Technocratic Paradigm Research Articles

Writing About the Shapes of Conflict: War and Technocracy in the Twenty-First Century

What are the shape(s) of warfare and conflict in the allegedly post-historical, post-human, technocratic age? In a world altered by the technocratic paradigm, has our realist optic, founded on a witnessing that focuses on the surface appearance of things and a rhetoric framed by neo-liberal epistemology and desires, blinded us to the current changeable nature(s) and layerings of war and conflict? War is either seen as an abnormal happening in a faraway country, often defined as a dispute and not a war, or else it alters from a spectacular coordination of brute violence to a socio-economic inducement of fear, panic, social mobilisation/dispersion, and control in the particles of everyday life. During long periods of slow conflict nations leak away, people become metronomes, cultures are sapped of resilience, languages evaporate, existences are rendered irrelevant. How does writing bear witness to this spectrum of violence and reveal the technocratic paradigm underlying the sutures?

Dall’enciclica “laudato si” all’enciclica “fratelli tutti”. Una prospettiva sulla spiritualità e l’etica sociale

From the Encyclical „Laudato si” to the Encyclical „Fratelli tutti”. A Perspective on Spirituality and Social Ethics. The essay begins by showing that it is essential for all Christian thinking - and thus also for a Christian social ethics - to refer to a deeper meaning passively received from God. Starting from this Logos, Christian social ethical thinking tries to convey how to build a civilisation or a society of integral and humane capitalism whose inner building principle is love. This reception of meaning and love in order to be enabled to love takes place practically in liturgiacal worship as the author argues with Romano Guardini; here the absolute love of God is first received and vouchsafed as an unclaimable and yet profoundly vital gift. Liturgy focuses, like a burning glass, the experience of a greater freedom of the human being to do good in the face of a greater love, in the face of absolute love, in the face of God. In this view, liturgy is liberated freedom for the good and for the better, for the beautiful. From there, all human activity not only has a technical-instrumental and efficiency-oriented side, but is deeply ordered towards the realisation of higher values, so that the author can say: Culture grows out of cult. From here, he shows how a culture of law and ethics unfolds from the mere nature of man to faith in a personal God. In this perspective, law and morality are formulations of the primordial sense placed by God in human natural reason - the logos - and serve to shape a world conducive to life and worthy of human beings. This highlights in particular the space of political action, which plays a prominent role especially in Pope Francis’ encyclicals „Laudato si” and „Fratelli tutti”. In these encyclicals, the author primarily criticises a „technocratic paradigm”, in which human action is only reduced to questions of technical possibilities and efficiency, but in which the deeper meaning of human action is obscured. Starting from the parable of the prodigal son and the parable of the Good Samaritan, which is particularly prominent in „Fratelli tutti”, the author then develops the extent to which one must first convert to the incarnate Logos Christ in order to be able to realise the Logos instilled in man and the world, also in political thought and action. This is where the author sees the proprium of Christian social ethics as ethics of institutions and as inclusive capitalism, as also developed in the encyclicals of Pope Francis: The orientation of state, society and economy towards the realisation of higher values, of the Logos placed in the world by God. Keywords: Pope Francis, Fratelli Tutti, Romano Guardini, Liturgy and Ethics, Social Ethics, Personalism, Integral Humanism, Critique on technocracy

Family relationships and polar opposition: Being equal while remaining different

On the fifth anniversary of Amoris Laetitia, this article focuses on the importance of family relationships in our globalized world. The family allows everyone to feel equal while remaining different. In tune with Romano Guardini, Pope Francis uses the dialectic of polar opposition to describe the unity in diversity typical of authentic family life (part 1). He notes, however, that the technocratic paradigm, homogeneous and one-dimensional, cancels out this dynamic, thus opening the way to globalized indifference and the throwaway culture (part 2). Therefore, the Pope invites us to rebuild family relationships and preserve polar opposition at our four fundamental levels: spiritual, personal, social and natural (part 3).

