Mediatization, Suffering and the Death of Philosophy

Abstract

In this brief intervention the contributor makes the case that our preoccupation with media and cultural analysis has alienated/detached us, as scholars of media and cultural studies, from a key experiential moment: a philosophical pre-moment. In a world of chronic crises (economic, ideological, ecological), we have forgotten what it means to encounter suffering through the face of the sufferer. We seek refuge in Plato’s cave again – not because of inability to tell the real from ­shadowy reflections, but because the reflections (as mediatised experience) offer us ­refuge, comfort and distanciation. Our forgetfulness of suffering and the face of the sufferer have immersed us deep into a kind of ‘sequestration’ where language (academic language/language games/turf wars) take precedence over experiencing a world in crisis. Heidegger was wrong: we have not forgotten about being-in-the-world, we have remorselessly turned philosophy on its head – philosophy has itself become a tool of sequestration – a shelter from the face of the sufferer.