ABSTRACT
In the public debate around the pandemic, there are positions that have sustained how contemporary techno-science has assumed cultural meanings and operating methods proper to a religion. This thesis, amended by the political implications and critical of the management of the socio-health emergency, is here taken as a research hypothesis whose preconditions are intended to be verified. In other words: are empirical evidences identifiable within the technoscientific field, and not only therefore in the public communication of science, which can be used as a premise for the hypothesized outcome? At the basis of the hypothesis of science as religion there is a fact the idea, detectable in scientific publications, that the pandemic constituted a fatal threat to the human species, a real apocalypse. From the examples analysed, this idea refers to a long-lasting cultural theme - the cultural apocalypse - whose social meaning goes beyond a mere rhetorical and argumentative function to act as a shared horizon of meaning and symbolism on the basis of which to interpret reality, orient decisions and take action. This fact seems to call into question the process of secularization and << disenchantment of the world >> by showing a translation into the technoscientific field of reasons and elements of religious traditions, such as the idea of << the end of the world >> and the << expectation of salvation >>, both in its internal functioning and in its social perception. If the hypothesis is verified in the premises, it follows that technoscience, by reason of the collectively recognized authority, has legitimized and fed a public discursive order crossed by irrationalistic currents, feelings of fear, promises of universal salvation through pharmacological discoveries endowed with miraculous powers and prefiguration of epochal palingenesis with the announcement of a global << new normal >> in the name of a due << faith in science >>.
ABSTRACT
Purpose: The introduction in Italy in July 2021 of the "COVID-19 Green Certification”, known as the "Green Pass”, was a particularly important moment in the political and social history of the country. While its use for health reasons is debatable both logically and scientifically, its effects should be measured at the general sociological level. The "Green Pass” allowed Italian social life to be shaped according to a social and political profile that can be traced back to a "society of control”. This paper aims to discuss the aforementioned issue. Design/methodology/approach: This paper, of a theoretical nature, intends to verify such an interpretation through a critical survey of Gilles Deleuze's well-known Post-scriptum sur les sociétés de contrôle (1990) and relating the theories to it from cybernetic science, sociology of social systems and the continental philosophy, specifically Michel Foucault. After a short introduction on the history of the instrument's introduction, the paper, divided into parts reflecting the set-up of Deleuze's text, examines the systemic social effects of the "Green Pass” with regard to its logic, and concludes with a reflection on the program of the instrument's future developments. Findings: The "Green Pass” put into practice a model of a society of control as anticipated by Deleuze, verified with particular reference to some instances of Luhmann's theory of social systems, and in the perspective of a Foucault's "normalizing society” in the process of definition and affirmation. Social implications: The "Green Pass” has been a controversial tool that has caused forms of social discrimination and exclusion and has seriously questioned the architecture of the rule of law. The conceptual paper tries to reflect on the premises and implications of this instrument. Originality/value: The approach to the problem both in a critical key and according to concepts and theories of the sociology of social systems, cybernetics and continental philosophy. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.