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On Freedom: Technology, Capital, Medium

On Freedom: Technology, Capital, Medium

How do we challenge the structures of late capitalism if all possible media through which to do do is inescapably capitalist? This urgent political question is at the heart of Peter Trawny's major new work.

With searing precision Trawny demonstrates how our world has become wholly determined by technology, capital, and the medium. In this world of the 'TCM', we universal subjects remain in a state of apathy that is temporarily punctuated, but also reinforced, by the phantasmatic dream of difference offered us by the 'Hollywood machine.' Our sole motivation is to gain money and the power it brings. The only meaningful difference in the world of the TCM universal is the difference between wealth and poverty. Freedom here is then the freedom to dispose of things (particularly technological objects) and to gain pleasure. It makes our relation to our surroundings essentially 'touristic,' and our relation to the earth an essentially exploitative one.

The notion of personal or societal freedom has never been more controversial or, seemingly, more far from our grasp. While exploring in details the difficulties we face in our attempts to be free, Trawny builds an almost Utopian vision of how to break out of the mediums in which we operate and experience a new kind of freedom – both one of intimacy, and one through philosophy. An ambitious and lively yet completely rigorous work, this book offers a fascinating vision of how to live and live well.

Preface

Chapter 1. The double topology

Chapter 2. The idea-matter-matrix

Chapter 3. What is

Chapter 4. The Universal and the Universal Topology

Chapter 5. The universal subject

Chapter 6. Pragma-politics

Chapter 7. The last revolution

Chapter 8. Anachronisms

Chapter 9. The double topology and the museum

Chapter 10. Patho-topo-logy

Chapter 11. The differentiated subject/violence

Chapter 12. Intimacy and freedom

Chapter 13. Philosophy as impossibility

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