Papers by Luca Mandara
I contributi raccolti nel presente volume sono il risultato di un processo di formazione, allo st... more I contributi raccolti nel presente volume sono il risultato di un processo di formazione, allo stesso tempo, individuale e collettivo, accademico e politico, condotto da alcune “giovani leve” della riflessione filosofica e si propongono di offrire differenti declinazioni della tradizione teorico-politica che partendo da Karl Marx giunge attraverso Walter Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse, Michel Foucault e Louis Althusser fino ad Antonio Negri e al post-operaismo
12th International Critical Theory Conference of Rome, 2019
In an economic situation of crisis, weak or very slow recovery and in a political situation of gr... more In an economic situation of crisis, weak or very slow recovery and in a political situation of growing of right forces on the heels of a widespread popular dissatisfaction towards neo-liberalism and globalization, in the Western countries the social demand of labour seems to disappear, to decrease or, best case scenario, to not find a clear expression, both in terms of quantitative reduction, and in terms of qualitative improvement of working condition. The individual demand of pleasure, instead, seems to be much more attractive. Labour fades more and more behind the facility, the lightness, the enjoyment of our hightechnological environment, which individuals would never deprive themselves of. This is a world which always seems to be “playing” so far to confuse work and pleasure, two spheres so strictly divided until just few decades ago. This is a world where the heaviness and the effort of the daily work seem to vanish or, better, to become more acceptable as they are compensated for the widespread lightness of the digitaltechnological world. Is it not true that social networks are sustained by the intersection of supply and demand of pleasure, disinterest, playfulness, truth and freedom? Today, the bourgeois society seems to realize the promise of the American Constitution: the right to pursue happiness. Today, more than ever, it gets urgent to wonder a critical question about pleasure and happiness.
Thomas Project. A border journal for utopian thoughts, n. 3, 1, 2020
Retracing some crucial moments of Herbert Marcuse’s work, the essay would reveal the concept of U... more Retracing some crucial moments of Herbert Marcuse’s work, the essay would reveal the concept of Utopia not as much a positive image of future freedom as peculiar way of a genuine critical thought.
Lezioni americane (1966-1977), 2021
Introduction to "Lezioni americane (1966-1977)", my translation of "Transvaluation of values and ... more Introduction to "Lezioni americane (1966-1977)", my translation of "Transvaluation of values and radical social change. Five new lectures (1966-1976)". Four unpublished lessons of Herbert Marcuse, new source for Italian researchers of his thought.
In my introduction, I argue the violently bidimensional character of Marcuse's position on the movements of the Sixties and on aesthetics, which the lessons are dedicated to, divided between rupture and continuity.
Has leisure a function in the capitalistic society? Are we really free when we are not on duty? D... more Has leisure a function in the capitalistic society? Are we really free when we are not on duty? Does free-time really exist anymore? Next pages will try to answer these questions from a Marxist point of view, namely: social production determines the entire social relations-not only the productive relation but also personal ones. Through a historical and philosophical analysis of leisure, I would demonstrate that capitalism is not anymore just a way of production, but it has become a special kind of society. Indeed, its immanent contradictions have spread all over social space and time. Nowadays, social networks are just a part of the same process which has already involved social institutions like schools, prisons, hospitals, churches and so on in the past, viz. the tendency of capitalism to become totalitarian, embracing all social dimensions beyond working time. Then, it reproduces a practical and daily, as well as unconscious, consensus on the capitalistic "way of life". It spurts the motto "yes, I like it".
L’umanizzazione della sensibilità. Per una dimensione concreta e collettiva dell’utopia in Ernst Bloch, 2018
The essay is about the limits of the Freudian conception of “Dream” argued by Ernst Bloch in orde... more The essay is about the limits of the Freudian conception of “Dream” argued by Ernst Bloch in order to defend communism from the accusation of being only a new illusion because of the egoistic nature of the human instincts stated by psychoanalysis. Contrariwise, from his Marxist point of view, the communist utopia is not an illusion, but a new need towards which capitalism dialectically tends. In fact, what humans are, concerns only with the historical, social and material production. Nonetheless, he could not avoid justifying his perspective with a metaphysical and ideologically theory of human sensibility as Freud did.
Per una critica della società dello spettacolo partecipato, 2018
Le seguenti pagine cercano di indagare il rapporto tra virtuale e reale che il dilagante fenomeno... more Le seguenti pagine cercano di indagare il rapporto tra virtuale e reale che il dilagante fenomeno dei social networks ha reso di così stringente attualità. Si tenterà di farlo concentrandosi sul rapporto tra uomo e macchina all’interno della società capitalistica secondo le indicazioni offerte da Karl Marx, ma anche avvalendosi dei contributi di altri critici della contemporaneità per descrivere i riverberi quotidiani di una nascente “cultura social” all’interno di una nuova “società dello spettacolo partecipato”. Infine, distinguendo l’uso capitalistico della tecnologia digitale dalla tecnologia stessa, se ne potranno apprezzare le potenzialità e i limiti dei suoi usi alternativi, finalizzati cioè alla liberazione delle coscienze e delle relazioni tra gli individui, piuttosto che al loro sfruttamento economico e al loro controllo politico.