Covid-19 and the Call to Sanitize Human Conscience

Amidst the unprecedented health crisis, annihilation of economy and social security, and upsurge in the loss of job opportunities caused by Covid-19, the emergence of a dynamic global spirit of collaboration has reinvigorated the human ability to work together to respond collectively to any peril that threatens the integral well-being of the entire humanity. The precautionary measures of washing our hands regularly, sanitizing oneself, using masks and maintaining social distances have rendered new meaning to human relationships. Apart from highlighting danger of dominant technocratic paradigm, the pandemic has also called for the sanitization of our conscience and unmask oneself to let the viruses of egocentric attitude, narcissism, greed, pride and unquenchable thirst for more and better which ultimately leads to the unbridled exploitation of the natural resources. Only a radical change in our life-style, which takes care of the basic needs, hopes, and aspirations of all forms of life, could reinforce and guarantee a better future.

Pandemic momentum for health systems financialisation: Under the cloaks of Universal Health Coverage

ABSTRACT Although a highly ambiguous and contested idea, Universal Health Coverage (UHC) is the hegemonic concept in international debates on health system reforms. States’ difficulties to provide adequate and comprehensive response to people’s health needs arising from the COVID-19 pandemic strengthened the impetus for UHC implementation. But while featured as the way to achieve justice in health, analyses of UHC-kind reform experiences since the 1990s show that it may be comprehended rather as a new facet of neoliberalism in the health policies’ arena. Its insurance arrangements are aimed to finance packages of health goods and services for the poor, while states play mainly a role of public funds administrators, buying from public and private providers competing in the market. UHC contributes to health system fragmentation and segmentation, weakens public structures and opens new markets for corporations to capture public funds. COVID-19 pandemic subjected health systems to unforeseen stress, underscoring the crucial role that a well-funded public health system plays in people’s lives. Assessing pandemic’s challenges may be an opportunity to build more egalitarian health systems, based on dignity and not people’s money. However, the unreflecting adoption of technocratic health paradigms and solutions may, instead, ultimately pave the way for further health financialisation and injustice.

Repairing America's Roots: The Citizen Professional Challenge

Abstract This article examines the role professionals can play in expanding the concept and practice of democracy. It argues that the ways professionals are usually socialized to understand their work identities and practices displace or even suppress the popular agency of lay citizens and this has contributed significantly to the shrinking of democracy, since professionals play outsized roles in shaping the institutions of today's knowledge societies. Professionals' transformation into citizens who catalyze citizen energies and talents and work as citizens with other citizens is key to broadening the role of citizens from voters and volunteers, to co-creators and civic producers who are responsible for a democratic way of life. Beginning with a discussion of ways in which the “technocratic paradigm” has detached institutions and professional practices and identities from civic and community life and shrunk understandings of democracy, the article examines traditions of public work and citizen professionalism in America, which are important to recall and translate to new circumstances. It presents several case studies and concludes with suggestions of citizen professionalism as a new frontier for higher education and democracy.

Are Immortalized Cell Lines Artifacts?

Recent magisterial teaching suggests that Catholics should prefer COVID-19 vaccines in which immortalized cells derived from the remains of aborted fetuses did not play a role in production, even though all of them can be licitly used. Many scholars contest any distinction between the different vaccines, in part by arguing that these cell lines have become artifacts. This argument is inadequate on a number of levels. First, these scholars have not sufficiently proven the point that the cell lines become artifacts through biotechnological manipulation. Second, considering cell lines as mere artifacts commodifies them in a way that is rejected even by secular authors. Third, this mode of commodification reinforces the technocratic paradigm. Finally, embracing this commodification of cell lines will prevent moral theology from properly judging other aspects of the growing bioeconomy. These arguments suggest that distinguishing between different vaccines remains the most appropriate course.

