The Question Concerning Techno-Utopia

Szymon Wróbel (Faculty of “Artes Liberales” of the University of Warsaw)

 

The ultimate, though only outlined here, purpose of this text is to think about the enigmatic concept of „techno-utopia”, i.e. to look for its new, more awaited and less obvious meaning. The term „techno-utopia” is a strange fusion of utopia and technology. We do not know whether domination is on the side of utopia or on the technical side. We would like the meaning of this term to be determined not by „struggle” but by the kind of „reconciliation”, amalgam, i.e. the creation of „third meaning” in which „technology” would be socialized from the very beginning, and that what is „social” would be already technicalized at the time of conception of the so-called „social fact”. Techno-utopia is a „new place” for a utopia, it is a „different place”, or the „real place” of utopia, but also a „different technology” of producing the social. As part of the techno-utopia, what is social would not brutally eliminate what is non-social, what is not living, or that what is only material. This is the hope permeating this text. That is also why one of the titles of this text could be a paraphrase of the famous Heidegger’s text and ensuing – question concerning techno-utopia.

 

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