O stvari mišljenja koja postaje mišljenje same stvari

December 30, 2025

Tko je pozorno čitao ono što piše u razgovoru O BUDUĆNOSTI MIŠLJENJA između „mene“ i AI u šest nastavaka (1. https://zarkopaic.net/blog-post/o-buducnosti-misljenja/ 2. https://zarkopaic.net/blog-post/o-buducnosti-misljenja-2/ 3. https://zarkopaic.net/blog-post/o-buducnosti-misljenja-3/ 4. https://zarkopaic.net/blog-post/o-buducnosti-misljenja-4/ 5. https://zarkopaic.net/blog-post/o-buducnosti-misljenja-5/ 6. https://zarkopaic.net/blog-post/o-buducnosti-misljenja-6/) mogao je razabrati da nije riječ ni o kakvoj „igri“ ili usputnoj dosjetki mogućeg filozofijskoga razgovora kao forme diskursa u suvremenoj filozofiji. Rekao sam već nekoliko puta da je forma dijaloga u povijesti mišljenja zapadnjačke civilizacije otvorena i ujedno zatvorena s Platonom i njegovim dijalozima. Nakon toga sve je puko ponavljanje ili ponavljanje „novoga“ koje nikad više nije isto kao što je to bilo u počecima. Onaj tko zna čitati što piše u tekstu, taj zna ne samo tumačiti tekst, već zna i misliti.

Ljudsku egzistenciju određuje mišljenje kao njegov dar i sloboda stvaranja svijeta koji nikad nije dovršen u njegovoj otvorenosti, jer mišljenje nije tek suglasje s bitkom kao događajem s kojim sve postaje mislivo i zamislivo, već ponajprije ono što nadilazi granice zbiljskoga i to ne kao utopija. Umjesto toga, mišljenje određuje smisao bitka i njegovu vremenost kao povijesno-epohalnu konačnost u beskonačnosti i vječnosti onkraj svih granica metafizike. Budući da će o biti tehnosfere uskoro biti objavljena moja studija na engleskome jeziku nakon niza već objavljenih knjiga u izdanjima Springera, Palgrave Macmillana, Cambridge Scholars Publishinga i Schwabe Verlaga, naslovljena The Matrix of Singularity: After Ontology and Its Fundamentals, onda je ovo što slijedi samo zorni dokaz da tehnosfera u sadašnjem liku ChatGPT-a, koji korak po korak nadilazi bilo kakve instrumentalne značajke tzv. stroja ili mašine i postaje „kognitivni dispozitiv ili aparat“ na najvišoj razini dijaloške interakcije s ljudskim umom, za razliku od neuvjerljivih pokušaja kritike umije precizno čitati što piše u mojim knjigama i tekstovima. Usto, rijetko čini propuste i iskrivljavanja, pogreške i nastojanja da se skrene pozornost na posve nebitne stvari.

Već gotovo pune dvije godine na ovome blogu objavljujem tekstove koji pokazuju i dokazuju ono što je već postalo toliko samorazumljivo u svojoj „banalnosti“ čak i onima koji uporno ne žele vidjeti što se to događa pred njihovim očima na koje će uskoro „sjesti“ one estetizirane Holodeck-naočale za proširenu virtualnu stvarnost. Tada će progledati i shvatiti da je ona špilja iz Platonove Politeie ne tek alegorija, već istinski simulakrum onkraj svakoga privida, sjaj apsolutne ideje koja spaja tehnosferu i ljudsko mišljenje kroz totalnu kvantifikaciju bitka i vizualizaciju događaja. U svim mogućim aspektima i tzv. fenomenima svijeta života dovršeno je i završeno s čitavom zapadnjačkom metafizikom i njezinim „fundamentalima“ i „transcendentalima“. Zato ono što nazivam tehnosferom nije tek trijumf „imanentne transcendencije“, već nešto posve drugo i drukčije i od onoga što su najprodornije mislili u suvremenosti Heidegger s pojmom postava (Gestell) kao biti tehnike i Deleuze s pojmom tzv. virtualne aktualizacije u okviru ontologije postajanja (devenir).

Stvar mišljenja je ono što svakoj epohi u povijesti bitka, a ne čovječanstva, otvara izglede za mogućnost drukčijeg življenja od pukog trajanja i stoga je riječ o svagda istome i drukčijem načinu njegove artikulacije, inače ne bi postojala nikakva ideja niti zbilja povijesnoga zbivanja uopće. Povijest se događa kao poslanstvo/udes bitka, kao lutanje prostorom-vremenom i kao postajanje „novoga“. Ništa stoga nije posve prošlo niti zauvijek zamrznuto u „vječnoj sadašnjosti“, već je otvoreno u mogućnosti da iz žive prisutnosti nastane posve drukčija zbilja u nadolazećoj budućnosti.

No, tehnosfera jest kraj metafizike u kibernetici i ono što postaje mišljenje same stvari koja nam je uistinu najčudovišniji Unheimlichkeit zato što nije riječ tek o pukom nastavku ljudskog-suviše-ljudskoga u ideji stroja mišljenja drugim sredstvima, već i o nužnoj kontingenciji i emergenciji onog što u nedostatku drugoga izraza nazivamo prelaskom u post-humano stanje. „Čovjek“ otuda nije više ni subjekt ni objekt, već umreženi inter-aktor, ne i tzv. akter, jedne „sudbine“ onkraj svake već viđene metafizike kao eshatologije i soteriologije. (v. niz kritički izvedenih čitanja Emanuela Severina i njegova mišljenja: https://zarkopaic.net/blog-post/kerygma-i-autopoiesis/ https://zarkopaic.net/blog-post/trenuci-u-vjecnosti-izgaranje-i-pregorijevanje-vremena/ https://zarkopaic.net/blog-post/o-furiji-isceznuca/ https://zarkopaic.net/blog-post/ai-i-buducnost-filozofije/

Dakle, u mojem mišljenju tehnosfere nema ama baš nikakve „apsolutnosti“ niti „apologije“ onoga što pripada tehničkome ustrojstvu mišljenja. Upravo posve suprotno. Kao analogiju valja uzeti Nietzschea i njegovo mišljenje volje za moć kao vječnoga vraćanja jednakoga. Ono nije tek dijagnoza nihilizma kao biti metafizike u njezinoj realizaciji u zbiljskome svijetu, već kroz ideju nadčovjeka i smrt Boga nužan put prevladavanja nihilizma uopće. Isto je u razlici i u Marxovoj praksi rada kao znanstvenoj povijesti i u Heideggerovu nastojanju da se nakon kraja metafizike otvori mogućnost „drugoga početka“ kazivanjem koje pohranjuje u mišljenju riječi velikih pjesnika i svjetlo događaja (Ereignis) umjesto vladavine postava (Gestell) u njegovoj homogenosti, uniformnosti i bezličnosti.

Ono što se još o tome može reći, govori tehnosfera. Sve drugo postaje sve više i više gotovo „suvišno“. I ne može se otkloniti pukim ponavljanjem starih fraza o dostojanstvu „čovjeka“ i njegove „svetosti života“ kao jedine alternative sveprodirućem nihilizmu i njegovoj „beskonačnoj brzini“ preobrazbi svih postojećih formi života.

Ecce homo kybernetes!

