Necrotechnology, Stiegler and the Digital

Abstract

This article is an attempt to understand the relationship between what has manifested itself globally since at least 2020, namely, what we may call – adapting Achille Mbembe’s concept of “necropolitics” (the politics of death) – “necrotechnology” (the technology of death), on the one hand, and digital technology, which the French philosopher Bernard Stiegler links with a new kind of “barbarism”, on the other. Examples are provided of “necrotechnology” in action, which S. D. Wells terms the “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD), that have been used against human beings for decades, and the group behind this sustained attempt at committing democide is identified. Setting aside the inarguable issue of the moral reprehensibility of the democidal project (on Kantian grounds, involving ethics), the question of an appropriate response to the latter is raised, and, because advanced digital technology is indispensable for actualising the project’s aims, an answer is formulated in terms of Stiegler’s philosophy of technology. Specific attention is given to Stiegler’s claim, that we live in an age of “disruption”, where the chief source of disruption is digital technology, which he further links to the claim that we live in “an epoch without epoch”, that is, where the characteristic mode of functioning of digital technology is such that it systematically prevents an “epoch” from forming because no cultural integration and consolidation of “retentions” and “protentions” are allowed to take place. Surprising as it may seem, the “solution” Stiegler offers is indissolubly linked with the human capacity for thinking, which enables us to grasp the impoverishing exclusiveness of digital technology, to the detriment of utilising other kinds of technology. However, Stiegler’s work enables people to practise a Heideggerian “Yes and No” approach to digital technology: by all means use it for innocuous purposes, but do not allow it to use (or abuse) you.