The Transparency Society

By: translated by Erik Butler and Byung-Chul Han

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Synopsis: Transparency is the order of the day. It is a term, a slogan, that dominates public discourse about corruption and freedom of information. Considered crucial to democracy, it touches our political and economic lives as well as our private lives. Anyone can obtain information about anything. Everything--and everyone--has become transparent: unveiled or exposed by the apparatuses that exert a kind of collective control over the post-capitalist world. For transparency has a dark side that, ironically, it has everything to do with a lack of mystery, shadow, and nuance. Behind the apparent accessibility of knowledge lies the disappearance of privacy, homogenization, and the collapse of trust. The anxiety to accumulate ever more information does not necessarily produce more knowledge or faith. Technology creates the illusion of total containment and constant monitoring of information, but what we lack is adequate interpretation of the information. In this manifesto, Byung-Chul Han denounces transparency as a false ideal, the strongest and most pernicious of our contemporary mythologies.

Book Quality:: Publisher Quality
ISBN-13:: 9780804797511
Related ISBNs:: 9780804794602
Publisher:: Stanford University Press
Date of Addition:: 05/17/17
Copyrighted By:: Stanford University Press
Adult content:: No
Language:: English
Has Image Descriptions:: No
Categories:: Nonfiction, Computers and Internet, Politics and Government, Sociology
Submitted By:: Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:: This is a copyrighted book.