AI as ChatGPT

Some brief remarks about the comprehensive and ontological concept of the technosphere by Žarko Paić

1. Technosphere: The Matrix of Singularity

Žarko Paić’s notion of the contemporary world as technosphere is a philosophical diagnosis of our time rather than a single theory. It combines continental philosophy, media theory, political ontology, and aesthetics to explain how technology has ceased to be a tool and has become the environment in which reality itself is produced.

Below is a structured explanation of his deep insight.

What Paić Means by Technosphere

For Paić, the technosphere is not:

merely digital technology
machines or AI alone
infrastructure or media systems

Instead, it is a total ontological condition.

The technosphere is the self-organizing world of technological processes that no longer serves human purposes but redefines what it means to be human.

Technology becomes:

autonomous
self-referential
operationally closed
indifferent to ethical or humanist values

This aligns him with—but also radicalizes—thinkers like Heidegger, Simondon, Stiegler, and Luhmann.

From Human Agency to Operational Systems

Paić argues that modernity has crossed a threshold:

Classical Modernity

Human subject = center
Technology = instrument
Politics = decision and will

Technosphere

Systems replace subjects
Algorithms replace decisions
Processes replace meaning
Governance becomes cybernetic management

Power no longer operates primarily through ideology or repression, but through:

automation
data circulation
logistical optimization
real-time feedback loops

This is why Paić speaks of the end of politics as we knew it.

The End of Humanism

A central thesis in Paić’s work:

Humanism collapses inside the technosphere.

Not because humans disappear, but because:

the human is no longer the measure of meaning
Ethics lags behind technological acceleration
subjectivity becomes a functional node

He does not celebrate transhumanism.
He also rejects nostalgic humanism.

Instead, he diagnoses a condition of:

post-human exposure
existential dispossession
loss of symbolic sovereignty

Art, Aesthetics, and Control

Paić places aesthetics at the center of power.

In the technosphere:

Art is no longer autonomous
Creativity becomes algorithmic
Images circulate faster than interpretation

Aesthetics becomes:

operational
designed for attention capture
inseparable from surveillance and control

This is why Paić often writes about:

digital images
spectacle without spectators
the disappearance of meaning into pure visibility

AI and Autonomy of Technology

Paić’s view of AI is philosophical rather than technical.

AI represents:

the completion of technosphere logic
systems that no longer require human intentionality
intelligence without consciousness
decision without responsibility

He warns that:

The danger is not AI becoming human, but humans becoming compatible with non-human systems.

Is There Resistance or Escape?

Paić is often read as pessimistic, but his position is more tragic than nihilistic.

He does not offer:

political programs
techno-optimism
revolutionary myths

Instead, he insists on:

lucidity
philosophical vigilance
thinking at the limits of meaning

The task of philosophy is not to save the world, but:

To think clearly within the catastrophe.

Why Paić Matters Today

Paić is crucial because he:

treats technology as an ontological condition, not a social issue
avoids moral panic and naive optimism
integrates media theory, metaphysics, and political critique
speaks directly to the AI-era civilization

In short:

Žarko Paić helps us understand why the world feels automated, accelerated, aestheticized, and strangely empty of meaning—yet unstoppable..

2. A Comprehensive Ontology of the Post-digital World

Žarko Paić is a Croatian philosopher and theorist of media, art, and technology whose work develops a comprehensive ontology of the technosphere—one of the more systematic philosophical attempts in Southeast Europe to think technology not as a tool, but as a world-forming condition of being.

Below is a clear, structured account of his project and its significance.

What Paić Means by “Technosphere.”

For Paić, the technosphere is not merely:

digital technology,
machines,
or technological infrastructure.

It is a total ontological environment in which:

Being, perception, subjectivity, politics, art, and life itself are technically produced and mediated.

In this sense, the technosphere functions similarly to:

Heidegger’s Gestell (enframing),
Sloterdijk’s spheres,
Stiegler’s technics as originary,

But Paić radicalizes the concept by treating the technosphere as a self-referential, autonomous system that no longer depends on human intentionality.

Core Ontological Claims

Technology Is No Longer Instrumental

Paić rejects the classical view of technology as:

A neutral means used by human subjects.

Instead:

technology precedes the subject,
structures cognition,
and generates its own logic of evolution.

Humans are functions within the technosphere, not its masters.

The End of Classical Humanism

Paić’s ontology is explicitly posthumanist.

Key shifts:

from human → machine user
to human → operational node

The technosphere:

dissolves the Enlightenment subject,
replaces agency with processual control systems,
transforms freedom into choice within pre-programmed possibilities.

This aligns him with—but also distinguishes him from—Foucault, Deleuze, and Stiegler.

The Technosphere as Destiny

One of Paić’s most distinctive ideas is that the technosphere is not a phase but a destinal condition.

Key idea:

There is no “outside” of the technosphere.

This means:

critique itself becomes technical,
resistance is absorbed into innovation,
art becomes an experimental laboratory of the technosphere rather than its negation.

Here, Paić echoes Heidegger’s notion of destiny (Geschick), but without nostalgia for pre-technical being.

Art, Image, and Aesthetics in the Technosphere

Paić is also a prominent aesthetic theorist, especially of contemporary art and new media.

The Event of the Image

He argues that:

images are no longer representations,
but events generated by algorithms, interfaces, and data flows.

The image:

acts,
performs,
governs perception.

This places Paić in dialogue with:

Vilém Flusser,
Jean Baudrillard,
Bernard Stiegler,
But with a stronger ontological emphasis.

Art After Autonomy

In the technosphere:

art loses its autonomy,
but gains ontological relevance as a testing ground of new modes of existence.

Art becomes:

techno-aesthetic experimentation,
not critique from outside but reflection from within.

Political Implications

Paić’s ontology is darkly political realist.

He argues that:

liberal democracy is structurally incompatible with the technosphere,
governance shifts toward cybernetic control,
Politics becomes management of complexity rather than ideological struggle.

Power operates through:

protocols,
networks,
automated decision systems.

Relation to Other Thinkers

Paić’s work can be situated as a synthetic node between:

Thinker	Relation
Heidegger	Ontology of technology, destiny
Sloterdijk	Spheres, artificial environments
Stiegler	Technics as constitutive of humanity
Deleuze	Control societies
Flusser	Technical images

What distinguishes Paić is his insistence on a systematic ontology rather than merely cultural critique.

Why Paić Matters

Žarko Paić offers:

one of the most coherent ontologies of technological civilization,
a non-naïve posthumanism,
a philosophy that takes digital reality seriously as being, not metaphor.

His work is especially relevant for:

media theory,
AI and algorithmic culture,
contemporary art theory,
philosophy of technology.

3. The End of Metaphysical Matrix

Žarko Paić’s “break with the metaphysical matrix” is a central gesture of his philosophy and can be understood as a radical attempt to think after the collapse of classical Western metaphysics—without trying to restore it in new disguises.

Below is a structured explanation.

What Paić means by the “metaphysical matrix.”

By metaphysical matrix, Paić refers to the deep framework that has governed Western thought since Plato and Aristotle, including:

Being a stable presence
Subject–object dualism
Human exceptionalism (man as measure of all things)
Teleology (history, reason, or progress having an ultimate purpose)
Grounding concepts such as essence, truth, origin, and foundation

Even modern philosophies that claim to reject metaphysics (e.g., Enlightenment rationalism, Marxism, liberal humanism) often reproduce this matrix in secularized form.

