Symbolic Misery- Volume 1 The Hyperindustrial Epoch

"In this decisive contribution to a critical understanding of contemporary life, Stiegler demonstrates how mass exclusion from cultural production constitutes a form of generalized impoverishment, threatening to reduce our existence to mere subsistence. Typically though, he also suggests how we might build alternatives to this 'symbolic misery'. This work forms a vital part of Stiegler's essential project."
Martin Crowley, Queen's College, University of Cambridge
"Expanding on Deleuze's idea of 'control societies', Bernard Stiegler provocatively diagnoses the 'misery' of contemporary society as a collective exclusion from the creation of symbols. A war is being waged, he argues: capitalistic marketing is the instrument of choice, the battleground is aestheticsand the fight is for the control of affect. Recommended for anyone interested in the contemporary cultural condition."
N. Katherine Hayles, Duke University