To Mind Is To Care

Care provides a foundation for modernity that is not characterized by new beginnings and an opposition to nature but by an humble and curious curation of what already or still exists. Care labor is part of everything we do and are exposed to. It does not only concern health care, housing and education as they are organized around the family unit as sole bearer of responsibility. It is just as much a matter of design and economics as of politics and administration. Care is key to the life of the mind, since it obliges us to connect and cohere. But we are not inclined to care about what leaves us aesthetically indifferent. We like food to be tasty, tools and machines polished, stories interesting, buildings beautiful, interfaces slick, just as babies must be cute. This book proposes ethico-aesthetical models of care, in which science does not search for deterministic outcomes, technology does not lead to abandonment, politics does not induce indifference, and art is not marginalized.