The Will to Technology and the Culture of Nihilism: Heidegger, Marx, and Nietzsche Book

Nietzsche, Marx, and Heidegger'although unlikely as a political or aesthetic combination'are critically appreciated in The Will to Technology as three cultural "trauma theorists" in advance of the 21st Century. Arthur Kroker's book is a transdisciplinary meditation on the genetic, biological, and emerging technologies, with human flesh "disappearing into" technological-being as the Ariadne's thread winding through and connecting their life's work. In addition to interpreting each author through other writings by the same author, this exegesis reads Heidegger, Nietzsche and Marx through and alongside writings of all three authors, together, as stand-ins and interpreters of each other, and as "perspectival simulacra" (78) of one another. Kroker repeatedly makes use of a "recombinant" DNA metaphor from the life sciences. In the context of critical digital studies this refers to more than a postmodern pastiche effect. It also refers to the "cutting and splicing" [1] of the material and analog surplus as they disappear and reassemble in virtual and digital forms. The author's cutting and splicing of the trauma theorists is a recombinant-style reading too, which makes this book a rich and uniquely chimerical consideration of the question of technology.

Review of this book published in The Agonist Journal on my blog here: