The Emperor's New Nudity

The Return of Authoritarianism and the Digital Obscene

Yuval Kremnitzer

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English

MIT Press
03 December 2024

Philosophy; History of ideas; Media studies; Central government policies; Science funding & policy

Series: Short Circuits

An analysis of contemporary authoritarianism and the medium in which it flourishes, the internet, and what lies at the complex intersection of authority and technology.

In recent decades, a new style of authoritarian politics has taken hold throughout the liberal-democratic world. The new style of authority figures is characterized by obscene, transgressive, behavior, reminiscent of the “crowd” leader as theorized by Freud, only far less transient. In Unwritten No More, Yuval Kremnitzer considers the fraught intersection of authority and technology—the internet being the medium that has allowed contemporary authoritarianism to thrive—asking foundational questions, such as: How can we think of the network as a social phenomenon? What can social and political phenomena teach us about the nature of the new technology? And, how does technology reshape the very fabric of social and political life?

Technology leads us towards an impersonal and hyper-rational world, to such an extent that it renders human subjectivity outmoded, Kremnitzer writes. Authority, on the other hand, anchors our subjective identifications to certain figures and seems to be hopelessly primitive and irrational. What is required, then, is a dialectics of the primal—a study of the way in which what strikes us as essential enters into the dynamics of historical change. From this perspective, authority and technology can be said to be divided by a common object—the unwritten law, and the special knowledge that pertains to it: a knowledge without knowers.

By: Yuval Kremnitzer
Imprint: MIT Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
Weight: 369g
ISBN: 9780262549042
ISBN 10: 0262549042
Series: Short Circuits
Pages: 272
Publication Date: 03 December 2024
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Yuval Kremnitzer is a philosopher, literature scholar, and media critic. He is the author of How to Believe in Nothing: Moses Mendelssohn and The Media Theory of Tradition, and several research articles in contemporary philosophy, social theory, German idealism, Jewish philosophy, film, and psychoanalysis.