I Manoscritti economico-filosofici del 1844: per una critica dei bisogni in Marx, 2018
Il seguente saggio analizza la formazione del concetto di bisogno nei Manoscritti economico-filos... more Il seguente saggio analizza la formazione del concetto di bisogno nei Manoscritti economico-filosofici del 1844 di Karl Marx attraverso il rapporto critico che questi intrattenne con l’economia politica inglese e la filosofia classica tedesca. Secondo Marx entrambe le prospettive, sebbene per vie diverse, tendono ad associare il “bisogno”, e i concetti annessi di sensibilità, corporeità, attività lavorativa, solamente alla necessaria e immutabile sfera della immediata naturalità e al particolarismo egoistico dell’uomo. Secondo la direzione di quella che si andava già configurando come critica delle relazioni sociali borghesi, Marx, invece, mostra la verità e, insieme, la falsità di siffatte prospettive. Nonostante siano, secondo Marx, apparenze, queste ultime sono vere in quanto espressive del fatto “attuale” del lavoro alienato: in quanto oggetto-soggetto dell’alienazione, infatti, al lavoratore è preclusa la possibilità non solo di soddisfare i cosiddetti bisogni “fisici”, ma soprattutto di sviluppare bisogni e organi di senso al di là dell’immediata necessità corporea. In siffatte condizioni storiche, lavoro e bisogni non possono che risultare come “peste da fuggire”. Marx, però, mostra il carattere storico e quindi mutevole del lavoro alienato, dipendente a sua volta da rapporti di dominio dell’uomo sull’uomo, e si dedica perciò a una rielaborazione del concetto di lavoro e di bisogno nell’“ipotesi del socialismo”. Dal mondo della necessità, si transita a quello della libertà ed è il diverso carattere del bisogno ad esserne indice. Reso l’“oggetto sensibile” proprietà sociale e liberato l’uomo dalle immediate necessità grazie allo sviluppo della forza produttiva del lavoro, il soggetto storico potrà dedicarsi allo sviluppo onnilaterale e sociale della propria individualità e configurare così una nuova forma di ricchezza non più misurata con le astrazioni del denaro ma dal bisogno concreto di una “totalità di manifestazione di vita umane”.
Since the redistributive economic policies of the post-war, the worker has not been considered as... more Since the redistributive economic policies of the post-war, the worker has not been considered as a bare producer anymore, whose leisure is time to satisfy the physical needs as in the accumulation of capital of the nineteenth century described by Marx: he has to be considered also as a consumer of “human” needs. As a product by the powerful cultural industry, leisure becomes time in which men are economically and ideologically dominated, while they are psychologically integrated to the capitalistic system. Whether today the redistribution policies have changed, the capitalistic dominion on the free time has not crashed down, but turns into creepier forms. Indeed, the major Web 2.0 monopolies (social media and browsers) assume the function of social institutions of command upon the inferior classes, imposing them the logics of the upper class who they belong to: the spectacular, the quantity, the consumeristic recycle of stereotype models; its goals: the accumulation of private capital; potential unitary effects: the economic, affective and ideological control of the whole society. The innovation is that this is obtained by directly mobilizing the same consumers that become happy and exploited pro-sumers.
Conference Presentations by Luca Mandara
12th International Critical Theory Conference of Rome, 2019
In an economic situation of crisis, weak or very slow recovery and in a political situation of gr... more In an economic situation of crisis, weak or very slow recovery and in a political situation of growing of right forces on the heels of a widespread popular dissatisfaction towards neo-liberalism and globalization, in the Western countries the social demand of labour seems to disappear, to decrease or, best case scenario, to not find a clear expression, both in terms of quantitative reduction, and in terms of qualitative improvement of working condition. The individual demand of pleasure, instead, seems to be much more attractive. Labour fades more and more behind the facility, the lightness, the enjoyment of our hightechnological environment, which individuals would never deprive themselves of. This is a world which always seems to be “playing” so far to confuse work and pleasure, two spheres so strictly divided until just few decades ago. This is a world where the heaviness and the effort of the daily work seem to vanish or, better, to become more acceptable as they are compensated for the widespread lightness of the digitaltechnological
world. Is it not true that social networks are sustained by the intersection of supply and demand of pleasure, disinterest, playfulness, truth and freedom? Today, the bourgeois society seems to realize the promise of the American Constitution: the right to pursue happiness. Today, more than ever, it gets urgent to wonder a critical question about pleasure and happiness.
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Papers by Luca Mandara
In my introduction, I argue the violently bidimensional character of Marcuse's position on the movements of the Sixties and on aesthetics, which the lessons are dedicated to, divided between rupture and continuity.
Conference Presentations by Luca Mandara
world. Is it not true that social networks are sustained by the intersection of supply and demand of pleasure, disinterest, playfulness, truth and freedom? Today, the bourgeois society seems to realize the promise of the American Constitution: the right to pursue happiness. Today, more than ever, it gets urgent to wonder a critical question about pleasure and happiness.
In my introduction, I argue the violently bidimensional character of Marcuse's position on the movements of the Sixties and on aesthetics, which the lessons are dedicated to, divided between rupture and continuity.
world. Is it not true that social networks are sustained by the intersection of supply and demand of pleasure, disinterest, playfulness, truth and freedom? Today, the bourgeois society seems to realize the promise of the American Constitution: the right to pursue happiness. Today, more than ever, it gets urgent to wonder a critical question about pleasure and happiness.