(Un)Reason: Lars van der Miesen

In relation to the 10-2-10 event, Black Brick organizes: 

Reason has always been a means to secure and reproduce the dominant modes of production, and has always been linked to productivity itself. Societies rely on specific forms of reason into order to guarantee their survival. Foucault identifies two ways in which reason has been protected against unreason (which seems to be something that runs counter to productivity). 1. Before the Enlightenment, it was done by the use of spectacle. By putting the mad on stage and making them repent they were an example for others to refrain from such thoughts and practices. 2. After the Enlightenment, reason was no longer portrayed on stage but rather kept away from society through imprisonment. It was not treated by offering repentance, but medicalised. No longer rendering possible a discourse with the mad, thereby marginalising unreason even further.

In modern post-truth times, we see a significant increase in unreason by the likes of support for conspiracy theories, Trump, and the rejection of mainstream media, predominantly enabled by the internet. Do these phenomena require an entirely new and different response from the dominant political powers, possibily running parallel to the mechanisms that we see in societies of control (Deleuze)?

Speaker: Lars van der Miesen is a philosopher and Applied Ethicist with a special interest in the economy and all its pertaining issues: climate destruction, alienation, the reason of producitvity and the future of life on this planet.