Scott M Lash 
Intensive Culture [EPUB ebook] 
Social Theory, Religion & Contemporary Capitalism

Contemporary culture, today′s capitalism – our global information society – is ever expanding, is ever more
extensive. And yet we seem to be experiencing a parallel phenomenon which can only be characterised as
intensive. This thought provoking, innovative book is dedicated to the study of such intensive culture. Whilst extensive culture is a culture of the same: a culture of fixed
equivalence; intensive culture is a culture of
difference, of
in-equivalence – the singular. Intensities generate what we encounter. They are virtuals or possibilities, always in process and always in movement.

We thus live in a culture that is both extensive and intensive. Indeed the more globally stretched and extensive social relations become the more they simultaneously seem to take on this intensity. Ours is a relational world where each intensity ? whether human, technological or biological ? provides a distinct, specific window onto the whole.

Lash tracks the emergence and pervasion of this intensive culture in society, religion, philosophy, language, communications, politics and the neo-liberal economy itself.

In so doing he redefines the work of Leibniz, Benjamin, Simmel, and Durkheim and inititates the reader into the ontological structures of our contemporary social relations. In the pursuit of intensive culture the reader is taken on an excursion from Karl Marx′s Capital to the ′information theology′ in the science fiction of Philip K. Dick.

Diverse, engaging and rich in detail the resulting book will be of interest to all those studying social and cultural theory, sociology, media and communication and cultural studies

表中的内容

Introduction

Culture: Extensive and Intensive

What is Intensive Culture?

Ontology and Religion

Overview

Social Theory

Intensive Sociology: Georg Simmel′s Vitalism

Forms: From Cognitive a priori to Social a priori

Value: Nietzsche and Simmel

Social substance: from Labour to Life

Monadology: Simmel, Bergson, Metaphysics

Conclusions: Towards a Global Politics of Flux

Intensive Philosophy: Leibniz and the Ontology of Difference

Leibniz, Aristotle, Ontology

Sensation, Perception, Knowledge

Intensive Causation

Language: Intrinsic Predication

Substance and System: From Exchange of Equivalents to Exchange of Difference

Intensive Language: Benjamin, God and the Name

Leibniz and Benjamin: From the Monad to the Word

Intensive Method: From Epistemology to Truth

Language: Things, Man and God

Intensive Capitalism: Marxist Ontology

Introduction: From Commodity to Difference

Causation and value: Aristotle and Marx

Externalities: Intensive Capitalism and Neo-Liberalism

Financialization

The Intensive-material: Machines of Predication

Intensive Politics: Power after Hegemony

Language: Power becomes Ontological

Two Types of Power

From Norm to Fact

From Representation to Communication

Cultural Studies: First and Second Wave

Intensive Religion: Emile Durkheim′s Elementary Forms

The Soul: From Rite and Totem to Myth and Ancestor

The Totem: Clan and Emblem

Alimentary Communion

Totemic Vitalism: Durkheim and Freud

Extensive Religion:
Sociological Categories

The Social Fact: Metaphysical Things

Information Theology: Philip K. Dick′s Will to Knowledge

Transmigration

(a) Faith versus knowledge

(b) Dick′s St. Paul: Against Law and the Messianic

(c) Christ′s mushroom: Salvation by Eating

(d) Vast Active Living Intelligence System

The Gnosticism of Philip K. Dick

Horselover Fat: Healing the Subject


Valis: The Movie

Conclusions

Intensity: Ontology and Religion

Intensity′s Outside: Chinese Social Theory?

关于作者

Professor Scott Lash is the Director of the Centre for Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths College, as well as a a project leader in the Goldsmiths Media Research Programme. He is a leading name within sociology and cultural studies, has written numerous books and articles over the last twenty years, and is currently the managing editor for the journal Theory, Culture and Society.