Essays by some of the world's leading educators provide a revolutionary portrait of new ideas and developments in education that can influence the possibility of social and political change. The authors take into account such diverse terrain as feminism, ecology, media, and individual liberty in their pursuit of new ideas that can inform the fundamental practice of education and promote a more humane civil society. The book consolidates recent thinking just as it reflects on emerging new lines of critical theory.

La globalización es la palabra clave de la transformación estructural que está sufriendo nuestro mundo. Sufriendo es el término adecuado. aún reconociendo el extraordinario desarrollo tecnológico y económico que estamos viviendo en las sociedades desarrolladas, porque el proceso de cambio se presenta para la mayoría de las personas como ajeno, incontrolable e inevitable. De ahí que hayan surgido fuertes reacciones defensivas y movimientos críticos contra el proceso de globalización. Y una de esas críticas se refiere al desarrollo unidimensional de la (...) globalización en torno a intereses económicos capitalistas. Pero en realidad la transformación que estamos viviendo es multidimensional. Y junto a la globalización de la tecnología y la economía se plantea con fuerza creciente la globalización de la política y la cultura. Por arriba. mediante la conexión entre los estados y la expansión planetaria de los medios de comunicación. Por abajo, mediante la emergencia de voces críticas y movimientos sociales que plantean el control social de la globalización económica, junto con la globalización de los derechos humanos y la afirmación política de su respeto universal. Para avanzar la investigación teórica en este debate es necesario partir de la observación de los procesos recientes, así como del esclarecimiento analítico de las cuestiones que se plantean. Mi planteamiento es que una comprensión adecuada de la relación entre globalización y derechos humanos requiere estudiar el cambio de relaciones entre estado y sociedad civil, en una época caracterizada por la crisis del estado nación, sometido a la tensión contradictoria entre globalización instrumental y localización identitaria. (shrink)

A partir de visualizar Internet como una creación cultural que refleja los principios y valores de sus inventores, analiza cómo Internet y libertad se hicieron para mucha gente sinónimos en todo el mundo, frente a lo cual los estados y las iglesias reaccionaron tratando de restablecer el control administrativo de la expresión y la comunicación. Se plantea luego el dilema de si es controlable Internet, contraponiendo las tecnologías de control y vigilancia a las tecnologías de libertad. Se ponen así en (...) juego actores y principios: los Hackers y crackers, la libertad y la seguridad¸ la encriptación del mensaje. Ejemplifica el autor con la experiencia española de la regulación a Internet. (shrink)

Manuel Castells: un elogio emocional e inofensivo de las movilizaciones de protestaCuatro observaciones preliminares sirven para enmarcar una lectura crítica de la obra reciente de Manuel Castells, Redes de indignación y esperanza. En primer lugar este género de elogio exaltado e inofensivo de las movilizaciones de protesta actuales en el mundo ha dado lugar en muy poco tiempo a una amplia literatura, pero también ha suscitado no pocas críticas, ya que se trata por general de estudios (...) y traba.. (shrink)

En el presente artículo analizo la principal fórmula del poder de Manuel Castells asociada con su noción de flujo, y una de las piezas centrales de su teoría sociológica del poder a partir de 1986: el vínculo entre flujos del poder y poder de los flujos. Se trata de una forma conceptual no definida por el autor, llamativamente críptica e inasible, a la vez que absolutamente clave para la comprensión de su visión contemporánea del poder y del Estado. (...) El estudio permite descubrir, entre otros aspectos, la relación que finalmente propone el sociólogo español entre economía y política. De tal vínculo se desprende una versión en extremo radical de la tesis del declive irreversible del poder del Estado-nación, aún vigente en la teoría social contemporánea pase a los cambios sociopolíticos registrados en América Latina en los últimos años. (shrink)

