Attention slowly forms through care and constitutes the social bond

Evidence

Attention is something that forms, slowly, through a complex system of care, from the first gestures the mother dedicates to the infant to the most elaborate forms of sublimation, by way of everything constitutive of the superego. I can capture the attention of an animal and create conditioned reflexes which resemble anticipations, like Pavlov and his dog – but these are not anticipations [attentes]: they are instinctive and automated behaviours, which is to say, the opposite of anticipation, which, precisely, presupposes attention. […] Anticipation is not a reflex, and attention is something that is formed: to produce attention in a psychological being is necessarily to participate in psychic and collective individuation, and so to produce social attention with psychological attention, to produce, that is, the social bond. — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 489

Categorization

• DEFINE: Stiegler’s account defining attention against reflex and Pavlovian conditioning, grounding anticipation in care rather than automation.
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that Pavlovian capture is the opposite of attention (and that attention is necessarily social) is dense enough to sit with — it reframes both behavioral conditioning critiques and the attention economy.
• XREF: connects to: Attention is the substrate of care for self, community, and planet. — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!: A Manifesto of the…, 93; Attention is socially and materially mediated, not just a scarce mental resource — Annual Review of Anthropology contributors (⚠ verify author line), The Political Economy of Attention, 26; Attention and care mirror each other as shadow and light — Annual Review of Anthropology contributors (⚠ verify author line), The Political Economy of Attention, 66 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Attention is alignment, the same faculty on individual and collective levels #expands (0.88)
• Attention is the substrate of care for self, community, and planet. #corroborates (0.86) — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 93
• Shared attention builds a collective rather than merely private reality #corroborates (0.82) — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 121
• Individual attention selection spontaneously aligns people into shared communities of sensibility #corroborates (0.80) — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 110
• Attention and care mirror each other as shadow and light #expands (0.78) — Annual Review of Anthropology contributors (⚠ verify author line), The Political Economy of Attention, 66
• Attention is socially and materially mediated, not just a scarce mental resource #expands (0.75) — Annual Review of Anthropology contributors (⚠ verify author line), The Political Economy of Attention, 26
• Attention serves communal needs rather than minority growth interests #expands (0.74) — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 548