The Roots of Ecological Crisis in the Philippines in the Lens of Martin Heidegger’s Philosophy of Technology

The Philippines is one of the countries that are susceptible to natural calamities every year it is experiencing countless numbers of typhoons which resulted in the loss of lives and massive destruction of properties. This phenomenon can be attributed to the increasing destruction and deterioration of the environment caused by excessive and misguided principles. Accordingly, these principles are motivated by the uncontrolled numbers of the human population, economic sustainability, and even political agenda. Although these factors are significant in understanding the cause of the ecological crisis, nevertheless it does not capture the roots of the problem. This paper aims to provide a deeper analysis on the issue using Martin Heidegger's framework particularly his analysis on the nature of revealing that dominated modern technology. The “enframing attitude of modern technology, as well as the parasitic response of humanity to the revealing of the natural world, is the root cause of the ecological crisis. Although humanity is destined by the enframing attitude brought about by modern technology, nevertheless, it does not make him a slave. A true relationship with the natural world that is free from the im – posing character of enframing is possible through “sober thinking”. A kind of thinking or realization that took place after the intoxicating effects of the technocratic paradigm that enables us to return to the natural revealing of nature and thrives for a possible revealing that enhances both the human person and the physis.

ДИСТАНЦИОННЫЕ ОБРАЗОВАТЕЛЬНЫЕ ТЕХНОЛОГИИ В ВУЗЕ В КОНТЕКСТЕ КУЛЬТУРОЛОГИЧЕСКОЙ КОНЦЕПЦИИ СОДЕРЖАНИЯ ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ

The author considers distance learning technologies (further DLT) in higher education through the prism of the cultural theory of education content. The author goes into detail about the specifics of DLT. Of particular interest is the influence of the technocratic paradigm of education on modern youth. The problem of DLT employing in teaching practical-oriented subjects is highlighted. The article determines the relevance of DLT, highlights the goals and objectives of training using distance learning technologies based on the cultural concept of education content.

Praise Rather Than Solving Problems: Understanding the Doxological Turn of Laudato Si’ through Lonergan

This article employs the thought of Bernard Lonergan to understand the significance of Pope Francis’s doxological and eucharistic emphases in Laudato Si’. By drawing parallels between Lonergan’s identification of “general bias” (along with the “longer cycle of decline”) and Francis’s identification of the “technocratic paradigm” (along with its “ironclad logic”), the article shows why Francis makes doxology and the Eucharist central for the care of our common home and the implementation of an integral ecology that answers the cries of the earth and the poor. This conversation illustrates the radical, while pastorally focused, character of ecclesial mission outlined by Francis in Laudato Si’.

O poder tecnológico no mundo atual: implicações e desafios socioambientais

Se a técnica sempre foi um elemento fundamental na vida humana, ela se tornou no mundo moderno-contemporâneo o elemento determinante de nossa vida em todas as suas dimensões, isto é, tornou-se a esfera a partir da qual e em função da qual tudo, do macro ao micro, é pensado e regulado. É isso que o papa Bento XVI chama “horizonte cultural tecnocrático” e o papa Francisco chama “paradigma tecnocrático”. O texto faz uma reflexão filosófico-teológica do poder tecnológico no mundo atual a partir de suas implicações e de seus desafios socioambientais. Começa com uma reflexão sobre a importância e o lugar da técnica na vida humana (abordagem antropológica). Apresenta as características fundamentais da técnica moderna a partir de sua relação intrínseca com a ciência e com as forças dominantes da sociedade (relação técnica-ciência-poder). Explicita suas implicações e seus desafios socioambientais (abordagem ética). E conclui com algumas considerações de ordem teológico-pastorais, também a partir de suas implicações e de seus desafios socioambientais (abordagem teológica).