Daniel Bell (1919–2011) and Manuel Castells (1942–) are the grand theorists of the information age. The article provides a detailed, up-to-date, comparative analysis of their writings. It begins with their methodologies, identifying numerous commonalities in their post-Marxian frameworks. The substance of their theories is then examined, where it is shown that both plausibly explain contemporary social reality in terms of the interplay of three forces: the information technology revolution, the restructuring of capitalism and the innovational role of culture. (...) There are found to be major similarities in their accounts (the Kantian interpretation, social stratification) but also significant divergences (role of science, the fourth world, the normative content of culture). Suitably combined, Bell’s and Castells’s thought goes a long way towards delivering a persuasive sociological theory of the global information society. However, the article concludes by suggesting that extensive further work is needed to clarify the precise relationships between the three factors and their relative weightings in the equations required to explain recent social change. (shrink)

O artigo enseja discutir os dilemas e as possibilidades da política na atual configuração societária. Partiremos da definição de sociedade do conhecimento como sociedade em rede apresentada pelo sociólogo Manuel Castells e, em seguida, exporemos os conceitos arendtianos de totalitarismo e ação, importantes para uma reflexão sobre a política nos dias atuais. Abordaremos as implicações da questão judaica na teoria política arendtiana, na qual sobressai uma perspectiva agônica do poder, isto é, o poder não como lugar das forças (...) anônimas, sistêmicas, reprodutoras do status quo, mas de fundação, resistência, civilidade e revelação dos homens como agentes. O pensamento de Hannah Arendt mostra-se fecundo para compreensão das vias de acesso às práticas que repõem, na sociedade do conhecimento, a política na sua significação original. (shrink)

Situating Manuel Castells's three-volume work, The Information Age, within a broad tradition of classical social theory that has sought to come to terms with the emergence of new forms of social, economic and cultural life, critical consideration is given to a series of concerns, including questions of analytic perspective and in particular the relevance of the work of Marx; the concept of the network society; the movement from production to consumption as the primary medium through which individuals are (...) engaged within contemporary society; and issues of identity and community. In contrast to Castells's identification of an ethical foundation or spirit of informationalism, it is argued that an aesthetics of consumption is central to modern society in its informational capitalist phase and that as society has become more exposed to the consequences of informationalism and the associated globalization of capital, the prospect of living in an ethically responsible manner has diminished significantly. (shrink)

This article focuses on Manuel Castells's claim that the information age announces major changes in stratification and, accordingly, in social and political mobilization. His assertion that informational labour displaces generic labour in informational capitalism is examined in terms of its conceptual and historical accuracy, and questions are raised about the notion of meritocracy embedded in his depiction of informational labour. The idea that the network society is characterized by `a faceless collective capitalist' is also called into question by (...) evidence of the persistence of a propertied class. Finally, Castells's analysis of the emergence and significance of identitybased mobilizations is examined. (shrink)

Present, as Manuel Castells (1996) notes, we live in the information age. Knowledge and the way it is acquired and processed are the driving forces of the economy, and information processing systems are the strength of economies. The aim of this article is to identify the key role of the information supply phenomenon in contemporary socio-economic processes. The initial part of the article will define such concepts as: information, infodemia, information market, in the further part examples of the (...) use of information in the process of forming social behaviour in the market context will be presented. For this purpose, three major economic crises from the turn of the 20th and 21st century will be used cross-sectionally. The first will be described as the dot-com crisis, i.e. the first global Internet players, which led to the collapse or loss of value of many global Internet platforms through the creation and bursting of a speculative bubble. The second crisis described below was related to the collapse of Lehman Brothers, a leading US bank, and the US housing crisis. In the above case, both supply and concealment of information in the public sphere could be observed. The last crisis described is the crisis related to the SARS-COV2 pandemic, in which dis- and mis- information activities proved to be crucial. (shrink)

Educational research as an academic field can be understood as a network or group of networks and, therefore, to consist of interconnected nodes that structure the way the field operates and understands its purpose. This paper deals with the nature of the induction of postgraduate students into the network of educational research that takes place through research methods courses, the textual domain, the professional and social practices involved in collaboration, conferences and publication. The consideration of this in the light of (...) Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's (1988) writings on smooth and striated space problematises the notion of flows provided by Manuel Castells' (1996) understanding of networks and, by resisting the dualist simplification in terms of which the field is often discussed, offers an alternative account of how the nature of thought and practice governs the route between nodes in the network. This enables consideration of the nature of thought in relation to academic practice in educational research. (shrink)

