The Public Brain: Ideology and the Neuroscientific Turn from the Polis to Platforms

(Hardback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Joss Hands connects the historic understanding of the brain with the history and politics and the democracy to address the current concerns about social media, democratic collapse and technological control.
The Public Brain explores the way in which politics and the public sphere are understood in different societies and eras are explored in light of the dominant understanding of the brain in each era, in particular the use of the brains capacities and character, to justify the dominant political ideology of the time. Moving from the birth of democracy through to the age of reason and revolution and on to the current social media era of nudge politics and new forms of political extremism - the book traces the triangulation of brain, public and media. This includes and exploration of the role of social media platforms and their contribution to confusion and obfuscation in the current era. It proposes different formulations of the public brain over those eras to conclude by advocating for a democratic public brain.
The book explores what has been largely overlooked in this field, unpicks this history in order to offer valuable insights into the debates over the contemporary condition across a range of issues such as neoliberalism, self-help and wellbeing as forms of ideology and control, the shift to extremist proto-fascist politics and of post-truth. The book unpacks arguments about affect and cognitive overload to make a positive case for the continuing power of reason and its emancipatory potential. In that way the book provides a valuable insight into how we have come to view the brain as we have, how that view is often misused, and offers suggestions of ways to marshal an enriched democratic concept of the public brain for positive social change.

Reviews

Joss Hands brilliant examination of past and present conceptions of the brain, in their own times and contexts, creates a deep and searching examination of social media, brains, science and ideas of truth, falsity and misinformation. Hands gives us a way to confront dilemmas of brain, personality and society, offering insights into how we can make a better world. -- Tim Jordan, Professor of Digital Cultures, University College London, UK
While some view the brain as mere tissue or as the seat of the soul, The Public Brain places it as both a scientific object and ideological construct. In a highly original account, Joss Hands weaves historical, philosophical, and political threads into a critical, timely narrative essential for neuroscience and political theory scholars. -- Eugenia Siapera, Professor of Digital Technology, Policy, and Society, University College Dublin, UK
At a time when generative AI is being reductively presented as intelligent and the answer to all our ills, and some of its most active proponents and developers are connected with the shift from democracy to oligarchy, this becomes an exceedingly urgent book. Written in an eminently readable style while also taking us through a detailed history of the neuroscientific turn this is a very timely and welcome addition to the literature trying to make sense of our time. -- Neal Curtis, Professor and Associate Dean, University of Auckland, New Zealand

Author Bio

Joss Hands is reader in critical theory at Newcastle University, UK. He teaches media, communications and cultural studies at Newcastle and is the author of two previous books, @ is For Activism: Dissent Resistance and Rebellion in a Digital Culture (2011), and Gadget Consciousness: Collective Thought, Will and Action in the Age of Social Media (2018).