Attention is conditioned and constitutive of collective flows simultaneously, without contradiction

Evidence

It is not contradictory to accept that my attention is entirely conditioned by the collective structures whose principle dynamics we have just looked over, while asserting that the great flows that carry us all along are only constituted through the aggregation of each of our infinitesimal gestures. So as to better understand the nature of these infinitesimal gestures, we need, however, to come down from Saturn to get as close as possible to the concrete micro-situations in which we pay attention to one thing rather than another. The time has come to trade the interplanetary telescope for the noological microscope, which alone is able to grasp what happens in us when we maintain an attentional relation with one object or another in our milieu. As Arne Naess emphasized, ecology is in fact more a question of relationality than environment: attention is a certain kind of connection between that which I am, that which surrounds me, and that which may result from the relation that unites these interested parties. — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 241

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the ‘noological microscope’ framing and Naess’s relationality definition of ecology, both key orienting concepts.
• XREF: The top-down/bottom-up dual determination of attention parallels structuration theory (Giddens) and the agency-structure debate in sociology. — connects to: Mass distraction is not uniformly harmful but has differential collective effects — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 111; Attention creates a shared space beyond both instrumental logic and endless suspension — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!: A Manifesto of the…, 75; Attention operates as an ecosystem of echoes and variations rather than transmissions — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 531 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Attention creates a shared space beyond both instrumental logic and endless suspension #expands (0.75) — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 75
• Attention operates as an ecosystem of echoes and variations rather than transmissions #corroborates (0.72) — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 531
• Economic accounts of attention falsely derive the collective from individual activity #corroborates (0.72) — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 79