Vivemos nos desdobramentos daquilo que Manuel Castells (2005) nomeou de Sociedade em Rede, em cujo cerne estão as Tecnologias de Informação (TIs). Ele indicou as características-chave do novo cenário que diagnosticou, a saber, são tecnologias que agem sobre a própria informação e que também introduziram a lógica das redes; que promovem a convergência tecnológica e, por conseguinte, um sistema altamente integrado de aparatos técnicos; e que acentuadamente penetram pelos diferentes processos e âmbitos sociais. De lá para cá testemunhamos (...) grandes e rápidos saltos tecnológicos bem como o adensamento das transformações na dinâmica econômico-política organizacional e institucional e na construção das vidas humanas e não-humanas no planeta. Essas mudanças alcançaram não apenas modos informais de aprendizagem, mas também a educação formal. O objetivo desse artigo é discutir aspectos atuais da plataformização educacional presentes na educação básica brasileira, tendo como referência o ensino de Filosofia no Ensino Médio. Para tanto será desenvolvida reflexão sobre a plataformização educacional, fenômeno que diz respeito ao modelo de negócios presente na atual fase do capitalismo e que utiliza as plataformas sustentadas pela IA e também a constante extração de dados de quem transita pelas infovias do ciberespaço; sobre o que nomeamos como Escola do Cansaço, em diálogo com o conceito de Sociedade do Cansaço desenvolvido por Byung Chul Han; e sobre algumas implicações decorrentes que já se fazem presentes na administração do trabalho docente, na realização do trabalho docente e nas relações de ensino-aprendizagem. (shrink)

Introduction: thinking about globalization -- Systemic thinking: Immanuel Wallerstein -- Conceptual thinking: Anthony Giddens -- Sociological thinking: Manuel Castells -- Transformational thinking: David Held and Anthony McGrew -- Sceptical thinking: Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson -- Spatial thinking: Peter Dicken and Saskia Sassen -- Positive thinking: Thomas Friedman and Martin Wolf -- Reformist thinking: Joseph Stiglitz -- Radical thinking: Naomi Klein, George Monbiot and Subcommandante Marcos -- Revolutinary thinking: Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri -- Cultural thinking: Arjun Appadurai (...) -- Conclusion: rethinking globalization again. (shrink)

_Purpose._ This article seeks to analyze the transformation of culture and social relations in cities amidst the digital transformations of space and everyday practices. _Theoretical basis._ The research is anchored in the theoretical foundations provided by Manuel Castells and Marshall McLuhan, both of whom delve deeply into the intricacies of the information society and the interactions between humans and technologies. Our analysis also relies on contributions from urbanists and experts in the "Smart Cities" domain, augmenting our study with (...) practical facets of how digital innovations influence the urban milieu. We endeavor to understand how the interplay between humans and technologies within urban environments reconfigures one’s self-perception, their place in the world, and their interactions with their surroundings. _Originality._ The study evaluates the impact of digital transformations on urban settings, drawing from the theoretical notions of Manuel Castells and Marshall McLuhan, modern urbanistic principles, and empirical analysis of the urban environment. We emphasize that digitalization reconfigures concepts of time, space, and interpersonal interactions in cities, culminating in the emergence of a distinct social identity that manifests within a globalized and digitized urban existence. We illustrate the effects of digital innovations on social and cultural practices, and underscore the significance of striking a balance between individual freedom and technological control in urban landscapes. _Conclusions._ Our findings indicate that digital transformation, which bridges the tangible and the virtual, reshapes the identities and daily experiences of urban inhabitants. They engage in an existential struggle to preserve their sociocultural essence. In a networked society where the local and global intermingle, novel social practices arise that obscure boundaries between the individual and collective, and between the tangible and virtual. The urban milieu becomes a crucible for experiments in the social, economic, and cultural realms, with technologies introducing both conveniences and challenges. Digital transformation modifies societal interactions and has profound implications for the sociocultural fabric. (shrink)

