Attention cannot be treated as a value-neutral economic resource because it shapes ends

Evidence

But attention cannot be reduced to a simple question of means. You cannot claim to be holding an axiologically neutral discourse (separated from any subjective value) on attention, for the good reason that attentional processes are inextricably linked to our processes of valorization. As we will see in the final section, attention is individuating because it is rooted in a circular dynamic – in a circle that may be vicious or virtuous: I valorize what I pay attention to and I pay attention to what I valorize. As soon as the means-resource conditions the end aimed at through it, it is no longer possible to claim – as does our economic ideology – that it is maximizing the means while leaving everyone free to choose their own ends. Making do with an economic vocabulary in the study of attentional dynamics therefore prevents us from posing the essential question: how – which is to say, inevitably, in which direction, to what ends – are we to direct the attention which gives direction to what we become? — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 80

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the axiologically-neutral-meanings limitation of economic reasoning about attention.
• XREF: The valorization-attention circular dynamic echoes Frankfurt School critique of instrumental reason. — connects to: The attention economy treats attention as uniform when its quality is secretly variable — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the…, 345; Attention is an interactive relation to one’s life-sustaining environment, not a resource — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 86; Spectacle is money that can only be looked at — Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, 62 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• The attention economy treats attention as uniform when its quality is secretly variable #expands (0.85) — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 345