Technology and the rise of the artifice

pp. 89-113

in: Frank Schalow, Toward a phenomenology of addiction, Berlin, Springer, 2017

Abstract

This chapter examines the birth of the "addiction crisis," as it broadens its reach within the technological culture of the Internet and its global distribution of the "means" for more people to become addicted. The question then becomes whether the global situation spearheading addiction today exceeds in complexity the insights of any single scientifically based narrative. To develop this critical perspective, I will outline the nexus of variables that create a climate for addiction(s) to flourish; that is, the "perfect storm" in which our inherent frailties as human beings intersect with an extensive culture of "enabling." While the "human-all-too-human" constants of the problem remain, our understanding of it must evolve in order to recognize how our culture of conspicuous consumption and its "commercialization" of fetishes extend the "hook" of addiction from all corners of the globe. Indeed, only by first confronting the wider scope of the addiction-crisis, and the technological influences that intensify its grip on humanity, can we address a new existential challenge: i.e., that the rise of the "artifice" masks our capacity for self-understanding, even while extending access to both "information" and "entertainment."