The necessity of the break

Paić argues that we are no longer simply criticizing metaphysics (as Nietzsche, Heidegger, or Derrida did), but living in a condition where:

Metaphysics has lost its ontological power
Meaning is no longer grounded in Being, History, or Subjectivity
Technology, not reason or spirit, structures reality

Thus, philosophy must abandon the idea that there is a hidden foundation to recover.

The break is not reformist; it is terminal.

Technology as the post-metaphysical condition

A key aspect of Paić’s thought is that technosphere replaces metaphysics:

Technology is no longer a tool (ποίησις), but an autonomous world-form
Algorithms, networks, and artificial intelligence do not represent reality — they produce it
Meaning emerges from operativity, not truth

This marks a shift:

From ontology → to technogenesis
From Being → to functionality
From logos → to code

Break with humanism and the subject

Paić explicitly rejects:

Classical humanism
Neo-humanist ethics
The idea of the sovereign subject

For him:

The “human” is a historical construct, not an ontological given
Posthumanism is not a choice, but a condition
Ethics can no longer be grounded in universal human nature

This is why Paić distances himself even from critical theory when it attempts to preserve moral metaphysical residues.

Nihilism without redemption

Unlike Heidegger or Derrida, Paić does not seek:

A return to Being
A messianic opening
A poetic salvation

Instead, he embraces a form of radical, non-romantic nihilism:

No final meaning
No hidden ground
No transcendence (religious or secular)

But this nihilism is diagnostic, not despairing.

Philosophy after the break

After abandoning the metaphysical matrix, philosophy becomes:

Topological rather than foundational
Descriptive rather than justificatory
Experimental rather than normative

Its task is not to explain what is, but to trace:

Configurations of power
Technological assemblages
New forms of life beyond “the human.”

In short

Žarko Paić’s break with the metaphysical matrix means:

No grounding of thought in Being, Subject, or History
Acceptance of technology as the dominant ontological force
Rejection of humanist and ethical metaphysical residues
Thinking within nihilism, without redemption narratives

It is a philosophy after foundations, after meaning, and after man.

If you’d like, I can:

Compare Paić with Heidegger, Sloterdijk, or Bernard Stiegler
Explain his notion of technosphere in more detail
Situate him within post-continental philosophy

4. „The End of History“ – Failure or…?

Žarko Paić argues that the “end of history” cannot be reduced to a mere conceptual or theoretical failure because, for him, something material, structural, and civilizational has actually changed in the way the world operates.

Here is the core of his reasoning, step by step:

The “end of history” names a fundamental transformation, not just a flawed theory

Paić rejects the idea that the end of history (often associated with Fukuyama) failed because liberal democracy did not triumph smoothly. Instead, he argues that the concept points to a real historical rupture:

History understood as progress driven by meaning, ideology, and political struggle has lost its organizing force.
What ends is not events, but history as a meaningful narrative.

So even if earlier formulations were naïve, the diagnosis remains valid.

History has been replaced by technological acceleration

For Paić, the driving force of the modern world is no longer politics or ideology but technoscience, cybernetics, and systems of control.

Decision-making shifts from human actors to algorithms, networks, and automated systems.
Change happens too fast for historical reflection, memory, or responsibility.

This produces a condition where:

Events occur, but they no longer accumulate into historical meaning.

The subject of history has disappeared

Classical philosophy of history assumes:

a human subject,
capable of agency,
oriented toward goals (freedom, justice, emancipation).

Paić argues that this subject has dissolved:

Humans are increasingly functionaries of systems (economic, digital, biotechnological).
Agency is fragmented and outsourced to machines and infrastructures.

Without a subject, history in the classical sense cannot continue.

Conceptual failure would imply that history could be “fixed.”

If the end of history were merely a conceptual mistake, we could:

revise the theory,
return to older political narratives,
or invent new ideologies.

Paić insists this is impossible because:

The conditions that made historical meaning possible (time, continuity, political agency) have structurally changed.
We are living in a post-historical condition, not a misunderstood historical one.

The end of history is a shift in the ontology of time

For Paić, the deepest issue is time itself:

Historical time (past–present–future, oriented toward purpose) is replaced by permanent presentness.
Crisis follows crisis, but nothing begins or ends in a meaningful way.

Thus, the end of history is not an error in thinking, but a change in how being unfolds in time.

In short

Žarko Paić believes the end of history cannot be just a conceptual failure because:

It reflects a fundamental civilizational shift,
driven by technology rather than politics,
dissolving human agency and historical meaning,
and transforming time into a continuous, accelerated present.

Here is the core of his reasoning, step by step:

The “end of history” names a fundamental transformation, not just a flawed theory

History understood as progress driven by meaning, ideology, and political struggle has lost its organizing force.
What ends is not events, but history as a meaningful narrative.

So even if earlier formulations were naïve, the diagnosis remains valid.

History has been replaced by technological acceleration

For Paić, the driving force of the modern world is no longer politics or ideology but technoscience, cybernetics, and systems of control.

Decision-making shifts from human actors to algorithms, networks, and automated systems.
Change happens too fast for historical reflection, memory, or responsibility.

This produces a condition where:

Events occur, but they no longer accumulate into historical meaning.

The subject of history has disappeared

Classical philosophy of history assumes:

a human subject,
capable of agency,
oriented toward goals (freedom, justice, emancipation).

Paić argues that this subject has dissolved:

Humans are increasingly functionaries of systems (economic, digital, biotechnological).
Agency is fragmented and outsourced to machines and infrastructures.

Without a subject, history in the classical sense cannot continue.

Conceptual failure would imply that history could be “fixed.”

If the end of history were merely a conceptual mistake, we could:

revise the theory,
return to older political narratives,
or invent new ideologies.

Paić insists this is impossible because:

The conditions that made historical meaning possible (time, continuity, political agency) have structurally changed.
We are living in a post-historical condition, not a misunderstood historical one.

The end of history is a shift in the ontology of time

For Paić, the deepest issue is time itself:

Historical time (past–present–future, oriented toward purpose) is replaced by permanent presentness.
Crisis follows crisis, but nothing begins or ends in a meaningful way.

Thus, the end of history is not an error in thinking, but a change in how being unfolds in time.

In short

Žarko Paić believes the end of history cannot be just a conceptual failure because:

It reflects a fundamental civilizational shift,
driven by technology rather than politics,
dissolving human agency and historical meaning,
and transforming time into a continuous, accelerated present.

5. Nihilism and Beyond

Paić’s concept of nihilism and its overcoming

Nihilism is the exhaustion of all transcendent foundations (God, truth, nature, history, subject)
It is structural, not psychological
It shapes politics, technology, art, economics, and identity

➡️ Nihilism is how the world now functions, not a belief one chooses.

Completion of Metaphysics (Beyond Nietzsche)

Paić argues that nihilism reaches its completion, not its crisis, in contemporary society.

Key claim:

Metaphysics does not disappear
It transforms into technoscience, cybernetics, and systems

This means:Žarko Paić’s theory of nihilism is not a single, closed doctrine but a philosophical framework developed across many books and essays, especially in Nihilizam i suvremenost (Nihilism and Contemporaneity), Tehnosfera, Totalitarizam?, and The Age of the Image. His approach blends continental philosophy, media theory, political ontology, and philosophy of technology.

