The conclusion recalls the new or expanded concepts developed throughout the book. A psycho-social structure is the social framework of symbolization. When symbolization changes, such as with the invention of writing, the creation of the state or of the principial deity, it reshapes the interaction between the subject and society. An issue is that such externalizations generate symbolization but also desymbolization. Today’s problem is that jouissance is provided by dedifferentiation: transnationalization, the questioning of social or sexual roles—interactions amplified by digital transversality. While dedifferentiation fosters innovation, the erasure of boundaries also accelerates desymbolization. Our new metaculture, arithmos, underscores that the critical material of psycho-social transformation is language. Arithmos abstracts away from the differentiation that was central to religious and rational logos; it modularizes our lives, and privileges numbers over words. This—perhaps the swiftest of the great anthropological shifts—may herald the terminal collapse of the heteronomous order. For now, our psyche remains divided, structured by heteronomy; but desymbolization, which is always a temptation for the subject, is becoming common in both the family and the digitalized social sphere. The book closes by outlining a few paths for preserving symbolization, in the hope of averting a digitally driven totalitarian threat.

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Conclusion: Desymbolization Accelerates

  • Pierre Beckouche

摘要

The conclusion recalls the new or expanded concepts developed throughout the book. A psycho-social structure is the social framework of symbolization. When symbolization changes, such as with the invention of writing, the creation of the state or of the principial deity, it reshapes the interaction between the subject and society. An issue is that such externalizations generate symbolization but also desymbolization. Today’s problem is that jouissance is provided by dedifferentiation: transnationalization, the questioning of social or sexual roles—interactions amplified by digital transversality. While dedifferentiation fosters innovation, the erasure of boundaries also accelerates desymbolization. Our new metaculture, arithmos, underscores that the critical material of psycho-social transformation is language. Arithmos abstracts away from the differentiation that was central to religious and rational logos; it modularizes our lives, and privileges numbers over words. This—perhaps the swiftest of the great anthropological shifts—may herald the terminal collapse of the heteronomous order. For now, our psyche remains divided, structured by heteronomy; but desymbolization, which is always a temptation for the subject, is becoming common in both the family and the digitalized social sphere. The book closes by outlining a few paths for preserving symbolization, in the hope of averting a digitally driven totalitarian threat.