Over the last thirty years, once staunchly film history scholars such as Thomas Elsaesser, Jane Gaines, Siegfried Zielinski, André Gaudreault and Benoît Turquety (to name just a few) have abandoned history for historiography and film studies for media archaeology. Considering the heightened attention given to kulturtechnik (Siegert), the database as a dominant symbolic metaphor,1 and the decentered networked tenants of the postmodern global present, cinema is taking on the characteristics of new media, existing in increasingly intertextual space. Thus, the term (...) “post-cinema” has been co-opted as a viable intermediary that accounts for new media conditions, as cinema is no longer emblematic of our cultural climate. It was once presaged in 1992 that “[t]he end of the cinema truly sounds the death knell of the ultimate metaphysical adventure of Dasein. In the twilight of post-cinema, of which we are seeing the beginning, human quasi-existence, now stripped of any metaphysical hypostasis and deprived of any theological model, will have to seek its proper generic consistency elsewhere.” Accordingly, we are no longer “moviegoing animals” who seek images of ourselves among a collective in the dark but, rather, users interfacing within a network of moving images. By locating post-cinema within the semblance of social media, we are allocated a newfound series of theoretical interventions, the most marked of which is that of media archeology vis-à-vis dialectical materialism. This is a lens through which Brian Winston has recently deftly decried Virtual Reality’s “empathy machine” utopic illusionism, bolstered by Chris Milk and a slew of neurohumanities researchers, steadily maintaining that the fundamental myth of “technologies of seeing” is in disguising “their artifice, their cultural formation and their ideological import.” However, this approach, which illuminates the bifurcation between Max Horkheimer/Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin, neglects what Benjamin identified as occurring to the work of art in the age of its technological reproducibility—a shift from a technology’s “cult value,” associated with the unique work, to its “exhibition value,” associated with the social act of viewing as part of a mass. Speaking to this divarication, Benjamin Barber, in Strong Democracy, foresaw new media’s two-fold potential—as they are organized and networked, new media and communications technologies possess the possibility to both energize citizen information and political participation but, simultaneously, to supplement the deterioration of public debate. As evinced by Mark Adrejevic’s concept of Infoglut, this two-pronged possibility has only been exacerbated by the interlocking relationship between the advent of a “glut” of information, post-truth politics, the demise of symbolic efficiency, and a renewed focus on the role of affect and emotion as “alternative modalities for thinking about the role of communication in a post-referential era.” Manuel Castells qualifies Barber’s pessimism, noting that the Internet can “be an appropriate platform for informed, interactive politics, stimulating political participation.. […] beyond the closed doors of political institutions,” but that the Internet, like any technology, “is shaped by its uses and users.” Thus, if there exists a positive correlation between exposure to post-cinema media artifacts and political participation, then I seek to explore the revelatory political possibilities of “exhibition value” by way of a particular “post-cinema” case study: the Marxist-Leninist Turkish hacktivist group Redhack’s YouTube-circulated documentary RED! (2013), a project that demanded—by way of the moving-image—to galvanize cyberprotest and democratize a “hacktivist commons. (shrink)

With the advent of the 21st century, the way characters and identities interact under the influence of dominant powers has brought a new world into existence, a world dubbed by Manuel Castells as the ‘Fourth World’. Within the Castellsian theoretical matrix of the Fourth World and politics of identity, the present study seeks to investigate the true nature of the futuristic world Margaret Atwood has created in the MaddAddam trilogy. The trilogy literarily reflects a global crisis that ultimately (...) leads to dystopia and the destruction of the human race: what remains of humanity is a small group of survivors who must struggle to conserve what remains of humanity. Identity as the main determining factor in the Fourth World represents personal and public privileges, characteristics, and means of differentiating oneself from others. The Fourth World and its political peculiarities reflect contemporary powers, i.e. the power of the network society, network communication and media. Humankind, in this wheel, is just a toy in the hands of an intelligence broker. What exactly happens to human and semi-human characters in Atwood’s trilogy is the result of Fourth World structures and values, and how they shape and reconstruct identities to lead the world toward fabricated truths and values, and terminate in dystopia. (shrink)