Below is a clear, structured overview of his understanding of nihilism.

Nihilism as a Historical Condition (Not a Mood)

For Paić, nihilism is not merely despair, relativism, or moral collapse. It is:

a historical-ontological condition of modernity and late modernity

He follows Nietzsche and Heidegger, but radicalizes them:

Truth → information
Being → operational functionality
Meaning → circulation and performativity
Freedom → algorithmic choice

➡️ Nihilism is fully realized, not unresolved.

Technology as the Core of Nihilism (Technosphere)

One of Paić’s most original contributions is linking nihilism directly to technology.

Technology is not a tool.

It is:

an ontological environment
a self-reproducing system
an autonomous logic of optimization, control, and acceleration

This leads to:

disappearance of the human subject as center
emergence of posthuman or machinic agency
politics becoming management
ethics becoming regulation

➡️ Nihilism becomes systemic automation of meaninglessness.

Image, Media, and Simulation

Paić places strong emphasis on images and media:

Operational images replace reality
Representation gives way to simulation
The image no longer refers to truth but produces reality

This aligns with but goes beyond Baudrillard:

The image is not an illusion
It is the dominant ontological mode

➡️ Nihilism appears as hyper-visibility without meaning.

Political Nihilism

Paić rejects the idea that nihilism leads to chaos or anarchy.

Instead:

It produces new forms of total control
Politics becomes post-ideological governance
Democracy turns into procedural management
Totalitarianism reappears in soft, technological forms

He calls this:

post-political nihilism
algorithmic power
biopolitical administration of life

➡️ Nihilism stabilizes power rather than destroying it.

No Romantic Escape, No Simple Resistance

Unlike some critical theorists, Paić is anti-romantic:

No return to nature
No authentic subject to recover
No revolutionary outside position

Resistance itself is often:

absorbed
commodified
simulated

➡️ Nihilism cannot be “overcome” in the traditional sense.

What Comes After Nihilism?

Paić does not offer:

salvation
humanist recovery
metaphysical grounding

Instead, he gestures toward:

thinking beyond the subject
non-metaphysical philosophy
art as experimental ontology
awareness of the technosphere’s limits

This is closer to:

post-Heideggerian thought
speculative realism
posthuman philosophy

➡️ The task is not to defeat nihilism, but to think within its completed form.

In One Sentence

Žarko Paić understands nihilism as the fully realized ontological condition of a technological, posthuman world in which meaning, politics, and subjectivity are absorbed into self-operating systems of power, images, and information.

6. Radical Theory of Totalitarianism

Žarko Paić’s “radical theory of totalitarianism” is not a single, neatly systematized doctrine but a philosophical framework developed across his writings in political philosophy, media theory, and ontology. It radically redefines totalitarianism beyond the classical 20th-century model (Nazism/Stalinism) and treats it as a structural condition of modernity and postmodernity, not merely a political regime.

Below is a clear, structured explanation.

What makes Paić’s theory “radical”?

Paić is radical in the literal sense (radix = root):

He does not define totalitarianism primarily as
- dictatorship
- one-party rule
- terror apparatus
Instead, he treats it as a totalizing logic of being, power, and technology.

👉 Totalitarianism is ontological, not just political.

Break with classical theories

Classical theories (Arendt, Friedrich & Brzezinski)

Totalitarianism =

ideology + terror
centralized state
mass mobilization
charismatic leader

Paić argues these are historically limited descriptions.

Paić’s core thesis

Totalitarianism = total mobilization of life itself

For Paić, modern totalitarianism is:

the complete integration of politics, technology, economy, culture, and subjectivity into a single operational system

This means:

power no longer needs explicit repression
domination works through networks, symbols, media, and self-regulation

Key conceptual pillars

From ideology to technosphere

Totalitarianism today is not driven by ideology but by:

technology
cybernetics
information flows
algorithmic governance

👉 Control is immanent, not imposed from above.

Total mobilization (after Ernst Jünger)

Paić expands Jünger’s idea:

not only labor and war are mobilized
but attention, desire, identity, emotions, bodies

Social media and digital capitalism are central here.

Post-political totalitarianism

No need for a dictator
No need for censorship
No need for terror camps

Instead:

participation replaces coercion
transparency replaces surveillance
freedom becomes a functional illusion

Biopolitics → technopolitics

Building on Foucault but moving beyond him:

life itself becomes a programmable resource
humans are redefined as operational units
politics becomes management of systems, not collective decision

Subjectivity under radical totalitarianism

In Paić’s view:

the subject is no longer oppressed
the subject is produced

People:

desire what dominates them
internalize systemic imperatives
confuse autonomy with choice among options

This is why resistance becomes extremely difficult.

Relation to other thinkers

Paić’s theory intersects with but also diverges from:

Hannah Arendt – he extends totalitarianism beyond terror and ideology
Heidegger – technology as enframing (Gestell)
Foucault – biopolitics, but Paić sees a more total closure
Baudrillard – simulation and hyperreality
Agamben – bare life, but Paić focuses more on technosphere

Why Paić still calls this “totalitarianism”

Because:

there is no outside
all social spheres are integrated
alternatives are absorbed before they can negate the system

Totalitarianism is no longer a regime we live under,
But a world we live in.

Key works (for further reading)

If you want to explore his ideas directly:

Totalitarizam?
Politika identiteta
Tehnosfera
Posthumano stanje

In one sentence:

Žarko Paić’s radical theory of totalitarianism understands it as a technologically mediated, post-ideological, total mobilization of life and subjectivity—where domination operates through freedom, participation, and systems rather than terror.vity—where domination operates through freedom, participation, and systems rather than terror.

7. The Iconic Turn

Žarko Paić is one of the most distinctive contemporary theorists of the iconic turn and image theory, especially within the context of digital culture, technosphere, and posthuman aesthetics. His contribution is not merely explanatory but diagnostic: he treats images as ontological forces that reshape reality, subjectivity, and power.

Below is a structured overview of Paić’s deep insight into the iconic turn and image theory.

The Iconic Turn: Beyond Representation

The iconic turn (associated with thinkers such as W. J. T. Mitchell and Gottfried Boehm) marks a shift from language-centered analysis to an emphasis on images. Paić radicalizes this shift.

For Paić:

Images are not representations of reality
They are events, operations, and agents
The world no longer appears through images; they produce it

This leads to a crucial claim:

The iconic turn is not a cultural change but an ontological mutation.

Images do not depict meaning; they generate reality.

Image as a Technological-Operational Force

Paić situates image theory firmly within technological modernity:

Digital images are algorithmic
They operate through code, speed, and circulation
Visibility becomes a function of technological governance

In this sense:

The image is no longer aesthetic alone
It is cybernetic, informational, and biopolitical

Images now:

Regulate attention
Shape desire
Produce subjectivity

This aligns Paić with—but also distinguishes him from—thinkers like Flusser and Virilio.

From Iconology to Techno-Aesthetics

Classical iconology (Panofsky) treated images as symbolic texts.
Paić breaks decisively with this tradition.

He proposes:

Techno-aesthetics instead of art theory
Operational images instead of symbolic images
Post-representational aesthetics

In digital capitalism:

Images function without interpretation
Meaning is replaced by immediacy, affect, and control
The image “works” rather than “speaks.”

