The New Digital Cartesianism: Bodies and Spaces in Online Education

Abstract

Part of the Philosophy of Education Yearbook 2002. Despite similarities with Descartes's idealized disembodied thinking self, online users in a digital culture do not transcend the body but merely reinvoke it in stereotyped ways. The enlightenment man of reason has allegedly morphed into the neo-Liberal autonomous individual, whose online, disembodied presence fulfills Descartes's dream because of the alleged insignificance of the body to online interactions; the freedom, autonomy, and private interiority allowed by digital control; and the equation of existence with the rational consciousness of pure mind interacting with other minds. However, in reality, in online environments, difference is reductively defined by neo-Liberal definitions of the self; little evidence exists to suggest that users engage with differences of race, class, gender, or sexual orientation beyond their stereotyped conception; and in educational spaces, there is limited potential for the deep engagement and dialogue required for transformation. The implications of digital Cartesianism for online education are discussed.