Politics and Self in the Age of Digital (Re)producibility

Abstract

The paper advances a central theme: there is a dialectic of in/dividuality present in the conjuncture of globalizing capitalism and liberal-democratic policies. The relationships that reduce us as separate selves to digitally mediated signifiers and that "reproduce" those signifiers as dividuals also provide the potential for resistance against the oppressions resulting from digital re(pro)ducibility. Specifically, the very digitality that engenders oppression also gives rise to, and facilitates the practices of, new forms of opposition to the globalizing forces themselves. Accordingly, we also will have the opportunity to exercise reason in the promotion of the social good. We might be able thereby to practice the autonomy of reason so often touted in traditional conceptions of individuality. Herein the dynamics of in/dividuality will be examined with regard to cyberspace, at once a digitally created environment of the Internet as well as a vital terrain of resistance in the 21st century.