -- Periodicals; Teaching -- Periodicals; Éducation; Philosophie de l'éducation; Théorie de l'éducation; Périodique électronique (Descripteur de forme); Ressource Internet (Descripteur de forme); 370.1
• DOI: 10.1080/00131857.2019.1586531
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0013-1857

Abstract

Abstract: Bernard Stiegler is known as a leading philosopher of technics. He has developed an original interpretation of technics as an externalized epiphylogenetic memory that (1) remembers in the place of the human being, who appears therefore as a forgetful being and (2) is collective and constitutes a technological community, that is different from any ethnical-political community. Stiegler has also examined the social and political consequences of contemporary technology. Technics are not neutral. Contemporary digital technologies claim to inform but more fundamentally they produce pulsions in a way that is destructive to psychic and collective individuation and leads to a generalized proletarianization, where the problem is not biopower or capitalism but lack of attention and desire. Can the digital world become a new public space? Stiegler is quite pessimistic, but in principle, to some extent, it is possible to seize and convert 'the means of memory production.' Stiegler's insights are invaluable in the task of evaluating new learning technologies, because he analyzes political community from the double point of view of technology, and of the care of younger generations. In this article, I present Stiegler's philosophical theory and show how it can be applied to education and digital learning environments.