Technology v Technocracy: Fintech as a Regulatory Challenge

Abstract This article examines fintech as a systemic force disrupting the currently dominant technocratic paradigm of financial regulation. It offers a five-part taxonomy of (i) the key fintech-driven changes in the structure and operation of today’s financial system, and (ii) the corresponding challenges these systemic shifts pose to the continuing efficacy of the regulatory enterprise as it exists today. This exercise reveals the fundamental tension at the core of the fintech problem. In the fintech era, the financial system as a whole is growing ever bigger, moving ever faster, and getting ever more complex and difficult to manage. The emerging regulatory responses to these macro-level changes, however, continue to operate primarily on the micro-level. Surveying the presently fragmented efforts to regulate fintech, this article highlights the limiting effects of the technocratic bias built into their design. Against that background, it outlines several alternative reform options that would explicitly target the core macro-structural, as opposed to micro-transactional, aspects of the fintech challenge—and do so in a more assertive, comprehensive, and normatively unified manner.

Imaginarios geográficos, grupos dominantes e ideas sobre nación. Dos propuestas de transformación territorial para ámbitos fluviales argentinos

Geographical imaginaries produced by dominant elites have historically operated as strategies for territorial appropriation. In river areas, those imaginaries were many times sustained on the ideas of nation, legitimizing or trying to promote territorial transformations (through the technological organization of “nature”) in tune with the prevailing technocratic paradigms. Expecting to highlight the significance of imaginaries in the construction of specific ideas about nation, progress and development in Argentina, we introduce two cases located in two places of Parana River (the Delta´s islands and the central section). In both, the three ideas -mobilized by imaginaries constructions- were materialized in territorial transformation proposals. The analysis has allowed to show the appropriation strategies developed by dominant elites to impose an exclusive model of territorial order, based on their own interests.

La episiotomía como práctica cultural de género: otro caso de mutilación genital femenina.

En la primera mitad del siglo XX la episiotomía se asentó como un procedimiento rutinario dentro del paradigma tecnocrático de atención al parto. Los estudios sobre su efectividad se iniciaron medio siglo después, sin encontrar beneficios en su práctica. En la actualidad la evidencia científica sigue sin apoyar su efectividad, sin embargo la episiotomía se practica de forma rutinaria en gran cantidad de países, especialmente en primíparas. Este artículo tiene por objetivo profundizar en la comprensión de la episiotomía como una Mutilación Genital Femenina moderna (MGF) analizando su práctica en relación a la construcción social del género y la maternidad como institución y vivencia. El análisis, desarrollado en base a una investigación bibliográfica, revela la episiotomía como una práctica de género constitutiva del patriarcado moderno, cuya génesis en el siglo XVIII se enmarca en la producción del dispositivo de sexualidad teorizado por Foucault. Finalmente, el análisis del doble discurso mantenido en relación a las MGF sitúa la práctica de la episiotomía como una tecnología disciplinaria de dominación colonial y de género.

Repairing America's Roots: The Citizen Professional Challenge

Abstract This article examines the role professionals can play in expanding the concept and practice of democracy. It argues that the ways professionals are usually socialized to understand their work identities and practices displace or even suppress the popular agency of lay citizens and this has contributed significantly to the shrinking of democracy, since professionals play outsized roles in shaping the institutions of today's knowledge societies. Professionals' transformation into citizens who catalyze citizen energies and talents and work as citizens with other citizens is key to broadening the role of citizens from voters and volunteers, to co-creators and civic producers who are responsible for a democratic way of life. Beginning with a discussion of ways in which the “technocratic paradigm” has detached institutions and professional practices and identities from civic and community life and shrunk understandings of democracy, the article examines traditions of public work and citizen professionalism in America, which are important to recall and translate to new circumstances. It presents several case studies and concludes with suggestions of citizen professionalism as a new frontier for higher education and democracy.

