«Tecno-ombre». Una proposta di lettura di alcuni immaginari delle culture sociali della Silicon Valley e del “lato oscuro” dell’Ideologia californiana
Abstract
«Techno-shadows». A proposal for interpretation of some of the imaginaries of Silicon Valley’s social cultures and the “dark side” of the Californian Ideology.
Silicon Valley has certain facets and a backstage – to use Goffman’s metaphor – that are quite different from the narratives of the limelight. Such the constantly extolled horizontalisation of knowledge guaranteed by the web and the powers of empowerment made available to all by digitalisation, as well as the rhetoric around the creative classes and the extension of the jobs of symbolic analysts, and also that of the philanthropic and progressive Californian tycoons engaged in the promotion of civil rights and environmentalist campaigns to protect ecosystems and combat climate change. The following paper sets out to highlight and critically analyse some of the social and cultural shadows (materialist and post-materialist ones) cast by Silicon Valley and California in their evolution from the paradigm of the «quartz city» – assuming extensively the considerations made by Mike Davis on Los Angeles defined through the connotations of social porosity, prismaticity and falsification-alteration of reality – to that of the socio-economic and intellectual laboratory of digital and high-tech technoliberalism and informational and woke capitalism.
Keywords
Full Text:
PDF (Italiano)References
Andersson J. and Webb L., eds. (2019), The City in American Cinema: Film and Postindustrial Culture, London, Bloomsbury Academic.
Badhwar N. K. and Long, R. T., “Ayn Rand”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2023 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.); https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2023/entries/ayn-rand/.
Balbi G. (2022), L’ultima ideologia. Breve storia della rivoluzione digitale, Roma-Bari, Laterza.
Bartoletti R. (2020). “Le culture del neoliberismo: discorsi, pratiche e soggettività”, Sociologia della comunicazione, n. 1/59, 5-18.
Bell, D. (1976), The Coming of Post-industrial Society, New York, Basic Books.
Berger P. and Luckmann T. (1966), The Social Construction of Reality. Tr. It. La realtà come costruzione sociale, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1969.
Bhagat A. and Phillips R. (2022), “The techfare state: debt, discipline, and accelerated neoliberalism”, New Political Economy, n. 4/28, 526-538.
Bucher, T. (2018), If… then. Algorithmic power and politics, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Camorrino A. (2021), Pandemia e complottismo. Il “reincanto notturno” della società contemporanea, in N. Pannofino e D. Pellegrino (a cura di), Trame nascoste. Teorie della cospirazione e miti sul lato in ombra della società. Milano, Mimesis, 87-104.
Castoriadis C. (1975), L’institution imaginaire de la société. Tr. It. L’istituzione immaginaria della società, Torino, Bollati Boringhieri, 1995.
Chafkin M. (2021), The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley’s Pursuit of Power, New York, Penguin Random House.
Chamayou G. (2010), Les Chasses à l’homme. Tr. It. Le cacce all’uomo, Roma, Manifestolibri, 2010.
Cirillo G. N. (2024), “La crisi della Silicon Valley e il governo del ‘rischio di liquidità’ bancario”, Banca Impresa Società, early access, 27/10/2024; https://www.rivisteweb.it/doi/10.1435/114739.
Codeluppi V. (2020), “L’ideologia neoliberista e il capitalismo digitale”, Sociologia della comunicazione, n. 1/59, 127-139.
Cozzi E. (2024), Geopolitica dello Spazio. Storia, economia e futuro di un nuovo continente, Milano, Il Saggiatore.
Crawford J. (2021), “Tra ottimismo e pessimismo scelgo il soluzionismo”, MIT Technology Review; https://www.technologyreview.it/tra-ottimismo-e-pessimismo-scelgo-il-soluzionismo/.
Davis M. (1986), Prisoners of the American Dream. Politics and Economy in the History of the U. S. Working Class, London-New York, Verso.
Davis M. (1990), City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles. Tr. It. Città di quarzo. Indagando sul futuro di Los Angeles. Roma, Manifestolibri, 1999.
Doda I. (2024), L’utopia dei miliardari. Analisi e critica del lungotermismo, Roma, Tlon.
Eltchaninoff M. (2022), Lénin a marché sur la lune. La folle histoire des cosmistes et transhumanistes russes, Arles, Actes Sud.
Ercolani P. (2022), Nietzsche l’iperboreo. Il profeta della morte dell’uomo nell’epoca dell’intelligenza artificiale, Genova, Il melangolo.
Fan Z. and Christensen L. T. (2023), “The Dialogic Performativity of Secrecy and Transparency”, Human Relations, n. 4/77, 1-21.
Florida R. (2002), The Rise of the Creative Class. Tr. It. L’ascesa della classe creativa, Milano, Mondadori, 2003.
Fukuyama F. (2004), “Transhumanism”, Foreign Policy, 144, Special Issue, 42-43.
Giacomini G. (2023), “Disintermediation e/o Neointermediation? The ‘Fourth Power’ of Small and Large Intermediaries in Digital Public Sphere”, Polish Sociological Review, n. 2/222, 249-262.
Gillespie T. (2021), Custodians of the Internet. Platforms, content moderation, and the hidden decisions that shape social media, New Haven, Yale University Press.
Graham E. (2002), “Nietzsche Gets a Modem. Transhumanism and the Technological Sublime”, Literature and Theology, n. 1/16, 65-80.
Goffman E. (1959), The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Tr. It. La vita quotidiana come rappresentazione, Bologna, Il Mulino.
Harvey D. (1990), The Condition of Postmodernity. Tr. It. La crisi della modernità, Milano, Net, 2002.
