KTub8

Digital Solidarity
and processes of individuation and of disconnection are
being articulated in relation to this primary experience.
This sharply differs from the previously dominant
(liberal, bourgeois) conception of subjectivity that begins
and ends in the private sphere.
This leads to the second big structural shift:
the changing relationship between individuality
and collectivity. To put it simply, the foundation of
individuality is shifting from the private realm to the
network. This is necessarily speculative, but there is
some evidence that can guide such speculation. To
better understand the ramifications of this seemingly
small shift, we need to step back a bit. Since the 18th
century, the liberal order had placed the individual
at the centre alongside, and constituted, through the
modern state. While the emphasis on individuality
does not change, the very character of individuality is
changing as is, inevitably, its relation to the state. In
view of this, it is no coincidence that the rewriting of the
Icelandic constitution took place outside the established
framework of liberal democratic institutions. But
let’s focus on the constitution of individuality itself.
Traditionally (i.e. in the liberal view) individuality was
closely connected to the idea of privacy. Indeed, privacy
was supposed to enable and protect the formation and
authenticity of the individual from external forces. 18
This, as Marshall McLuhan proposed long ago, reflected
the mode of encountering the world through private
(silent) reading. 19 This idea of the private individual
thus provided the foundation of all forms of modern
democracy and vice versa. This is epitomised, for example,
in the design of the voting both, where one person,
separated from all others, can reason and act in complete
19