[D66] Günther Anders and the necessity for a critique of technology

[R.O.]

https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0725513619864439


Marxism and technocracy:
Günther Anders
and the necessity
for a critique of technology
Thesis Eleven
1–18
a The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/0725513619864439
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Jason Dawsey
The National World War II Museum, USA
Abstract
This article examines why Günther Anders, one of the 20th century’s most 
formidable
critics of technology, deemed a critique of technology necessary at all. 
I argue that the
radical philosophy of industrialism in Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen 
(The Obsolescence
of Human Beings) and related texts is a response to what Anders’s work 
presents as
inadequacies of traditional Marxism, with its focus on class struggle 
and property rela-
tions. In effect, his critique of technology, which is more attentive to 
forms of domination
emergent with mechanization, would come to supplant classical Marxist 
thought. The
piece concludes with some thoughts about how Anders’s ‘post-Marxist’ 
perspective
provides insights for contemporary Marxism and, in turn, how the latter 
can throw light
on problems in Anders’s philosophy of the machine.
Keywords
Günther Anders, critique of technology, Marxism, post-Marxism, technology