[D66] Notes on the networked psyche

[A.OUT]

https://www.eurozine.com/notes-on-the-networked-psyche/

Notes on the networked psyche
Exploring online hyper-sensibilities

     Geert Lovink

     6 January 2020



[...]
In Spinoza: Practical Philosophy, Deleuze writes that we need to 
denounce all that separates us from life, ‘all these values that are 
turned against life. What poisons life is hatred, including the hatred 
that is turned back against oneself in the form of guilt. Spinoza 
traces, step by step, the dreadful concatenation of sad passions: first, 
sadness itself, then hatred, aversion, mockery, fear, despair, pity, 
indignation, envy, humility, repentance, self-abasement, shame, regret, 
anger, vengeance, cruelty’. In Deleuze’s reading, ‘Spinoza’s analysis 
goes so far that even in hatred and security he is able to find that 
grain of sadness that suffices to make these the feelings of slaves’. 
The question whether smartphones and their apps take us away from life 
and enslave us should be easy to answer. ‘We do not live, we only lead a 
semblance of life; we can only think of how to keep from dying, and our 
whole life is a death worship’. After Deleuze and Spinoza, we could say 
that Facebook needs broken spirits, much in the same way as broken 
spirits need Facebook. Spinoza’s remedy: ‘Only joy is worthwhile, joy 
remains, bringing us near to action, and to the bliss of action. The sad 
passions always amount to impotence’[14].9 While this analysis is 
univocally clear, we rarely hear Deleuzians making a stand.
[...]