Encyclical Laudato si’ on the Question of Progress

Progress is one of the most recognizable characteristics of modern times. The present paper addresses the question of progress as the underlying theme of the encyclical Laudato si'. Progress has both good and bad sides. The latter are expressed in terms that have a fundamental significance to the encyclical, such as, “irrational faith in progress” and “the myth of unlimited material progress”. In order to gain a clearer understanding of those terms, the author begins with outlining the history of the idea of progress and the philosophical criterion for its assessment. Then, he provides a critical analysis of the technocratic paradigm embodying the false face of progress. Within this framework, progress is presented as imperative and unlimited. However, by placing man in the centre and reducing his purpose in life to a relativistic principle “use and throw away”, it leads to a global ecological, spiritual and cultural crisis. The following part of the paper is devoted to a new model of progress proposed by Pope Francis. This type of progress has both a vertical and horizontal dimension. Embedded in the Holy Trinity, it reaches its peak in Jesus Christ and it promotes human life and protects the work of creation. Its fruit is to be individual concern for the poor and greater justice between nations. It cannot be achieved without changing the mentality (conversion) and specific individual and political decisions. The last part of the article answers the question about the novelty of the model of progress proposed by Pope Francis.

Assessing the role of subjective judgment and science in environmental impact assessment: implications and options for reform

Most environmental assessment (EA) processes are based on a rational technocratic paradigm, in which experts are expected to review value-neutral scientific evidence and objectively assess project impacts. Critics argue that this model is flawed even with increased public participation because it does not recognize the significant role of subjectivity in EA and assumes that expert analysis and judgement can be objective and value free. This paper re-evaluates the assumptions of the rational technocratic model by examining new evidence from a case study in which scientific experts in two separate, but concurrent, EA reviews of the same project came to opposite conclusions even though they relied on the same terms of reference and similar information and evaluation criteria. The case study analysis provides new evidence showing that subjective judgments of expert assessors are an important determinant of the EA findings and that there is inconsistency in the exercise of subjective judgement by experts that can result in fundamentally different conclusions, even if the experts are assessing the same project and similar evidence. The nature of the subjective judgements is assessed in detail and implications of the findings for EA are discussed.

The Future of Work after Laudato si'

The Future of Work after Laudato si’ Martin Maier SJ The encyclical Laudato Si’ of Pope Francis is a document that is both dramatic and hopeful. Dramatic because it leaves the reader in no doubt that the prevailing global system, with its reckless exploitation of natural resources and dangerous climate change, is heading for catastrophe. Hopeful because the pope does not consider this dynamic to be inevitable, but instead indicates ways to alter our course and opportunities for transformation. Politicians, scientists, academics, business executives and representatives of a large number of social movements have responded to his invitation to join a dialogue on the shaping of the future of our planet. The issue of ecology is an issue of justice. We have to hear both ‘the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor’ (LS, 49). The Pope calls for a ‘bold cultural revolution’ (LS, 114). This is closely connected to his concept of an ‘integral ecology’ and an ‘ecological conversion’. He calls for a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of the planet and for another way of looking at things, ‘a way of thinking, policies, an educational programme, a lifestyle and a spirituality which together generate resistance to the assault of the technocratic paradigm’ (LS, 111). This also, of course, includes work. A major contribution of Catholic Social Teaching to the concept of work is an understanding of it as part of human dignity. The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church states: ‘The human person is the measure of the dignity of work’.1 In a Christian perspective work is much more than merely a source of income. It is an integral part of human identity and fulfilment. Martin Luther, the great church reformer, put it this way using a wonderful metaphor: ‘As the birds to flying, so is man born unto labour’.2 Laudato si’ underlines, similarly, that ‘we are created with a vocation to work’ (LS, 118). This helps us to care for creation, to define and integrate ourselves in society and to unleash the rich personal growth inherent in all of us. It clearly appears with Laudato si’ that the future of human work is linked with the question of the care of creation and the future of life and the human community on the planet. We cannot separate the future of human work, the Studies • volume 108 • number 432 454 Martin Maier SJ future of ‘our common home’ and the future of the human community. Any innovation has to be evaluated with this trilogy in mind: the planet, social justice, the future of humanity. From a theological perspective, human work is seen as a participation in God’s creation. In Ignatian spirituality, which underlies Laudato si’, God is imagined as labouring in creation. He acts in the manner of a person at work. By working humans imitate the creating God and they cooperate in his continued creation (LS, 80). The Second Vatican Council states: ‘By offering his labour to God, a man becomes associated with the redemptive work itself of Jesus Christ’.3 The apex of biblical teaching on work is the commandment of the Sabbath rest. The memory and the experience of Sabbath constitutes a barrier against becoming slaves to work, whether voluntarily or by force, and against any kind of exploitation, hidden or evident. Consequently Laudato si’ emphasises: ‘We are called to include in our work a dimension of receptivity and gratuity, which is quite different from mere inactivity. Rather, it is another way of working, which forms part of our very essence. It protects human action from becoming empty activism; it also prevents that unfettered greed and sense of isolation which make us seek personal gain to the detriment of all else’ (LS, 237). Sunday is linked with the fundamental right to enjoy a time to rest. An inherent dimension of human work is social justice. Through just wages and social security systems, work promotes social justice. A fundamental orientation in shaping work is the preferential option for the poor: ‘Helping the poor financially must always be a provisional solution in the face of pressing needs. The broader objective should always be to allow...

