The Political Economy of Attention in the Age of Technocapitalism: Reconsidering Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) through Bernard Stiegler's Philosophy
Subject Areas :
Ali Vahdati Daneshmand
1
,
Mohammad َAmiri
2
1 -
2 - Department of Education, Faculty of Governance, Shahed university, Tehran, Iran
Keywords: Bernard Stiegler, attention, pharmakon, digital capitalism, cognitive proletarianization, education,
Abstract :
The proliferation of digital technologies and the emergence of the political economy of attention have transformed attention from a psychological phenomenon into a philosophical, educational, and political concern. This article seeks to explain the contemporary crisis of attention in the age of digital capitalism—a condition that is often interpreted within psychological and biological frameworks as Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD/ADHD)—through the theoretical perspective of Bernard Stiegler. It examines Stiegler's philosophy as a framework for understanding the relationship between technology, education, and technologically mediated processes of individuation. Employing conceptual analysis and documentary research, the study reconstructs and analyzes the central concepts of Stiegler's thought, including pharmakon, attention, care, grammatisation, transindividuation, and proletarianization, and explores their educational implications. The findings suggest that, for Stiegler, technology functions as a pharmakon, simultaneously possessing both therapeutic and destructive potentials. Under the dominance of platform capitalism and the political economy of attention, however, its destructive dimension has prevailed through the industrial capture of attention, the erosion of intergenerational transmission, the degradation of reflective and critical capacities, and ultimately the emergence of cognitive proletarianization. Consequently, educational institutions have increasingly lost their fundamental role in cultivating deep attention, transmitting cultural heritage, and fostering processes of individuation. In response, the article argues that activating the therapeutic potential of the pharmakon requires reconstructing institutions of care, strengthening nootechnics, redesigning educational policies, and redirecting digital technologies toward the cultivation of knowledge, deep attention, and collective responsibility.
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