Session 4b: The ‘Real’ Injustice of a ‘Hyper-real’ Politics – An Interactive Workshop

2nd Global Conference

Friday 12th March – Sunday 14th March 2010
Salzburg, Austria

The ‘Real’ Injustice of a ‘Hyper-real’ Politics – An Interactive Workshop
Claudia Megele and Peter Buzzi
A Sense Of Self (http://asenseofself.org)

Inspired by two recently completed research projects this is a proposal for an interactive seminar workshop which presents a critical analysis of ethics and politics in a hyper-real post-modern risk society. The session is composed of presentation of two papers and an interactive workshop, followed by comments and questions.

The authors argue that ethics and the practice of politics must be located and understood within a the cultural setting characterised by consumption and post-modernity and the social setting which is that of a risk society, and that the effects of this socio-cultural configuration is magnified by the lens of hyper-reality. In this landscape, democracy is showcased and consumed in parliamentary banter and the parliament hour; policy is made and reformed by tabloids; individual ideas and expressions are drowned by the plurality of messages and voices; and individual domain/territory is invaded by voyeurism as the private and public, personal and social are merged and fused in an infinite dance for constant enchantment.

In particular, the authors examine the recent/ongoing financial and banking crisis and demonstrate that some of what has been said and done by various politicians and governments would have been prosecutable by law if it were committed by the head of any private company. In contradiction to the most basic principles of democracy and equality, in effect, this has positioned politicians and law makers above the law. Therefore, the authors conclude that given the current socio-cultural and economic setting, politicians feel obliged to fuel the fire of consumption at all cost, and that in this environment, there is little room for ethics or social equity, and the need to maintain the consumption machine in function becomes overwhelming and supersedes all principles.