Episode 134: On Federico Campagna’s ’Technic and Magic’

In Technic and Magic: The Reconstruction of Reality, the philosopher Frederico Campagna argues that we moderns have exhausted the reality system we devised at the dawn of our age, a system he calls Technic. Technic has one goal: to reduce all things to language by naming, tagging, measuring, and quantifying them, by turning every parcel of the physical and psychic universe into a "unit" defined by its position in the system. The result has been an erasure of the mere "suchness" of things, the singularity of things simply existing as they are. To replace a worldview that is now revealing its endemic nihilism, Campagna proposes Magic, a way of seeing that reestablishes a balance between the measurable and the ineffable. JF and Phil discuss Campagna's magisterial performance in this episode. Listen to volume 1 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) and volume 2 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-2) of the Weird Studies soundtrack by Pierre-Yves Martel (https://www.pymartel.com) Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the new T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) SHOW NOTES Federico Campagna, Technic and Magic (https://bookshop.org/p/books/technic-and-magic-the-reconstruction-of-reality-federico-campagna/11119682?ean=9781350044029) Bill Hicks, “Bit on Marketing” Fredric Jameson, The Seeds of Time (https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-seeds-of-time-revised-fredric-jameson/12858510?ean=9780231080590) Plotinus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plotinus), Neoplatonist philosopher Francis Bacon (https://www.francis-bacon.com/art), Irish artist Samuel Beckett (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Beckett), Irish author William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch (https://bookshop.org/p/books/naked-lunch-the-restored-text-william-s-burroughs-jr/12459684?ean=9780802122070) Weird Stuides, Episode 87 on Arthur Machen (https://www.weirdstudies.com/87) Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (https://bookshop.org/p/books/anatomy-of-criticism-four-essays-northrop-frye/10424454?ean=9780691202563)