This book reveals the sense in which our postmodern societies are characterized by the obscene absence of the intellectual. The modern intellectual--who had once been associated with humanism and enlightenment—has in our day been replaced by media stars, talking heads, and technical experts. At issue is the ongoing crisis of democracy, under the aegis of the société du spectacle and its vast networks of politically-induced idiocy, industrially-produced biocide, and militarily-provoked genocide. Spectacle fills the resulting moral and intellectual vacuum with electronic (...) technologies of control, punishment, and destruction. This postmodern tyranny reduces intelligence to mechanistic, positivist, and grammatological models of inquiry, while increasing the segmentation, fragmentation, and dissolution of human existence. The apotheosis of the spectacle explains the intellectual void that lies at the heart of our postmodern decadence; it also accounts for the need to recuperate the humanist values of enlightenment promoted by the modern intellectual tradition. (shrink)

This book is about the ways in which modern enlightenment, rather than liberating humanity from tyranny, has subjected us to new servitude imposed by systems of mass manipulation, electronic vigilance, compulsive consumerism, and the horrors of a seemingly unending global war on terror. The main intellectual aims of this title are the following: the analysis of spectacle, the criticism of providential enlightenment, and the examination of positive dialectics. The spectacle, in this case, is the apotheosis of the culture industries, a (...) total inversion of reality and of our existences. Providential enlightenment is not only a critique of the failure of enlightenment, but of the mutilation of historical enlightenments. Positive dialectics signal a new era of intellectual engagement in the construction of our historical future. During a time in which national democracies seem an imperial farce, it is not enough for intellectuals faced with all this destruction to blithely recommend resistance. The book thus ties American, British, French and German theoretical traditions into a reflexive challenge to the notion of intellectual as critic, and argues instead for a trespassive tradition of cultural leadership. (shrink)

Con motivo de la reciente publicación del libro de Eduardo Subirats titulado Violencia y Civilización (Losada, Madrid, 2006), sacamos a la luz el siguiente texto, extractado del mencionado libro, para dar a conocer algunas de las claves del pensamiento del autor. A través del concepto de violencia civilizatoria denuncia los abusos cometidos por un poder global y totalitario que actúa, paradójicamente, en consonancia con la defensa de la libertad, con el multiculturalismo neoliberal, y con un capitalismo amable y deconstruccionista.

Reúne una serie de ensayos sobre temas de actualidad que giran en torno a: la crisis de la razón en el mundo moderno, la destrucción y la guerra, la crisis del intelectual, el lugar del arte en la cultura contemporánea o la cultura espectacular. Todos ellos persiguen el hilo de una teoría crítica de la cultura contemporánea y plantean la exigencia de reformular el papel del intelectual en el mundo de hoy.

Traducción de "Cuarteto español", en: Después de la lluvia. Sobre la ambigua modernidad española. Madrid, Temas de hoy. Ensayo 1993.