There is definitely something going on here, and I'm participating (cf: my new tagline this year of "constructions in magical thinking" and my recent interest in things like astrology and tarot). But naive retreat to pre-modern stances and modes is not what's going on.
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It takes weird contortions to pretend that these modes are in like the medieval ones they superficially resemble. Sure, some of our interactions with technology have the structure and appearance of magical incantations and such, and things like Kek try to kayfabe the gap.
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Whoops wrong link for the Zizek thing http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/cynzizek.html …
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What's going on here is an ironic apathy that might in some narrow respects be functionally similar to behavior governed by magical belief systems, but there's no way you can confuse naive magical belief for the typical postmodern varietyhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJp86_tj9KQ …
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A big tell is that genuine magical beliefs induce uncritical reverence for wielders of esoteric knowledge. Far from being treated as Merlins, the literate magicians of postmodernity are largely treated with something between patronizing contempt and resentful anger.
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Believing in this kind of neo-medievalist reading of the modern human condition is a bit like believing visitors to Disneyland actually believe in fairies and princesses and large anthropomorphic rodents named Mickey, just because they might wear some larping costumes.
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If you've actually met people with literalist magical thinking beliefs, there is no way you'd be confused about this. There's no way my ironic messing around with horoscopes is anything like my grandparents sincere reliance on horoscopes for major life decisions.
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Basically, this so-called postmodern peasant is simply someone who has some mix of laziness, indifference, and lack of curiosity about, how modern technology works, and a rational assessment that they're probably not smart enough to understand most of it.
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This does not of course preclude belief in specific superstitious ideas and conspiracy theories, but the general, default epistemology is not magical thinking for most people. It is simply a kind of rational laziness that can look like it under certain behavioral lenses.
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Replying to @vgr
Lower layer of SEO/SMM industries has characteristic magical thinking to them. I'm guessing its a consequence of inferring practices by poking algorithms. Now that the multi-sided platform model is mainstream, the interaction with it, for most people, will look like a ritual.
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Mere misconceptions about how a thing works (like rumors about how google algorithm weights factors) are not enough to constitute a magical epistemology. That's more like mistaken thinking within an otherwise non-magical epistemology. I presume no SEO types do wiccan rituals etc
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Replying to @vgr
I somewhat agree; it all depends on how we define magic in relation to reason and rationality. Lévi-Strauss somewhere said that magical though is akin to a bricolage.
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Replying to @capitalsymbolic @vgr
Or Deleuze and Guattari's virtuality - a space with its emergent logic that often redefines relations to the concepts of reciprocity, gifts, community, power &c. This puts magic quite close to sharing economy and platform businesses.
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