L’esprit de l’escalier: 25 years of hindsight

2017 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elihu Katz ◽  
Daniel Dayan
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Continuous Transformation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Media Events ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Performative Power

Media Events offer a recent example of the continuous transformation of the form ‘event’ throughout history. Illustrating the performative power of dramatic gestures, they characterize moments of heightened participation in the public sphere and the emergence of ‘performing publics’. Media Events must be compared to other sorts of ‘expressive events’, including ‘pseudo-events’ and conflictual events. We note that this variety involves enlisting broadcasters by agencies of the establishment or by forces of disruption. Assessing them in the context of ‘globalization’ involves noting that there are many conflicting globalizations. Despite their respective dogmatisms, both critical and functional approaches illuminate the interplay of hegemony and solidarity in the very same events. We speculate on the future of the genre in the age of social media and heightened audience skepticism.

scholarly journals Futurism, Futurology, Future Shock, Climate Change: Visions of the Future from 1909 to the Present

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 99-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Potts
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Technological Progress ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Environmental Concern ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Post Industrial

This essay charts a brief intellectual history of the futures – both utopian and dystopian – conceived in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It traces perspectives on the future since 1909, when the term ‘futurism’ was coined in the publication of the ‘The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism’. The essay maps changes in the vision of the future, taking a chronological approach in noting developments in the discourse on the future. A prominent theme in pronouncements on the future is technological progress, first in relation to industrial technology, later in the context of post-industrial or information technology. A turning-point in this discourse can be isolated around 1973, when ideas of technological progress begin to be challenged in the public sphere; from that date, environmental concern becomes increasingly significant in discussions of the future.

‘Unfortunately We Are Bankrupt’

2021 ◽  
pp. 39-56
Author(s):  
Korinna Schönhärl
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Driving Force ◽  
Debt Crisis ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The One ◽  
Difficult Situations

It is often noted that people remember the past to better manage the present. One major driving force of economic behaviour is expectations of the future or ‘imagined futures’, as the sociologist Jens Beckert calls them. But whereas these expectations are oriented towards the future, the frames in which they arise are strongly influenced by the past. During economically difficult situations, economic crises of the past were especially intensively remembered and discussed. The thesis of this chapter is that actors in the public sphere remember crises in alarming situations to orient themselves, construct fictional expectations of the future, and legitimize decisions that have to be taken in the present. The Greek debt crisis from 2009 onwards is used as a case study. The past crisis most recalled in collective memory in this period is the one that followed the Greek bankruptcy of 1893.

scholarly journals Time, technology, cinematic art and critique in The Terminator and Terminator II - Judgment Day; a philosophical interpretation

Literator ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 21-34
Author(s):  
B. Olivier
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Time Structure ◽  
Specific Function ◽  
The Public ◽  
Popular Art ◽  
The Past ◽  
Philosophical Interpretation ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Two Stages

This article is an interpretation of James Cameron’s films, The Terminator and Terminator II - Judgment Day. As instances of popular art, they are first situated in the context of Habermas's conviction that art has a specific function in the public sphere, viz. to provide an enlightening experience for people who are normally excluded from the specialized discourse of aesthetics and an criticism. The interpretation of the joint film narrative of Terminator I and II is then articulated in two stages. First, the paradoxical time -structure of the film-narrative is explored in terms of Heidegger’s analysis of temporarily, with its emphasis on the primacy of the future in relation to the past and the present. Secondly, the fact that these film s were made possible by a combination of film art and advanced film technology, is thematized along lines suggested by Heidegger's critique of technology. This leads to the insight, finally , that the Terminator film s exemplify Heidegger’s contention that the threat posed by technology is averted by a liberating force from within itself

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