Heidegger, Habermas and the Mobile Phone (eBook)
George Myerson
Move over e-commerce, mantra of the late twentieth century; welcome m-commerce, catchword of the new millennium! Everyone remembers "It's good to talk", the cosy slogan of the mobile at the end of the last century. But now, we are witnessing a global campaign to re-promote the mobile: credit card, internet link, e mail port and, if you still have time, voice-mail junction. By 2003, we are told, there will be 900 million internet-connected mobiles."This Postmodern Encounter" gives the gist of the massive campaign to 'mobilise' the globe, and asks the urgent question: what is happening to the idea of 'communication'? Key thinkers of the twentieth century offer an essential alternative to these new doctrines of m-communication: Martin Heidegger, who saw humanity as 'the entity which talks' and Jurgen Habermas, current-day advocate of authentic communication. This is a close encounter between alien visions of communication, and between the utopianism of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
