| My dissertation considers the development of trans-Atlantic debates in the three decades after 1945 concerning the effects of technological advancement. I am particularly interested in a powerful current in postwar thought: the confrontation with "autonomous technology," to borrow Langdon Winner's term. A veritable technological "turn" occurred in European and North American social and political theory in the quarter century after the end of the Second World War. This dissertation focuses on who I regard as the most prescient exemplar of this "turn," the German-Jewish intellectual and anti-nuclear militant Günther Anders (1902-1992). Still relatively unknown in Anglophone culture, Anders' books and essays addressed some of the most vital issues that confront the modern world, especially the lasting effects of technology on the human condition. He presaged, to some extent, and participated, for several decades, in this broader current of technology critique. In this study, I accent three endeavors interrelated in Anders' writings after 1945: his later philosophical anthropology, his bold revision of the precepts of Marxian thought, and his goal of forging a "concrete philosophy" of technological domination. I argue that Anders understood his fundamental systemic critique of technology to be a necessary, urgent, and critical revision of Marx's critique of industrial production, one suited to a social formation defined by the Fordist-Taylorist labor regime, the Keynesian welfare state, and huge defense industries. Anders' reflections on technology as "destiny" and as the new "Subject of History" attempted to critically overcome the historical limitations of much orthodox Marxist thought, with its focus on ownership of the means of production and class struggle. This work on Anders should contribute to attempts to think historically about forms of social critique that take technology as their object. |
