The book, Why the Frankfurt School Today? Estrangement from Nature in the Age of Digital Capitalism, assesses digital era living and our estrangement from nature, looking at the work of Adorno, Marcuse and Benjamin via philosophical research and observation of social media as well as close reading of key Frankfurt School texts and lesser known works. This study serves as an introduction to key thinkers of the Frankfurt School as they relate to today’s issues of natural degradation, digital capitalism and AI . The characteristic negativity of Adorno, charismatic positivity of Marcuse and esoteric enquiries of Benjamin will be assessed in their possible usefulness to the challenges of 21st Century M edia and its empowering and controlling effects. In an era of intense political currents, which arguably trace their genesis to capitalism’s alienating effects vis-a-vis humankind’s relation to nature, the Frankfurt School provides a historical reference point that can help us navigate the challenges we face.
Both an academic and a layperson’s introduction, this book aims to provide a key to understanding the concepts developed principally by Adorno and Marcuse, which helped them address the alienating effects of industrialisation, warfare and urbanis ation on humanity’s growing distance from nature in the interwar and post war periods. Drawing on primary works from the 1930s to the 197 0s, consumerist and media culture of the time, this book positions the works of the Frankfurt School as useful for confronting the key challenges of our time as challenges characteris ed by our ever-increasing alienation from ‘first nature’ (nature in its rawest, elemental form). Analysis of primary texts will be supplemented by recent secondary texts to help contextualis e these key Frankfurt School thinkers in terms of contemporary social challenges.
In the industrial age, it was possible to talk of a second nature, as humanity’s ostensible break with and supersession of nature. The concept of second nature describes a period characteris ed by humans increasingly dominati ng one another in a mimicry of nature’s domination over all people, demonstrating that nature itself has not been overcome. Adorno, Benjamin and Marcuse universally argue that the media (or culture industry) is responsible for maintaining the dominance of the lower social classes.
In the digital age, a far more people have access to information and media tools than ever before, while there is an increase in flexible and home working in the W est, concomitant with a greater proportion of service industry and office jobs to manual labour. This gives the impression of fluid (rather than exploitative) working relations that are characteris ed by flexibility and an increasing level of agency on the part of workers and citizens generally. Aside from the internet, innovations such as the blockchain (including cryptocurrency and non-fungible tokens [NFTs]) and a rtificial i ntelligence (AI) reinforce this perception. These technologies are characteris ed by ease of use, lack of physical exertion and a level of social horizontality that may give the impression of having superseded nature and to a greater extent than in the industrial age. There is a popularly disseminated notion that AI will lead to a new era of human or post- human development with unprecedented levels of general societal wealth, or – conversely – lead to dystopia.
The changes we are seeing could be seen as a new stage in development that we might term ‘Digital Nature’. Such a term acknowledges the similarity in form between the memetically diffused cultural units that characteris e our cultural consumption and output in the digital age. However, it also points to our essential continued embeddedness within nature, potentially repeating the tendency towards domination that results from humanity’s essential similitude to, yet alienation from, the natural world. Furthermore, none of these technologies will necessarily resolve the problem of impending climate catastrophe and, given the high computing demands of AI and cryptocurrency, they may exacerbate them unless fueled by carbon- free energy resources.
The book will finally look to the thought of Adorno, Benjamin and Marcuse in asking what effective measures may be used to counter the threat of climate change and the negative effects of digital media and AI, including internet addiction, rising political extremism, anti-expertism, poor work –life balance and potential job loss . Revisiting Adorno’s and Marcuse’s disagreements over the late 1960s protests movements in the United Kingdom and Germany, the book asks whether digital era capitalism can be effectively countered creatively .