Como respuesta a las inquietudes que deja el debate sobre el pluralismo cultural en el marco del Forum de las culturas 2004, celebrado en Barcelona, el artículo presenta la tesis de que la pluralidad cultural responde más a la lógica del mercado que a un esfuerzo denodado por comprender la dinámica de la diversidad cultural. En este sentido, los esfuerzos por pensar el pluralismo cultural en el marco del evento, por argumentar en contra de tesis como las del choque de (...) civilizaciones de Samuel P. Huntington, intentan aclarar los difundidos temores de una uniformidad cultural fruto de un proceso de globalización económica potenciado por el avance tecnológico aplicado a las comunicaciones. El problema está en que el temor difundido puede servir al mismo propósito que lo convoca. En este orden de ideas, la estructura del análisis se divide en tres partes. Primero, una precisión conceptual de globalización a partir del trabajo de Manuel Castells en su trilogía titulada La era de la información; segundo, presentación de las líneas del debate sobre globalización y cultura en el marco del Forum; y tercero presenta la circularidad del argumento que afirma al pluralismo cultural en contra de la globalización. (shrink)

Nombre d’ouvrages sur la mondialisation affirment habituellement que les concepts d’« espace », de « temps » et de « soi » ont radicalement changé ces dernières décennies au cours du processus de mondialisation. Mon texte propose une analyse de quelques sujets de débat, en prenant ces mots au sens métaphorique. L’analyse se focalise d’abord sur les termes marquants de « l’espace du flux » et de « temps intemporel » de Manuel Castells, puis sur un terme plus (...) classique, celui de « perte de soi » de Hannah Arendt. En analysant l’utilisation de ces termes dans l’oeuvre de ces deux auteurs, ainsi que dans l’oeuvre de leurs adeptes, je tenterai de démontrer que : 1/ les termes en question ne sont pas suffisamment clairs pour être considérés comme des termes scientifiques et ne sont acceptables qu’au sens métaphorique ; 2/ ces termes sont fondés dans le discours, bien connu, des ouvrages de modernité classique et par conséquent ne sont pas spécifiques à la mondialisation. Le dernier auteur que j’analyse dans mon texte est Andrew Ure, professeur écossais ayant vécu au XIXe siècle. De par le vocabulaire qu’il utilise pour décrire son monde, il fait partie du discours de modernité classique comportant une évaluation entièrement différente. (shrink)

In der umfangreichen Literatur zur Globalisierung gehen die Autoren gemeinhin von der These aus, dass die Konzepte von ‘Raum’, ‘Zeit’ und ‘Selbst’ in den letzten Jahrzehnten im Rahmen des Globalisierungsprozesses eine drastische Veränderung durchgemacht haben. Der vorliegende Text bietet eine Analyse verschiedener zur Debatte stehender Themen, wobei die genannten Begriffe metaphorisch gebraucht werden. Die Analyse konzentriert sich zunächst auf die berühmten von Manuel Castells eingeführten Begriffe ‘Raum der Ströme’ und ‘zeitlose Zeit’ sowie auf den eher klassischen Terminus des (...) ‘Selbstverlusts’ bei Hannah Arendt. Anhand einer Analyse dieser Begriffe in der Verwendung der genannten Autoren und ihrer Anhänger möchte der Verfasser dieses Textes Folgendes zeigen: Die angeführten Begriffe sind zu verschwommen, um als Musterkonzepte benutzt werden zu können, und daher nur als reine Metaphern akzeptabel; die Begriffe sind im wohlbekannten literarischen Diskurs der klassischen Moderne verankert und insofern keine globalisierungsspezifischen Begriffe. Der letzte im Text besprochene Autor ist der schottische Mediziner und Professor Andrew Ure aus dem 19. Jahrhundert. Gemäß seiner Sprache, die er zur Schilderung seiner Welt verwendet und die an die oben erwähnten Begriffe von M. Castells und H. Arendt erinnert, gehört er zum Diskurs der klassischen Moderne, dem eine radikal andersartige Evaluierung zuschreiben ist. (shrink)