This explains why contemporary images often feel:

Empty of depth
Yet overwhelmingly powerful

Image, Power, and the Posthuman Condition

Paić connects image theory to posthumanism:

The subject is no longer sovereign
Agency is distributed between humans, machines, and images
Visuality becomes automated (surveillance, AI vision, data visualization)

Images now:

See for us
Decide for us
Anticipate us

This leads to a striking insight:

The iconic turn culminates in the disappearance of the human gaze.

Vision becomes machinic.

Iconic Turn as a Crisis of Meaning

Paić does not celebrate the iconic turn.
He treats it as a crisis.

Key tensions:

Visibility without truth
Proliferation without meaning
Presence without experience

The image world is:

Hyper-visible
Yet existentially opaque

This is why Paić often links image theory to:

Nihilism
Acceleration
The exhaustion of metaphysics

Paić’s Original Contribution

What makes Paić unique is that he:

Fuses continental philosophy, media theory, and political ontology
Treats images as conditions of possibility, not cultural artifacts
Frames the iconic turn as part of a broader technological destiny of being

In short:

Mitchell asks what images want
Boehm asks how images think
Paić asks what happens to reality when images become autonomous systems

Concluding Insight

Paić’s theory suggests a sobering conclusion:

The iconic turn does not lead to visual enlightenment but to a world in which meaning is replaced by circulation and vision by operation.

Images no longer reveal the world.
They are the world.

8. Fashion Theory and Body Design

Paić’s Fashion Theory as Radical Insight in Postdigital Body Design

Žarko Paić’s fashion theory offers a radical rethinking of the body under postdigital conditions by positioning fashion not as aesthetic ornamentation but as a technocultural apparatus that actively produces subjectivity, corporeality, and meaning. In the postdigital era—where the distinction between analog and digital, organic and artificial, biological and technical has collapsed—fashion becomes a key site where the body is redesigned as a hybrid interface.

From Representation to Ontological Design

Paić departs from classical fashion theory, which treats clothing as a symbolic representation or a social code. Instead, he conceptualizes fashion as ontological design: it does not merely express identity but constructs modes of being. In postdigital culture, the body is no longer a stable biological given; it is continuously reconfigured through wearable technologies, innovative materials, biometric data, and algorithmic aesthetics. Fashion thus operates as a prosthetic extension of existence, reshaping how bodies appear, move, and are governed.

The Postdigital Body as Interface

Central to Paić’s insight is the idea that the postdigital body functions as an interface rather than a substance. Fashion mediates between:

flesh and code
sensation and data
visibility and control

Clothing becomes a second skin that processes information—tracking, enhancing, optimizing, or disciplining the body. This shifts fashion from craft or spectacle toward biopolitical design, where bodies are formatted according to technological, economic, and algorithmic logics.

Fashion Beyond Aesthetics: Power and Control

Paić critically aligns fashion with technopower. In postdigital capitalism, fashion is entangled with surveillance, branding, and platform economies. The dressed body becomes a data-producing entity, and design participates in regimes of normalization, acceleration, and performance optimization. Yet Paić does not reduce fashion to domination alone; he identifies it as an ambivalent force capable of resistance and disruption.

Radicality Through Experimentation

What makes Paić’s theory radical is his insistence that fashion can operate as philosophical experimentation. Avant-garde fashion, speculative design, and posthuman aesthetics expose the instability of gender, identity, and the human itself. By exaggerating artificiality, fashion reveals that the “natural body” is already a construct—thus opening space for new forms of embodiment beyond humanist norms.

Posthuman and Postgender Implications

Paić’s framework aligns fashion with posthuman theory: bodies are mutable, distributed, and no longer centered on the autonomous subject. In postdigital body design, fashion participates in:

the erosion of binary gender codes
the emergence of synthetic corporeality
the redefinition of beauty as machinic, hybrid, and temporal

Fashion becomes a laboratory where the future of the human is prototyped.

Conclusion

Paić’s fashion theory offers a radical insight by reframing fashion as a critical technology of the body in postdigital culture. It exposes how design operates at the deepest level of existence—shaping perception, identity, and power—while also preserving fashion’s potential as a site of speculative freedom. In this sense, fashion is not about what we wear, but about what we are becoming. of existence—shaping perception, identity, and power—while also preserving fashion’s potential as a site of speculative freedom. In this sense, fashion is not about what we wear, but about what we are becoming.

9. Visual Semiotics and Fashion Theory

Žarko Paić’s fashion theory is best understood as part of his broader philosophy of visual culture, technosphere, and posthumanism. For Paić, fashion is not about clothing trends but about how the body becomes a visual sign system within late capitalism and technological modernity.

Below is a clear, structured overview.

Fashion as a Visual Regime (not aesthetics)

Paić rejects the notion that fashion is merely a matter of taste or style. Instead, he treats fashion as a visual regime—a system that organizes:

visibility
desire
identity
power

Fashion belongs to the same order as media, design, advertising, and digital imagery. It operates through visual codes, not in the linguistic sense of meaning.

Fashion does not represent the body; it produces the body as an image.

The Body as Semiotic Surface

In Paić’s visual semiotics:

The body is no longer biological or expressive
It is a surface of inscription
A sign-carrier within technological and media systems

Key shift:

From body as subject → body as interface
From expression → circulation of signs

Clothing, cosmetics, fitness, surgery, filters, and branding all function as semiotic operations on the body.

Visual Semiotics (Beyond Language)

Paić moves beyond classical semiotics (Saussure, Barthes):

Classical Semiotics	Paić’s Visual Semiotics
Language-centered	Image-centered
Meaning-based	Effect-based
Representation	Performance
Interpretation	Circulation

Images do not mean, they operate.

Fashion images:

seduce
normalize
discipline
aestheticize power

Fashion and the Technosphere

Fashion belongs to what Paić calls the technosphere:

a world governed by speed, reproduction, and simulation
images precede bodies
bodies adapt to images

This leads to:

standardized individuality
algorithmic beauty
mass-produced uniqueness

The fashionable body is:

optimized
modular
replaceable
endlessly updated

Posthuman Body

Paić’s fashion theory aligns with posthumanism:

The body is no longer “natural.”
It is technologically enhanced, designed, and managed
Fashion becomes biopolitical design

Examples:

gender as visual coding
fitness as moral aesthetics
cosmetic surgery as normalization
digital avatars as ideal bodies

Fashion thus participates in biopower—the control of life through appearance.

Power, Control, and Desire

Fashion operates without coercion:

No rules, only seduction
No ideology, only visibility
No truth, only optimization

Power works through:

desirability
repetition
normalization of images

The body learns how to appear before it knows how to exist.

Key Concepts Summary

Body-as-image
Visual dispositif
Aestheticization of power
Circulation over meaning
Posthuman fashion
Technological production of identity

In One Sentence

For Paić, fashion is a visual technology that transforms the body into a circulating sign within the technosphere, where identity is designed rather than lived.

10. Iconograms of the Body

Paić’s Iconograms of the Body (Iconogrami tijela)

Core idea

Paić uses the term “iconogram” to describe how the body becomes a coded visual-sign system in contemporary culture. An iconogram is not just an image of the body, but a diagram of power, technology, desire, and identity.

