Insecurity, Experience, and Imagination: Contemporary Visual-Technological Society and the Question of Freedom

Abstract

In post-traditional societies such as today’s, social change and the dynamics of the intertwining of phenomena are essentially driven by the technological factor. Technological progress has a characteristic that extends to all the fields with which it comes into contact: the ability to control its internal processes without being able to control the purpose of its action, since this is precisely the quest for technical perfection.

This chapter crosses the concepts implied in the intertwining of the sense of insecurity and the overexposure to technical images typical of the visual society in the work of H. Marcuse, W. Benjamin, and J. Baudrillard, just to name a few.

The objective of this chapter is to explore the dynamics occurring between three crucial aspects of the transformation taking place in contemporary societies that produce forms of insecurity and eventual other outcomes. The following aspects are of particular relevance in the context of the discussion: first, technical progress as the core of a lack of orienting values; second, the visual society as the problematic core of a society incapable of personal reflexivity and critical thinking; and third, the progressive loss of democracy in social dynamics on the basis of collective disorientation and a progressive unconscious loss of freedom.