This analysis builds on the arguments of Manuel Castells, Jan Van Dijk and others who describe the emergence of network societies and networked global communication, economics, and political communication. Research has shown that those who are building communication networks that have political significance are also able to create new contacts, retrieve useful political information, distribute and discuss retrieved information with others, and establish contacts with various centers of power that provide them with new channels of access and political (...) interactivity. Castells and others argue that those who are left out of the network society and important political networks are members of a Fourth World of inequalities, growing poverty, and sustained disempowerment. In this paper, the study of digital democracy and networks of political communication is related to what Van Dijk calls polycentric politics and what Castells describes as variable political geometry. From the concepts of network society and digital democracy, a concept of network democracy is proposed. With this concept, the argument is made that the structurational aspects of digital democracy can be used to establish ICT systems that help new participants become part of networked power structures rather than serving to extend the participation of those who are already involved in systems of empowerment. (shrink)

This essay advances two sets of critical observations about Manuel Castells's suggestion and detailed elaboration of the idea that modern society from the 1980s onwards constitutes a network society and that the unity in the diversity of global restructuring has to be seen in the massive deployment of information and communication technologies in all spheres of modern social life. The criticism attends to the possibility that the emphasis on the social role of information technologies in advanced society amounts (...) to a modern version of `technological determinism'. A discussion of the so-called productivity paradox shows that cultural and social processes rather than technological regimes continue to be more important for the evolution of society. (shrink)

Restless Ideas is a lively new textbook of contemporary social theory that speaks directly to the anxious age in which we live today. In addition to providing a highly readable guided tour of major social theories from the mid-20th to the early 21st century, this book is full of dynamic examples that show how these theories may be used to deepen our understanding of current events and of our own life experiences. The emergence of demagogic political leaders like Donald Trump (...) in the USA, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey; the rise of religious fundamentalism, terrorism, and political populism; the digital echo-chamber of social media; and the underlying causes of Brexit are only some of the many current social issues that can be framed through contemporary social theories. Similarly, the politics of sexual, racial and ethnic minorities can be analyzed through the prism of theoretical perspectives such as queer theory, standpoint and intersectional theory, postcolonial theory and critical race theory, while the ongoing struggles for gender equality and gender justice can usefully be examined through the generational perspectives of feminist theories. This book sets the stage with a critical discussion of the loaded history of the social theory canon and makes the argument that there has never been a better time than the present to broaden our understanding of our shared global heritage of social theory, to include some of the formerly excluded classics of past social thinkers, and to open the doors to current social thinkers theorizing from the margins. The book traces the modern roots of contemporary social theory back to the works of the early structural functionalists, systems theorists, conflict theorists, symbolic interactionists, ethnomethodologists and sociobiologists, building on and at times inverting the canon with the critical advancements to social theory. Later chapters focus on the current influence of structuration theory, third wave critical theory, postmodernism and poststructuralism, critical race theory, postcolonialism, liquid and late modernity theories, and globalization theories. These perspectives include the works of contemporary social theorists such as Anthony Giddens, Pierre Bourdieu, Juliet Mitchell, Dorothy Smith, Judith Butler, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Jacques Derrida, Jean Baudrillard, Gayatri Spivak, Homi K. Bhabha, Zygmunt Bauman, Slavoj Zizek, Alain Badiou, Jürgen Habermas, Axel Honneth, Nancy Fraser, Manuel Castells and Ulrich Beck. The underlying premise - and the promise - of this book is that social theory has the power to provide us with the skills for more informed observation, analysis, and empathic understanding of social behavior and social interaction. In a word: the value of social theory may be seen in how it can enhance social literacy - by deepening our understanding of the world around us, and by empowering us to become practical theorists in our own lives. (shrink)

