Oliver Bruns
Carl von Ossietzky Universität,Oldenburg - Germany
Oliver Bruns (1980) studied Political Science and History. He is research assistant (Wissenschaftlicher Assistent) at the Institute for Social Science and staff member at the Hannah Arendt-Archive of the Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg. Areas of interest: political theory of Hannah Arendt, philosophy and history of Human Rights, philosophy of Martin Heidegger. Current publication: A. Grunenberg/W. Meints/O. Bruns/Chr. Harckensee (ed.): Perspektiven Politischen Denkens. Zum 100. Geburtstag von Hannah Arendt, Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 2008.
Articles of Oliver Bruns
Das ’Ende der Politik’ in der Kulturphilosophie Vilém Flussers
In my contribution I try to work out the political implications of Flusserian thought. I show first that the beginning of post-history, which Flusser himself does not date precisely, should be determined from a political point of view - Auschwitz. For Flusser, as well as for the political philosopher Hannah Arendt, Auschwitz presented a breach with the Western tradition. But, opposed to Arendt, Flusser states that the breach of tradition in a sense continues, and the renewal of the political space, considered possible by Arendt, becomes increasingly impossible with the impact of the technical pictures. The forecast of the „death of the politics‟ is explained by Flusser with the fact that a specific political difference, namely that of public and private space, has become fragile because of the communication revolution. To preserve the freedom and dignity of the human being in post-history, the lost balance of dialogue and discourse, according to Flusser, has to be restored and an „installation of the apparatus-totalitarianism‟ has to be prevented. Finally, I close with a short reflection about how Flusser‟s theory of the telematic society can be understood as an answer to the menace of the political in modern society, as it was assumed by Arendt in Vita activa.