The astounding omnipresence of the virtual in contemporary consciousness is radically restructuring our psychology, changing our societies and culture, and having profound effects on who we are, how we behave with one another, and on the kind of world we are inhabiting. The speed and instantaneousness of digital communication radically unsettles both time and space. “Real time” and “virtual space” are new categories in our existence that introduce dramatic transformations in our form of life. Changing our very understanding of knowledge and ignorance, of subjectivity and objectivity, digital technology is reforming our needs and interests, affecting all areas of human experience.
These transformations have been so rapid that we are only now beginning to notice and slowly assimilate their psychic effect. So much of it still remains unconscious, that it becomes important not only to attend to what seem to be the digital’s very clear perils, but also to try to discern what may be its still unknown or unseen potential. Indeed, we might be witnessing an enhancement and extension of our existence beyond anything we are as yet, able to imagine.
In this course, we will examine how the digital is changing many of the structures through which we understand our world, how we conceive of ourselves, how we interact with each other, even the very nature of society and culture. We approach these issues from both depth psychological and philosophical perspectives and attempt to find a way of thinking about technology that does not polarize but rather tries to hold in creative and generative tension both the perils and potentials of the digital revolution. We use myth, popular culture, film, and television to illustrate our themes. We provide an overview of the history of the media to contextualize the digital revolution, as well as the challenges that this new realm of virtual reality brings to depth psychological theorizing and its implications for psychotherapeutic practice.
Schedule:
Week 1: History and nature of the media: the nature of technology, pharmacological considerations. Evolution of the media: speech, writing, photography, film, digital image. Digital simulation and the question of the ‘aura’ and the psyche.
Week 2: The nature of the relationship between the virtual and the real. Psychological dimensions of the virtual: how does virtual reality differ from dream reality? How to understand the “virtual within” as different from virtual reality. What effect does the digital have on potential space? How does it impact our relationship to the other and otherness in general? Narcissism and digital addiction.
Week 3: Philosophical dimensions of digital life: “ontological centaurs”; the “Pygmalionic impulse”; the “mimetic faculty”. The question of the post-human: transhumanism, post-truth and beyond. The tragedy of the virtual: mourning and melancholia in the digital age.
Dates:
January 11th, 18th, 25th, 2023
5:00 – 6:30 PM PDT