Jenseits der Autonomie: Die De/Problematisierung des Subjekts in Zeiten der Digitalisierung

Abstract

In the socio-theoretical discourse on digitisation there is, among others, a strong sceptical and explicitly critical perspective towards socio-technical developments. The focus of this scepticism is the autonomous subject as the normative guiding value of modern society, which seems to be at stake due to the progress of digitisation processes. Accordingly, there seems to be a broad consensus that these developments will be problematic. However, it is also a possibility that they may not be problematized in social practice. This is hardly taken into account by contemporary social theories. In our contribution we would therefore like to plead for a problematisation of this practical de-problematisation. The de-problematisation of human autonomy is not only a possible vision of the future, but, as an already present undoing of autonomy, an empirical object that calls for a theoretical exploration that is not limited to a mere diagnosis of a problem in need of correction. Instead of theoretically assuming that the acting subjects must be interested in their autonomy, our contribution discusses the practical deproblematisation as a real possibility of future dealings with digital technologies and, against this background, pleads for a theoretical problematisation of this de-problematisation, which takes into account the possibility of posthuman social orders.