Waking up from transhumanist dreams: reframing cancer in an evolving universe

Technological dystopias incarnate transhumanist dreams of a this-worldly blissful immortality. Underlying these and others is a globalized technocratic paradigm, the loss of an overarching cosmic world view, rise in consumerism, a gnostic repudiation of the body, and a neo-pelagian aspiration to individualistic self-sufficiency. One response to these transhumanist dreams is to remind ourselves of how nature actually works, its origins, constrains, and future. Our relationship with nature spills over to how we feel standing face-to-face with pain and suffering. In this article I reframe cancer as a journey of maintaining harmony with nature instead of a war against death that we are destined to lose. I argue that understanding the limits and constraints of the natural world help us come to peace with the reality of cancer, and perhaps find meaning in suffering. Instead of avoiding the inevitable at all costs, vulnerability and suffering have their own lessons. In contrast to transhumanist dreams, being human presents an opportunity to welcome the reality of imperfection, to be liberated from our addiction to control and excessive technological manipulation of nature, to draw together as a community, and to live the lessons of each stage of our finite life to its fullest. I hope this reflection, grounded in scientific literature and engaging with richly embodied medical humanities readings, can help us all change how we relate to cancer, from books to bench to biotech to bedside.

Трудности диагностики эмоционально-оценочного компонента ценностных отношений младших школьников

The article is devoted to the description of the approach to assessing the dynamics of personal achievements in primary school in accordance with the requirements of the Federal State Educational Standard of Primary General Education. The new goal of spiritual and moral development of schoolchildren has required us to review the old technocratic paradigm of diagnosing educational results. The central aim of education today is to support the formation of a child’s value attitudes system, therefore, the teacher must be able to qualitatively assess the process of child’s moral and spiritual development. The importance of such work at primary school age is highlighted by the author, who describes the evaluation system designed to measure the development of value attitude components. Emphasis is placed on the assessment of the emotional-evaluative component being the most complex. The key difficulties of administering assessment and interpreting the obtained diagnostic results are revealed. They are instability in component demonstration, the influence of reference adults, constant change of the studied component and the whole value-semantic structure of the child’s personality during this particularly sensitive period. The author suggests possible ways of overcoming the difficulties by means of several techniques, repetition to establish the stability of the emotional reaction, discussion of the results with the children in order to create the atmosphere of trust and openness, comparison between the manifestation of the studied component with others and the manifestation of the value attitude as a whole. The paper refers to the titles, authors, and descriptions of the methods, and presents the data obtained as a result of research conducted over several years. The author describes the qualitative characteristics of the levels of emotional-evaluative component of value attitudes in accordance with the proposed criteria and indicators, and provides specific examples of the qualitative characteristics of the emotional-evaluative component of the value attitude to family, nature, and homeland. The article emphasises the importance of correct identification and interpretation of single components component and the value attitude as a whole in the organisation of an effective education process.