On hedonism, guilt, and anxiety: digital man and mathematical man

This article analyzes the relationship between pleasure, guilt, and anxiety as they take shape in contemporary society. The starting point is the indication of their interconnection given by Carl Schorske in his book dedicated to the study of the cultural and political life of fin de siècle Vienna. According to Schorske, this interconnection expresses the reaction of the Viennese educated bourgeoisie to the crisis of liberalism. The article suggests that this configuration of feelings can be viewed more broadly — as a historical a priori of the subject of modernity. What characterizes Vienna at the beginning of the twentieth century is also characteristic of a representative of the “digital civilization” of the 21st century.

For critical thought, therefore, the pressing question remains: is it possible to go beyond the form of life in which pleasure is fundamentally inseparable from feelings of guilt and anxiety? As an attempt to answer this question, the article turns to the figure of the “mathematical man” proposed by Robert Musil in his eponymous essay, written in 1913. Perhaps it is Musil’s “mathematical man” that makes possible our de-identification with the “digital man.”