1

made on a PC with LibreOffice

mich el.pu ech @

pa ris-s orbo nne .fr19th Annual Conference of theSociety for Phenomenology and Media

Living in the AnthropoceneVrije Universiteit BrusselRoyal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the ArtsMarch 16, 2017

From fishbowl to global: ordinary mediation with anthropocenic issues

2

my idea is an image

notionsissues (anthropocenic)fishbowl (fallacy)re-start (ordinary agency)

3

notions

an analysis of the existential sphere

philosophy and ethics of technology / environment / communication

+ virtue ethics and Asian thoughts

→ a diversified set of conceptual tools

for a typically philosophical job: reformulating issues

when standard approaches do not seem to work

4

notions

technosphere

the world we are living inour real physical environment (as Technosapiens)

technology is pervasive

→ a technology-driven world

infosphere

the non-material part of the technosphere data, algorithms, permanent connection, ambient intelligence...

→ an information-driven technosphere

ecosphere

the world we are (also) living inas living beings, part of ecosystems

5

notions

→ anthropocenic configuration = the ecosphere is embedded into the technosphere

compare to a science-fiction paradise where it is the opposite

6

notions

global

the relevant level for more and more important things: technology, politics, the economy, culture and entertainment, human bonds...

→ philosophical/ethical challenge: agency in the global?

local(e)

not suppressed by globalization

possibly empowered by globalization and digitalization

→ a philosophical-ethical resource in terms of agency

at the bottom: the person, the self: proximal (important)

distal (distant, away)

intermediary between global and local

a level of mediation, mediating local and global

important – if not, mediation issues (fishbowls) may remain unseen

7

notions

mediation

in a very inclusive philosophical acceptation: the interface between human persons/collectives and their environments

originally: human, natural, social, technological environments

now: infosphere and technosphere, and particularly the distal infosphere

ordinary

the key notion in my approach

our lifeworld is the ordinary technospherehumble and mundane actions and situations

food, transportation, clothes and wearable gadgets, use of media, devices, etc.

hypothesis: it matters! as agency in the global, particularly

local → proximal → existential (ordinary)

8

notions

fishbowl

the key notion in this talk

= the fishbowl is the"bad mediation"

looking in a fishbowl and thinking you are looking at the world is a problem

looking at the world through a fishbowl is a problem

craving for a life into the fishbowl is a problemdetailed phenomenology in a moment

my problem: how do we jump out of the fishbowl to address the global?

Dutch lokaal bokaal globaal

French local bocal global

English local(e) fishbowl global

9

issues (anthropocenic)

philosophical basis for my understanding of anthropocenic issues

on our way to constructive solutions

the anthropocene is... a crisis

a crisis is built-in in the notion of anthropocene

no harmony of the spheres: ecosphere and technosphereclimate, resources, biodiversity, etc.

→ a new kind of crisiswhy a crisis? ↔ why no adequate response to the crisis?

change the approach: not (only) a technological/ecological crisis, not only a political crisis

→

10

issues (anthropocenic)

a moral/civilizational crisis

Gardiner: moral stormGARDINER Stephen, A perfect moral storm: the ethical tragedy of climate change, Oxford University Press, 2011

xii: "Our problem is profoundly global, intergenerational, and theoretical. When these factors come together they pose a "perfect moral storm" for ethical action. This casts doubt on the adequacy of our existing institutions, and our moral and political theories."

3: "My concern is with why, given that the relevant facts are known, effective action is so difficult, and indeed has so far eluded us. This is the real global environmental tragedy, and it is what needs to be explained."

338: "In an age dominated by sound bites and intense political partisanship, by limited engagement and short attention spans, by superficial media and spin, are we not also vulnerable to such a barrage? Indeed, is this not at least one part of a compelling explanation for the ongoing political inertia?"

11

issues (anthropocenic)

Jamieson: dark timesJAMIESON Dale, Reason in a dark time: why the struggle against climate change failed – and what it means for our future, Oxford University Press, 2014.

the necessary starting point: a failure

the advisable method: realism, not pessimism

8: “Our failure to prevent or even to respond significantly to climate change reflects the impoverishment of our systems of practical reason, the paralysis of our politics, and the limits of our cognitive and affective capacities. None of this is likely to change soon.”

