A World Made of Knowledge

Loss of Polit ical Power Through K n o w l e d g e The social o rde r that is l ooming on our horizon is based on knowledge . There is no th ing n e w about the fact that our soc ie ty is about to unde rgo a rapid t ransformat ion: the past , p e r i o d s of acc e l e r a t e d soc i a l c h a n g e have b e e n c o m m o n enough occur rences . Wha t is n e w here is bo th the na ture of and the dr iv ing force b e h i n d these social , e c o n o m i c and cu l tu ra l changes . For if knowledge is not just a cons t i tu t ive feature of our m o d e r n e c o n o m y but a basic o rgan iza t iona l pr inc iple of the way we run our lives, t hen it is justif iable to talk abou t our l iving a k n o w l e d g e society. This means no th ing more and no th ing less than that we organize our social real i ty on the basis of our knowledge . In the 1950s the Ge rman soc io log is t Helmut Schelsky ske tched out his vers ion of a n ightmare : the use of e l ec t ron ic ca lcu la t ing mach ines raises the spec t e r of the to ta l i ta r ian state, he c la imed. Such a gove rnmen t mach ine can d e m a n d absolute obed ience , s ince it wil l be able to p r e d i c t and p lan the future wi th pe r f ec t reliability, he p r o p h e s i e d , and in the face of t echnica l ly guaran teed truth, all o p p o s i t i o n is irrational. Half a c en tu ry la ter the Amer ican e n t r e p r e n e u r and futuro logis t Bill Joy is warn ing us of a d e v e l o p m e n t that possesses similarly n igh tmar i sh charac ter i s tics: his greatest fear is that n a n o t e c h n o l o g y might start to evolve i n d e p e n d e n t l y of its h u m a n creators. This and o the r t e chno log i e s of the fu ture cou ld pu t the h u m a n race on the e n d a n g e r e d species list, he claims. Schelsky 's p r e d i c t i o n was r ight l ine w i th the zei tgeis t p reva i l ing the midd le of the last cent u r y a n d as Joy's admoni t ions show, this zei tgeist is s how i ng no signs of aging. This p h e n o m e n o n is the resul t of a s y m p t o m a t i c ove re s t ima t ion of the p o w e r of m o d e r n k n o w l e d g e and technology. Yet p a r a d o x i c a l l y it is p rec i se ly k n o w l e d g e and t e c h n o l o g y tha t are p e r h a p s the mos t s igni f icant sources of the open , i n d e t e r m i n a t e soc ie ty that is g rowing up a round us today. Desp i t e all pessimistic p r ed i c t i ons we n o w find ourselves wi tnessing the end of the h e g e m o n y of such m o n o l i t h i c ins t i tu t ions as the state, the chu rch and the military. The c o n d u c t of the la t ter ' s r e p r e s e n t a t i v e s be t rays a g rowing skep t i c i sm as to the i r cont inuing capac i ty to regula te social condi t ions : control ling, p lann ing and p red i c t i ng social cond i t ions are b e c o m i n g increas ingly more difficult. Socie ty has b e c o m e more fragile. Yet it is n e i t h e r global izat ion nor the e c o n o m i z a t i o n of social re la t ions that is r e s p o n s i b l e for this s tate of affairs bu t the loss of po l i t i ca l p o w e r t h rough know l e dge . The age of indus t r ia l i sm is coming to an end; the skills and e x p e r t i s e that w e r e neces sa ry to ma ta the social o rde r of indus t r ia l i sm are losing the i r efficacy. The social o r d e r that is l ooming on our h o r i z o n is based on k n o w l e d g e .

Récupéré en direct depuis OpenAlex et désinversé. Les résumés ne sont pas conservés dans cette base de données : les index inversés représentent 8,6 Go des 9,3 Go de texte de la base, et le serveur dispose de 13 Go libres.