The Will to Technology and the Culture of Nihilism: Heidegger, Nietzsche, and Marx

In The Will to Technology and the Culture of Nihilism, Arthur Kroker explores the future of the 21st century in the language of technological destiny. Presenting Martin Heidegger, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Nietzsche as prophets of technological nihilism, Kroker argues that every aspect of contemporary culture, society, and politics is coded by the dynamic unfolding of the 'will to technology.'

Moving between cultural history, our digital present, and the biotic future, Kroker theorizes on the relationship between human bodies and posthuman technology, and more specifically, wonders if the body of work offered by thinkers like Heidegger, Marx, and Nietzsche is a part of our past or a harbinger of our technological future. Heidegger, Marx, and Nietzsche intensify our understanding of the contemporary cultural climate. Heidegger's vision posits an increasingly technical society before which we have become 'objectless objects'- driftworks in a 'culture of boredom.' In Marx, the disciplining of capital itself by the will to technology is a code of globalization, first announced as streamed capitalism. Nietzsche mediates between them, envisioning in the gathering shadows of technological society the emergent signs of a culture of nihilism. Like Marx, he insists on thinking of the question of technology in terms of its material signs.

In The Will to Technology and the Culture of Nihilism, Kroker consistently enacts an invigorating and innovative vision, bringing together critical theory, art, and politics to reveal the philosophic apparatus of technoculture.

Author: Arthur Kroker
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Published: 03/06/2004
Pages: 238
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.79lbs
Size: 8.94h x 6.00w x 0.72d
ISBN: 9780802085733

About the Author
Kroker, Arthur: - Arthur Kroker is Professor Emeritus and adjunct professor of Political Science, University of Victoria. He is director of the Pacific Centre for Technology and Culture (PACTAC).

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