Cadmus (Jul 2024)
Hard Times: The Thinking Crisis in the No-Knowledge Society
Abstract
The “new” digital (hyper) velocity, in its complex interaction with the human factor and with social relations, preserves the original ambivalence common to any “factor” of change and to any social and cultural process. The complexity of this interaction, apart from representing an extraordinary opportunity, also evades any kind of algorithm or other artificial intelligence systems. The ambivalence and complexity that expose our limits and inadequacies, which have been socially and culturally “constructed” precisely through the teaching and training from within our educational institutions, are still incapable of taking in the ongoing change and, what is more, of providing a working translation of the widely acclaimed “paradigm shift.” Even more significantly, the “new” digital (hyper) velocity, with its baggage of ambivalence and complexity, aside from underlining our personal, organizational and social inefficiencies, truly leaves us with very little time for reflection, for thinking, and even more, for a critical analysis of what is happening, and more generally for a critical analysis of (hyper) complexity itself, as it continues to reveal the radical inadequacies of our paradigms, of our interpretative models, of our traditional cultures as well, and in particular, of our modern instruments of management and control.
