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Although we cannot exist without communicating, there is no communication without moments of its absence. We are liable to experience misunderstandings, uncertainty, or ambiguity whenever we speak to others. This is where the hard fact of otherness arises. This otherness constitutes a complex, exhilarating challenge, both for human experience and social reality. It cannot be overcome by the technological tools that today are nearly always at our disposal. This is because information and communication technologies (ICTs) divide us just as much as they unite us, in spite of the promises made in so many “techno-discourses.” Indeed, the virtues of the ubiquity and proximity of digital technology are extolled at a massive scale in the hypermodern era. The language of presence and proximity speaks volumes about an age dominated by the fear of emptiness, aimlessness, and uncertainty. Interpersonal technology is thus looked to as a means of alleviating absence.
However, the impression of being in close virtual contact with one another does not address the distance that always separates us from the Other. Paradoxically, this is where we experience the richness of coexistence, which encourages us to constantly appreciate the differences in meaning that arise when we communicate. In the end, meanings rarely coincide, and the risk of misunderstanding is always present. Distance is an undeniable feature of human experience and its flavor. Emmanuel Levinas underscores this ethical dimension of existence when he considers the disparities present in any interpersonal interaction…

English

We are liable to experience misunderstandings, uncertainty, or ambiguity whenever we speak to others. This is where the hard fact of otherness arises. This otherness constitutes a complex, exhilarating challenge, both for human experience and social reality. It cannot be overcome by the technological tools that today are nearly always at our disposal. This is because information and communication technologies (ICTs) divide us just as much as they unite us. The impression of being in close virtual contact with one another does not address the distance that always separates us from the Other. The search for transparency in communication only accentuates serious contradictions that may bring about situations of a-communication. Recognizing these tensions should encourage us to work toward establishing the conditions of good telecommunicational action by separating the communicational impulse from the need for recognition that is inherent in the act of speech.

  • communication
  • idealism
  • AI
  • incommunicability
  • recognition
  • technological time
  • others
  • hyperconnectivity
  • impatience
  • ICT
Pierre-Antoine Chardel
Pierre-Antoine Chardel is a philosopher and sociologist. He is a professor at the Institut Mines-Télécom Business School (IMT-BS), a visiting researcher at MédiaLab/Sciences Po Paris and a researcher at the Institut interdisciplinaire d’anthropologie du contemporain (IIAC / LACI, UMR 8177, CNRS / EHESS) (Interdisciplinary Institute of Contemporary Anthropology). His published works include Zygmunt Bauman. Les illusions perdues de la modernité (Paris: CNRS Editions, 2013), Politiques sécuritaires et surveillance numérique, ed. (Paris: CNRS Editions, 2014), Datalogie. Formes et imaginaires du numérique, ed. with Olaf Avenati (Paris: Loco, 2016) and L’empire du signal. De l’écrit aux écrans (Paris: CNRS Editions, 2020)
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