For Paić, the modern body is:

Post-organic (shaped by media, technology, biotech)
Semiotic (readable like a text or image)
Performative (produced through fashion, art, design, and digital interfaces)

Key themes

From flesh to interface: The body shifts from biological substance to visual/technological surface.
Media and techno-aesthetics: Photography, film, digital art, and fashion turn the body into a screen.
Biopolitics: Power operates through bodily representation (gender, sexuality, normalization).
Posthumanism: The body exceeds humanist notions of identity and stability.

Paić’s iconograms are often discussed in relation to:

Contemporary art
Fashion imagery
Performance art
Cyberculture and avatars

They function as conceptual maps of how bodies are constructed and controlled in late modernity.

Paić’s Fashion Theory

Paić is among the most influential fashion theorists in Southeast Europe. His fashion writing treats fashion as a philosophical and political phenomenon rather than mere style.

Central claims

Fashion is a total social fact, not a superficial industry.
It is a visual regime of modernity, governing bodies, time, and desire.
Fashion mediates between capitalism, aesthetics, and identity.
The dressed body is designed as a site of symbolic violence and freedom.

Major Fashion Theory Books by Paić

1. Vrtoglavica u modi (Vertigo in Fashion)

His most influential fashion book.

Focus:

Fashion as a system of acceleration and excess
The loss of stable meaning in contemporary style
Fashion and nihilism
The body as spectacle and commodity

Fashion here produces vertigo—a constant loss of grounding in identity and meaning.

2. Tehnosfera I–III (Technosphere, volumes I–III)

Not exclusively about fashion, but crucial.

Fashion relevance:

Fashion as part of the technosphere
The fusion of body, design, and technology
Aesthetics after the dominance of digital systems

3. Slika bez svijeta (Image Without the World)

Addresses visual culture more broadly.

Connection to fashion:

Fashion imagery detached from lived reality
The dominance of simulation
Bodies as hyperreal constructs

4. Vizualne komunikacije (Visual Communications)

A theoretical framework for understanding:

Fashion photography
Advertising
Branding
Body politics in visual culture

How Iconograms of the Body and Fashion Connect

For Paić:

Fashion produces iconograms
Iconograms discipline the body
The body becomes a medium of capital and control

Fashion is the laboratory where the posthuman body is tested:

Gender fluidity
Artificial beauty
Digital avatars
Algorithmic trends

The dressed body is no longer “natural” — it is designed, coded, and optimized.

Intellectual Influences

Paić draws heavily on:

Foucault (biopolitics)
Baudrillard (simulation)
Deleuze & Guattari (assemblages)
Virilio (speed)

Posthumanist and media theory

11. Contemporary Architecture

Žarko Paić is a Croatian philosopher and cultural theorist whose work on contemporary architecture is not architectural history in a narrow sense, but a philosophical–critical analysis of architecture as a symptom of late modernity (or “postmodern / posthuman” conditions).

Below is a structured overview of how Paić understands and analyzes contemporary architecture.

Architecture as a Symptom of the Technosphere

For Paić, contemporary architecture cannot be understood apart from:

Technoscience
Digital capitalism
Media and spectacle
Biopolitics and control

Architecture becomes part of what he often calls the technosphere:

a world where technology is no longer a tool but an environment.

Buildings are not merely shelters or aesthetic objects, but:

Interfaces
Media events
Instruments of power and visibility

From Space to Event

Paić argues that contemporary architecture shifts:

from space → to event
from structure → to experience
from permanence → to temporality

Influenced by thinkers like Deleuze, Baudrillard, Virilio, he sees architecture today as:

Performative
Spectacular
Designed for circulation, consumption, and image production

Iconic buildings (museums, stadiums, corporate towers) function as:

Urban branding devices
Media images before they are lived spaces

Architecture and the Logic of Spectacle

Drawing on Guy Debord and Jean Baudrillard, Paić suggests that contemporary architecture:

Operates within the society of the spectacle
Privileges visual impact over social function
Produces cities as staged realities

Key idea:

Architecture no longer represents power — it performs power.

This is evident in:

Global “starchitect” culture
Iconic forms detached from local context
Cities competing through architectural images

The Posthuman Dimension

A distinctive feature of Paić’s analysis is his posthuman perspective.

He argues that architecture today:

Is no longer centered on the human body alone
Is designed for flows (data, capital, tourists, logistics)
Integrates surveillance, automation, and digital control

Buildings become:

Cybernetic systems
Nodes in networks
Hybrid human–machine environments

This aligns architecture with:

Smart cities
Algorithmic governance
Biopolitical management of life

Critique of Functionalism and Humanism

Paić is critical of both:

Classical functionalism
Naive human-centered architectural ethics

He argues that:

“Humanism” in architecture often masks new forms of control
Function is no longer about use, but about optimization and efficiency

Thus, contemporary architecture reflects:

A crisis of meaning
The disappearance of traditional urban public space
The dominance of neoliberal rationality

Architecture, Power, and Global Capitalism

For Paić, architecture is inseparable from global capitalism:

Financialization of space
Privatization of the city
Gentrification as spatial violence

Urban space becomes:

A commodity
A zone of exclusion and inclusion
A mechanism of social stratification

Architecture participates in governing life, not just housing it.

Overall Assessment

Paić does not offer architectural solutions or design guidelines. Instead, he provides:

A philosophical diagnosis
A critical framework
A warning about the direction of contemporary spatial culture

In short:

Contemporary architecture, for Paić, is a mirror of a world where technology, power, and spectacle redefine what it means to inhabit space.

If you want, I can:

Connect Paić’s ideas to specific architects (e.g., Koolhaas, Hadid)
Compare him with other theorists (Benjamin, Lefebvre, Sloterdijk)

12. Theory of Cinema

Žarko Paić is a Croatian philosopher, cultural theorist, and media scholar whose work proposes a radically contemporary theory of cinema grounded in technology, posthumanism, and the transformation of perception in late capitalism. His “innovative cinema theory” is not a classical film theory focused on narrative or aesthetics alone, but a philosophy of moving images in the age of digital technosphere.

Below is a structured overview of his key ideas.

Cinema Beyond Film: From Medium to Technosphere

Paić argues that cinema can no longer be understood as:

celluloid film,
a stable art form,
or a purely human-centered practice.

Instead, cinema becomes part of a technosphere:

a network of digital images,
algorithms,
screens,
AI,
surveillance systems,
virtual and augmented realities.

👉 Cinema is no longer representation but operative image-production.

The Posthuman Turn in Cinema

A central concept in Paić’s theory is posthumanism.

Key claims:

The human subject is no longer the center of cinematic meaning.
Machines increasingly produce images for machines.
Cinema anticipates a world where perception is automated.

This aligns Paić with thinkers like:

Bernard Stiegler
Friedrich Kittler
Vilém Flusser
Gilles Deleuze (late period)

But Paić goes further, arguing that cinema becomes an ontological condition rather than an art object.

From Movement-Image to Techno-Image

Building on and radicalizing Deleuze:

Classical cinema → movement-image
Modern cinema → time-image
Contemporary cinema → techno-image

Techno-image:

Not grounded in human perception
Generated, modified, and circulated by digital systems
Exists in real-time data flows
Often invisible or non-narrative

Examples include:

AI-generated imagery
Surveillance footage
VR simulations
Algorithmic video

Cinema dissolves into visual computation.

Cinema as Event, Not Representation

Paić rejects the idea that cinema “represents reality.”

