Attention and Distraction in Modern German Literature, Thought, and Culture

Description

Attention and distraction are anthropological constants, central to the way we experience the world; often cast as adversaries, they are in fact closely intertwined, and their relationship is not constant but highly changeable—a barometer of social and cultural change. This wide-ranging interdisciplinary study explores the interplay of attention and distraction from the Enlightenment to the present day, with a particular focus on twentieth-century Germany. Building on the Enlightenment tradition of mental self-observation, nineteenth-century Germany was the birthplace of experimental psychology which sought to measure and potentially enhance attention. Around 1900, this new, psychologically informed understanding of the self began to shape domains such as work and leisure, consumerism and education. In the Weimar Republic, the new discipline of psychotechnics was seen as central to the effort of building a modern, efficient, and potentially fairer society. Its aspirations were mirrored and enhanced by a thriving self-help literature market, which gave readers the tools for their own cognitive optimization. Yet as attention was cast as the key mental resource, in professions ranging from train drivers to telephone operators, distraction emerged as the new buzzword of the period, evoking the spectre of mental and social fragmentation. For many early twentieth-century commentators anxious about the pace of modern life, the rise of distraction spelled the end of contemplative attention. This book shows that many leading German writers, thinkers, and artists did not simply endorse this negative assessment of distraction, but engaged with the dialectical nature of attention constructively, by enacting and reflecting (on) the intrinsically fluid nature of the human mind.