Es evidente que los movimientos sociales no son los mismos desde la aparición de las redes sociales. Estas han revolucionado definitivamente la forma en la que nos expresamos, comunicamos y organizamos. Sin embargo, son una herramienta de doble filo. En este ensayo analizo las principales características de los movimientos sociales en la era de las redes, principalmente, desde dos perspectivas: la de Manuel Castells y la de Byung-Chul Han, a fin de determinar si estos están experimentando un desarrollo (...) favorable o perjudicial para alcanzar sus objetivos y, sobre todo, para visibilizar los nuevos obstáculos que aparecen en la virtualidad y poder superarlos. (shrink)

This study examines the link between social media networks and democratization process by focusing on the 2015 General Electionsin Nigeria. Relying on Manuel Castells’ network theory and empirical fieldsurvey, the paper investigates the prevalent conditions that have nurtured SMNsparticipation in Nigeria’s democratic space and the challenges and prospects ofsocial media as catalysts for deepening democracy in the country. The paperasserts that although social media remains veritable tools for democraticconsolidation worldwide, the salience and impact are still at the nascentstage (...) in Nigeria. Besides, institutional and legal impediments, economic andinfrastructural challenges have contrived to limit the envisaged positive impactof SMNs in the democratization process in Nigeria. The paper recommendsefforts to stimulate Internet penetration and social media affordance while theNigerian cyberspace should be more democratised. (shrink)

La historia personal y profesional de Carlos París discurre al hilo de la convulsa historia de España del último medio siglo, y la narra con una honestidad de la que muy pocos pueden hacer gala. Así, sin ira y sin tapujos, describe, por ejemplo, cómo pasó de una adhesión inicial a presupuestos falangistas a ser candidato del PCE, valorando cada etapa y cada motivo de cambio con un gran sentido crítico. Por su pluma desfilan también personajes fundamentales en la vida (...) española de los últimos cincuenta años con quienes Carlos París ha tenido una sólida relación, como Manuel Fraga, Javier Solana, Manuel Castells, Rosa Regàs, Ricardo de la Cierva, José Antonio Maravall, José María Valverde, Nicolás Sartorius y un largo etcétera. De la lectura de estas memorias se desprende, en fin, el retrato de una gran figura intelectual y humana que jamás se ha limitado a ser convidado de piedra ni en su país ni en el tiempo que le ha tocado vivir.Carlos París (Bilbao, 1925) es Catedrático Emérito de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, en la que fundó su Departamento de filosofía y de cuya Facultad de Filosofía y Letras fue elegido decano en las primeras elecciones. Es Doctor Honoris Causa por la Universidad de Valencia y ha sido Presidente de la Sociedad Española de Filosofía y del Ateneo Científico, Literario y Artístico de Madrid. Su obra ha sido objeto de diversos estudios y congresos internacionales, y recientemente se ha creado un Foro dedicado al análisis y difusión de su pensamiento. Hay que destacar, sobre todo, sus ensayos: Física y filosofía, 1952; Crítica de la civilización nuclear, 1985 o Fantasía y razón moderna-Don Quijote, Odiseo y Fausto, 2001, entre muchos otros; y también sus obras de creación literaria: la novela Bajo constelaciones burlonas (1981) o el libro de relatos La machina speculatrix-Cuatro sarcasmos sobre el mundo actual (1989). (shrink)

Este artículo retoma la potencia de la figura del flâneur que Walter Benjamin toma de Charles Baudelaire a la luz de los efectos que han tenido los desarrollos de la tecnología en las grandes urbes contemporáneas. Analiza algunos de los senderos explorados por autores como Steven Shaviro, Manuel Castells y Katherine Hayles en torno al desarrollo de Internet y la inteligencia artificial, con el fin de actualizar algunas de las inquietudes y fabricaciones que Benjamin nos heredó para poder (...) pensar así, algunas estrategias y/o herramientas y poder fabricar un despertar, tal y como lo pensaba Benjamin. (shrink)

