Conference Agenda

Policies and projects initiated to foster the energy transition are subjected to societal polarisation, meaning that the discussion about their desirability is characterised by positions that are opposed in terms of apparently incommensurable values and world views (Cuppen, Pesch, Remmerswaal, & Taanman, 2019). In this paper, I depict polarisation in the energy domain as an accidental manifestation of broader patterns of polarisation which are caused by a wide range of societal developments. By understanding the causes of these developments, more productive modes for the societal assessment of energy policies and projects can be pursued.

Polarisation can be presented as the societal and political materialisation of two types of moral orientations (cf. Henrich, 2017). First, there is the impersonal disposition, in which trust pertains to rules, systems, and interactions that can be characterised as rationalistic and objective. Social norms are formally institutionalised, while moral norms are based on generic rules and procedures. Second, there is the interpersonal disposition, characterised by trust in direct and concrete relations, interactions, and experiences. Social norms have a local and particularistic character, while moral norms are based on intuitions.

These two types of moral orientations do not necessarily coincide with political or societal groups. In fact, every individual navigates these two attitudes on a daily basis without effort or reflection. What is typical for twenty-first-century societies, however, is that these are increasingly structured on the basis of this bifurcation.

A number of push and pull factors explain this development. In this, push factors consist of the dominance of the impersonal orientation in the economic, political and technological systems. The complexity induced by these systems necessitates coordination over a wide range of actors and institutions, which reinforces the dominance of this orientation (Bauman, 2000; Tainter, 2006). Among the pull factors, there are political leaders who use the opposition between these orientations for electoral gain, social media that amplify opposition, and the tendency of people to shape their self-identity in terms of opposition – the dominance of the impersonal orientation fuels the sentiment of alienation (van Dijck, 2020).

The upshot of these developments can be denoted as moral tribalism that has spilt over into the energy domain (Markowitz & Shariff, 2012). The opposition has come to be understood in terms of a conflict between the political left and right, with each side exploiting only one of the orientations while ridiculing the opposite side. This framing not only ignores the heterogeneity and fluidity of human morality but also denies the diversity of positions and options possible to further the energy transition. To overcome this, the idea of ‘bridging events’ – derived from innovation sciences – is useful (Garud & Ahlstrom, 1997; Rip & Van Lente, 2013). These bridging events allow actors to learn about alternative orientations so that innovation processes are established on a richer basis of insights, needs, and visions. The paper will end with outlining some of the conditions for having productive bridging events in the context of the energy transition.

References:

Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid modernity. Polity, Cambridge.

Cuppen, E., Pesch, U., Remmerswaal, S., & Taanman, M. (2019). Normative diversity, conflict and transition: Shale gas in the Netherlands. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 145, 165-175. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2016.11.004

Garud, R., & Ahlstrom, D. (1997). Technology assessment: a socio-cognitive perspective. Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, 14(1), 25-48.

Henrich, J. (2017). The secret of our success: How culture is driving human evolution, domesticating our species, and making us smarter: Princeton University Press.

Markowitz, E. M., & Shariff, A. F. (2012). Climate change and moral judgement. Nature Climate Change, 2(4), 243.

Rip, A., & Van Lente, H. (2013). Bridging the gap between innovation and ELSA: The TA program in the Dutch Nano-R&D program NanoNed. Nanoethics, 7, 7-16.

Tainter, J. A. (2006). Social complexity and sustainability. Ecological Complexity, 3(2), 91-103. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecocom.2005.07.004

van Dijck, J. (2020). Governing digital societies: Private platforms, public values. Computer Law & Security Review, 36, 105377. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clsr.2019.105377

In order to show in its literal meaning the concept of “Technophany” – that is, unlike the way it was conceived by Gilbert Simondon in the early 1960s, i.e. as “a form of mediation which allows technology to be re-integrated into culture” – my paper deals with Godfrey Reggio’s "Koyaanisqatsi", understood as a film (philosophical) essay. Together with “Powaqqatsi” (1988) and “Naqoyqatsi” (2002), “Koyaanisqatsi” (1982) is part of the Qatsi-trilogy. The titles are taken from the language of Hopi, a native American tribe. Koyaanisqatsi, in particular, means “life out of balance”.

Koyasnisqatsi represents the best film treatment of a philosophical topos during the 20th century: “the question concerning technology”. In particular, it shares the approach of the “first-generation of philosophers of technology” – Heidegger, Jonas, Mumford, Anders... – who was able to grasp that technology has become “form of life”. At the same time, he also shows (share with) some limits of this first generation, that is, essentialism, apriorism, determinism, dystopian attitude.

According to 14 years spent as a monk, Reggio has a religious approach to the cinema. His films equate to millenarianist preachers that advice humanity about a new apocalypse. To produce the same experience into the viewer, he makes an "epoché of logos", that is, renounces the conventional language and uses music (Philip Glass’s music) as an alternative language, within which to insert some single words from an otherworldly language: the Hopi language.

While describing his work, Reggio gives an impressive philosophical characterization of contemporary technology: “What I tried to show is that the most important event of perhaps our entire history […] is gone unnoticed […] the transiting from the natural environment into a technological milieu […] Technology has become as ubiquitous as the air we breathe […] Life unquestioned is life lived in a religious state”.

According to this description, Reggio’s work makes visible the technology as our current (neo-)environment or oikos. "Koyaanisqatsi" is able to give an aesthetic (i.e. visual, acoustic, emotional) concreteness to highly abstract concepts, such as:

1. the “disenchantment” of the world (Weber), that is, our society as a “megamachine” (Mumford);

2. the relation between human being and nature as “challenging”, i.e. the interpretation of every entity as a standing-reserve (Heidegger);

3. the matter of fact that technology represents the current “subject of history” (Anders) or our “destiny” (Jonas);

4. the “total mobilization” (Jünger) as basic law of the megamachine;

5. that Homo technologicus’ hybris is different from classical Prometheanism. Our “neo-Prometheanism” takes the form of “Icarism”, which does not consist of a hyper-approximation to the sun, but a “hyper-distancing from the Earth”, i.e. the loss of Earthness (worldhood/Weltlichkeit) as a founding feature of the human condition.

Insofar as "Koyaanisqatsi" realizes a visible incarnation of our Zeitgeist, it should be considered an event in itself: the “epiphany of technocosmos”, or better, a “technophany” in the literal sense of the term. Here and now the only still possible manifestation of the sacred depends on technology: the new theo-phany or hiero-phany can only be a techno-phany.