One of the more noteworthy ideas for which French philosopher Gaston Bachelard is remembered is that "scientific investigation is polemical." Bachelard cautioned that science must stay vigilant not to impede “scientific imagination” by succumbing to “the seduction of the empirical.”
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The notion of a “scientific consensus” would likely be anathema to Bachelard. Consensus is a political, not a scientific term. In contrast, Bachelard recognized that all science has ideological elements reflecting particular social, economic and historical settings.
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Today, in a time of rancorous hyper-partisanship fueled by an atmosphere of crisis and absolutism, poor Bachelard would likely be castigated as a denier. Few people would understand that his use of the word "polemical" was, in fact, a quiet celebration of civility.
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Viable civil debate and just political-economic action to combat environmental despoliation cannot take hold in the face of apocalyptic absolutism, scientific or otherwise.
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Civil imagination vs. political consumerism
Politico estimates that at least $10 billion will be spent in the 2020 election cycle. The orgy of spending on empty political absolutism stands in inverse proportion to the shriveling substance of daily civic life. Since our last newsletter, I have published two articles on this devolution of solutionless US politics into permanent consumer spectacle. (Linked below.)
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Parties cannot do the work of building civil society. Only citizens can. Reimagining Politics is charting the enormous variety of citizen-driven civil associations making profound change worldwide and facilitating connections among them.
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New models for a modern democratic society based on these kinds of diverse citizens' initiatives also exist, such as Yale professor Hélène Landemore's pioneering work on empowering "the rule of the many" in lieu of a professional class of elected representatives.
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Solutions abound, but we need the courage to pursue a different path to counter today's toxic, destructive political entropy. That is why Reimagining Politics exists.
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