61: "Evolution did not design us to deal with such problems, and we have not designed political institutions that are conducive to solving them.”

ethics for the Anthropocene = virtues

143: “We should be epistemologically humble since there is so little we know about the future that awaits us. We should be normatively humble because the economic analysis of climate change rests on normative assumptions that it does not have the resources to justify. In the end we are thrown back onto ethics.”

12

issues (anthropocenic)

Coeckelbergh: (un)skilled ethicsthe kind of philosophical tools we need to address anthropocenic challenges: specific motivation and skills

COECKELBERGH Mark, Environmental skill: motivation, knowledge, and the possibility of a non-romantic environmental ethics, Routledge, 2015

1: "Thus, it seems that the main problem of environmental ethics is not that we do not know what to do, but that we are not motivated to make the required changes."

96: "a less contemplative, less detached, and more engaging way of relating to our environment, one that moves beyond environmental thinking—at least if thinking is conceived of as a “mental” activity removed from concrete embodied practice"

98: "It is not sufficient to know environmental ethics theory and ethical principles; what is needed is training the right kinds of habits and the right kinds of experiences: We need practical wisdom."

13

issues (anthropocenic)

a mediation crisiswithin the moral/civilizational crisis

mediating with anthropocenic issues

not exactly a crisis "in the infosphere" (the media)

→ the infosphere itself as the issue → the contemporary pathologies of distal mediation

fake (news)

post-truth and post-reality

alternative facts

bullshit

March 2017:

extending the "moral storm" (Gardiner) and the "dark time"/"failure" (Jamieson) approach to THE major question in the humanities: addressing PTSD (Post Trump Stress Disorder)

14

fishbowl (fallacy)

Plato's Allegory of the Cave, revisited

a distal mediation problem

how to escape it: proximal awareness and move your [body]!

a new screen for the Cave

15

fishbowl (fallacy)

in a Zen kōan: "Fishbowls are not windows"

fishbowl paradigm

applies to TV or Fakebook

applies to corporate and management bullshit = fishbowl idiocy

generating "suffering at work"

FRANKFURT Harry G., On bullshit, Princeton University Press, 2005

applies to academic production? feudalism, pseudo-science in Human and Social Sciences, peer-reviewed hyper-specialization, sterile scholasticism

16

fishbowl (fallacy)

fishbowl phenomenology

a differential ontology of distal mediation (ambitious...)

distorting lens references: see your textbook in media studies

mass media are a fishbowl, TV being the paradigmatic oneunquestionably the (still alive) source of post-reality and post-truth

17

fishbowl (fallacy)

bubbles (Pariser)

PARISER Eli, The filter bubble: what the Internet is hiding from you, New York, Penguin Press, 2011

filters and profiling algorithms make us swim in a infosphere that is a self-centered fishbowl, while we imagine ourselves "surfing the World Wide Web"

surfing in a bubble

living in bubbles (like politicians, journalists, Twitter and Fakebook addicts...)

hard bubbles (material and social environments), not just information bubbles

≠ societal "spheres" (Michael Walzer)

→ our spheres have turned to bubbles

18

fishbowl (fallacy)

black box (Pasquale)

PASQUALE Frank, The black box society: the secret algorithms that control money and information, Harvard University Press, 2015

applies to online search devices, reputation networks, financial and surveillance profiling, marketing spying and influencing, etc.