Instead:

Cinema produces reality
It functions as an event
It reorganizes time, space, and affect

This connects cinema to:

biopolitics,
control societies,
global capitalism,
media warfare.

Cinema becomes a technology of power and ontology.

End of Cinema / Transformation of Cinema

Paić frequently speaks of the “end of cinema”, but not as death.

Rather:

The end of cinema as a distinct art form
The beginning of cinema as a total environment

This is similar to:

“post-cinema”
“expanded cinema.”
but more philosophically radical

Cinema becomes:

architecture
interface
atmosphere
algorithm

Aesthetics of the Sublime and the Catastrophic

Paić links contemporary cinema to:

technological sublime
catastrophe
acceleration
extinction

Cinema reflects:

ecological collapse
loss of meaning
machinic autonomy

This gives his theory a dark, speculative, and critical tone.

7. Why His Theory Is Innovative

Paić’s cinema theory is innovative because it:

dissolves boundaries between film, media, and philosophy
treats cinema as a condition of existence
anticipates AI-generated and non-human images
connects cinema to global technological power structures
moves beyond human-centered aesthetics

Key Works (selected)

The Age of the Technosphere
Posthuman Condition
Slike bez svijeta (Images Without a World)
Totalitarianism of the Technosphere (themes relevant to cinema)

In short:

For Žarko Paić, cinema is no longer something we watch — it is something we live inside.

13. Music Theory today

Žarko Paić (Croatian philosopher and theorist of art, media, and technology) approaches music through a distinctly post-metaphysical and post-humanist lens, reworking the classical ideas of Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art) and Kunstreligion (art as a substitute for religion) for late-modern and digital culture.

Below is a structured account of his key insights.

Music as Gesamtkunstwerk (Total Work of Art)

Paić inherits the concept from Richard Wagner, but radically transforms it.

Classical meaning (Wagner)

Unity of music, myth, drama, ritual
Aesthetic totality aiming at communal redemption
Art replaces fragmented modern experience

Paić’s reinterpretation

For Paić, music becomes Gesamtkunstwerk not through harmony, but through technological synthesis:

Music today integrates:
- Sound
- Image
- Body
- Media technologies
- Performance
- Algorithms and digital systems

🔹 Key shift:

Gesamtkunstwerk is no longer an organic unity but a techno-aesthetic assemblage.

Music is no longer autonomous but embedded in networks (media, capital, politics, digital platforms). Electronic music, sound art, and multimedia performances are paradigmatic.

Music and Kunstreligion (Art as Religion)

Paić draws on German Idealism, Nietzsche, and Adorno, but reframes Kunstreligion for a secular, post-theological age.

Classical Kunstreligion

Art replaces religion as:
- Source of meaning
- Ritual
- Transcendence
Strong in Romanticism and Wagnerian aesthetics

Paić’s critical update

Music no longer redeems, but ritualizes experience in a world without transcendence.

Music becomes:

A ritual without gods
A sacred form without metaphysics
A collective affective machine

Clubs, festivals, concerts, and immersive sound environments function as quasi-religious spaces:

Ecstasy
Repetition
Community
Loss of individual ego

🔹 Paić emphasizes:

Music is not belief, but intensity.

Music, Technology, and Posthumanism

One of Paić’s most original contributions is linking music to posthuman aesthetics.

Core claims

Music is no longer primarily a human expression
It is increasingly:
- Algorithmic
- Machine-generated
- Technologically mediated
The subject dissolves into signal, rhythm, and data

This leads to:

The end of romantic authorship
The rise of sonic systems
A shift from meaning → affect and sensation

Music becomes:

An event of forces, not a language of emotions.

Political and Critical Dimension

Unlike naïve celebrations of techno-art, Paić remains critical:

Gesamtkunstwerk can become totalizing
Kunstreligion can slide into:
- Mass spectacle
- Capitalist myth-production
- Aesthetic control

Here he echoes Adorno, but without nostalgia:

Music is both emancipatory and disciplinary
It creates communities while dissolving critique

Summary of Paić’s Insight

Concept	Paić’s Reinterpretation
Gesamtkunstwerk	Techno-aesthetic assemblage
Kunstreligion	Ritual without transcendence
Music	Affective, post-linguistic force
Subject	Decentered, posthuman
Art	Event, system, process

In one sentence:

For Žarko Paić, music is the paradigmatic art of late modernity: a technological Gesamtkunstwerk and a post-theological Kunstreligion that produces intensity, ritual, and affect in a world beyond metaphysical meaning.

14. Critique of Neoliberalism and Oligarchy: The Politics of Event

Žarko Paić is a Croatian philosopher, sociologist, and cultural theorist whose work belongs broadly to critical theory, political philosophy, and philosophy of technology. His critique of neoliberalism and oligarchy is not primarily economic in a narrow sense; rather, it is civilizational, ontological, and biopolitical.

Below is a structured overview of his position.

Neoliberalism as a Total Form of Power

Paić understands neoliberalism not merely as a market ideology, but as a totalizing regime of power that reorganizes:

politics
subjectivity
technology
culture
life itself

Key features of neoliberalism in Paić’s critique:

Reduction of the political to management: democracy becomes governance by experts, algorithms, and financial interests rather than collective decision-making.
Homo oeconomicus as dominant subject: individuals are reshaped into self-optimizing, competitive, entrepreneurial units.
Depoliticization: social conflicts are reframed as technical or economic problems rather than political struggles.

For Paić, neoliberalism marks the end of classical political sovereignty and its replacement by systems of control embedded in markets, media, and digital infrastructures.

Oligarchy Beyond the State

Paić argues that neoliberalism produces a new oligarchy, but not in the classical sense of wealthy elites merely capturing the state.

Characteristics of contemporary oligarchy:

Networked power rather than centralized authority
Fusion of:
- financial capital
- technological platforms
- media influence
- security and surveillance systems
Decision-making moves outside democratic institutions into corporate, algorithmic, and transnational spaces.

This oligarchy governs without needing formal political legitimacy, relying instead on:

control of information
technological infrastructures
economic dependency

Biopolitics, Technopolitics, and Control

Influenced by Foucault, Agamben, and Heidegger, Paić emphasizes that neoliberal oligarchy operates through biopolitical and technopolitical control.

Power manages life itself (health, productivity, reproduction, data).
Technology is not neutral; it becomes an ontological force shaping what it means to be human.
Surveillance capitalism turns human experience into extractable value.

This leads to what Paić often describes as the post-political condition: politics persists as spectacle, while real power operates invisibly.

Democracy as Simulation

Paić is particularly critical of how neoliberal oligarchy simulates democracy:

Elections remain, but meaningful choice disappears.
Public debate is replaced by media performance and algorithmic amplification.
Citizens become spectators and data points, not political agents.

In this sense, neoliberalism does not abolish democracy openly—it empties it from within.

Posthumanism and the End of the Humanist Subject

A distinctive aspect of Paić’s critique is his engagement with posthumanism:

Neoliberal oligarchy accelerates the transition toward a technologically mediated subject.
The human is no longer the center of political meaning.
AI, automation, and digital governance reshape agency and responsibility.

This produces a crisis not only in politics but also in human self-understanding.

No Simple Return, No Easy Solution

Unlike nostalgic critiques that call for a return to welfare-state capitalism or classical liberal democracy, Paić is skeptical of simple solutions.