Se escribe que el tiempo y el espacio han perdido su significado tradicional. Por eso Manuel Castells habla de nueva Era y Alain Touraine de ruptura. El Norte está cada vez más disperso y fragmentado y el Sur también. Podría decirse que ahora hay muchos Nortesy muchos Sures. Por eso hay visiones tan distin­tas del intenso e imprevisible proceso iniciado hace apenas tres décadas. Nadie sabe hacia dónde nos va a conducir el proceso de cambio en esta nueva (...) Era de la información y la comunicaci.. (shrink)

Este artículo cuestiona filosóficamente, a partir de las tesis de Günther Anders, el uso masivo de las redes sociales y la forma en que configuran la subjetividad y la intersubjetividad, particularmente en cuanto a los efectos cognitivos sobre la verdad, las creencias y la objetividad. El uso intensivo y compulsivo de las redes sociales ha permitido una comunicación casi instantánea y una sociedad presta a la observación y vigilancia de todos los aspectos de la vida cotidiana y de la política; (...) pero, al mismo tiempo, ha impulsado una sociedad de la intrusión, el voyerismo, el juicio moral lapidario y el linchamiento público de personajes famosos o de cualquier persona acosada por sus conductas, aunque estas pudieran no ser verdaderas. Manuel Castells observaba en La era de la información (2000), que en nuestra época se ha trastocado el tiempo, se han fundido y confundido lo real y lo virtual, lo público y lo privado, generando nuevos problemas éticos, jurídicos y políticos. Tenemos ahora una subjetividad hipersensibilizada, saturada de información, de verdades y falsedades indistinguibles que complican la comunicación y el sentido compartido de la realidad, así como las responsabilidades y las acciones sociales efectivas para contribuir al bien público. (shrink)

ExcerptCosmopolitan world society is a successful and widely shared political project. It is shared by decision makers pursuing liberal agendas of democratization and prosperity while prosecuting criminal and terrorist deviance. It is also shared by leading social thinkers, such as Ulrich Beck, Manuel Castells, Francis Fukuyama, David Held, and Niklas Luhmann. Even the proverbial “man on the street” shares the vision of cosmopolitan world society when (s)he refuses to interpret deviance from “universal” values in any terms other than (...) greed or insanity. Overall, the liberal vision of cosmopolitan world society runs somewhat like this. Globalization and global governance lead from…. (shrink)

It is a common place in the large literature on globalisation that concepts of the ‘space’, ‘time’ and ‘self’ have radically changed in the last decades, during the process of globalisation. My lecture offers an analysis of a few topics, using these words metaphorically. At first, my analysis will be focused on Manuel Castells’ famous terms ‘space of flow’ and ‘timeless time’, and on a more classical term, Hannah Arendt’s ‘selflessness’. By analysing the uses of these terms in (...) writings of the mentioned authors and their followers, I will try to demonstrate: these terms are too obscure ones to use them as scholar concepts, and they are acceptable ones in a mere metaphoric sense only; they are not the special terms of the globalisation, being rooted in a well-known discourse of the literature of the classical modernity. The last author analysed in my lecture is a 19th century Scottish professor, Andrew Ure. He is a part of the discourse of the classical modernity, using the vocabulary for describing his world that is similar to that of Castells’ and Arendt’s mentioned terms, with a radically different evaluation. (shrink)

Entre el 26 y el 29 de julio de 2004 se llevó a cabo en el Forum de Barcelona un diálogo sobre el tema de la globalización, orientado especialmente a interpretar los conflictos que la globalización genera entre la diversidad y la identidad culturales. Estuvo dirigido por Manuel Castells y se presentó bajo el título genérico ¿Globalización, identidad y diversidad¿. En este artículo vamos a considerar, por un lado, los elementos conceptuales que aparecieron en la discusión de estos (...) temas y, por otro, la adecuación de esos conceptos y de la discusión misma en vistas a la comprensión del fenómeno de la globalización y los conflictos culturales que éste genera. (shrink)

The essay looks into the world of the Internet after the dotcom crash. It investigates the ways in which libertarian gurus and leading business journals responded to the April 2000 downfall of the NASDAQ. Also it reviews the latest work of Manuel Castells, The Internet Galaxy, and looks into the ambivalent position of Castells towards « real » Sillicon Valley and the « bubble » dotcoms.