La
planète hyper. De la pensée
linéaire à la pensée
en arabesque
by Hervé Fischer
VLD Editeur, Montréal, Canada,
2004
304 pp. Paper, $26.95
ISBN: 2-89005-859-X.
Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen
Hogeschool Gent
Jan Delvinlaan 115, 9000 Gent, Belgium
stefaan.vanryssen@pandora.be
La planète hyper (Hyperplanet.
From linear thought to arabesque thought,
my translation) is the third in a series
of philosophical essays by Hervé
Fischer about the effects of the digital
on society and philosophy. In 'Le Choc
du Numérique' (The shock of
the digital, 2001) he tried to take
stock of what counts as the digital revolution,
and in Cyberprométhée (CyberPrometheus,
2003) he focussed on how our understanding
of what it is to be human may have changed.
Throughout these books the author has
made a point of developing a critical
perspective, presuming that his readers
share his fascination for the newly emerging
technologies of the last decades
According to Fischer, Western modernist
thought combated obscurantism by using
the "trilogy" of realism, rationalism
and humanism as an aggressive armour.
Realism opposes and opposed nominalism
and idealism and laid the foundation of
a scientific representation of the world.
Rationalism replaces and replaced beliefs
and scholasticism in philosophy, and humanism
tried to overrule religiously-inspired
ethics. This triad appears to be in crisis,
and the rise of the digital is at least
instrumental in its demise. At the same
time, an opportunity to find footing for
an new philosophy presents itself. The
passage from the analog to the digital
marks the dematerialization of realism
by presenting the world as a vast web
of hyperlinks. Rationalism has reached
the end of its breakdown in the complexity
of the sciences and the science of complexity
while postrationalism emerges as a way
of thinking in connections and arabesques.
Linear thought no longer suffices. Meandering
thoughts and strengthened associations,
gathering weight as they are used and
reused will become the basic instruments
of philosophy. And humanism, dangerously
losing credibility, is threatened by the
double utopias of technoscience and posthumanism.
'La planète hyper' or the hyperplanet
is also the realm of otherworldness ("altermondialisation"),
where individuals and societies have learned
to live and thrive together instead of
fighting cold wars and wars of terror.
This essay is an analysis of the rise
of modernism and its crisis in face of
the realities of the twenty-first century
as well as an exploration of possible
solutions. Fischer thinks that by incorporating
the strengths of the information age——Castells
and Giddens are never far away——modernism
may evolve into some new world view, combining
a metaphysics of hyperlinks, the logic
of fuzziness, paradoxes and multiple values
and a meta——or hyperethics based
on the connectedness of individuals within
emerging newly defined communities. He
fails however to substantiate his grand
view of a new triad. While reading, I
kept thinking "yes, but how?"
What is the added value of this new philosophy?
Why would it stand up against the forces
that have undermined modernism, and how
would it, if even partially successful,
change the lives of the TV-watching, perpetually
consuming or hungering masses who are
gradually miring in the swamps of particularism
and fundamentalism. In this sense, Fischer's
tone of "dismal optimism" reminds
me sometimes of the web-cult magazine
Wired, even though the language
is much more erudite and its references
are way more classical.
