General Introduction

Abstract

We live in a world that is both confusing and confusingly perceived. Is there a paradox in this notion requiring an explanation? Abusively mentioned, on the one hand, is the extraordinary progress of the sciences and the techniques, the fruits of which are new artificial materials that enable precision and intentionality. On the other hand, this world is marked by the contemporary acceleration and all the vertigo which it creates, starting from velocity itself. All of these, however, are characteristics of a physical world fabricated by people. The utilization of this fabricated existence, it might be added, allows the world to become confused and confusingly perceived. Nevertheless, mechanistic explanations are insufficient. The way human history is produced over this material foundation is the true culprit of the creation of this Tower of Babel in which our globalized era resides. When everything leads us to think that the creation of a true world is possible, what is imposed upon the spirit is a world of fabulations that takes advantage of the enlargement of all contexts¹ (M. Santos, A Natureza do Espaço, 1996) in order to consecrate a single discourse. This discourse is underpinned by the role of information and its empire. This empire of information, which finds sustenance in the production of images and of the imaginary, is in the service of an empire of money that is founded on the economization and monetization of social and personal life.