2024 Annual Conference of the International Society of Public Law
IE University
Madrid, Spain
Wednesday, 10 July, 2024
11h00-12h30
Classroom 11.01 | Floor 11
Book Roundtable on The Postmodern Predicament: Existential Challenges of the Twenty-First Century (Bruce Ackerman | Yale University Press, April 2024)
Participants
+ Bruce Ackerman | Yale University
+ Richard Albert | The University of Texas at Austin
+ Marta Cartabia | Università Bocconi
+ Victor Ferreres Comella | Universitat Pompeu Fabra
+ Dieter Grimm | Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin
+ Daniela Salazar Marín | Corte Constitucional del Ecuador
About the Book
Human beings have taken one thing for granted since our earliest days: we are bodily creatures dealing with one another on a face-to-face basis. The internet has shattered this fundamental feature of human existence. We are suddenly living our lives in two worlds at once—shifting endlessly from virtual to physical reality as we reach out to others.
Worse yet, we are developing different personal identities in our two worlds. We say and do things in virtual reality that flatly contradict our face-to-face commitments to family, friends, and fellow-workers—and vice versa. The Postmodern Predicament explores these dilemmas at each phase of the life cycle, beginning at the moment a young child picks up a cell phone.
The existentialist tradition of the twentieth century provides a precious perspective on our postmodern dilemmas. Thinkers and doers like Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre considered the fragmentation of modern life as a central source of contemporary anxieties. Like them, Ackerman views the challenges of the internet age as a political, no less than personal, problem—and proposes concrete reforms that could mobilize broad-based support for democracy against demagogic assaults on its very foundations.
IE University
Madrid, Spain
Wednesday, 10 July, 2024
11h00-12h30
Classroom 11.01 | Floor 11
Book Roundtable on The Postmodern Predicament: Existential Challenges of the Twenty-First Century (Bruce Ackerman | Yale University Press, April 2024)
Participants
+ Bruce Ackerman | Yale University
+ Richard Albert | The University of Texas at Austin
+ Marta Cartabia | Università Bocconi
+ Victor Ferreres Comella | Universitat Pompeu Fabra
+ Dieter Grimm | Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin
+ Daniela Salazar Marín | Corte Constitucional del Ecuador
About the Book
Human beings have taken one thing for granted since our earliest days: we are bodily creatures dealing with one another on a face-to-face basis. The internet has shattered this fundamental feature of human existence. We are suddenly living our lives in two worlds at once—shifting endlessly from virtual to physical reality as we reach out to others.
Worse yet, we are developing different personal identities in our two worlds. We say and do things in virtual reality that flatly contradict our face-to-face commitments to family, friends, and fellow-workers—and vice versa. The Postmodern Predicament explores these dilemmas at each phase of the life cycle, beginning at the moment a young child picks up a cell phone.
The existentialist tradition of the twentieth century provides a precious perspective on our postmodern dilemmas. Thinkers and doers like Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre considered the fragmentation of modern life as a central source of contemporary anxieties. Like them, Ackerman views the challenges of the internet age as a political, no less than personal, problem—and proposes concrete reforms that could mobilize broad-based support for democracy against demagogic assaults on its very foundations.