Medialogy of the death. An introduction to necromantics

Abstract

It is the focus on the “necromantics” of the symbolism of social life rather than on some or other aspects of fixing “the dead” in culture, that makes up the specific difference of the author’s approach to the interdisciplinary exploration of death as a phenomenon of social life. The author integrates here the approaches of social philosophy, communication research, actor-network theory and comparative mythology. The author’s hypothesis is that the “network society”, that in ancient times was associated with the phenomenon of theater, and nowadays is dating back to the invention of photography, is a way of radical immanentization of death. Virtualization of identity is equated to trying to control a posthumous existence. On this basis, forms of life are being diversified, social environments are formed and the boundaries of communication are extended, “the communism” of equality between the living and the dead comes. People generalize the principle “to the God everyone is all alive” turning it into a principle: “everyone is all alive to everyone”.