The Limits of Communication: Jodi Dean in Guernica

In Jodi Dean’s upcoming manifesto, The Communist Horizon, she examines the experiences of the Occupy movement and urges the left to end its accommodation of capitalism and collectively plan how to shape a world that we already make in common.

But in an era when liking a Facebook post or retweeting a link has become an easy substitution for activism, how can we take meaningful action against neoliberalism? In this new excerpt in Guernica from The Communist Horizon, Jodi Dean spells out the dangers of TMI ("too much information") introduced by today's communications technology.

She writes:

Networked information technologies have been the means through which people have been subjected to the competitive intensity of neoliberal capitalism. Enthusiastically participating in personal and social media—I have broadband at home! My new tablet lets me work anywhere! With my smartphone, I always know what’s going on!—we build the trap that captures us, a trap that extends beyond global use of mobile phones and participation in social networks to encompass the production of these phones and the hardware necessary to run these networks.

Visit Guernica to read the excerpt in full.