The biopolitics of the Buribunks
The digital archive and the end of history
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 14970838 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Damien Mcloughlin (0000-0002-9689-1690, UNSW Sydney, corresponding author), Daniel Mcloughlin (UNSW Sydney) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 28 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 137-153 |
| Publication date | 2019-04-03 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Griffith Law Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1038-3441 • E-ISSN: 1839-4205 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/10383441.2019.1670605 |
| OpenAlex | W2982654188 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 14 |
This essay reads ‘The Buribunks’ as a biopolitical parody of the Hegelian dialectic. Schmitt tells us that the essence of the Buribunk is the fact that they keep a diary. For the Buribunks, this is a means of realising reason in History and through it, they become the instruments of World-Spirit. Yet the ‘noble realm’ that emerges when the Buribunks overcome the Master-Slave relationship looks more like the world of biopolitical management that we find in Foucault, than the victory of freedom and equality that, according to Hegel, characterises the post-historical state. I also argue that Schmitt's story speaks directly to some of the fundamental problems of our digital era: like the Buribunk, the digital subject enables an apparatus of surveillance by voluntarily recording the minute details of their life; the vast archive this produces then deprives the subject of the comforts offered by the myths of progressivism
Aesthetics · Art · Biopower · Dialectic · Epistemology · Hegelianism · Literature · Political science · Politics · Progressivism · Purgatory · Realm · Sociology · State (computer science · Subject (documents · Victory · Computer Science · Cybernetics and Technology in Society · Law · Philosophy · Political Theology and Sovereignty · Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, and Politics
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |