The author put a lot of work into the essay. It deserves readers who are willing to do their own work to understand it.

So the complaints are just anti-intellectualism, or laziness, or both. — Jamal

Hmm. Were they complaints or simply comments or questions...as to the complexity? We are not all at the same level of understanding, even if we might be on the same page. Hence, the sharing of all kinds of essay and philosophy writing. The challenge lies in good communication. @Baden is excellent at that. I've enjoyed his further explanations.

I hope to come back and say something more interesting. — Jamal

Let's hear it?

It was criticism. Stop complaining! You didn't write it :D I am sure Baden can answer if he sees fit. If not, no bother.

It deserves readers who are willing to do their own work to understand it. — Jamal

As far as that goes, yes. But discussion with others and clarification from authors go a long way. That's the whole point of the event...to learn and improve understanding. Discover new ways of looking and develop new skills. To interact and connect. Ideas and imagination.

Sure as hell did! Not good enough though.

Read Byung Chul-Han's 'Psychopolitics,' it is almost like he wrote a commentary of Baden's work - only more legible.

Frankly I am at a loss for words. I say these words with disbelief because I cannot fathom WHY anyone would do such a thing.

Read Byung Chul-Han's 'Psychopolitics,' it is almost like he wrote a commentary of Baden's work - only more legible. — I like sushi

Thank you. Found and downloaded a free pdf (74 pages). Will read later...

Amity unenlightened @Vera Mont

On the difficulty of the text: I didn't deliberately try to complexify it, but I tried to prioritize theoretical preciseness which involved employing a lot of technical vocabulary that, understandably, the vast majority of readers were unlikely to be familiar with — Baden

The problem is that several of the readers seem to have expected something dumbed down or put in language they’re already familiar with. As far as I’m aware this was not in the rules of the event, was it? — Jamal

The problem is that you are talking about 3 readers, named by Baden, who mentioned the difficulties in reading the text. He understood that. It is not fine for you to falsely depict them as making immediate complaints, implying a lack of genuine interest. Did you even read the posts written by Vera?

Starting with:

This essay amounts to a critique of a consumerist culture that is driven by technology and rooted in capitalism.
— Moliere
You've got my vote right there! The rest of that first paragraphs elicits interest, curiosity and brings a host of long-held beliefs and long withheld doubts to the fore. I find myself lining up possible responses even before I've read the arguments.

The essay is challenging and rather long, so I shall have to read it in sections, reflect and comment before continuing. — Vera Mont

Other participants/posters have not even attempted to read this essay.
There is no rule to say they must.

It’s a shame that people who apparently want to be part of a philosophy discussion forum are not willing to grapple with philosophy, or perhaps do not even realize that philosophy is difficult and sometimes technical. — Jamal

Apparently, some TPF contributors are unwilling to read different forms or styles of philosophy writing outwith their comfort zone. And those who have, and are perhaps not convinced of their value, are unwilling to share their views. There is no rule to say they must.

It’s perhaps telling that whenever I criticize people for anti-intellectualism or laziness they pretend I’ve implied they’re not intellectual enough. That is obviously not the case. It is fine to be flummoxed; what is not fine is to immediately complain about it to the author. Be flummoxed, and if you’re genuinely interested, de-flummox yourself, perhaps with the help of some polite questions. — Jamal

Correct about asking further questions and discussion. Done and dusted. Otherwise disingenuous.

As for the the 'dumbing down'. That was the ironic use of an AI website to clarify. It actually proved helpful. https://dumbitdown.ai/

Your complaints are ill-founded and unjust. The lack of appreciation to Vera, myself and others who try to read and respond to all the essays in the spirit of philosophy and fun and discovery...
Wow. Rock bottom.

Read Byung Chul-Han's 'Psychopolitics,' it is almost like he wrote a commentary of Baden's work - only more legible.
— I like sushi

Thank you. Found and downloaded a free pdf (74 pages). Will read later... — Amity

I haven't had a chance to read this yet. I wonder if it would be worthwhile to start a Reading Group discussion? * Or is it not even recognised by @Baden and other commenters as having value?
If not, why not?

If it is something that improves understanding of the important issues...
It's a pity that Vera is no longer with us. To question. She provided experience, knowledge and insight which I don't have. A clear and motivated voice, even if sometimes tinged with cynicism. To return to her and Baden's final response:

I'm pretty sure the salient points can be translated to more accessible - if less philosophically precise - language. I would like to see that version widely disseminated....
.... so the important message could be ignored by a wider range of readers.
[sigh] I've been here before, in several formats.[!sigh] — Vera Mont

It's always worth a try. :strong: — Baden

Both seem to have shared the desire: to disseminate the important message. Whatever that is. So that it reaches a wider audience. Perhaps it needs to be tailored, the specialist language adjusted to fit into the spectrum. Translated and interpreted without loss of meaning. To reach out. To improve understanding. Knowledge is power.