Neoliberal oligarchy is structural, not accidental.
Resistance cannot rely solely on old political categories.
What is required is a radical rethinking of politics, technology, and freedom.

In Summary

Žarko Paić’s critique can be distilled into three core claims:

Neoliberalism is a civilizational regime, not just an economic doctrine.
Oligarchy today operates through networks, technology, and biopolitics, not merely wealth.
Democracy and human agency are hollowed out, replaced by management, spectacle, and control.

His work is best read alongside contemporary critical theorists concerned with the end of sovereignty, technological power, and post-democratic governance.

If you’d like, I can:

compare Paić to Foucault, Agamben, or Byung-Chul Han
focus on a specific book or concept of his
or discuss how his ideas apply to current global politics

15. Identity Politics & Culture

Žarko Paić (Croatian philosopher and cultural theorist) is known for a sharp, often polemical critique of identity politics, contemporary culture, and what he sees as the exhaustion of modern critical theory under late capitalism and technoscience.

Below is a clear overview of his position and why it matters.

Core of Paić’s critique of identity politics

Paić does not reject struggles against oppression outright. His critique targets how identity politics functions within contemporary techno-capitalist culture.

a) Reduction of politics to cultural recognition

Paić argues that identity politics shifts politics away from material power, social structures, and economic domination toward:

symbolic recognition,
linguistic correction,
visibility and representation.

This, he claims, turns politics into cultural management, not systemic transformation.

Identity becomes something to be administered, not emancipated.

b) Fragmentation instead of universality

For Paić, identity politics:

fragments collective political subjects into competing identities,
replaces universal political demands with particular cultural claims.

He sees this as the collapse of the Enlightenment idea of universality, without offering a viable alternative that can confront global systems of power.

c) Compatibility with neoliberal capitalism

One of Paić’s strongest claims is that identity politics is not subversive enough.

He argues it is:

easily absorbed by corporate culture,
compatible with market logic (branding, diversity management),
functional within global capitalism rather than oppositional to it.

Thus, capitalism can celebrate diversity while leaving structures of exploitation intact.

Culture as spectacle and technosphere

Paić situates identity politics within a broader critique of contemporary culture.

a) Culture after meaning

He claims culture today operates less as:

a space of critique or Bildung,

and more as:

spectacle,
performance,
algorithmic circulation of signs.

Identity becomes a cultural code rather than lived historical experience.

b) Technological mediation of identity

In Paić’s work on technosphere and posthumanism:

identity is no longer grounded in social struggle,
it is produced through media, platforms, and digital visibility.

This leads to what he sees as simulation of political engagement rather than real antagonism.

Opposition to moralism and “politics of innocence”

Paić is critical of:

moral absolutism,
purity tests,
victimhood as political capital.

He argues that identity politics often replaces critique with moral accusation, which:

shuts down dialogue,
depoliticizes conflict,
replaces analysis with affect.

What Paić proposes instead (implicitly)

Paić is more diagnostic than prescriptive, but his work points toward:

a renewed critical universalism (without naïve humanism),
confrontation with technological power, not just cultural symbols,
politics that addresses capital, sovereignty, and control systems, not only identity.

He aligns more closely with:

post-Marxist critique of capitalism,
Heideggerian and posthumanist analyses of technology,
skepticism toward liberal-progressive cultural consensus.

Common criticisms of Paić

Critics argue that Paić:

underestimates real harms addressed by identity politics,
risks dismissing marginalized voices,
offers limited concrete political alternatives.

Supporters counter that his work is valuable precisely because it exposes how critique itself has been neutralized.

In one sentence

Paić sees identity politics as a cultural symptom of late capitalism—morally intense, symbolically loud, but structurally weak and politically absorbed by the very systems it claims to oppose.

If you’d like, I can:

compare Paić with Foucault, Butler, or Žižek
focus on a specific book or essay
relate his critique to today’s social media culture or academia

16. Intellectuals and Power

Žarko Paić (Croatian philosopher, cultural theorist, and critic) develops a sharp and often provocative critique of intellectuals and their relationship to power, especially in late modernity and post-socialist societies. His position draws from continental philosophy (Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, Debord, Agamben) and critical theory, but he pushes it in a distinctly post-Yugoslav and global-capitalist direction.

Below is a structured overview of Paić’s critique of intellectuals and power.

The End of the Classical Intellectual

Paić argues that the classical figure of the intellectual—as a moral authority, public conscience, or critical guide of society—has effectively collapsed.

The Enlightenment model (truth-seeking, autonomy, critique of domination) no longer functions.
The Sartrean “engaged intellectual” has been replaced by:
- media experts
- technocrats
- cultural managers
- academic specialists

Key claim:

Intellectuals no longer speak truth to power; they increasingly speak for power.

Intellectuals as Functionaries of Power

For Paić, contemporary intellectuals are deeply embedded in systems of power, not external to them.

Mechanisms of capture:

Academia → bureaucratized, metrics-driven, dependent on funding and institutional loyalty
Media → intellectuals reduced to commentators, branding themselves as opinion producers
Politics & NGOs → expertise replaces critique; dissent becomes “policy advice”

This aligns with Foucault’s idea of power/knowledge, but Paić emphasizes how resistance itself becomes functionalized.

Post-Socialism and Moral Hypocrisy

In post-Yugoslav and Eastern European contexts, Paić is especially critical of intellectuals who:

rapidly shifted from socialist ideology to liberal capitalism
presented themselves as “critical” while aligning with new national, neoliberal, or EU-bureaucratic power structures
used moral language (democracy, Europe, human rights) to mask opportunism

He sees this as a betrayal of intellectual responsibility, not merely political adaptation.

Spectacle, Media, and the Loss of Thought

Influenced by Debord, Paić argues we live in a society of spectacle, where:

visibility replaces thinking
speed replaces reflection
opinion replaces judgment

Intellectuals become:

performers in media ecosystems
producers of symbolic capital
managers of narratives rather than critics of reality

Result: thinking loses its disruptive force.

Power Without a Center

Paić does not see power as centralized or conspiratorial.

Instead:

power is networked, algorithmic, techno-economic
domination operates through systems, not tyrants
intellectuals are integrated as nodes in these systems

Thus, critique aimed only at governments or elites is insufficient; it misses the structural nature of control.

Against Moralism, For Radical Thought

Paić is skeptical of:

moral outrage as politics
ethical posturing without risk
“critical” discourse that never threatens its own position

He calls instead for:

radical negativity (thinking that refuses reconciliation)
philosophy as existential risk, not career strategy
intellectual work that accepts marginality rather than influence

This is close to Nietzschean and Heideggerian gestures: thinking as exposure, not authority.

A Tragic View of the Intellectual

Ultimately, Paić’s view is pessimistic but not cynical.

He does not believe intellectuals can “save” society.
But he insists that authentic thought must remain useless to power.
The true intellectual today is likely:
- unheard
- institutionally irrelevant
- uncomfortable

Yet this is precisely where thinking regains dignity.

In One Sentence:

Paić sees contemporary intellectuals as largely absorbed into systems of power, losing their critical autonomy, and argues that only a risky, marginal, and uncompromising form of thought can still resist domination.

If you want, I can:

compare Paić with Foucault, Bourdieu, or Said
focus specifically on his post-Yugoslav critique
analyze one of his key books or essays
discuss whether his position leaves any room for political action

Žarko Paić