King G. (2002), New Hollywood Cinema. An Introduction. Tr. It. La Nuova Hollywood. Dalla rinascita degli anni Sessanta all’era del blockbuster, Torino, Einaudi, 2004.
Kinni T. (2004), Honoring Ayn Rand: The Entrepreneur’s Philosopher. The Atlas Society, December 20, 2004; https://www.atlassociety.org/post/honoring-ayn-rand-the-entrepreneurs-philosopher.
Labatut B. (2023), The Maniac. Tr. It. Maniac, Milano, Adelphi, 2023.
Lamorgese A. (1999), “Ciclo di vita delle città”, Equilibri, n. 3, 293-300.
Land N. (2022), The Dark Enlightenment, Imperium Press.
Landes David, (1969), The Unbound Prometheus. Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
La Polla F. (2004), Sogno e realtà americana nel cinema di Hollywood, Milano, Il Castoro.
Lefebvre H. (1968), Le droit à la ville, Paris, Anthropos.
Mager A. (2014), “Defining Algorithmic Ideology: Using Ideology Critique to Scrutinize Corporate Search Engines”, Triple C. Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society, n. 1/12, 28-39.
Morozov E. (2011), L’ingenuità della rete. Il lato oscuro della libertà di Internet, Torino, Codice.
Palano D. (2017), “Apocalisse zombie. La metamorfosi della paura nell’immaginario ‘postpolitico’ contemporaneo”, Rivista di Politica, n. 2, 161-176.
Pfeil F. (1998), From Pillar to Postmodernism: Race, Class and Gender in the Male Rampage Film, in Lewis J. (ed.), The New American Cinema, Durham, Duke University Press.
Reese E., Deverteuil G. and Thach L. (2010), “‘Weak-Center’ Gentrification and the Contradictions of Containment: Deconcentrating Poverty in Downtown Los Angeles”, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, n. 2/34, 310-327.
Perulli P. (2024), Anime creative. Bologna, Il Mulino.
Rhodes C. (2022), Woke Capitalism: How Corporate Morality Is Sabotaging Democracy. Tr. It. Capitalismo woke. Come la moralità aziendale minaccia la democrazia, Roma, Fazi, 2023.
Rosa H. (2010), Alienation and Acceleration: Towards a Critical Theory of Late-Modern Temporality. Tr. It. Accelerazione e alienazione. Per una teoria critica del tempo nella tarda modernità, Torino, Einaudi, 2015.
Sadin É. (2016), La Silicolonisation du monde. Tr. It. La silicolonizzazione del mondo, Torino, Einaudi, 2018.
Saito L. (2023), Building Downtown Los Angeles: The Politics of Race and Place in Urban America, Redwood City (CA), Stanford University Press.
Sassen S. (2001), The Global City, Princeton (NJ), Princeton University Press.
Schein E. H. (2010), Organizational Culture and Leadership, New York, Wiley.
Scott-Smith T. (2015), “Humanitarian neophilia: the ‘innovation turn’ and its implications”, Third World Quarterly, n. 12/37, 2229-2251.
Sims R. (2015), “More than gentrification: geographies of capitalist displacement in Los Angeles 1994-1999”, Urban Geography, n. 1/37, 26-56.
Slobodian Q. (2020), Globalists. The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism. Tr. It. Globalists. La fine dell’impero e la nascita del neoliberalismo, Roma, Meltemi, 2021.
Solnit R. and Schwartzenberg S. (2018), Hollow City: The Siege of San Francisco and the Crisis of American Urbanism, London-New York, Verso.
Somaggio P. (2018), “La nuova demiurgia. Biotecnologie, postumano e società”, Sociologia del diritto, n. 2, 7-34.
Sorice M. (2020), “La «piattaformizzazione» della sfera pubblica”, Comunicazione Politica, n. 3, 371-388.
St. Lawrence E. (2024), “The Algorithm Holy: TikTok, Technomancy, and the Rise of Algorithmic Divination”, Religions, n. 4/15, https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15040435.
Talia D. (2023), “Il potere disciplinare della governamentalità digitale”, Rivista di Digital Politics, n. 3, 505-520.
Tarzia F. e Ilardi E. (2015), Spazi (s)confinati. Puritanesimo e frontiera nell’immaginario americano, Roma, Manifestolibri.
Van Dijck J., Poell T. and De Waal M. (2018), The Platform Society, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Venanzoni A. (2022), Il trono oscuro. Magia, potere e tecnologia nel mondo contemporaneo, Roma, Luiss University Press.
Walliser T. e Botta C. (2013), Bit Pop Revolution. Gli hippie che inventarono il futuro, Milano, Hoepli.
Weir M. e Bruzzone G., (1987), “Idee e politica. L’adesione al keynesismo in Gran Bretagna e negli Stati Uniti”, Stato e Mercato, n. 2/20, 179-213.
Winner L. (1980), “Do Artifacts Have Politics?”, Daedalus, n. 1/109, 121-136.
Winner L. (1984), “Mythinformation in the High-Tech Era”, Bullettin of Science, Technology & Society, n. 4/6, 582-596.
Wolf G. (1996), “The Wisdom of Saint Marshall, the Holy Fool”, Wired, January 1; https://www.wired.com/1996/01/saint-marshal/.
Zandbergen D. (2012), “Acceleration and Gnostic Timelessness in Silicon Valley. How Gnostic Spirituality Has Come to Matter in ‘Information Age’”, Etnofoor. Anthropological Journal, n. 1/24, 29-54.
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
Im@go. A Journal of the Social Imaginary - Biannual - Edizioni Mimesis