* I am not the one to lead a reading group...or even start a thread...right now. But I'd be there...

@Baden

This essay amounts to a critique of a consumerist culture that is driven by technology and rooted in capitalism. The proximate goal is not to suggest alternative political systems but to offer conceptual tools to help protect free subjectivity as a creative and self-creating force through presenting in a brief introductory way a theory concerning its cultural situatedness. — Moliere

Isn't this the Frankfurt school response, meaning we should impose ways to disrupt the capitalist takeover of technology for its malevolent purposes as opposed to traditional Marxists who would advocate removal of technology from private ownership and placing it back into the hands of the citizens?

Meaning is use [11] because use manifests this intelligibility, expressing in communicative acts the relation between an individual's neurological patternings of understandings of a concept and the social patternings of brains that share understandings of the concept. The behavioral expressions of this web of interwoven patterns, this web of webbed nodes, simultaneously express and define meaning because they represent social instantiations of this web and—in successful communication—reinforce its structure in accordance with those instantiations. This interdependence makes language both stable and mutable. Stable in that webs of linguistic meaning are self-reinforcing through communicative acts, but mutable in that the boundaries of what is considered successful communication are not absolutely fixed but depend on social and human contexts that are changeable. So, we cannot fully pin down or exhaust the meaning of a word, for example, through a dictionary defnition; there is always an excess to meaning that can expand or redirect itself. The fact that words change meaning over time, sometimes very quickly, is testament to this. — Moliere

This feels like you're trying to ulitmately ground meaning not just in use but in some internal meaning within the speaker, which would I'd submit goes beyond classic Wittgensteinian thought. You're treading in the silent area and starting to sound social sciencey.

The latter, toxic, mode of action of social life seems more and more apparent in contemporary technologically driven cultures occurring through, for example:

1. The bureaucratization of cognition (the capturing of cognitive capacity for uncreative calculative labour limited to reproducing systemic functionality)
2. (Negative) exteriorization / algorithmic outsourcing (the general stultifying of mental development through the replacement of cognitive tasks by algorithmic processes)
3. Semantic flattening (the dulling and standardization of language use towards reflexive repetition of codes of systemic reproduction)
4. Behavioural conditioning (the limiting of imaginative capacity and creative potential by the channeling of behaviour into operationally defined grooves)

When these processes dominate society, we fall into what Stiegler refers to as a “proletarianization” of mind, a general mindset unaware and / or unwilling to potentialize itself except as a function of the system in which it partakes, a society of individuals who cannot see themselves beyond how society sees them and define themselves limitedly as such [9]. Part of addressing that problem, of course, is promoting knowledge of the problem as a means to stimulate thought and action, and in a society that seems to be becoming ever more reflexive, encouraging reflection seems crucial. Of course, the weapon of the theorist in this effort is the theory itself, an idea through which we will now take a detour. — Moliere

You point here to an absolute free will that submits to control, perhaps as the result of over-whelming influence or even laziness, but your theory requires a spirit that ultimately can resist if it wants. I say this to point out you're referencing what appears to be an inpenetrable soul, set aside to do battle if it wants (again an all powerful Will) and a clear assessment that virtue lies in its resistence, perhaps it's its highest purpose, to remain true to itself.

A theory as EKM then is an epistemic protective that aims to catalyze active reflection against passive reflexivity. — Moliere

Your EKM sounds like time set aside to comtemplate your higher purpose, reserved for study of those things that most enhance your humanity, removed from the mechanistic daily activities that define the better part of our lives. Hopefully to annoy you, I'll point out you've just arrived at a rule that sounds like we should set aside a special day and keep it holy.

The freedom to say “no” to economic imperatives is concomitantly marginalized along with anyone who dares exercise it. Further, while the full spectrum of human agency seems to offer the mutative and creative perturbations in societies that may allow for advance, there is no ironclad reason to think technocapitalism cannot as previously mentioned, evolve towards an increasingly limited form of freedom and, by extension, subjectivity. — Moliere

But there's every reason to think it cannot limit freedom because you've posited in your theory an absolute ability to say "no" that lurks within us. If it weren't there, your post would be just a prophecy of doom, but you offer a solution (the EKM), which means your position is optimistic, stating that humanity has the means to prevail at every turn. It's just a matter of calling attention to the ability to say "no."

My general thought is that yours is an accurate concern from both the right and the left, and you offer a defense to this overwhelming impact of negative cultural influences (which you identify generally as "capitalism") which is to remember you are a human being with choice with a much higher purpose than submission to the will of the financially ambitious. But I think it goes well beyond captialism. It's most values you see displayed on TikTok. Our defense is to remember our higher calling. You identify that from the left as revealed through the humanities. The right is essentially saying the same thing just different words.