FP asks the typical anthropocenic-issues question: "why is so little being done?" (p. 195)

irony of black boxes that seem to be transparent, that are invisible

19

fishbowl (fallacy)

there are distortions, bubbles, black boxes,... and fishbowls too

the physical and optical properties of fishbowls provide a richer paradigm →

living in a fishbowl: one's proximal infosphere, or narrow existential and social spheres

looking into a fishbowl: the alternate reality of contemporary mass media

opposite mantra: "The fishbowl is not the world"

looking through a fishbowl: radical misinterpretation of everything

opposite mantra: "the fishbowl is not a window (to the world)"

20

fishbowl (fallacy)

from fishbowl fallacy to fishbowl idiocy

WHAT IS in the fishbowl: fishes, big and small

eating each others + fighting to be near the food dispenser device (gold-fishes)

→ vanitythe shallow ethics of fishbowls, a subject for contemporary virtue ethics (the key factor of failure in many human endeavors)

to be or not be... in the fishbowl

= the media, the establishment, the bestsellers, the notorious ones = the nomenklatura (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomenklatura)

WHAT IS NOT in the fishbowl and not visible through it: overpopulation, agriculture and food industry and energy (basic realities of – ), financial transactions, nepotism of the 1%, etc.

= real causes of the anthropocenic crisis

21

fishbowl (fallacy)

let's jump out!

… but not to another fishbowl...

22

re-start (ordinary agency)

jumping without motion (Zen)

restoring agency in the anthropocene

← diagnosis (reminder): the lack of agency is one of the key components in the anthropocenic predicament

the problem is not the distance between the proximal existential sphere of human persons and the global scale of anthropocenic issues

it is the lack of awareness within the proximal existential sphere of human persons

23

re-start (ordinary agency)

disconnect from the fishbowl, reconnect to the global, yes but:

not: global instead: fishbowl

fishbowl locale

because the ordinary locale is already connected to the anthropocenic global

so simple it is transparent : what we eat, stairs/escalators, using a car, buying a now phone – see my definition of ordinary

so pragmatic and actionable it is convenient not to see its opportunities – hypocritical acrasia: "there is nothing I can do..."

no more staring at the fishbowl = regaining awareness of where we live (the locale) and of what we can do (ordinary agency)

24

re-start (ordinary agency)

the void

MAIR Peter, Ruling the void: the hollowing of Western democracy, London; New York, Verso, 2013

politicians (political parties and institutions) are ruling the void

militants are fighting in the void

→ (my interpretation) fishbowl decoys have siphoned off public life and institutional democracy

→ post-truth has just invaded this void

disinterMEDIAtion applies to the mediavs the fishbowl fallacy

David Henry THOREAU : Life without principle, 1863, http://thoreau.eserver.org/lifewout.html "If a man neglects to read the Daily Times, government will go down on its knees to him, for it is the only treason in these days"

a formidable resistance stance in non-action: just ignoring fishbowls

25

re-start (ordinary agency)

the ordinary, the new ethical frontierIvan Illich's "vernacular" – homemade and skills transmitted from person to person, like cooking, language, ordinary psychological and ethical skills...

proximal skills and practical wisdom (Albert Borgmann's ethics of technology)

≠ distal mediation for accessing the global

Coeckelbergh (see above): skillful engagement with one’s environment, environmental practice as an ethics of skills

Vallor: VALLOR Shannon, Technology and the virtues: a philosophical guide to a future worth wanting, New York, OUP USA, 2016

virtue ethics and wisdom ethics for an acceptable anthropocene

Puech:PUECH Michel, The ethics of ordinary technology, New York, Routledge, 2016

reinvesting ordinary ethics to address global (anthropocenic) issues

26

re-start (ordinary agency)

wrapping it all up:

the problem = awareness of the global and an agency impacting the global

suggested approach: proximal awareness and micro-actions in full consciousness of the global

≠ fishbowl distal mediation

this model does not explain and solve everything

it aims at stimulating your own thinking … out of the fishbowl

27

So, so you think you can tellHeaven from Hell, Blue skys from pain. Can you tell a green field From a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil? Do you think you can tell?

And did they get you to trade Your heroes for ghosts? Hot ashes for trees? Hot air for a cool breeze? Cold comfort for change? And did you exchange A walk on part in the war For a lead role in a cage?

How I wish, how I wish you were here. We're just two lost souls

Swimming in a fishbowl, Year after year, Running over the same old ground. What have we found? The same old fears. Wish you were here.

Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here (Waters, Gilmour, 1975)