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The Transparency Society

  • Book
  • 2012
  • #Philosophy #Sociology
Byung-Chul Han
@ByungChulHan
(Author)
www.goodreads.com
Paperback
4.3/5 41 ratings
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3.95/5 226 ratings
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Transparency is the order of the day. It is a term, a slogan, that dominates public discourse about corruption and freedom of information. Considered crucial to democracy, it touche... Show More

Transparency is the order of the day. It is a term, a slogan, that dominates public discourse about corruption and freedom of information. Considered crucial to democracy, it touches our political and economic lives as well as our private lives. Anyone can obtain information about anything. Everything—and everyone—has become transparent: unveiled or exposed by the apparatuses that exert a kind of collective control over the post-capitalist world.

Yet, transparency has a dark side that, ironically, has everything to do with a lack of mystery, shadow, and nuance. Behind the apparent accessibility of knowledge lies the disappearance of privacy, homogenization, and the collapse of trust. The anxiety to accumulate ever more information does not necessarily produce more knowledge or faith. Technology creates the illusion of total containment and the constant monitoring of information, but what we lack is adequate interpretation of the information. In this manifesto, Byung-Chul Han denounces transparency as a false ideal, the strongest and most pernicious of our contemporary mythologies.

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Number of Pages: 72

ISBN: 080479460X

ISBN-13: 9780804794602

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Nicolás Boullosa @faircompanies · Feb 6, 2023
  • Answered to What is the best essay, or book, on privacy in our digital age that you’ve read?
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Philosophical perspective (and a non-pandering one, for that matter): "The Transparency Society" by Byung-Chul Han
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  • Nicholas Thompson
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    What is the best essay, or book, on privacy in our digital age that you’ve read?
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